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Category: housing

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: Dreams amid the rubble: Gaza’s women speak of homes, loss and hungry children

    Source: United Nations 2

    In Gaza City, families living in tents reveal a shared, grim reality.

    Many have been forced to flee the fighting dozens of times. Most find themselves homeless and hungry while facing an uncertain future.

    Khadija Manoun and her daughter in the space she uses as a kitchen inside a destroyed building.

    Khadija Manoun: Kitchen of life’s leftovers

    Khadija Manoun said she and her family have moved more than 20 times, from Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip to a destroyed building in western Gaza, in search of shelter. She had owned a new fully furnished house, which she had built with a bank loan.

    “I furnished my house well, with tiles and electrical appliances,” she said. “It had only been three years since I had the house. Then the war came and everything was lost.”

    Today, everything has changed, Ms. Manoun said. Her spacious, fully equipped kitchen is now just a corner in the rubble, where a solitary soap dish borrowed from a neighbour sits. Metal utensils have been replaced with plastic tea containers to serve 10 people.

    The bathroom was reduced to a corner covered with pieces of cloth that had been blankets. Her dressing room is now home to tattered suitcases.

    “This is now my closet where I put everything,” she said. “I had a bedroom that had cost me 10,000 shekels.”

    Her family sleeps on simple mattresses. Clean drinking water is a luxury that Khadija chases after, running between trucks, often returning with empty containers.

    Amid all this, she sometimes reminisces, scrolling through photos on her mobile phone of her old home and the meals they used to eat.

    Badriya Barrawi, a displaced person in Gaza, is living among the ruins of destroyed buildings.

    Badriya Barawi: Exhausted by hunger

    In her modest tent on the beach west of Gaza City, Badriya Barawi, from Beit Lahia, sits, arranging what remains of her life. Tears stream from her eyes.

    “Have mercy on us,” she said. “We are fed up and exhausted, mentally and physically. We can’t bear it any longer. How long will this life go on?”

    She says her children are crying from the heat and hunger.

    “We haven’t had bread for three days. This morning, I fed the children hummus, but is that enough for their stomachs?” said Ms. Barawi, who suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes.

    She said she collapses daily from a lack of food.

    Hiyam Zayed is displaced from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

    Hiyam Zayed: Trampled garden of dreams

    In a nearby tent, Hiyam Zayed and her eight daughters eat lentil soup without bread. Describing her former home, she said there were six rooms and a garden.

    “I was happy in my home,” she said. “My daughters and I used to have fun there. They played on the roof or inside the rooms. We had a beautiful garden in front of the house, and we grew plants and ate its produce and raised chickens. My daughters were very happy. We fed them the best food and dressed them in the best clothes.”

    She also said she used to have a washing machine, a fully equipped kitchen and a refrigerator “full of goodies”.

    Now, everything is gone.

    “No food, no washing machine, no feelings: we’ve become depressed,” she added.

    “My daughters wear the worst clothes. I can’t find a way to bathe them. I used to turn on the water tap at home and water would run for drinking or bathing. Now, we live in a tent in the sand. I light a fire to cook after I used to have gas. I borrow cooking utensils.”

    “How are we to blame for what happened, and who bears responsibility?” Ms. Zayed asked. “What is my fault and my children’s fault when we are displaced from one place to another and they die of hunger?”

    Hiyam’s daughters eating a lunch of lentil soup, without bread, where they live, inside a destroyed building.

    Mass displacement

    According to UN reports, more than two million Palestinians –the population of Gaza – live in about 15 per cent of the Strip’s area after the war caused widespread destruction of infrastructure and homes.

    International organizations have warned that the continuation of the conflict threatens to have “catastrophic consequences” in the near term.

    That includes a serious impact on children’s mental and physical health, the spread of disease and the disintegration of social structures.

    This amid the absence of any clear path towards a political or humanitarian solution.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: In Mékro, in central Côte d’Ivoire, sustainable agriculture is giving hope to an entire community

    Source: APO

    Day breaks in Mékro, some 300 km from Abidjan, in central Côte d’Ivoire. The first rays of sun announce the start of what promises to be another sweltering day in a region known for its intense heat. Some women return from the backwaters bringing water to supply the family beehives. Others, armed with brooms made from palm leaves, begin sweeping the compounds, clearing away fallen leaves and scraps from the previous day’s meals.

    A little farther off, domestic animals gradually emerge from their pens, joining the morning hustle and bustle that breathes life back into Mékro’s daily routine. In this area of high food crop production, yams, rice and cassava are produced in abundance. Yet despite its agricultural riches, Mékro has long remained in the shadows, unlike other places.

    For years, farmers here relied on age-old techniques passed down through generations—methods that limited yields and left the population in a state of chronic vulnerability.

    That morning, Koffi Kouakou Charles, known as “KKC,” sharpened his machete, the basic tool he uses to clear his field, under the watchful eyes of his seven children. At 30 years old, he mounted his bicycle and headed to Abokouassikro, five km away, where he has cultivated yams for several years.

    In the past, Koffi grew “Kouba” yams, a popular local variety. Reflecting on those days, he recalls how traditional farming techniques learned and passed down from his ancestors, failed to reward his hard work. “Frankly, the work was exhausting. On top of that, we were using old-fashioned techniques. Despite our efforts, the harvests were poor. It was really hard,” sighs Koffi.

    Hope restored

    In the first half of 2024, his plight worsened when an epidemic known as the peste des petits ruminants (PPR) struck the village and wiped out his hens and goats. Hurting from this new financial blow, Koffi turned to the Project to Improve the Livelihoods of Smallholders and Women (PREMOPEF) (https://apo-opa.co/40ujK40) to regain hope.

    Set up by the government of Côte d’Ivoire, the project is funded by the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) (https://apo-opa.co/4lEIa36) and the African Development Fund (https://apo-opa.co/4o1986y), the concessional financing window of the African Development Bank Group. Its objective is to contribute to improving first, food and nutrition security and secondly, resilience to the effects of climate change among smallholder farmers, women and young people in the N’Zi region.

    The project is focused on three agricultural crops: yams, cassava and vegetables, as well as traditional poultry farming, and aims to improve the living conditions of 60,000 vulnerable people, 50 percent of whom are women and 35 percent young people.

    At the “Farmer Training Field,” one of the project’s initiatives, Koffi and his fellow project beneficiaries were introduced to agroecological techniques for yam production and conservation. Thanks to the training, Koffi has turned his back on “Kouba” yams and old production practices in favour of new varieties called “Anader” and “Cameroun” (also known as “R3” and “C15”), which are more climate-resistant and productive. 

    A twofold increase in yield

    From his first harvest in December 2024, Koffi’s yam yield doubled—from two to four tonnes on the same plot of land. Thinking ahead, he reserved three-quarters of the harvest for his family’s consumption and seed stock for the next season. The remaining quarter was sold at the local market in Mékro, earning him 125,000 CFA francs (around USD 250)—a significant windfall in this rural region.

    “Before, I was just focused on surviving,” Koffi says. “Today, thanks to this project, I can think about my children’s future and even expand my farm.” Energized by his progress, Koffi is now determined to scale up and become one of the region’s leading yam producers. The prospect of mechanizing his work excites him. “I’m thinking of buying a ridging machine and a seed drill to make fieldwork easier and increase my yield,” he says confidently.

    “The Project to Improve the Livelihoods of Smallholders and Women is a powerful tool for reducing household vulnerability and strengthening resilience to economic and environmental shocks,” says Ceserd Waba Akpaud, the project coordinator.

    “PREMOPEF reflects our commitment to transforming rural communities through sustainable, farmer-focused solutions. By applying innovative approaches, we’re putting agriculture at the center of inclusive development,” adds Philip Boahen, GAFSP project coordinator at the African Development Bank.

    To further boost his productivity, Koffi also envisions large-scale storage facilities to cut post-harvest losses. He’s planning to diversify his activities too. After losing his livestock to PPR—a disease he attributes to a lack of proper training—he intends to relaunch his poultry business using improved, safer methods. He is now exploring livestock training courses to build the necessary skills.

    “It’s also a chance for me to make up for the schooling I missed,” he says, determined to turn past setbacks into opportunities.

    With the knowledge he’s gained and the positive impact of the project, a new horizon is opening—not just for Koffi, but for the people of Mékro and the broader economy of the N’Zi region.

    Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

    Media files

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    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Protecting Veterans from “Claim Sharks,” Senator King and Colleagues Introduce Bill to Fight Unaccredited Claims Representatives

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Maine Angus King
    WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME), a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee (SVAC), has introduced legislation to protect veterans from unaccredited claims representatives seeking to defraud them of their benefits. The VA Claim Sharks Effective Warnings Act would require the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to warn veterans more effectively about unaccredited VA claims representatives, or “claim sharks.”
    Claim sharks are unaccredited agents or companies that charge veterans fees, usually between $5,000 and $20,000, to help them file their initial VA benefits claims—a service that is supposed to be free to veterans. Unfortunately, because these actors operate outside the bounds of VA regulations, the VA has little authority to go after them. The VA is currently required to warn veterans about unaccredited claims representatives on its websites, but only after veterans log in to their VA benefits accounts. This approach limits the reach and efficacy of the notice requirement, increasing the risk that some veterans may not see the warning until after they have already begun working with unaccredited claims agents.
    “Veterans in Maine and across the country rely every day on accredited veteran claims representatives for assistance with filing disability claims,” said King. “However, there are bad actors who proactively prey on veterans, offering assistance while illegally charging them high costs for services that Veterans Service Organizations perform for free. The VA Claim Sharks Effective Warnings Act would require the VA to more aggressively warn veterans about unaccredited agents who are scamming our men and women who served. This commonsense legislation is a simple way to help protect veterans from predatory companies and ensure they receive their earned benefits.”
    The VA Claim Sharks Effective Warnings Act would address this shortcoming by requiring the VA to post warnings on its public-facing websites, without requiring veterans to first create or log in to an account. The legislation would also require the VA to include a warning discouraging veterans from sharing their VA account or bank account log-in credentials with unaccredited agents, as many claim sharks deduct their “fees” from veterans’ benefits.
    Joining King on the legislation are Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Peter Welch (D-VT).
    As a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator King has worked to ensure America’s veterans receive their earned benefits and that the VA is properly implementing various programs, such as the PACT Act and the John Scott Hannon Act. In the past, he has cosponsored the Governing Unaccredited Representatives Defrauding (GUARD) VA Benefits Act to create criminal penalties for organizations that charge unauthorized fees to help veterans file disability claims with the VA – an action prohibited under current law, but one that does not carry any criminal charges. He has also sent letters to VA leadership urging the department to enforce existing protections for veterans filing for disability benefits.
    The full text of the bill is available here.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Banking: Microsoft supports making Europe’s languages and cultures more accessible in the digital realm

    Source: Microsoft

    Headline: Microsoft supports making Europe’s languages and cultures more accessible in the digital realm

    Editor’s Note: This blog is also available in Italian, Spanish, French, and German.

    Europe is home to more than 200 languages and a rich cultural legacy that spans thousands of years, preserved in millions of cultural assets that tell the story of its people. But these languages are more than carriers of heritage and history—they support both culture and commerce by making it possible for people to connect, create, and do business.

    Yet, as the world digitizes, much of Europe’s linguistic and cultural diversity risks being left behind. The majority of online web content—the primary source of training data for today’s Large Language Models (LLMs)—is in English. Much of it reflects an American perspective. The European Commission has warned that the continent’s ambition to digitize its vast cultural corpus remains “significantly out of reach.” As Europe’s leaders have recognized, without urgent action, this imbalance is not just a cultural concern—it’s a commercial one. AI that doesn’t understand Europe’s languages, histories, and values can’t fully serve its people, its businesses, or its future.

    That’s why today in Paris, we’re deepening our commitment to Europe’s digital future with two new initiatives focused on making what’s uniquely European more open and accessible—its languages and culture. This builds on our European Digital Commitments, announced earlier this year, to expand AI and cloud infrastructure, strengthen digital resilience and data privacy protections, enhance cybersecurity, and support Europe’s digital sovereignty and broader economy.

    First, to support the development of more multilingual LLMs in Europe and for Europe, we’re basing employees from two of our innovation centers in Strasbourg, France—long a crossroads of cultures and now home to key European institutions. These centers will help expand the availability of multilingual data for AI development—leveraging Microsoft Azure, our technical expertise, and partnerships across Europe to promote more inclusive language representation in AI models. As part of this effort, we’re also issuing a call for proposals to help expand the supply of digital content for 10 European languages.

    Second, to help ensure Europe’s cultural richness is represented and accessible in the digital realm, we’re expanding Microsoft’s Culture AI initiative, which helps to safeguard languages, landmarks, and artifacts through digital replicas and data collaboration. Since 2019, Microsoft has digitally preserved heritage including Ancient Olympia in Greece, Mount St. Michel in France, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and the 80th Anniversary of the Allied Beach Landings in Normandy, to name a few. Today we’re announcing that this fall, Microsoft will begin work with the French Ministry of Culture and the French firm Iconem to create a digital replica of Notre Dame—Paris’ newly restored, 862-year-old Gothic masterpiece.

