As you may have seen, yesterday Connecticut joined 21 other states in taking legal action in an effort to prevent the recently announced changes to the NIH funding model from taking effect.
Here is the declaration from UConn in support of this action.
Here is a detailed document that discusses the vital role that this NIH funding plays in supporting the research enterprise at UConn and every other research university in the nation.
This federal support is essential to the critical work of our faculty and staff, which continues to have a profound and highly beneficial impact on the lives of millions of people. And, as the research community knows, many of these grants have a sprawling positive economic impact locally, regionally, and nationally as well.
The current federal funding model, which has roots going back nearly eight decades, is also what helped to make the United States of America the preeminent global leader in health science and technology research, discovery, and innovation.
Last night, in response to the suit filed by the coalition of states, a federal judge temporarily blocked the changes from taking effect for institutions in these 22 states.
Other organizations and institutions, including APLU, AAU, and ACE, have also filed suits.
UConn remains in close contact with state leaders, members of our federal delegation, and colleagues around the nation on this issue and will continue to monitor it closely and share information as it becomes available.
In the meantime, please note that the proposed changes, should they take effect, would not impact direct grant funding budgeted for the costs of conducting research or funds for investigator and staff salaries.
We know that faculty and staff are understandably concerned by these events. Please know we will do all we can to support you and keep you informed. Even in this challenging moment, the best thing our researchers can do is focus on carrying out your important work.
Please direct any specific questions regarding this ongoing issue or anything else research-related to research@uconn.edu. We continue to update the OVPR FAQ website regularly.
NEW YORK, Feb. 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Solomon Partners, a leading financial advisory firm and independent affiliate of Natixis, today announced a significant expansion of its Financial Institutions Group with the hiring of Juan Guzman as a Partner, and Faiz Vahidy and Matthew Cornish as Managing Directors. The trio previously worked at Houlihan Lokey and will now collaborate with their former colleague Arik Rashkes, who started at Solomon in December as Head of the recently formed Financial Institutions Group.
“Collectively Juan, Faiz and Matt represent a meaningful step toward rapidly building out our Financial Institutions practice. They each have substantial experience across a variety of subsectors and have successfully worked together in their prior roles,” said Marc Cooper, CEO of Solomon Partners.
Mr. Rashkes added, “My colleagues are well known and respected across the financial services industry as talented investment bankers who are dedicated to serving clients. Together we will further develop Solomon’s Financial Institutions advisory services.”
Mr. Guzman specializes in mortgage services and insurance, as well as the broader real estate services sector. He has more than 20 years of experience in financial services, advising clients on a diverse range of transactions, including M&A, capital raising, valuations, and special committee assignments. Prior to joining Solomon, Mr. Guzman was a Managing Director in Houlihan Lokey’s Financial Services Group focused on the mortgage services and insurance sectors. He earned an MBA with concentrations in Corporate Finance and Law & Business from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.
“I look forward to contributing to Solomon’s growth and success by expanding the Financial Institutions Group and the sub-sectors we serve. The firm’s commitment to excellence and client-focused approach aligns with my professional values and goals,” Mr. Guzman commented.
At Solomon, Mr. Vahidy will primarily focus on advising insurance distribution companies on mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, divestitures, fairness opinions, strategic planning, and other corporate finance engagements. He has more than two decades of experience in financial services, covering insurance distribution companies including MGAs, MGUs, BGAs, IMOs, and FMOs. He has successfully executed a wide variety of transactions for insurance carriers, insurance services providers, and insurtech companies. Mr. Vahidy received a BBA from the George Washington University and an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
In his new role, Mr. Cornish will specialize in insurance services and illiquid financial assets, leveraging his extensive experience in corporate finance and advisory services. He previously served as a Director in Houlihan Lokey’s Financial Services Group & Illiquid Financial Assets Group. Over the past 15 years, Mr. Cornish executed transactions across multiple industries and asset classes, including benefits, claims, TPAs, property & casualty insurance, life settlements, tax receivable agreements, minority equity, receivership wind-downs, and private equity and hedge fund LP interests. He holds a BS in Accountancy, Economics, and Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from Villanova University.