    This type of support for Europe and its diversity is not new to Microsoft. These latest steps to support languages and culture are informed by our more than 40 years of experience serving countries and cultures across Europe and around the world. Early on, we learned that empowering every person on the planet requires that the technologies we offer must be available in the languages the world speaks. That is why today Windows supports over 90 languages, including all official European Union languages as well as languages including Basque, Catalan, Galician, Luxembourgish, Valencian, and more. Microsoft 365 also has a broad reach, with support through Office applications in more than 30 European languages, including all official languages of the European Union.

    The urgency of bridging the language gap

    The European Union has 24 official languages, with dozens more acknowledged at the national or regional level. Yet many of these languages—even those that are part of the official 24, like Danish, Finnish, Swedish, and Greek—represent less than 0.6% of web content. Others, such as Maltese, Irish, Estonian, Latvian, and Slovenian, are barely visible online. While only 5% of the world’s population speaks English as a first language, English text makes up half of web content, dominating the data used to train AI models.

    This digital underrepresentation has real consequences, as LLMs rely heavily on web content for training. When a language lacks sufficient online presence, it risks being excluded from future AI services. While larger, general-purpose models can handle multiple languages, they can still miss the linguistic nuance, cultural context, and regional depth needed for truly inclusive applications. LLMs trained on limited data are less accurate, have higher hallucinations and errors, struggle with vocabulary, and reflect more bias.[1]

    As an example, Llama 3.1, a popular open source model, shows a performance gap of more than 15 percentage points between answering in English and Greek and a gap of more than 25 points when comparing English to Latvian. This mean that if this model was a high school student, she would be at the top of her class in English but at the middle of her class in Greek and at the bottom in Latvian. And this disparity between languages is seen in all major performance LLM tests.[2]

    In many cases, languages with deep cultural heritage, such as Breton, Occitan, and Romansh, which UNESCO classifies as endangered, are largely unsupported in today’s mainstream AI systems.

    The economic power of language

    This lopsided development of language models has real economic consequences. When AI systems can’t understand or respond in a region’s language, they limit access to services and opportunities, undermining both local businesses and broader economic growth.

    Broad AI diffusion—adoption and use across economies—will be one of the most important drivers of innovation and productivity growth over the next decade. Like electricity and other general-purpose technologies in the past, AI represents the next stage of industrialization.

    For communities whose languages are underrepresented online, the benefits of AI risk remaining out of reach. Imagine a small business owner in Malta who speaks only Maltese. Currently, the advanced AI tools for tasks like market analysis or content generation likely don’t operate in Maltese, limiting how this entrepreneur can leverage AI. Or consider a Polish-speaking student in a town outside Warsaw who can’t find AI educational resources in his language, potentially impacting learning opportunities. And even when an AI platform nominally supports a language, the experience may be sub-par.

    European governments and institutions have recognized the importance of addressing this situation. To drive economic competitiveness in the AI era, Europe will need to break down the language barriers and spur AI diffusion across the continent. According to the European Commission, only 13.5% of EU businesses use AI. The EU AI Continent Action Plan notes that breaking down language barriers in the single market could boost intra-EU trade by up to EUR 360 billion.

    New steps to address language gaps

    To help bridge this language gap, Microsoft will collaborate with European partners to increase the availability of multilingual data. In partnership with the ICube Laboratory at the University of Strasbourg—an institution dedicated to engineering, computer science, and imaging—we will support AI training efforts by placing personnel from the Microsoft Open Innovation Center (MOIC) and our AI for Good Lab in Strasbourg, France. This team will be backed by a global internal network of more than 70 Microsoft engineers, data scientists, and policy professionals. This collaboration between the MOIC, Microsoft AI for Good Lab, and the University of Strasbourg will also fund two post-doctoral researchers and provide up to US $1 million in Azure credits.

    This team will start by tapping into Microsoft’s own store of multilingual data, making it accessible and transparent to the European public, including open source developers. This includes, for example, multilingual text data from GitHub and voice data sets. MOIC and GitHub will partner with Hugging Face, a popular collaboration platform for AI model development, to host and make the data broadly accessible. This builds on our existing relationship with Hugging Face to make a broad range of open models in the Hugging Face model collection available for 1-click deployment in the Azure Model Catalogue. This includes last week’s release of the latest contributions toward multilingual AI—the SmoILM3 model, a highly efficient 3B model parameter multi-lingual model with support for 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese.

    MOIC will also partner with Common Crawl, one of the largest free and open repositories of web crawled data. MOIC will fund work at Common Crawl, leveraging native speakers to annotate and seed European language data in the publicly available Common Crawl data set.

    In addition, the MOIC and the AI for Good Lab will issue a call for proposals to help expand the supply of digital content for 10 European languages by making their text collections available responsibly and ethically on their own terms for multilingual AI development and experiences. Applications for grants will be available on the AI for Good Lab website, beginning on 1 September 2025. In selecting recipients, the MOIC and the AI for Good Lab will focus on opportunities to unlock data in languages with relatively low representation in online content, such as Estonian, Alsatian, Slovak, Greek, and Maltese. Grants will provide recipients with Azure credits and engineering and technical support.

    While more multilingual data is essential, better technology tools and know-how can also help. For example, many languages use scripts (writing systems) that currently pose challenges for models originally designed for the Latin alphabet. Cyrillic characters, the Greek alphabet, and Arabic’s cursive script each have different properties. Off-the-shelf “tokenizers” often break these scripts in suboptimal ways. This can hurt a model’s ability to learn long-range context or accurate spelling in those languages. New advances in techniques that enable a model to handle any script uniformly can help. Better mechanisms to create synthetic data and to better process and curate that data can also help, especially when they manage privacy and sensitive data concerns effectively.

    The MOIC and the AI for Good Lab will work to facilitate the development and sharing of knowledge, tools, and capabilities to address these issues and empower European developers. The AI for Good Lab will publish a blueprint to detail how to create high-quality language datasets and train local LLMs to get more power out of the data that exists. These two groups will also support relevant research, organize convenings, co-invest in data commons projects, and ensure that knowledge, tools, and capabilities are available where they’re needed most. These teams also will continue to support efforts such as those of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Basque Center for Language Technology, and the University of Santiago de Compostela to release AI models trained in Spanish, Catalan, Basque, and Galician on Azure AI Foundry. This initiative empowers developers to build AI systems that operate in Spain’s official languages, fostering innovation and inclusivity.

    Finally, to advance responsible AI research and help close the language gap, Microsoft is launching two new academic collaborations in Europe at the University of Strasbourg and IE University School of Science & Technology in Spain. Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab and MOIC will partner with the University of Strasbourg to provide Azure grants to support joint AI research. At IE University School of Science & Technology, the Microsoft AI for Good Lab will provide Azure grants to support joint research targeting low resource languages, including support for related capstone projects to accelerate new solutions focused on language and AI.

    New steps to help digitally safeguard Europe’s cultural legacy

    Since 2019, Microsoft’s Culture AI initiative has focused on using artificial intelligence around the world to help preserve the languages, places, stories, and artifacts that define human history.  Powered by the AI for Good Lab and through partnerships with nonprofits, universities, governments, and cultural institutions, the initiative supports projects that digitize and protect cultural heritage—from endangered languages to iconic landmarks, including in France, Rome, and Greece. Whether it’s creating digital replicas of historic sites or making museum collections more accessible, the goal is to ensure that cultural identity and diversity are not only preserved but made more inclusive and discoverable in the digital age.

    Today we are announcing our next project, building a digital replica in partnership with the French Ministry of Culture and the French firm Iconem. The project will create a digital twin of Notre Dame in Paris, an architectural and cultural landmark shaped over centuries. Construction of Notre Dame began in 1163 and continued for nearly 200 years, resulting in a 128-meter-long Gothic masterpiece with twin towers rising 69 meters above the Seine. After a devastating fire in 2019, Notre Dame re-opened to the public at the end of 2024. The project will use the technology and methods we developed with Iconem to create a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica last year, which was based on more than 400,000 photos and advanced AI algorithms, in partnership with the Vatican.

    Just as last year’s project documented for the Vatican every detail of St. Peter’s, this new project will create a digital replica that will preserve permanently in digital form every detail of Notre Dame, ensuring that its structure, story, and symbolism are protected and accessible for generations to come. By combining advanced imaging with AI, we will create and donate to the French State a digital twin that can be used by preservationists and be displayed in the future Musée Notre Dame de Paris.

    In addition to the project at Notre Dame, we are also announcing today a partnership with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and in collaboration with Iconem to digitize nearly 1,500 cinematic model sets from shows at the Opera National de Paris between 1800 and 1914. The digitized model sets will be made available through interactive, educational experiences and exhibitions and as a dataset made available on the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s Gallica platform for cultural AI and research projects.

    Finally, we are embarking on new work with the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to make publicly accessible the detailed digital descriptions of approximately 1.5 million artifacts from the Middle Ages to the present day. This step will enable researchers in history, art history, and conservation to access this new information for study and use in their own AI-driven research.

    Looking ahead: Taking a principled approach

    We take these new steps today with humility and respect, recognizing that the preservation of Europe’s linguistic and cultural diversity is a task for Europeans to be led by Europeans. The European Union has already launched a multi-state effort to pool EU language data and digitize all types of cultural heritage. Our role is to contribute to and support these and similar efforts. None of what we are announcing today will create any proprietary data or technology for Microsoft itself.

    Ultimately, the best way to empower more people across Europe to address these needs is to equip them with the AI skills that will enable them to be successful in these fields. As the European Commission recently concluded, a deficit of digital skills in the cultural sector is inhibiting efforts to digitalize cultural heritage works across Europe. To help bridge this skills gap, the MOIC and the AI for Good Lab will share what we know and learn about how to do this critical work.

    Technology should reflect the richness of humanity—not strip it away. By taking intentional steps now, we can help ensure that AI doesn’t erase linguistic and cultural diversity but strengthens it.

    This is one of the defining equity challenges of the AI era. And if we work together—with purpose and urgency—we can close the gap and build a digital future that honors every language, every culture, and every community across Europe.

    [1] P. Rohera, C. Ginimav, G. Sawant, and R. Joshi, “Better To Ask in English? Evaluating Factual Accuracy of Multilingual LLMs in English and Low-Resource Languages,” Apr. 28, 2025, arXiv: arXiv:2504.20022. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2504.20022.

    [2] K. Thellmann et al., “Towards Multilingual LLM Evaluation for European Languages,” Oct. 17, 2024, arXiv: arXiv:2410.08928. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2410.08928.

    MIL OSI Global Banks –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Attorney General Alan Wilson announces caregiver charged with beating vulnerable adultRead More

    Source: US State of South Carolina

    (COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that his office’s Vulnerable Adults and Medicaid Provider Fraud unit (VAMPF) has arrested Robin C. Hatley, 61 years old, of Laurens, S.C., for Abuse of a Vulnerable Adult {43-35-0085 (D)}. Hatley was booked into the Greenville County Detention Center on July 18, 2025.

    A joint investigation by VAMPF and the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office alleges that on June 14, 2025, Hatley, a caregiver at Pearl at Five Forks Memory Care Center in Simpsonville, S.C., struck a vulnerable adult resident multiple times on the head, face, and nose. The victim, classified as a vulnerable adult under South Carolina law, was a resident of the facility at the time of the alleged incident.

    Pearl at Five Forks Memory Care Center reported this incident to law enforcement and cooperated fully with investigators. This case will be prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office.

    Abuse of a Vulnerable Adult is a felony and, upon conviction, has a penalty of up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $5,000, or both. 

    Pursuant to federal regulations, VAMPF has authority over Medicaid provider fraud; abuse and neglect of Medicaid beneficiaries in any setting; and the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of individuals residing in assisted living facilities or nursing homes. 

    Attorney General Wilson stressed all defendants are presumed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty in a court of law.

    The South Carolina Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, dba VAMPF, receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $2,889,252 for federal fiscal year 2025. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $963,084 for FFY 2025, is funded by South Carolina.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ***MEDIA ADVISORY*** Congressman Bean, K9s United to Hold Press Conference Calling for Tougher Penalties for Individuals Who Harm Law Enforcement Animals

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Aaron Bean Florida (4th District)

    WASHINGTON—On Tuesday, July 22nd, U.S. Congressman Aaron Bean will join K9s United for a press conference at the House Triangle to unveil the Leo K9 Protection Act, a bill aimed at strengthening penalties for individuals who use a deadly weapon to harm a federal police animal. 

    This bill also expands the federal statute to apply to any state, county, or local police animal assisting a federal agency, provides a good-faith exception for anyone providing emergency veterinary care to an injured police animal, and directs the USDOT to issue regulations ensuring that emergency medical services can transport an injured police K9, if the provider chooses to do so.

    This announcement comes as attacks on ICE agents have surged 830%, underscoring the urgent need to extend protections to their canine and equine partners, who face the same threats in the line of duty. 

    Details for the press conference can be found immediately below:

    WHO: Congressman Aaron Bean, President and Founder of K9s United Debbie Johnson, Sergeant Justin Tortora of the Marion County, Florida Sheriff’s Office—handler of fallen K9 Leo, and K9 Units
    WHAT: Remarks, Q/A
    WHEN: TUESDAY, JULY 22nd at 1:00 pm EST
    WHERE: House Triangle 

    Media RSVP: Elissa.Tew@mail.house.gov. 

     ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ***MEDIA ADVISORY*** Congressman Bean, K9s United to Hold Press Conference Calling for Tougher Penalties for Individuals Who Harm Law Enforcement Animals

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Aaron Bean Florida (4th District)

    WASHINGTON—On Tuesday, July 22nd, U.S. Congressman Aaron Bean will join K9s United for a press conference at the House Triangle to unveil the Leo K9 Protection Act, a bill aimed at strengthening penalties for individuals who use a deadly weapon to harm a federal police animal. 

    This bill also expands the federal statute to apply to any state, county, or local police animal assisting a federal agency, provides a good-faith exception for anyone providing emergency veterinary care to an injured police animal, and directs the USDOT to issue regulations ensuring that emergency medical services can transport an injured police K9, if the provider chooses to do so.

    This announcement comes as attacks on ICE agents have surged 830%, underscoring the urgent need to extend protections to their canine and equine partners, who face the same threats in the line of duty. 

    Details for the press conference can be found immediately below:

    WHO: Congressman Aaron Bean, President and Founder of K9s United Debbie Johnson, Sergeant Justin Tortora of the Marion County, Florida Sheriff’s Office—handler of fallen K9 Leo, and K9 Units
    WHAT: Remarks, Q/A
    WHEN: TUESDAY, JULY 22nd at 1:00 pm EST
    WHERE: House Triangle 

    Media RSVP: Elissa.Tew@mail.house.gov. 

     ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Football Governance Act becomes law in historic moment for English football

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    Press release

    Football Governance Act becomes law in historic moment for English football

    Historic Football Governance Act receives Royal Assent, establishing new Independent Football Regulator to safeguard the future of the national sport

    • Plan for Change in action, as government delivers on promise made to fans in the manifesto, addressing existential threats to clubs and putting supporters back at the heart of the game
    • World-first Regulator will work to stop rogue owners, ensure clubs are financially sustainable, with powers to ensure money flows through the pyramid.

    Football fans will now have a greater say in how their beloved clubs are run, as the Football Governance Act has today received Royal Assent and passed into law, in a landmark moment for the game.

    As promised in this Government’s manifesto, the Act will create the Independent Football Regulator (IFR), which will mark the biggest reform to football governance in a generation – helping to protect clubs across the country.

    The Act follows a long journey to law, which began following the attempted breakaway European Super League, and a series of high-profile cases of clubs facing financial ruin. 

    Over recent years fans from the likes of Bury, Macclesfield Town, Derby County, Reading and many others have been left to suffer the consequences of reckless mismanagement, excessive risk-taking and financial catastrophe at their club. 

    The new regime is designed to raise standards across the game, supporting the government’s Plan for Change by ensuring English football can continue to deliver huge economic benefits across the country.

    It will improve financial sustainability, introducing a set of rules that improves the resilience across the top five men’s leagues, empowers fans and keeps clubs at the centre of their communities. 

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:

    This is a proud and defining moment for English football.

    As someone who has loved the game all my life, I know just how deeply it runs through our communities. It’s where memories are made, and generations come together.

    Our landmark Football Governance Act delivers on the promise we made to fans. It will protect the clubs they cherish, and the vital role they play in our economy.  

    Through our Plan for Change, we are ushering in a stronger, fairer future for the game we all love.

    Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy said: 

    Football clubs have been built and sustained by fans for generations, but too often they have had nowhere to turn when their clubs have faced crisis. Today that changes as this Act will give hope and assurance to people, with the Regulator working to protect clubs in towns and cities all over the country, where football clubs mean so much, to so many. 

    From Southend to Blackpool, Portsmouth to Wigan, these reforms have been driven by fans, for fans. I will be forever proud that this Government has delivered on its manifesto pledge to support them by reforming football’s governance, and I pay tribute to all those that have helped us deliver this historic moment for the nation’s game.

    The Regulator’s new powers will include:

    • Tough new financial regulation to improve resilience across the football pyramid to ensure clubs are sustainable for the long term
    • Stronger, statutory Owners’ and Directors’ Tests to make sure club custodians are suitable and aren’t using illicit finances with powers to force rogue owners to sell up
    • New standards for fan engagement in club decision-making 
    • Bars on clubs joining closed-shop competitions and breakaway leagues 
    • Backstop powers to ensure a fair financial distribution between leagues 
    • New statutory protections for key club heritage aspects like home shirt colours and club badges and stadium moves

    The IFR will be launched later this year and will consult industry on its proposed rules, guidance and approach to licensing clubs before implementing the new regime. A transition team, the Shadow Football Regulator, was established in 2024 to lead this process and is already engaging widely with industry and fan groups. The process of appointing a senior leadership team is ongoing with the announcement of an Interim CEO and Board expected shortly.

    Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) chief executive Kevin Miles said:

    This is an historic moment for football in this country and we are very proud that the FSA was at the heart of change, helping to bring in laws which can help protect the clubs we love from the worst excesses of owners throughout the professional game.

    We look forward to working with the regulator, as well as the FA and leagues it covers, to ensure that the supporter voice continues to be at the forefront of debate as fans are the beating heart of the game. Club owners can no longer mark their own homework.

    Sarah Turner, Chair of Supporters Trust at Reading (STAR) said:

    As Reading fans, we’ve seen the damage caused by rogue owners and welcome the independent regulator. When football clubs fail due to rogue ownership, it doesn’t just mean a team slides down the table. Jobs are lost, community projects are cut and businesses suffer – be that via unpaid suppliers or under-occupied pubs.

    We know that football is a business, but it is a business unlike any other. There are fans, not customers, players are heroes, not assets, and in these fractured times we should be working doubly hard to protect industries that create unity, community and – very occasionally – unparalleled joy.

    Kieran Maguire, Associate Professor in Football Finance at University of Liverpool said:

    This legislation represents a vital step forward in protecting clubs from exploitation, ensuring they are run more responsibly, and giving supporters a greater voice in how their clubs are managed.

    Introducing an independent football regulator is a necessary safeguard to ensure that clubs are not treated solely as assets, but as cultural cornerstones with deep local and national significance.

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 July 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General – on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza

    Source: United Nations secretary general

    The Secretary-General is appalled by the accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing.
     
    He deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition.
     
    The Secretary-General strongly condemns the ongoing violence, including the shooting, killing, and injuring of people attempting to get food for their families.
     
    Civilians must be protected and respected, and they must never be targeted. The population in Gaza remains gravely undersupplied with the basic necessities of life.
     
    Israel has the obligation to allow and facilitate by all the means at its disposal the humanitarian relief provided by the United Nations and by other humanitarian organizations.
     
    The Secretary-General notes that the intensification of hostilities in recent days comes as the humanitarian system is being impeded, undermined and endangered.
     
    A new evacuation order in parts of Deir al Balah – home to tens of thousands – pushes people into more desperate conditions and further displacement and restricts the United Nations’ ability to deliver life-saving aid. UN staff remain in Deir al Balah, and two UN guesthouses have been struck, despite parties having been informed of the locations of UN premises, which are inviolable. These locations – as with all civilian sites – must be protected, regardless of evacuation orders.
     
    The Secretary-General reiterates his urgent call for the protection of civilians, including humanitarian personnel, and for the provision of essential resources to ensure their survival.
     
    He once again calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
     
    The UN stands ready to significantly scale up our humanitarian operations. The time for a ceasefire is now.
     

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI USA News: Data Shows U.S. Economy Is Back on Track Under President Trump

    Source: US Whitehouse

    Even the media admits the U.S. economy is “regaining its swagger” under President Donald J. Trump — and you need not look further than the banner economic news from the past week for proof.

    • Core inflation beat market expectations for the fifth straight month — every full month since President Trump took office.
      • Since President Trump took office, core inflation has tracked at just 2.1% — levels not seen since the first Trump Administration, when prices were low and stable — and right in line with the Fed’s inflation target.
    • Wholesale prices came in completely flat, below market expectations and underscoring the tremendous progress made on taming the Biden-era inflation crisis.
    • Industrial production bested market expectations with a higher-than-expected climb, showing that inflation is falling as domestic production surges.
      • Manufacturing output has surged by 1.8% in the first five months of President Trump’s second term, compared to a -0.7% decline in the final five months preceding President Trump’s inauguration.
    • Customs and tariff revenues have totaled $120 billion since President Trump took office — topping $100 billion in a fiscal year for the first time ever — including $7 billion in the last week alone, fueling the first June budget surplus in nearly a decade.
    • Advance retail sales smashed expectations in June, showing that consumers are confident and spending thanks to low inflation and strong wage gains.
    • Consumer sentiment shot up in July, beating market expectations yet again as inflation expectations for the next year dropped sharply.
    • Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell for the fifth straight week, confirming the strong jobs report.
    • Housing starts and permits for new builds both increased in June above market expectations.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: One-Stop-Shop for Military and Veterans Interested in SUNY

    Source: US State of New York

    overnor Kathy Hochul today announced the launch of a one-stop-shop for active duty servicemembers, veterans, and family members currently enrolled or interested in attending any SUNY college or university. The landing page: www.suny.edu/military, includes information on available credit for military service and experience, tuition assistance, specialized scholarships, and dedicated campus services like veteran lounges and associations for all 64 SUNY campuses. The website also connects veterans with services offered by the counties where each campus is located, helping them stay close to home and community, and will be regularly updated as new information becomes available.

    “We continue to rely so much on our veterans and military to protect everything we hold sacred, and it is a priority of my administration to make sure we help our military-connected New Yorkers have a smooth transition to their next career,” Governor Hochul said. “This one-stop shop from SUNY is easy to follow and helps guide service members and their families and puts them on a path to a rewarding degree or credential.”

    Governor Hochul has recently announced expanded access to an affordable education through the Veterans Tuition Assistance Program, which went into effect on July 1. Under Governor Hochul’s leadership, the program will now serve even more veterans by broadening eligibility and increasing flexibility.

    Thirty-seven SUNY campuses offer academic credit for military service and experience, and the new website includes connecting visitors to an easy-to-use search for available credit for military experience and training. Additionally, SUNY campuses have tailored support available including student veteran associations and military and veteran offices, and counties throughout New York State have programs and staff available as well. SUNY developed this comprehensive website so that servicemembers and veterans would be able to easily learn about and access all of the available programs and benefits that they have earned through their service.

    SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. said, “SUNY provides a wide array of services for all those who stepped up and answered the call to serve our nation. From tuition assistance and specialized scholarships, to lounges and clubs, to credit for prior learning, it is important that every servicemember and veteran knows about the great programs at their disposal at every SUNY campus. We honor our veterans and servicemembers, and our campus communities are richer for their presence.”

    The SUNY Board of Trustees said, “We owe our servicemembers and veterans a debt of gratitude that can never truly be repaid, and we are grateful for their dedication to our state and nation. That is why the SUNY system has worked to ensure that as servicemembers and veterans transition back to civilian life, they have the support they have earned easily accessible at each of our campuses. We hope all eligible students will learn more about the programs, scholarships, and credit for prior learning available for current and former members of the military and take advantage of the benefits they have earned.”

    State Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton said, “Our SUNY schools offer so many programs and benefits for active duty military and veteran students, and I’m glad the Governor is launching a more streamlined system to help them access these resources. It’s so important that New York remains a state with competitive educational opportunities, and our SUNYs are committed to recruiting and retaining the best and brightest veterans and active duty service members. We want all our veterans and active duty members to be able to pursue their education and build their lives right here in New York—and this new website is a great step toward that.”

    Assemblymember Steve Stern said, “As the Chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee of the New York State Assembly, I applaud Governor Hochul for expanding critical educational support, funding and access to services for the brave men and women who have sacrificed so much to serve our great nation and importantly, also for their families. This new One-Stop Shop will provide streamlined access to vital information for all SUNY campuses. I encourage all active-duty military, veterans and families to visit www.suny.edu/military to learn more about benefits to which they are entitled.”

    New York State Department of Veterans’ Services Commissioner Viviana M. DeCohen said, “This new SUNY one-stop-shop is more than a website — it is a gateway to opportunity for Veterans, Service Members, and Military Families across New York State. By streamlining access to campus-based support, credit for military experience, and vital tuition assistance through this new resource, it ensures that no one who served is left navigating college alone. Thanks to Governor Hochul’s leadership and visionary expansion of this initiative and the Veterans Tuition Assistance Program, even more of our heroes can now pursue a world-class SUNY education. This is what it means to value service and put Veterans first.”