About Solomon Partners
Founded in 1989, Solomon Partners is a leading financial advisory firm with a legacy as one of the oldest independent investment banks. Our difference is unmatched industry knowledge in the sectors we cover, creating superior value with unrivaled wisdom for our clients. We advise clients on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings, recapitalizations, capital markets solutions and activism defense across a range of verticals. These include Business Services, Consumer Retail, Distribution, Financial Institutions, Financial Sponsors, FinTech, Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants, Healthcare, Industrials, Infrastructure, Power & Renewables, Media and Technology. Solomon Partners is an independently operated affiliate of Natixis, part of Groupe BPCE. For further information, visit solomonpartners.com.
Photos accompanying this announcement are available at
As the granddaughter of immigrants from Lithuania and Poland who spoke little English, I understand what it’s like to be treated as a stranger in America.
As a journalist, I covered stories of war and trauma in the 1990s, including the crushing of Chinese protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed by the Soviet Union’s collapse two years later. I covered the war between Iraq and Iran. I witnessed ethnic strife in South Africa and the toll poverty takes in Mexico.
And having worked in senior levels of the U.S. government for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on international conflict resolution, I have learned that compassion is a key ingredient of peacemaking.
Perhaps that all explains my curiosity about a new study on the state of compassion in America – part of the glue that holds communities together.
Defining compassion
Sociologists define compassion as the human regard for the suffering of others, and the notion of using action to alleviate this pain.
The report that caught my eye was issued in January 2025 by the Muhammad Ali Center, which the late boxer co-founded 20 years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, to advance social justice.
As the Ali Center explains, compassion starts with the individual – self-care and personal wellness. It then radiates out to the wider community in the form of action and engagement.
You can see compassion at work in the actions of a Pasadena, California, girl, who started a donation hub for teens affected by fires that ripped through the Los Angeles region in early 2025. She began collecting sports bras, hair ties and fashionable sweaters – helping hundreds of her peers begin to recover from their losses in material and emotional ways.
It’s also visible in the estimated 6.8 million people in the U.S. who donate blood each year, according to the American Red Cross.
The researchers who worked on the Ali Center report interviewed more than 5,000 U.S. adults living in 12 cities in 2024 in order to learn more about the prevalence of compassionate behaviors such as charitable giving, volunteering and assisting others in their recovery from disasters.
They found that the desire to help others still animates many Americans despite the nation’s current polarization and divisive politics.
The center has created an index it calls the “net compassion score.” It approximates the degree to which Americans give their time and money to programs and activities that nurture and strengthen their communities.
Cities with high compassion scores have more community engagement and civic participation than those with low scores. A higher-scoring community performs better when it comes to things like public housing and mental health resources, for example. Its residents report more career opportunities, better communications between local government and citizens, more community programs and more optimism around economic development where they live.
The report provides some clues as to what drives compassionate behavior in a city: a sense of spirituality, good education, decent health care, resources for activities like sports, and opportunities to engage in local politics.
All told, Americans rate their country as a 9 on a scale that runs from minus 100 to 100.
The report also identified some troubling obstacles that stand in the way of what it calls “self-compassion” – meaning how volunteers and donors treat their own mental and physical health. Frequent struggles with self-care can lead to rising levels of isolation and loneliness.
Jeni Stepanek, left, chair of the Muhammad Ali Index; Lonnie Ali, co-founder and vice chair of the Muhammad Ali Center; and DeVone Holt, the center’s president and CEO, at the launch of the Muhammad Ali Index on Jan. 16, 2025. Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Muhammad Ali Center
Doubting their own capacity
The 2025 Compassion Report’s findings show that many Americans still want to live in a compassionate country but also that Americans view the country as less compassionate today than four years ago.
The report delves into gaps in compassion. About one-third of those interviewed acknowledged that there are groups toward whom they feel less compassionate toward, such as people who have been convicted of crimes, immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization and the rich.
Only 29% said they feel compassion toward everyone.
The report also identifies gender gaps. Despite expressing greater awareness of systemic challenges, the women surveyed reported less self-compassion than men.