    New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs Adjutant General Major General Raymond F. Shields Jr. said, “Hundreds of members of the New York Army and Air National Guard and the New York Naval Militia have furthered their education through the SUNY system, thanks to the free tuition benefit available to them at SUNY and CUNY. Anything that makes it easier for our Citizen Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, and Marines to access SUNY services for veterans and service members is very welcome.”

    About The State University of New York
    The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, and more than 95 percent of all New Yorkers live within 30 miles of any one of SUNY’s 64 colleges and universities. Across the system, SUNY has four academic health centers, five hospitals, four medical schools, two dental schools, a law school, the country’s oldest school of maritime, the state’s only college of optometry, and manages one US Department of Energy National Laboratory. In total, SUNY serves about 1.4 million students amongst its entire portfolio of credit- and non-credit-bearing courses and programs, continuing education, and community outreach programs. SUNY oversees nearly a quarter of academic research in New York. Research expenditures system-wide are nearly $1.16 billion in fiscal year 2024, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are more than three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and one in three New Yorkers with a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunities, visit www.suny.edu.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Three reasons buffets can be a recipe for a health disaster – and how to keep diners safe

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kimon-Andreas Karatzas, Associate Professor of Food Microbiology, Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Reading

    Perfect Wave/Shutterstock

    You pile your plate high at the buffet, savouring the freedom to try a little bit of everything. But while your tastebuds might be celebrating, your gut could be at risk.

    From shared serving spoons to lukewarm lasagne, buffets can be a breeding ground for bacteria – and a hotbed for food poisoning. In the UK alone, millions of cases go unreported each year. So what makes buffets so risky, and what can be done to stay safe?

    Food poisoning is a serious issue in the UK and around the world. While most cases are mild and don’t require treatment, some can lead to hospitalisation or even death. Official figures suggest approximately 2.4 million people in the UK fall ill each year due to food-borne illness – mostly caused by viruses, bacteria or toxins in contaminated food. But because many people recover at home without reporting their symptoms, the real figure is likely much higher.

    The Food Standards Agency (FSA) estimates that there are closer to 18 million cases of food poisoning in the UK each year. That’s almost one in four people. And buffets – particularly all-you-can-eat venues – are a common setting for outbreaks.

    So, what is it about buffets that makes them such a hotspot for illness? Here are the key reasons these self-serve spreads carry higher risks:

    1. Cross-Contamination

    One of the biggest concerns at buffets is cross-contamination, when harmful bacteria, viruses or allergens are transferred from one food to another. This can happen in any kitchen, but buffets are particularly vulnerable.

    Why? Because dozens of dishes are often displayed close together, customers serve themselves (sometimes without washing their hands), utensils are shared between people and dishes and food are exposed to the air for extended periods.

    If just one dish becomes contaminated – say, with under-cooked meat juices or bacteria from unwashed hands – they can spread to other foods, affecting many people. Sneezes over platters and untrained customers handling food directly all increase the risk.

    Even something as simple as using the same spoon for multiple dishes can be enough to transfer bacteria. With many hands touching the same utensils and food being moved or mixed between containers, even a well-run buffet can become a hazard zone as it is difficult to monitor and control that all customers abide to food safety rules.

    2. Allergens

    For people with food allergies, buffets can be particularly dangerous. Cross-contamination means that allergen-free foods can become unsafe through even minimal contact with allergenic ingredients.

    For example, a spoon used in a nut-containing salad and then placed into a nut-free one can be enough to trigger a reaction. To reduce this risk, check that buffet venues clearly label all dishes with allergen information, use separate serving utensils for different foods, keep allergen-free dishes physically separate from others and train staff on allergen safety and cross-contamination risks.

    Despite best intentions, busy buffet settings don’t always allow for these precautions to be enforced perfectly, putting allergic diners at greater risk.

    3. Temperature trouble

    One of the main food safety challenges at buffets is temperature control. Harmful bacteria multiply rapidly in what experts call the “danger zone”: the temperature range between 8°C and 63°C. If food sits within this range for too long, it becomes an ideal breeding ground for microbes.

    Several types of bacteria are commonly responsible for food-borne illness in buffet settings.

    Salmonella is often found in under-cooked poultry, eggs, and dairy products. It can cause diarrhoea, fever, and abdominal cramps, and it spreads easily if hot food is not kept at a safe temperature.

    E. coli, typically linked to under-cooked beef and raw vegetables, can cause severe gastrointestinal illness and, in some cases, lead to kidney failure.

    Listeria monocytogenes can grow in chilled foods like soft cheeses, pâté, and pre-packed sandwiches. It poses serious risks to pregnant women, older adults, and those with weakened immune systems.

    Clostridium perfringens thrives in food that has been left warm for too long – especially items like stews, casseroles and roasts. It can cause sudden stomach cramps and diarrhoea.

    Norovirus, also called the winter vomiting bug, is a stomach bug that causes vomiting and diarrhoea. Infected customers can pass this virus on the food with direct contact and cause disease to others that will consume it.

    Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium commonly found on the skin of humans and when it grows on food produces toxins that can cause nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea. This bacterium can easily end up on the food through contact with utensils or customers and grow if the temperature of food is not within the correct range.

    Maintaining safe food temperatures is essential to prevent these pathogens from multiplying. According to food safety guidelines, hot food should be kept above 63°C, and cold food below 8°C. However, in many buffet settings, food is left sitting out for extended periods – sometimes in ambient room temperatures, and sometimes without adequate heating or refrigeration equipment. This allows bacteria to flourish.

    To minimise risk, hot food should not be left out for more than two hours, and cold food should be consumed within four. After these limits, leftover items should be discarded and not mixed with fresh batches. Reusing food that’s been sitting out not only compromises freshness but also risks spreading bacteria from old to new dishes.

    Unfortunately, in busy all-you-can-eat environments, it’s common for staff to top up half-empty trays instead of replacing them. While this may reduce food waste, it increases the likelihood of contamination, especially during high-traffic service times. Without strict hygiene protocols in place, even small lapses in temperature control can lead to widespread illness.

    Staying safe

    Buffets don’t have to be a recipe for disaster – but safety depends on both the venue’s hygiene practices and diners’ own behaviour. Here’s what to look for:

    • dishes should be steaming hot or chilled, not lukewarm

    • clean utensils should be available for each item

    • clear allergen labels should be visible

    • staff should be monitoring and maintaining food stations

    • diners should wash their hands before serving themselves.

    If in doubt, it’s safer to skip questionable dishes, especially those that look like they’ve been sitting out too long, are unlabelled, or have been clearly mixed with other items.

    Buffets can be a delicious way to explore new flavours and enjoy variety. But without proper precautions, they can also pose serious food safety risks. Whether you’re tucking into a carvery, grazing a hotel breakfast, or piling your plate at an all-you-can-eat spread, it’s worth keeping an eye on hygiene – and knowing when to walk away from the buffet table.

    Kimon-Andreas Karatzas receives funding from the EU, BBSRC, EPSRC and private companies (Future Biogas, Natureseal and AB Mauri)

    – ref. Three reasons buffets can be a recipe for a health disaster – and how to keep diners safe – https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-buffets-can-be-a-recipe-for-a-health-disaster-and-how-to-keep-diners-safe-260754

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Rightwing populist Sanseitō party shakes Japan with election surge

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rin Ushiyama, Lecturer in Sociology, Queen’s University Belfast

    Japan held elections for its upper house, the House of Councillors, on July 20. The vote proved a challenge for the conservative ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), which has been reeling from corruption scandals, rising prices and US tariffs on Japanese exports.

    The ruling coalition, composed of the LDP and its junior partner, Kōmeitō, lost its majority in the house. While the centre-left Constitutional Democratic party maintained its position as the largest opposition group, the breakout success of the election was that of Sanseitō, an ultranationalist populist party.

    Sanseitō successfully framed immigration as a central issue in the election campaign, with the provocative slogan “Japanese First”. The party won 14 seats in the 248-seat chamber, a substantial jump from the single seat it won in the last election in 2022.

    Sanseitō calls itself a party of “ordinary Japanese citizens with the same mindset who came together”. It was formed in 2020 by Sōhei Kamiya, a conservative career politician who served as a city councillor in Suita, a city in Osaka Prefecture, before being elected to the House of Councillors.

    Although Sanseitō was initially known for its stance against the COVID-19 vaccine, it has more recently campaigned on an anti-foreigner and anti-immigration platform. The party, which also holds three seats in the powerful lower house, has quickly gained seats in regional and national elections. It most recently won three seats in Tokyo’s prefectural elections in June 2025.

    Sanseitō is “anti-globalist”, urging voters to feel proud of their ethnicity and culture. Polls suggest the party is popular among younger men aged between 18 and 30.

    Throughout the most recent election campaign, Kamiya repeatedly spread far-right conspiracy theories and misinformation. This included arguing multinational corporations caused the pandemic, as well as that foreigners commit crimes en masse and can avoid paying inheritance tax. Social media has amplified Sanseitō’s xenophobic messaging.

    Sanseitō’s electoral success is reminiscent of other right-wing populist parties across Europe and North America, which also place immigration as a core issue.

    Kamiya denies being a xenophobe. But he has expressed support for the Republican party in the US, Reform in the UK, Alternativ für Deutschland in Germany and Rassemblement National in France. Echoing other right-wing populist leaders, Kamiya has promised tax cuts, home-grown industries, regulation of foreigners and patriotic education.

    However, while Sanseitō rides the global wave of right-wing populism, it also has deeply Japanese roots. Following Japan’s defeat in the second world war, a distinct current of right-wing thought developed, defending “traditional values” and glorifying Japan’s imperial past.

    Tensions have flared periodically over issues such as history education and official visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where those who died in service of Japan – including military leaders convicted of war crimes – are commemorated. There have also been disputes around the memorialisation of so-called “comfort women”, who were forced into sex slavery by Japanese forces before and during the war.

    Building on these currents, Sanseitō represents a new generation of Japanese conservatism, not just an emulation of foreign populist leaders.

    What happens next?

    Sanseitō’s rise could have a pivotal influence on Japan’s political landscape. While the prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has indicated he will not resign, the ruling coalition has now lost control of both houses. Ishiba may need to seek support from other parties and may face leadership challenges.

    He also must respond to issues Sanseitō has raised. LDP policymakers are now aware of public anxieties surrounding migration, excessive tourism and cultural integration. Seeking to co-opt some of Sanseitō’s proposals, the government has already banned tourists from driving and set up a new government agency to address concerns about non-Japanese nationals. It has also pledged to reduce illegal immigration to zero.

    But the government is facing steep economic and demographic challenges, such as US tariffs, a rapidly ageing and declining population, and a record-low birth rate. So it cannot afford to cut immigration dramatically. Policymakers will have to balance economic needs with hardening public attitudes towards foreigners.

    It’s not just immigration that will be at stake. Ishiba will need to navigate wedge issues that could split the LDP’s conservative support base. These include same-sex marriage, the use of separate surnames by married couples, and female succession to the throne.

    It’s too early to say whether Sanseitō can sustain its momentum. Numerous populist leaders in Japan before Kamiya have succeeded in turning mistrust of the political class into votes at the ballot box. However, few have been able to translate it into meaningful political change across multiple election cycles.

    For instance, Shinji Ishimaru made headlines in 2024 after placing second in the race for Tokyo governor. But his Path to Reform party, which promised educational reform, struggled in the latest election. Reiwa Shinsengumi, the left populist party led by Tarō Yamamoto, also enjoyed success in previous elections but remains small.

    Only time will tell if Sanseitō will become a major political party or yet another minority group on the fringes. But it’s clear anti-immigration populism has arrived in Japan. And it looks like it’s here to stay.

    Rin Ushiyama does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Rightwing populist Sanseitō party shakes Japan with election surge – https://theconversation.com/rightwing-populist-sanseito-party-shakes-japan-with-election-surge-261303

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: How young people have taken climate justice to the world’s international courts

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Susan Ann Samuel, PhD Candidate, School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds

    Pla2na/Shutterstock, CC BY-NC-ND

    Youth activist organisations including Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change and World Youth for Climate Justice recently coordinated massive online calls across two different time zones. These two global gatherings were in preparation for a coordinated global youth movement around the release of the most anticipated advisory opinion scheduled to be delivered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on July 23 2025.

    An advisory opinion is a legal interpretation provided by a high-level court or tribunal with a special mandate, in response to a specific question of law. Simply put, an advisory opinion is not legally binding in the way a court judgement between two nations would be.

    But it is authoritative. The opinion carries significant legal, moral and political weight: since states often refer to advisory opinions when shaping policies, judges cite them for decisions and they’re used by civil society to hold governments accountable. An advisory opinion can influence shifting governance and principles governing it. I like to think of it as a northern star — it won’t change the reality but can guide potential outcomes and pave the way for future change.