It’s not the first compassion study ever done. But I believe that this one is unique due to its focus on specific cities, and how it assessed limits on the compassion some people feel toward certain groups.
Helping health and humanity
The Compassion Institute, another nonprofit, seeks to weave compassion training into health care education to “create a more caring and humanitarian world.” It cites the benefits of compassion for human beings, with everything from reducing stress to alleviating the effects of disease on the mind and body.
Academic institutions, including Stanford University, have conducted many studies on how teaching compassion can guide health care professionals to both treat patients better and achieve better outcomes.
A team of Emory University researchers examined how training people to express more compassion can reduce stress hormones levels, triggering positive brain responses that improve immune responses.
Offering an advantage
Although there are plenty of adorable videos of dogs and cats behaving kindly with each other or their human companions, historically compassion has differentiated humans from animals.
Human beings possess powers of emotional reasoning that give us an edge.
Scholars are still working to discover how much of human compassion is rooted in emotional reasoning. Another factor they’ve identified is the aftermath of trauma. Studies have found evidence that it can increase empathy later on.
You might imagine that in a world of hurt, there’s a deficit of compassion for others. But the Ali Center’s report keeps alive the notion that Americans remain compassionate people who want to help others.
My experiences around the world and within the U.S. have taught me that human beings both have the power to be violent and destructive. But despite it all, there is, within all of us, the innate ability and desire to be compassionate. That is a net positive for our country.
Tara Sonenshine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
he Secretary-General joins the people of Namibia in mourning the passing of His Excellency Dr. Sam Nujoma.
An architect of Namibia’s liberation struggle and recognized as its founding father, Dr. Nujoma led the nation’s transition to independence in 1990, when he was elected as the country’s first President. The United Nations stood alongside Dr. Nujoma and all Namibians, as the world witnessed the raising of the flag of the newly free and sovereign nation on 21 March of that year.
As President, Dr. Nujoma demonstrated steadfast leadership in the face of immense challenges, leaving an indelible mark on his country, Africa and the world.
The Secretary-General extends his heartfelt condolences to Dr. Nujoma’s family and to the Government and people of Namibia.
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden today introduced bipartisan legislation that would preserve coastal beaches in Oregon and nationwide by providing funding for state, local, and tribal governments to test, monitor, and identify recreational waters that are contaminated.
“The Oregon Coast offers unmatched opportunities for visitors to make fond memories and for residents of one of America’s most iconic coastlines to live and work in and next to the Pacific Ocean,” Wyden said. “But the ongoing threat of pollution piling up on our coastal beaches every year demands commonsense solutions that help protect this treasure and keep Oregonians healthy. This bill accomplishes those goals by protecting, preserving, and improving our beaches in every corner of Oregon and America for generations to come.”
Currently, there’s dedicated federal funding for monitoring and notifying beachgoers of contaminated coastal waters–but there is no money allocated towards identifying contaminated sites. Wyden’s new bill, the BEACH Act, would reauthorize this $30 million program over the next four years to allocate funding for identifying contaminated beaches and trace the source of the contamination.
Wyden’s bill would also expand testing locations to include shallow recreational waters near the beaches, where children and seniors often play and swim, who are more at risk of experiencing health issues from contamination.
The legislation is endorsed by Environment America, Surfrider, the America Shore & Beach Preservation Association, and the Coastal States Organization.
“Kudos to Senators Tillis and Wyden for moving to renew the BEACH Act – a critical step forward in safeguarding the health of our communities. This bipartisan legislation will ensure that families know when our waters are safe for swimming and help states pinpoint pollution sources,” said Caroline Wagar, Federal Legislative Associate at Environment America.
“Everyone deserves access to clean water to swim, surf, and play in. The BEACH Act ensures that people have the information they need to protect themselves and the health of their families when recreating at the beach and in our coastal waterways. The Surfrider Foundation wholeheartedly supports the reauthorization bill sponsored by Senators Tillis and Wyden,” said Mara Dias, Senior Manager of Surfrider’s Water Quality Initiative.
“ASBPA is proud to support reauthorization of the BEACH Act. We applaud Senator Wyden and Senator Tillis for continuing to prioritize this policy which empowers US coastal communities’ with information needed to elevate water quality at the nation’s beaches and shores,” said Annie Mercer, Blue Flag Program Coordinator for the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association.