    As one of hundreds of participants attending both the online meetings, plus in my capacity as a researcher investigating the role of youth in climate law and politics, this collective action feels momentous.

    The movement for an advisory opinion to ICJ began in 2019 when a few brave young people from the Pacific Islands stood up for the world. Twenty-seven law students at the Vanuatu campus of the University of South Pacific convinced their nation to champion climate action and accountability to the entire world by bringing climate justice to the world court.

    For these students in the Pacific, the climate crisis means losing their identity, their culture and their homes to the rising sea levels and weather catastrophes. To the young people across the globe — including me — the concern about not being heard by world leaders becomes a shared reality, even though it is our future at stake.

    Four courts, four continents

    It’s not just the ICJ that’s delivering an advisory opinion. The world is at a turning point. For the first time, four world courts or tribunals across four continents are being asked to clarify nations’ legal obligations in the face of the climate crisis. The ICJ’s advisory opinion is the centrepiece: but it sits within a broader push primarily by global youth and developing countries — to clarify what human rights, state responsibility and climate justice mean in law.

    A “quartet” of advisory opinions now spans four judicial bodies: the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the ICJ, and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. See the diagram below to check the timeline of each court proceeding.

    In addition to the advisory opinions, there are currently 3,113 climate cases across the globe. These include many youth-led cases that bolster solidarity for climate action, call for futureproofing environmental governance, and evoke soft power around the legal proceedings.

    These legal proceedings are the result of bold, persistent advocacy. These cases are not abstract. There’s a moral arc here: they primarily stem from advocacy from global youth movements, developing countries, civil society coalitions and frontline communities demanding legal recognition of climate harms and protection of future generations.

    As such, the role of youth in bolstering moral power is massive. Their influence in empowering states across the globe to embody climate leadership is critical to pushing for political action, even amid geopolitical realities.

    Tracing climate litigation patterns suggests that youth are changing the environmental governance space: as youth litigators (both young lawyers and youth-led cases), youth negotiators and youth activists. Youth across these three spheres — law, politics and activism — are mutually reinforcing each other in their advocacy, unlike ever before.

    Themes of climate justice in litigation, negotiation, and social movements are deeply interconnected, rather than isolated from one another. Youth, who are active across all these spheres, often serve as key advocates, thereby reshaping governance dynamics in the process

    The push for justice by youth is palpable, despite growing political concerns across the globe. Youth remains the common face of vulnerability, agency and promise. The call for justice is now.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Susan Ann Samuel receives funding from Prof. Viktoria Spaiser’s UKRI FLF Grant MR/V021141/1 and is supported by the University of Leeds – School of Politics and International Studies.

    – ref. How young people have taken climate justice to the world’s international courts – https://theconversation.com/how-young-people-have-taken-climate-justice-to-the-worlds-international-courts-261033

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Environment Secretary Steve Reed: Response to the Independent Water Commission’s final report

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 2

    Oral statement to Parliament

    Environment Secretary Steve Reed: Response to the Independent Water Commission’s final report

    Statement to the House of Commons outlining the government response to the Independent Water Commission’s final report.

    Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the Government’s plans to reform the water sector.

    The water industry quite clearly is failing. 

    Our rivers, lakes and seas are polluted with record levels of sewage.

    Water pipes have been left to crumble into disrepair.

    And I share customers’ fury at rising bills.

    There are hosepipe bans right now in place across the country because not a single new reservoir has been built in over 30 years.

    And the lack of water infrastructure is blocking economic growth.

    Water companies have been allowed to profit at the expense of the British people when they should have been investing to fix our broken water pipes.

    They got away with this because of a broken regulatory system that has failed customers and failed the environment. 

    The public expressed their fury during last year’s General Election, and they voted for change.  

    That change will now come. 

    In just one year, we have put in place the building blocks for change.

    First, we restored accountability by giving the regulators more teeth with a ban on unfair bonuses, severe and automatic penalties for breaking the law, and jail sentences for the most serious offences.  

    Second, we are investing £104 billion pounds of private sector funding to rebuild the water network.

    Upgrading crumbling pipes, repairing leaks, building new sewage treatment works, and digging out new reservoirs.

    This is the single biggest investment in the water sector’s history and it allows me to make a new commitment to the country:

    That this Government will cut water companies’ sewage pollution in half by the end of this decade.

    This is the most ambitious commitment ever made by any government about water pollution.  And it’s just the start. 

    Because over a decade of national renewal, we will restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health.

    The third building block for change is today’s final report from Sir Jon Cunliffe’s Independent Water Commission. 

    And I’d like to express my thanks to Sir Jon, his officials and all those who have contributed to this outstanding piece of work.

    I agree with Sir Jon that water regulation has been too weak, too complex and ineffective. 

    Having four separate regulators with overlapping and conflicting remits has failed customers and the environment. 

    Ofwat has failed to protect customers from water companies’ mismanagement of their hard-earned money and failed to protect our waterways from record levels of pollution. 

    Today I can announce that this Government will abolish Ofwat. 

    We will bring water functions from four different regulators into one.

    A single powerful super-regulator responsible for the entire water sector, and with the teeth to enforce the high standards the public rightly demand. 

    The new regulator will stand firmly on the side of customers, investors and the environment and it will prevent the abuses of the past.

    For customers, it will oversee investment and upgrade work so hardworking British families are never again hit by the shocking bill hikes we saw last year.

    For investors, it will provide the clarity and direction required for a strong partnership between Government, the sector and investors to attract billions of pounds of new funding.

    For the environment, it will reduce all forms of pollution to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good. 

    We will work closely with the Welsh government to devolve economic regulation of water to Wales.

    I will publish a White Paper this Autumn giving the Government’s full response to the Independent Water Commission’s final report, and launch a consultation on it. 

    Following that, I will bring forward a new water reform bill early during the lifetime of this Parliament.

    Ofwat will remain in place during the transition to the new regulator and I will ensure they provide the right leadership to oversee the current price review and investment plan during that time.

    To provide clarity during this period, I will issue an interim Strategic Policy Statement to Ofwat and give Ministerial directions to the Environment Agency, setting out our expectations and requirements. We will publish a transition plan as part of our full Government response in the Autumn.  

    Today we are immediately taking forward a number of Sir Jon’s recommendations.

    First, we will establish a new statutory water ombudsman – a single, free service to help customers resolve complaints such as incorrect bills, leaking pipes or water supply failures.

    The new ombudsman will have the legal powers to protect customers and will bring the water dispute resolution process in line with other utilities like energy – it is part of the Government’s ambition to put customers at the heart of water regulation.

    Second, we will end the era of water companies marking their own homework.   

    We will end operator self-monitoring and transition to Open Monitoring to increase transparency and help restore public trust.

    Water companies are already required to publish data on some sewage spills within one hour. We will roll out real-time monitoring across the wastewater system. All this data will be made publicly available online.

    This will ensure both the regulator – and the public – have the power to hold water companies fully accountable.

    Third, we commit to including a regional element within the new regulator to ensure greater local involvement in water planning.  By moving to a catchment-based model for water system planning, we can tackle all sources of pollution entering waterways so they can be cleaned up more effectively and more quickly.

    This will ensure, for the first time, that water infrastructure investment plans align with spatial planning to support faster regional economic growth.  The lack of water infrastructure that held back development around Cambridge and Oxford for so long will not happen again.

    The new regulatory framework will recognise the risks investors take and, if they meet their obligations, they will see a fair, stable return on their investment.

    Just last week, I signed the Government’s new Water Skills Pledge to make sure the sector has the skills and workforce it needs to deliver this vast investment.  

    This Government was elected to clean up water pollution and ensure unacceptable water bill hikes can never happen again.    

    We now have all the building blocks in place to make that happen. 

    We are establishing a new partnership based on effective regulation where water companies, investors, communities and the Government will work together to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 July 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI: Kvika banki hf.: Joint press release from Kvika and Arion

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Next steps in the merger process

    Kvika banki and Arion Bank announced on 6 July that the boards of directors of the companies had decided to initiate discussions on merging the companies and have signed a letter of intent to that effect. The aim of the merger is to combine the companies’ strengths and to create a robust financial institution which offers comprehensive services for its customers.

    One of the largest mergers on the Icelandic financial market

    This represents one of the largest mergers undertaken on the Icelandic financial market and the process can be expected to take some time. Regular updates on the status and progress of negotiations will be provided as and when needed.

    The first steps involve due diligence reviews and merger negotiations between the companies, a process which is already underway. The parties aim to request preliminary discussions with the Icelandic Competition Authority in August, where the aims of the merger and benefits resulting from it, both for customers and the Icelandic financial market, will be presented. The parties hope that the preliminary discussions, the finalization of contracts and the due diligence review will be completed in the next few months. Assuming that the preliminary discussions with the Icelandic Competition Authority are successful, the merger will be formally announced to the regulators and will be submitted for approval at shareholders’ meetings of both companies.

    Enhanced banking services

    If the merger between Kvika and Arion goes ahead it will strengthen and enhance the banking services provided to the customers of the merged company – retail, corporate and investors. The merger will generate opportunities for risk distribution and more diverse revenue streams, while also creating a more effective business and bringing greater efficiency to the Icelandic financial market.

    In recent years Kvika has been an active competitor on the markets, not least through its brand Auður which has had a substantial impact on the deposits market and has recently made a successful entry into the home loan market. Following the merger, the companies’ brands will continue to play a key role for customers.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: AI in universities: How large language models are transforming research

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ali Shiri, Professor of Information Science & Vice Dean, Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies, University of Alberta

    Generative AI, especially large language models (LLMs), present exciting and unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges for academic research and scholarship.

    As the different versions of LLMs (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity.ai and Grok) continue to proliferate, academic research is beginning to undergo a significant transformation.

    Students, researchers and instructors in higher education need AI literacy knowledge, competencies and skills to address these challenges and risks.

    In a time of rapid change, students and academics are advised to look to their institutions, programs and units for discipline-specific policy or guidelines regulating the use of AI.

    Researcher use of AI

    A recent study led by a data science researcher found that at least 13.5 per cent of biomedical abstracts last year showed signs of AI-generated text.



    Read more:
    AI-detection software isn’t the solution to classroom cheating — assessment has to shift

    Large language models can now support nearly every stage of the research process, although caution and human oversight are always needed to judge when use is appropriate, ethical or warranted — and to account for questions of quality control and accuracy. LLMs can:

    • Help brainstorm, generate and refine research ideas and formulate hypotheses;

    • Design experiments and conduct and synthesize literature reviews;

    • Write and debug code;

    • Analyze and visualize both qualitative and quantitative data;

    • Develop interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological frameworks;

    • Suggest relevant sources and citations, summarize complex texts and draft abstracts;

    • Support the dissemination and presentation of research findings, in popular formats.

    However, there are significant concerns and challenges surrounding the appropriate, ethical, responsible and effective use of generative AI tools in the conduct of research, writing and research dissemination. These include:

    • Misrepresentation of data and authorship;

    • Difficulty in replication of research results;

    • Data and algorithmic biases and inaccuracies;

    • User and data privacy and confidentiality;

    • Quality of outputs, data and citation fabrication;

    • And copyright and intellectual property infringement.

    AI research assistants, ‘deep research’ AI agents

    There are two categories of emerging LLM-enhanced tools that support academic research:

    1. AI research assistants: The number of AI research assistants that support different aspects and steps of the research process is growing at an exponential rate. These technologies have the potential to enhance and extend traditional research methods in academic work. Examples include AI assistants that support:

    • Concept mapping (Kumu, GitMind, MindMeister);

    • Literature and systematic reviews (Elicit, Undermind, NotebookLM, SciSpace);

    • Literature search (Consensus, ResearchRabbit, Connected Papers, Scite);

    • Literature analysis and summarization (Scholarcy, Paper Digest, Keenious);

    • And research topic and trend detection and analysis (Scinapse, tlooto, Dimension AI).

    2. ‘Deep research’ AI agents: The field of artificial intelligence is advancing quickly with the rise of “deep research” AI agents. These next-generation agents combine LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation and sophisticated reasoning frameworks to conduct in-depth, multi-step analyses.

    Research is currently being conducted to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of deep research tools. New evaluation criteria are being developed to assess their performance and quality.

    Criteria include elements such as cost, speed, editing ease and overall user experience — as well as citation and writing quality, and how these deep research tools adhere to prompts.

    The purpose of deep research tools is to meticulously extract, analyze and synthesize scholarly information, empirical data and diverse perspectives from a wide array of online and social media sources. The output is a detailed report, complete with citations, offering in-depth insights into complex topics.

    In just a short span of four months (December 2024 to February 2025), several companies (like Google Gemini, Perplexity.ai and ChatGPT) introduced their “deep research” platforms.

    The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a non-profit AI research institute based in Seattle, is experimenting with a new open access research tool called Ai2 ScholarQA that helps researchers conduct literature reviews more efficiently by providing more in-depth answers.

    Emerging guidelines

    Several guidelines have been developed to encourage the responsible and ethical use of generative AI in research and writing. Examples include:

    LLMs support interdisciplinary research

    LLMs are also powerful tools to support interdisciplinary research. Recent emerging research (yet to be peer reviewed) on the effectiveness of LLMs for research suggests they have great potential in areas such as biological sciences, chemical sciences, engineering, environmental as well as social sciences. It also suggests LLMs can help eliminate disciplinary silos by bringing together data and methods from different fields and automating data collection and generation to create interdisciplinary datasets.

    Helping to analyze and summarize large volumes of research across various disciplines can aid interdisciplinary collaboration. “Expert finder” AI-powered platforms can analyze researcher profiles and publication networks to map expertise, identify potential collaborators across fields and reveal unexpected interdisciplinary connections.

    This emerging knowledge suggests these models will be able to help researchers drive breakthroughs by combining insights from diverse fields — like epidemiology and physics, climate science and economics or social science and climate data — to address complex problems.



    Read more:
    The world is not moving fast enough on climate change — social sciences can help explain why

    Research-focused AI literacy

    Canadian universities and research partnerships are providing AI literacy education to people in universities and beyond.

    The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute offers K-12 AI literacy programming and other resources. The institute is a not-for profit organization and part of Canada’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

    Many universities are offering AI literacy educational opportunities that focus specifically on the use of generative AI tools in assisting research activities.

    Collaborative university work is also happening. For example, as vice dean of the Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Alberta (and an information science professor), I have worked with deans from the University of Manitoba, the University of Winnipeg and Vancouver Island University to develop guidelines and recommendations around generative AI and graduate and postdoctoral research and supervision.

    Considering the growing power and capabilities of large language models, there is an urgent need to develop AI literacy training tailored for academic researchers.

    This training should focus on both the potential and the limitations of these tools in the different stages of the research process and writing.

    Ali Shiri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. AI in universities: How large language models are transforming research – https://theconversation.com/ai-in-universities-how-large-language-models-are-transforming-research-260547

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Dating app categories could be shaping you more than you know

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kevin Guyan, Chancellor’s Fellow & Director of the Gender + Sexuality Data Lab, University of Edinburgh

    Natalllenka.m/Shutterstock

    Any account of love and dating in the 2020s is incomplete without addressing an uncomfortable topic: are our encounters with technology shaping who we are and how we desire?

    Dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Feeld allow users to choose from dozens of genders, sexualities, desires and relationship types. Commonplace descriptors such as “straight”, “gay” and “bisexual” are now joined by labels including “polysexual” (an attraction to multiple, but not all, genders), “skoliosexual” (an attraction predominantly to people who don’t conform to traditional gender norms) and “heteroflexible” (an attraction that is mostly heterosexual with some exceptions).

    But do these categories provide a more accurate representation of the world beyond the app? Or do they partly construct the world they claim to describe?

    As a regular user of gay dating apps throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, I discovered a menu of categories to describe myself. There was everything from “twinks” (slim build, youthful appearance and little or no body hair) and “otters” (the same but with a bit more body hair and a more masculine appearance) to “bears” (large build and lots of body hair) and “muscle daddies” (older with a muscular physique).

    I quickly understood how to maximise my success on the app by hacking the algorithm: the curated buzzwords in my bio, profile pics that struck the right balance between “sexy” and “intelligent”, how often to use the app and when. If the app gave prominence to a certain “category” of gay man in its listings, I was more than willing to present myself as that category.

    But, in the process, the line between the category and the thing being categorised (me and my desires) became increasingly impossible to untangle.

    This experience inspired research in my new book Rainbow Trap, which investigates the technical aspects of app design and how the provision of more “inclusive categories” for LGBTQ+ communities often does nothing to reconfigure the narrow accounts of desire encoded in the tech.

    Dating today can feel like a mix of endless swipes, red flags and shifting expectations. From decoding mixed signals to balancing independence with intimacy, relationships in your 20s and 30s come with unique challenges. Love IRL is the latest series from Quarter Life that explores it all.

    These research-backed articles break down the complexities of modern love to help you build meaningful connections, no matter your relationship status.

    Writing in the early 2000s, science and technology scholars Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star coined the term “convergence” to describe what happens when “people get put into categories and learn from those categories how to behave”. Philosopher of science Ian Hacking similarly used the term looping effect“ to describe the multi-directional relationship between a category and the “thing” being categorised.

    These encounters, however, highlight a fundamental tension between queer communities and classifications: the classifications used to describe us also come to define us. This can determine what doors are opened and closed and who we are allowed to be.

    Thinking back to my early forays into dating apps, I would often assign myself to the category of “twink”. Although used by app designers to assist with the algorithmic sorting of users, the identity felt contoured to my life.

    The connections suggested by the app, based on my self-categorisation as a “twink”, felt as if they reflected who I was and what I had always wanted. And, for a period, I believed it.

    However, in hindsight, I don’t know if I was ever really attracted to men with 26-inch waists and hair frazzled by too much bleach. I had limited myself to what the app told me I should like. But desire isn’t so easily put into a box.

    Getting critical about categories

    Underpinning the mechanics of all dating apps are categories, and we can learn a lot about love and dating by thinking critically about the categories used.

    Between 2021 and 2023, Tinder reported a 30% increase in the use of gender identities other than “male” or “female” on the app, creating more than 145 million new matches. Identification with the label “non-binary” also more than doubled in just one year.

    In 2023, the dating app Feeld (which describes itself as designed “for the curious”) reported that more than half its users who identified as “heterosexual” connected with someone on the app who did not identify as “heterosexual”. Feeld also has claimed that over 180,000 people “changed their sexuality” during their first year of using the app and that “the longer Feeld members are on the app, the less heterosexual they get”.

    I am not suggesting that our navigation of love and dating through the prism of technology (and its growing menu of categories) is making us more queer – as these technologies could just as equally be making us more straight. But whatever is happening, it is clear that assigning yourself to a particular category opens and closes opportunities for love and desire.

    It is app designers who then hold the power to decide what connections are made – for example, whether “twinks” connect with “bears”, whether your category features first or last on the home page. Because the classifications used to describe us are also now defining us, app designers partly shape how you think about yourself and your desires. This power does not stop when you turn off the app, it extends into offline worlds too.

    So, for app users, be open to how your encounters with categories shape who and how you desire. Who will the app include and exclude based on your self-categorisation? And is that the experience you necessarily what?

    Kevin Guyan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Dating app categories could be shaping you more than you know – https://theconversation.com/dating-app-categories-could-be-shaping-you-more-than-you-know-256368

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Is a ‘nanny state’ a price worth paying to keep the NHS free? The evidence shows it could work

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University

    Nanny says no. SOK Studio/Shutterstock

    The UK government’s new ten-year-plan to transform the NHS includes a focus on preventing ill health rather than treating illness. But to what extent should people depend on the state to help them make healthy decisions?

    Some think any kind of nudge in that direction is symptomatic of a “nanny state” overstepping its boundaries. Others might argue that nanny knows best, or that governments should do whatever works best both economically and to keep people healthy.

    Either way, if a country like the UK wants to keep providing free (or at least tax-payer funded) and universal healthcare, rather than charging every patient for their specific needs, its choices are limited.

    Take obesity for example, which is estimated to cost the NHS around £12.6 billion a year – more than 5% of its total budget.

    In 2022, 28.7% of adults in the UK had obesity, compared to 10.9% in France, 14.3% in Denmark and 22% in Belgium. (In the US, it was 42.8%.)

    Government analysis claims that if everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by just 216 calories a day – roughly equivalent to a single 500ml bottle of fizzy drink – obesity would be halved, and so would the associated costs. It also estimates that cutting the calorie count of a daily diet by just 50 calories would lift 340,000 children and 2 million adults out of obesity.

    But how should it persuade people to cut those calories? Happy to ignore accusations of being a nanny state, the UK government is now working with food retailers and manufacturers to encourage people to make healthier choices.

    Under the plan, products will be made with less sugar and fat. And the data that supermarkets own about your shopping habits (through online shopping and loyalty cards) will be used to nudge you towards more fruits and vegetables and fewer bags of crisps. Businesses that fail to induce changes in customer consumption will face financial penalties.

    And perhaps this is more effective than personal responsibility. Recent alternative policies which relied on individual action like following diets using the NHS weight loss app have not worked.

    The UK has also invested hundred of millions of pounds trying to encourage people to burn calories by walking and cycling more. But the country remains reluctant to reduce its car-dependence, with its cities poorly served by public transport. Walking and cycling are just not that popular.

    So perhaps state intervention is the only policy British people are willing to accept. Understandably, they want the freedom to make their own choices when it comes to exercise, eating and drinking, but they also want to keep the NHS free. Only 7% would support charging people for their use of healthcare.

    Fat tax

    Another option is to tax the consumption of fat and sugar to pay for the cost it imposes on others. In 2016, the UK was among the first countries to introduce a tax on sugary drinks. Since then, the total amount of sugar in British soft drinks has decreased by 46%, because changing the recipes means the producers pay less tax.

    Research shows that the tax also deters younger people from buying too much sugar. However, it does little to reduce consumption among those who have the most sugar-intensive diets, just like alcohol taxes do nothing to convince the most addicted alcoholics to drink less.

    There is also a valid argument that taxing sugar and fat is unfair. Unhealthy food is a much larger proportion of the budget of poorer households than it is for wealthier one, making it a regressive tax.

    Love for the NHS.
    John Gomez/Shutterstock

    Yet policies nudging people towards healthy choices often have a good track record. A study of food labelling policies which placed warning labels on high sugar and high calorie foods in Chile showed that people bought less of them.

    To stay below the threshold, firms then changed their recipes, just like with the tax. In that case, the warnings led to people consuming 11.5% less sugar and 2.8% less fat.

    While paternalistic interventions can be annoying or upsetting, pretending obesity is purely an individual choice is misleading. Obesity starts in childhood, and can destroy future choices. Children with obesity are more likely to be bullied, and don’t do as well at school.

    The state regularly bans harmful products without controversy. Even if you wanted to, you could not insulate your house with asbestos, and the UK is currently busy banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2009.

    With NHS waiting lists remaining at record highs, and a struggling economy, risk of the country becoming a nanny state by trying to encourage healthier food might actually be a pretty minor one.

    Renaud Foucart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Is a ‘nanny state’ a price worth paying to keep the NHS free? The evidence shows it could work – https://theconversation.com/is-a-nanny-state-a-price-worth-paying-to-keep-the-nhs-free-the-evidence-shows-it-could-work-260539

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI USA News: ✅ President Trump Has Kept His Promises — and Then Some

    Source: US Whitehouse

    President Donald J. Trump campaigned on a list of “20 core promises to Make America Great Again” — and in just six months, he has unquestionably delivered. From lowering costs to securing the border to enhancing public safety, President Trump has done more to make good on his promises than any president in modern American history, and he’s just getting started.

    The list goes far beyond these promises. President Trump has successfully forced hospitals nationwide to abandon their so-called “gender-affirming care“ and chemical castration programs for kids, defunded biased PBS and NPR, ended woke DEI programming across higher education and corporate America, weeded out nonsense “climate” initiatives, made English our official language, and so much more.