“For over two decades the BEACH Act has helped keep swimmers healthy and safe every summer. This reauthorization helps ensure beachgoers will be notified as quickly as possible if water is unsafe to swim in, and gives coastal states and communities greater flexibility to identify and address sources of contamination,” said Derek Brockbank, Executive Director of Coastal States Organization.
Text of the bill is here. A one-page summary of the bill is here.
We inform you that, based on the letter of the Bank of Russia and in accordance with Part I. General Part and Part II. Stock Market Section of the Rules for Conducting Trading on the Stock Market, Deposit Market and Credit Market of Moscow Exchange PJSC, the order establishes the form, time, term and procedure for holding auctions for the placement and trading of the following federal loan bonds:
1.
Name of the Issuer
Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation
Name of security
federal loan bonds with constant coupon income
State registration number of the issue
26233RMFS from 02/14/2020
Date of the auction
February 12, 2025
Information about the placement (trading mode, placement form)
The placement of Bonds will be carried out in the Trading Mode “Placement: Auction” by holding an Auction to determine the placement price. BoardId: PACT (Settlements: Ruble)
Trade code
SE26233RMFS5
ISIN code
RO000A101F94
Calculation code
B01
Additional conditions of placement
The share of non-competitive bids in relation to the total volume of bids submitted by the Bidder may not exceed 90%.
Information about the placement (trading mode, placement form)
The placement of Bonds will be carried out in the Trading Mode “Placement: Auction” by holding an Auction to determine the placement price. BoardId: PACT (Settlements: Ruble)
Trade code
CO26248RMFS3
ISIN code
RO000A108EH4
Calculation code
B01
Additional conditions of placement
The share of non-competitive bids in relation to the total volume of bids submitted by the Bidder may not exceed 90%.
Contact information for media 7 (495) 363-3232Pr@moex.kom
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect
We inform you about changes in the stock market system planned for implementation on March 1, 2025. The changes are intended to ensure technical readiness for the start of trading in experimental mode on the stock market during additional weekend trading sessions.
Changes in stock market trading reports
The mandatory attribute of the trading session date is added to the reports SEM02 “Extract from the register of orders”, SEM03 “Extract from the register of transactions with securities”, SEM21 “Stock market information” and SEM42 “Register of transactions of sponsored access identifiers”:
TradeSessionDate — date of the trading session.
Additionally, an additional value for the SessionNo attribute is added to the SEM02, SEM03, and SEM21 reports:
5 – Additional weekend session.
The SEM2T tabulated report also adds the TradeSessionDate field — the date of the trading session. The field is added last.
The updated specification of the formats of reports on the results of trades is posted on the exchange website: HTTPS: //FS. MOEX.K.MOMU/943.Updated files of schemes and styles for printed forms of reports are published on the exchange’s FTP server: HTTPS: //FTP. MEEX.K.Mom/pub/reports/eckot.
The following reports will be sent out on the days of the additional weekend session:
after 08:00 (morning report) — SEM42; after 19:00 — SEM02, SEM03, SEM21, as well as SEM80 “Daily report on the fulfillment of market makers’ obligations (for the market makers’ championship)” and SEM85 “Daily report on the fulfillment of market makers’ obligations”.
Changes in stock market clearing reports
The mandatory attribute of the trading session date is added to the reports EQM06, EQM06P, EQM06R, EQM6C, EQM6D and EQM63 “Extract from the register of transactions accepted for clearing”:
TradeSessionDate — date of the trading session.
The updated specification of the formats of reports on the results of clearing is posted on the exchange website: HTTPS: //FS. MOEX.K.MOM/951.Updated files of schemes and styles for printed forms of reports are published on the exchange’s FTP server: HTTPS: //FTP. MEEX.K.Mom/pub/reports/eckot.