    Promises Made, Promises Kept:

    1. Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion: “We will close the border. We will stop the invasion of illegals into our country.” (10/12/24, Aurora, CO)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: Under President Trump, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border are at historic lows and border wall construction has resumed. Last month, illegal border crossings were the lowest ever recorded, while this fiscal year is on track to see the fewest illegal crossings in five decades. For two straight months, zero illegals were released into the country’s interior.
    2. Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history: “We will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.” (10/21/24, Concord, NC)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: Every single day, the Trump Administration is removing illegal immigrant killers, rapists, gangbangers, drug traffickers, and other violent criminals off our streets — and sending them back.
    3. End inflation, and make America affordable again: “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will make America affordable again.” (8/17/24, Wilkes-Barre, PA)
    4. Make America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far: “We will stop the Biden-Harris war on American energy … American energy is such a big deal. We will drill, baby, drill.” (8/3/24, Atlanta, GA)
    5. Stop outsourcing, and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower: “Together, we’re going to … bring thousands of factories back to the USA, right where they belong — and that will be done through tariffs and smart policy. We will build American, we will buy American, and we will hire American.” (1/19/24, Washington, D.C.)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: As President Trump pursues his bold commitment to an America First trade agenda, scores of companies have announced trillions of dollars in new investment as they onshore workers from foreign countries and create tens of thousands of new American jobs — positioning the U.S. as the dominant player for the jobs of the future.
    6. Large tax cuts for workers, and No Tax on Tips: “We’re going to have very large tax cuts for workers and … No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime.” (10/12/2024, Reno, NV)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: The largest tax cut in history for working- and middle-class Americans — including No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, and No Tax on Social Security — is now the law of the land, along with unprecedented tax relief for small businesses, farmers, workers, and families.
    7. Defend our constitution, our bill of rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms: “We’re going to bust up the censorship regime and bring back free speech again” (1/28/23, Columbia, SC), “I will defend religious liberty.” (1/19/25, Washington, D.C.)
    8. Prevent World War III, restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country — all made in America: “We will build a great Iron Dome over our country like Israel has a dome like has never been seen before, a state-of-the-art missile defense shield that will be entirely built in America and create jobs, jobs, jobs.” (6/15/24, Detroit, MI)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump has achieved remarkable success by employing his Peace Through Strength doctrine around the world —preventing war between India and Pakistan, ending the 12 Day War, brokering a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and averting escalation in other areas. Meanwhile, the One Big Beautiful Bill delivers funding for the Golden Dome missile defense system to protect our homeland from 21st Century threats.
    9. End the weaponization of government against the American people: “Biden has worked to persecute political dissidents, including conservatives, Catholics and other Christians, and opponents of his weaponized state … This abuse will be rectified, and it will be rectified very quickly.” (5/25/24, Washington, D.C.)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump has purged corrupt elements from the DOJ and FBI, pardoned pro-life Americans wrongly targeted by the Biden Administration, and launched full-scale investigations into deep state abuses — bringing the era of weaponized government to an end and restoring fairness and trust in American institutions.
    10. Stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders: “The drug cartels are waging war on America — and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels” (12/22/23), “We will expel every single illegal alien gang member and migrant criminal operating on American soil and remove the savage gang, Tren de Aragua, from the United States.” (1/19/25, Washington, D.C.)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: The Trump Administration is dismantling human smuggling networks, sanctioning cartels and designating them as foreign terrorist organizations, and deporting gang members in droves — ridding our country of these public safety threats for good and making our streets safer than they’ve ever been.
    11. Rebuild our cities, including Washington, D.C., making them safe, clean, and beautiful again: “We will rebuild our once great cities, including our capital in Washington, DC, making them safe, clean, and beautiful again.” (1/19/25, Washington, D.C.)
    12. Strengthen and modernize our military, making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world: “We will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen.” (1/20/25, Washington, D.C.)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: With the largest military investment in decades, President Trump is modernizing our forces with cutting-edge technology, rebuilding depleted stockpiles, and ensuring our troops are the best-equipped in history — deterring adversaries and keeping America safe without unnecessary conflicts.
    13. Keep the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency: “If I’m elected, the dollar is so secure. Your reserve currency is the strongest it’ll ever be.” (10/15/24, Detroit, MI)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: Through pro-growth policies and tough trade deals, President Trump has fortified the dollar’s dominance, preventing de-dollarization efforts abroad and ensuring it remains the global standard — boosting American economic power worldwide.
    14. Fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age: “I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare … I will not talk about one day or one year shorter, and I will not raise the retirement age of Social Security by one day, not by one year.”(7/27/24, West Palm Beach, FL)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump hasn’t touched Social Security — and has consistently called for rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse to safeguard the programs’ solvency for future generations, delivering on his ironclad commitment to America’s seniors.
    15. Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations: “We’re going to be ending the electric car mandate quickly.” (1/7/25, Palm Beach, FL)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: On day one, President Trump revoked the burdensome electric vehicle mandate — and fortified that action by signing a congressional resolution into law. The Trump Administration has also slashed job-killing regulations to unleash innovation, lower costs, and put American workers first.
    16. Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children: “I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory … or political content onto the shoulders of our children.” (8/3/24, Atlanta, GA)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump signed an order to defund schools promoting divisive critical race theory and radical gender ideology.
    17. Keep men out of women’s sports: “We will keep men out of women’s sports.” (5/26/24, Washington, D.C.)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump immediately ended the unfair, demeaning practice of forcing women to compete against men in sports — which resulted in the NCAA changing its rules and drove countless states and high schools to change their policies.
    18. Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again: “We will deport the foreign Jihad sympathizers and Hamas supporters from our midst. We will get them out of our country.” (9/19/24, Washington, D.C.)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump has cracked down on campus chaos with federal enforcement and visa revocations for pro-Hamas agitators — restoring safety, free speech, and American values to universities across the nation.
    19. Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship: “We will secure our elections — and they will be secure once and for all.” (10/13/24, Prescott Valley, AZ)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump implemented nationwide election integrity measures through executive action, banning foreign nationals from election interference, strengthening voter citizenship verification, prosecuting non-citizen voting, requiring voter-verifiable paper ballot records, and ensuring state-by-state compliance with federal law.
    20. Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success: “It’s time to unite … Success is going to bring us together.” (11/6/24, West Palm Beach, FL)
      • ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump’s remarkable success is bringing the country together — with more Americans saying the country is on the right track than any point in two decades and support among Republicans for President Trump and his agenda near historic levels.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: RIDOH and DEM Recommend Avoiding Contact with a Section of Flat River Reservoir (Johnson’s Pond)

    Source: US State of Rhode Island

    The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) and Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) are recommending people avoid contact with a section of Flat River Reservoir, also known as Johnson’s Pond, near Island Drive in Coventry due to a confirmed cyanobacteria bloom. Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, are naturally present in bodies of water, but under certain environmental conditions will form harmful algae blooms?(HABs). All recreation, including swimming, fishing, boating, and kayaking, is high risk to health and recommended to be avoided at this location. HABs can produce toxins which can be harmful to humans and animals.

    Use caution in all areas of Johnson’s Pond as cyanobacteria HABs can move locations in ponds and lakes. People should not drink untreated water or eat fish from affected waterbodies.?Pet owners should not allow pets to drink or swim in this water.?

    Skin contact with water containing toxin-producing cyanobacteria can cause irritation of the skin, nose, eyes, and throat. Symptoms from ingestion of water can include stomachache, diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea. Less common symptoms can include dizziness, headache, fever, liver damage, and nervous system damage. Young children and pets are at higher risk for health effects associated with cyanobacteria HABs because they are more likely to swallow water when they are in or around bodies of water. People who have had contact with these ponds and experience those symptoms should contact their healthcare provider.?

    If you or your pet come into contact with a cyanobacteria HAB:

    – Rinse your skin with clean water right away.

    – Shower and wash your clothes when you get home.

    – If your pet was exposed, wash it with clean water immediately and don’t let it lick algae from its fur.

    – Call a vet if your pet shows signs of illness like tiredness, no eating, vomiting, diarrhea or other symptoms within a day.

    – If you feel sick after contact, call a healthcare provider.

    Affected waters might look bright to dark green, with thick algae floating on the surface. It may resemble green paint, pea soup, or green cottage cheese. If you see water like this, people and pets should avoid contact with the water.

    To report suspected cyanobacteria blooms, contact DEM’s Office of Water Resources at 401-222-4700 Press 6 or?DEM.OWRCyano@dem.ri.gov?and if possible, send a photograph of the reported algae bloom. For more information and the Freshwater Cyanobacteria Tracker Dashboard that lists current advisories and data, visit:?www.dem.ri.gov/bluegreen

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Alford, Colleagues Urge Two-Prong Approach to Cementing America’s Role as Global AI Capital

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mark Alford (Missouri 4th District)

    Congressman Mark Alford (MO-04) led a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. The letter urges the Commerce Department to continue pursuing policies that will cement the United States as the world capital of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

    Specifically, the Members of Congress are advocating for Secretary Lutnick to pursue a well-balanced strategy that limits foreign adversaries’ ability to develop frontier AI and enables American companies to compete quickly in the global marketplace.

    Reps. Jack Bergman, Andrew Garbarino, Diana Harshbarger, Robert Wittman, John McGuire, Ben Cline, and Vern Buchanan joined Congressman Alford in sending the letter to Secretary Lutnick.

    Read the full letter to Commerce Secretary Lutnick here.

    Read key excerpts from the letter below:

    “Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States is shaping emerging technologies globally and positioned as the world capital of artificial intelligence (AI). The President’s cabinet is unshackling American energy, cutting burdensome red tape, and unwinding Biden’s bad policies. One important example of bolstering American prosperity was your decision to rescind and replace the Biden administration’s AI Diffusion Rule. This rule would have helped China win the AI race, and replacing this rule quickly will provide American innovators a stable environment to compete and win. …

    “While we are currently ahead of Communist China in the AI race, we must continue to help our nation, companies, and innovators succeed. Failure to maintain our lead in AI development means that we could be at the mercy of Communist China for many critical industries. Examples include cryptography, next-generation pharmaceuticals, and advanced defense materials. President Trump has been at the forefront of securing investment during his recent successful trip to the Middle East. He closed deals promoting U.S. technology as the global standard and secured landmark investments in frontier AI development at home. We must continue to capitalize on this momentum by ensuring allies and partners building out their AI investments see the U.S. as the superior, most reliable partner.

    “One crucial next step in this competition is providing American innovators, exporters, and nations around the world a stable exporting structure. Mr. Secretary, your testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee included key elements of an AI diffusion framework that would enable American AI diffusion around the world while also limiting China’s ability to develop frontier AI. The Trump administration should not return to Biden’s tiers and caps that confused close allies and partners. …

    “We can only win the AI race with Communist China if we are wisely limiting our foreign adversary’s opportunities to develop frontier AI and enabling American companies to compete quickly in the global marketplace. Both prongs are important and the balance between them are crucial. America is winning the AI race, but the competition has been hard fought and will continue to be. Steps must be taken quickly since investments happening now will create the world’s tech ecosystem for decades to come. …”

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Wyden, Merkley Introduce Legislation Targeting The Use of Presidential Libraries as Tools for Corruption

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore)

    July 21, 2025

    Special interests seemingly seeking favors from Donald Trump have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into his presidential library

    Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both D-Ore., said today they have joined colleagues in introducing legislation that would close loopholes letting presidential libraries be used for corruption and bribery.

    From mega-merger approvals to the preservation of the U.S. military base in Qatar, giant corporations, at least one foreign government, and several other entities have promised donations collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s future library while he has the power to affect those same entities’ futures. The contributions, many in the form of settlements to Trump-filed lawsuits, raise serious ethics concerns about potential bribery and corruption.

    “Donald Trump can’t be allowed to get away with accepting any shiny, lavish gift that comes his way from big corporations, foreign governments, and even anonymous donors,” Wyden said. “No president should be allowed to accumulate more wealth by receiving the fanciest gifts and then self-classifying them as ‘contributions’ to presidential libraries. It’s time to put a cap on contributions to hold corrupt, self-serving presidents like Trump accountable for making sketchy, back-alley deals.” 

    “We can’t allow his presidential library to be yet another avenue for President Trump to sell access and influence to the highest bidders. Without action, we stamp a Congressional seal of approval on Trump’s ability to use his future library to enrich himself and his family,” said Merkley. “We need the Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act to close the corrupt loophole that allows for foreign governments and giant corporations to give unlimited library donations, protecting our ‘We The People’ republic.”

    Unlike presidential campaigns or inaugural committees, presidential libraries are subject to almost no restrictions on donations, which means contributions can come from foreign nationals, lobbyists, people seeking presidential pardons, and corporations with matters before federal agencies.

    Just weeks ago, Paramount settled Trump’s seemingly meritless lawsuit for $16 million as it is currently vying for the Trump administration’s approval of its proposed mega-merger with Skydance. In May , Trump announced he would accept a free luxury jet — worth about $400 million — from the government of Qatar, and that the jet would be donated to his presidential library after he leaves office.

    The Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act would:

    • Ban fundraising while the president is in office, with a carveout for nonprofits: Require that presidential libraries wait until the president leaves office before fundraising or accepting donations, except from 501(c)(3) organizations (mirroring the standard adopted by the Obama Foundation).
    • Establish a contribution cap: For 501(c)(3) organizations that can donate while a president is still in office, limit donations to $10,000 total.
    • Impose a cooling-off period for donations from foreign nationals, lobbyists, contractors, individuals seeking pardons: For an additional two years after the president leaves office, prohibit donations from foreign nationals or foreign governments, registered lobbyists, federal contractors, and individuals seeking presidential pardons.
    • Ban conversion of donations to personal use: Bar the use of library donations for personal expenses or unrelated financial obligations.
    • Mandate quarterly disclosures: During the president’s time in office and for five years after, require all donations of $200 or more to be disclosed to the National Archives each calendar quarter. Publish donor information (including name, employer, and date and amount of the donation) online in a searchable, downloadable format.
    • Prohibit straw donations: Make it illegal to donate in someone else’s name, or to knowingly allow your name to be used for a straw donation.

    The bill was led in the Senate by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. In the House, it was led by U.S. Representatives Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M. In addition to Wyden and Merkley, the bill was cosponsored in the Senate by U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Andy Kim,D-N.J., Ed Markey, D-Mass.,Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Gary Peters, D-Mich., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I..

    The bill is endorsed by the following: Project On Government Oversight, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Democracy Defenders Action, Campaign Legal Center, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Public Citizen, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Demand Progress, and American Governance Institute.