On the days of the additional weekend session, clearing reports are not generated or sent. Separate report files for the results of the DSVD are not expected. Information on transactions concluded in the DSVD will be included in the reports that are sent after the Main Session:
EQM06/EQM06P/EQM06R “Extract from the register of transactions accepted for clearing”; EQM63 “Extract from the register of transactions accepted for clearing (for a Trading Participant)”; EQM6C “Extract from the register of transactions accepted for clearing (for client transactions)”; EQM6D “Extract from the register of transactions accepted for clearing (for nominal holders); EQM13 “Report on Total Net Obligations / Total Net Claims”; EQM15 “Report on Commission Fees”; EQM23 “Report on Obligations for T Transactions”.
New version of the gateway interface Broker53 and BrokerRisk53
Previously announced The interface update has expired. A new version will be released on March 1, 2025.
Changes in the broker’s gateway interfaces for connecting to trading and clearing systems:
The WEEKENDSESSION field is added to the SECURITIES, FIRMS and BANKACC tables, defining availability in the additional weekend session. The TRADEDATE field is added to the ALL_TRADES table, containing the calendar date of the transaction. The TRADESESSIONDATE field is added to the TESYSTIME and RESYSTIME tables — the date of the current trading session. The TRADESESSIONDATE field is added to the TRADES, ALL_TRADES and USTRADES tables — the date of the trading session in which the transaction was concluded. The ENTRYDATE fields are added to the ONEORDER, ORDERS and QUOTES tables — the calendar date of order registration, TRADESESSIONDATE — the date of the trading session in which the order was registered. The TRADESESSIONDATE field is added to the NEGDEALS and ONENEGDEALS tables — the date of the trading session in which the order was registered.
The following fields are added to the ALL_TRADES table: TRADESESSIONDATE — date of the current trading session, TRADEDATE — calendar date of the transaction. The WEEKENDSESSION field is added to the SECURITIES table, defining availability in the additional weekend session. The TRADESESSIONDATE field — date of the current trading session — is added to the TESYSTIME table.
The composition of FIX and TWIME trading protocol messages, FAST MarketData templates and SIMBA ASTS message schemas will not change.
The additional weekend trading session will be held from 09:50:00 to 18:59:59
During the days of the additional weekend session, the Trading and Clearing System will be available for connection via all protocols starting from 07:50 MSK. The end of availability is no earlier than 20:00 MSK.
Registration of end customers
The Single Client Registration Service will process all transaction types (A, U, L, R, M, D) on weekends for a client record that is registered or registered only on the stock market.
If a client sends an “A” type transaction for a record that is registered on multiple markets, the ERC service will register the participant on the stock market, but will not register on other markets – an error message will be sent for them.
For type “U” or “D” transactions, if the client entry is registered in addition to the stock on the FX and Futures markets, the message will be rejected completely with an error.
Possible actions of participants:
Register clients on the stock market, re-submit applications for the currency or futures market on Monday. Postpone registration and do not send files to the exchange during the additional weekend session, but send them on Monday.
Admission of participants to an additional weekend session
Moscow Exchange will admit participants to an additional weekend session at the start of trading on March 1, 2025, upon the participant’s application.
Contact information for media 7 (495) 363-3232Pr@moex.kom
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect
Danielle R. Sassoon, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Antoinette T. Bacon, the Supervisory Official for the U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division; and James E. Dennehy, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the filing of charges against DANIEL SIKKEMA in connection with his role in a murder-for-hire plot that resulted in the death of his husband in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The charges are contained in a Superseding Indictment unsealed today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. SIKKEMA was previously charged in the Southern District of New York for passport fraud. The case is pending before U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos.
U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said: “As alleged, Daniel Sikkema and his co-conspirator planned and carried out a cold-blooded plot to murder Sikkema’s husband, a United States citizen, in Brazil. This Office will doggedly pursue justice against those who murder United States citizens, whether at home or abroad.”
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James E. Dennehy said: “In the midst of a tense divorce, Daniel Sikkema allegedly financed the premature death of his estranged husband. The defendant allegedly hired a hitman to facilitate the international murder of his husband, and attempted to conceal his involvement in this callous plan. The FBI will continue to vigorously investigate any individual who selfishly and mercilessly orders the end to another’s life, regardless of where the crime may occur.”