    A one-page summary of the bill is here. The text of the bill is here.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Alberta sets the pace in housing

    Source: Government of Canada regional news (2)

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Speaker Johnson Video: 14 Minutes of Democrats Defending Biden’s Failing Mental Acuity

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)

    Speaker Johnson Video: 14 Minutes of Democrats Defending Biden’s Failing Mental Acuity

    Washington, July 21, 2025

    WASHINGTON — On July 21, 2024, President Biden withdrew from the presidential election, weeks after his alarming debate performance. Today, one year later, Speaker Johnson released a video highlighting the countless times National Democrats knowingly lied to the American people by defending and covering up President Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline.

    “One year ago today, President Biden’s disastrous debate performance made history by ending his re-election campaign and exposing the largest political cover-up in U.S. history,” said Speaker Johnson. “As House Republicans investigate the scandal to bring accountability, the American people should never forget how far Democrats and the media went to hide the truth about the mental decline of the man holding the most powerful position on earth. Our video compilation shows just a small sample of the countless receipts.”

    Watch the video in full here.

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: City centre’s first distillery and bar now open in Derby Market Hall

    Source: City of Derby

    A brand-new distillery and bar is now open in Derby Market Hall, bringing locally crafted spirits, cocktails, and a stylish new venue to the heart of the city centre.

    The Spirit Run Distillery and Bar officially opened its doors to the public on Saturday 19 July, with the occasion being marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony by the leader of Derby City Council, Councillor Nadine Peatfield.

    The new venue will join the list of growing traders at Derby Market Hall, a Grade II-listed Victorian building in the heart of the city. The Spirit Run is the latest venture from Darley Abbey Wines, situated in the newly renovated former Poultry Market space, adjoining Osnabruck Square.

    The distillery offers a truly unique experience to visitors, allowing customers to admire the iconic stills while enjoying a cocktail, refreshing gin, or a glass of wine. It will offer high-quality spirits crafted in bespoke, British-made copper stills, built by Somerset company, BritStill. 

    Innovative gin and cocktail experiences will also be available to customers, guiding them on an immersive journey through the process before tasting. These experiences, and the venue itself, can be booked for mixed groups or private parties.

    The bar will specialise in spirits, featuring a strong cocktail menu and showcasing The Spirit Run’s own creations alongside those from other local distillers and well-known brands. Customers can also choose from a range of draft beers, including selections from Derbyshire’s Thornbridge brewery, and explore a select rotating list of ‘discovery wines’ for an ambitious tasting experience. 

    The Spirit Run is also teaming up with fellow Derby Market Hall traders, including Cheeky Pancakes and Japanese street food trader SHIO, to offer customers some tasty small plates to go with their favourite drink. Keep a look out for IZAKAYA – a new Sunday Japanese Brunch Club featuring sushi and small plates from SHIO, paired with drinks from The Spirit Run. The event will feature on Sundays in September.

    The new addition forms part of Derby Market Hall’s phased reopening, which has seen several new traders joining the historic building in recent months. More traders are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. 

    Nichol Malia-Barlow, owner of The Spirit Run, said:

    I’m absolutely thrilled that The Spirit Run is now open. We’ve had an amazing opportunity to bring something truly unique to the heart of Derby as the city centre’s first distillery. The historic Market Hall is the perfect location for The Spirit Run.

    Not only will customers have a place where they can socialise and catch up with friends over drinks, but they’ll also be able to see their favourite wines, gin, rum, and more, being produced in the distillery. We welcome everyone to come and view the transformed space.

    Councillor Nadine Peatfield, Leader of Derby City Council and Cabinet Member for City Centre, Strategy, Regeneration and Policy, said:

    It was an absolute pleasure to be a part of the opening of The Spirit Run on Saturday 19 July. The Spirit Run is a perfect addition to the iconic Derby Market Hall, offering a truly unique experience to each visitor as the first distillery in Derby’s city centre. 

    I’m really proud that we are showcasing the best of Derby and Derbyshire’s local talent. The Market Hall is thriving and offers something truly unique to each visitor. I’m looking forward to announcing more traders soon.

    I also can’t wait to try a cocktail that’s been made in the Market Hall; gin just happens to be my favourite tipple!

    Darley Abbey Wines, which began as a wine merchant in 2007, has steadily expanded its offerings. They opened a popular wine bar at Darley Abbey Mills, known for its live music and tasting events, and established Darley Abbey Distillery in 2020. Located at the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, their home is a seventeenth-century cotton mill which once produced the finest cotton thread. Today, Darley Abbey Wines expertly crafts fine spirits in small batches, honouring the building’s rich history. 

    Their first gin, The Uncommon Thread London Dry, launched in November 2022 to great success. The new Derby Market Hall distillery will allow them to increase production, expand existing and new brands, and facilitate exciting small-batch local projects and collaborations.

    The iconic Derby Market Hall reopened in May following a £35.1 million restoration, creating a vibrant venue that brings together the best of the region’s independent shopping, eating, drinking, and entertainment under one beautiful roof. 

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Wyoming to honor Purple Heart recipients with Capitol ceremony on July 28

    Source: US State of Wyoming

    Wyoming National Guard

    By Joseph Coslett Jr.

    CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The Wyoming Veterans Commission invites Purple Heart recipients, their families, fellow veterans, service members, and the public to attend the 2025 Purple Heart Day Proclamation Signing Ceremony on July 28, 2025, from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

    Every Purple Heart tells a story, a moment when courage overcame fear when sacrifice triumphed over self-preservation. From Soldiers wounded in far-off combat zones to those who never returned home, this decoration represents the cost of freedom. And for Wyoming families, those stories are deeply personal.

    Created by General George Washington in 1782 as the “Badge of Military Merit,” the Purple Heart is the oldest military award still given to members of the U.S. Armed Forces. Today, it is awarded to those who have been wounded or killed while serving their country in combat.

    “Purple Heart Day,” recognized in Wyoming on August 7 each year by state statute, is more than a date on the calendar. It is a sacred reminder of the service and sacrifice made by brave men and women—including many from our own communities—who have earned this distinguished honor, according to the Veterans Commission.

    The July 28 proclamation signing will feature remarks from state and military leaders, personal reflections from veterans and families, and a reading of the official proclamation. Attendees are encouraged to listen, learn, and honor the stories of those who have sacrificed so much.

    “This day allows us to pause, reflect and say thank you,” said Tim Sheppard, Executive Director of the Wyoming Veterans Commission. “By attending, you’re helping carry the memory and meaning of their sacrifice forward. We encourage all to join us in honoring our Purple Heart heroes.”

    EVENT DETAILS

    What: Purple Heart Day Proclamation Signing Ceremony
    When: Monday, July 28, 2025 | 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
    Where: Capitol Building | Cheyenne, WY
    Who: Purple Heart recipients, veterans, families, elected officials, and the public

    Media are welcome and encouraged to attend. The event provides a meaningful opportunity to document and share stories of heroism and sacrifice. Interviews with veterans, officials and family members will be available.

    For more information or to coordinate media coverage, contact:

    Wyoming Veterans Commission
    Email: wyoveterans@wyo.gov
    Phone: (800) 833-5987
    Website: www.wyomilitary.wyo.gov/veterans

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Congresswoman Harriet Hageman Votes in Favor of Historic Rescissions Package

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman

    Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Harriet Hageman joined her Republican colleagues in passing a historic rescission package, sending it to President Trump’s desk. This measure removes $1.1 billion in annual federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS & NPR), and $7.9 billion from USAID foreign aid programs, totaling $9 billion in reclaimed taxpayer dollars. 

    The Congresswoman released the following statement:  

    “For too long, American families have been forced to subsidize liberal-leaning media under the guise of ‘public service.’ When NPR/PBS were started, there were few options available. There are now so many different outlets that need for government funded media has been replaced by the free market, and public media now prioritizes far-left narratives over balanced journalism. This federal funding should not support woke indoctrination in children’s programming, including, drag queen story hours, political lectures from popular characters, and anti-American messaging, when parents can choose from a vast, private media landscape,” said Congresswoman Hageman. 

    “In emergency situations like the recent Texas floods, taxpayers discovered private broadcasters stepped up with immediate alerts and lifesaving updates, while NPR affiliates lagged behind, remaining silent for hours. This proves that public safety is not uniquely tied to taxpayer-funded media. 

    This rescission marks our first major strike against federal waste, fraud, and abuse, and it is just the beginning. We will continue to scrutinize every dollar the federal government claims it needs. American families deserve a government that is lean, accountable, and focused on results, not politicized media subsidies.” 

    Examples of what we are defunding: 

    • PBS programming includes “Real Boy,” a program about a trans teen, and “Our League” about a trans woman returning to her hometown
    • $1 million for voter ID in Haiti
    • $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street
    • $1 million for programs to strengthen the resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer global movements
    • PBS shows that indoctrinate children such as, “Drag Queen Story Hour”
    • $33,000 for “Being LGBTI in the Caribbean”
    • NPR requested and received a $1.9 million grant commitment from CPB to hire more “moderate” Editors and journalists, as they recognized their complete leftist bias
    • $130 million from other IOP programs, which includes programs like UN Women, UN Panel on Climate Change, Int’l Conservation Programs, etc. 

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: UK hammers Putin’s energy revenues with fresh sanctions

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    Press release

    UK hammers Putin’s energy revenues with fresh sanctions

    Fresh sanctions ramp up pressure on Russia’s critical oil industry and hit Putin’s creaking shadow fleet operation.  

    • UK announces 137 sanctions targeting Putin’s critical energy and oil sectors.  
    • New sanctions will disrupt the flow of oil money into Putin’s war chest and strand more of his beleaguered shadow fleet.  
    • Today’s action comes as the UK and EU lowered the Crude Oil Price Cap further disrupting the flow of oil money into Putin’s war chest.  

    The 137 targets strike at the heart of Russia’s energy sector, restricting Putin’s access to key oil revenues bankrolling his illegal war in Ukraine.  

    The new sanctions further crack down on Putin’s shadow fleet operations, targeting 135 oil tankers which form part of the fleet responsible for illicitly carrying $24 billion worth of cargo since the start of 2024.   

    Today’s action also tightens the net around those enabling Russia’s illicit shadow fleet oil trade, hitting INTERSHIPPING SERVICES LLC, responsible for registering shadow fleet vessels under the banner of the Gabonese flag, resulting in these vessels transporting up to $10 billion worth of goods on behalf of the Russian state per year. Sanctions also target LITASCO MIDDLE EAST DMCC, which is linked to Russian oil major Lukoil, for its ongoing role in moving large volumes of Russian oil on shadow fleet vessels.  

    Every attack we launch against Russia’s critical oil industry is another step towards securing a lasting peace in Ukraine, and a step towards security in the UK and beyond. Keeping the country safe is this government’s priority and is an integral part of the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change. 

    Foreign Secretary David Lammy said:   

    New sanctions will further dismantle Putin’s shadow fleet and drain Russia’s war chest of its critical oil revenues.  

    As Putin continues to stall and delay on serious peace talks, we will not stand idly by. We will continue to use the full might of our sanctions regime to ratchet up economic pressure at every turn and stand side by side with Ukraine.    

    This announcement further demonstrates the UK’s tough approach to those who continue to prop up Putin’s oil industry, enable his shadow fleet operation and aid and abet his illegal war in Ukraine.  

    To date western sanctions have resulted in Russia’s oil and gas revenues falling every year since 2022 – losing over a third of its value in three years. Sanctions and the cost of Putin’s barbaric war are causing the Russian economy to stall – with the wealth fund hollowed out, inflation rising and government spend on defence and security spiralling.  

    Today’s action comes as the UK and EU lowered the Crude Oil Price Cap disrupting the flow of oil money into Putin’s war chest and striking at the heart of his oil revenues.   

    Background   

    • A full list of today’s targets can be found here

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 July 2025

    Invasion of Ukraine

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: China unveils new regulations for rental housing sector

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

    An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang signed a State Council regulation on issuing regulations for the high-quality development of the rental housing market to build a housing construction system that is favorable for both rental and purchase.

    The new regulations, which will come into effect on September 15, emphasize the integration of the leading role of the market and the guiding role of the government in the development of the sector. They also encourage an increase in the supply of rental housing through multiple channels and promote the development of market-oriented professional rental housing enterprises.

    The document sets out rules governing the rental business and the conduct of rental businesses and brokerage agencies. Rental brokerage agencies must verify and record information provided by authorized representatives, conduct on-site inspections of properties before listing them, and clearly state the prices for their services, the document states.

    The document stresses the need to strengthen supervision and management of the rental housing sector. Local people’s governments at or above the city level with district divisions should establish a mechanism to monitor housing rents and regularly publish information on rental prices.

    The document provides for strict legal liability for illegal actions of landlords, tenants, rental housing companies, brokerage agencies and employees of relevant government agencies. -0-

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

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    MIL OSI Russia News –