According to the allegations in the Superseding Indictment:[1]
In 2023, SIKKEMA agreed with another individual (“CC-1”) that SIKKEMA would pay CC-1 to kill SIKKEMA’s estranged husband (the “Victim”) in Brazil. At that time, SIKKEMA and the Victim were engaged in contentious divorce proceedings and the Victim regularly traveled to Brazil and owned property in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. To facilitate the murder-for-hire plot, SIKKEMA, a U.S. and Cuban citizen, sent multiple payments to CC-1 and CC-1’s romantic partner in Cuba. SIKKEMA also concealed the source of each of these payments by using either a stolen identity or an intermediary to send them.
On January 14, 2024, CC-1 murdered the Victim in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the days that followed, SIKKEMA and CC-1 continued to communicate and SIKKEMA arranged for a payment of approximately $5,000 to be made to CC-1 and promised to make an additional payment at a later date.
On January 18, 2024, CC-1 was arrested by Brazilian law enforcement for his involvement in the commission of the Victim’s murder.
* * *
SIKKEMA, 54, of New York, New York, is charged with one count of murder-for-hire conspiracy resulting in death, one count of murder-for-hire resulting in death, one count of conspiracy to murder and maim a person in a foreign country, and one count of passport fraud. If convicted, he faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison or death.
The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.
Ms. Sassoon praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI New York Field Office.
The case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith C. Foster and Remy Grosbard for the Southern District of New York are in charge of the prosecution with assistance from Trial Attorney Chelsea Schinnour of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.
The charges contained in the Superseding Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the text of the Superseding Indictment and the description of the Superseding Indictment set forth herein constitute only allegations, and every fact descried therein should be treated as an allegation.
DENVER – The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announces that Derris Mayberry, 37, of Denver, Colorado was convicted by federal juries in two trials on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of distribution of fentanyl.
According to the facts established at the trials, on the evening of March 22, 2024, a woman approached an officer conducting surveillance for an undercover operation and offered the officer “dope.” She then told the officer that she knew someone who could get “blues,” meaning fentanyl pills. The woman ultimately led undercover police officers to an alley near the Colorado State Capitol where Mayberry was waiting. An audio recording captured the undercover officer negotiating the price and amount of fentanyl pills. The officers then observed the woman make a hand-to-hand exchange with Mayberry, immediately after which the woman handed four fentanyl pills to the undercover officer in exchange for $20. Law enforcement contacted Mayberry shortly thereafter at a bus stop only feet away from where the deal had taken place. During a pat down, law enforcement found a loaded .22 caliber revolver in his shorts pocket. Mayberry had previously been convicted of multiple felonies and, therefore, was prohibited from possessing the loaded revolver. During a search incident to his arrest, law enforcement found additional fentanyl pills and the $20 used by the undercover officer to purchase the drugs.
Mayberry will be sentenced at a later date.
United States District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico presided over the trials. The Denver Police Department VICE unit and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives handled the investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Theodore O’Brien and Celeste Rangel handled the prosecution.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.
AUBURN, Ala., Feb. 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — On February 11, 2025, the Board of Directors of Auburn National Bancorporation, Inc. (the “Company”) (Nasdaq: AUBN) declared a first quarter $0.27 per share cash dividend, payable March 25, 2025 to shareholders of record as of March 10, 2025.
About Auburn National Bancorporation, Inc.
Auburn National Bancorporation, Inc. (the “Company”) is the parent company of AuburnBank (the “Bank”), with total assets of approximately $977 million. The Bank is an Alabama state-chartered bank that is a member of the Federal Reserve System, which has operated continuously since 1907. Both the Company and the Bank are headquartered in Auburn, Alabama. The Bank conducts its business in East Alabama, including Lee County and surrounding areas. The Bank currently operates seven full-service branches in Auburn, Opelika, Valley, and Notasulga, Alabama. The Bank also operates a loan production office in Phenix City, Alabama. Additional information about the Company and the Bank may be found by visiting www.auburnbank.com.
For additional information, contact: David A. Hedges President and CEO (334) 821-9200
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sebastian Smart, Senior Research Fellow in Access to Justice, Law and Technology, Anglia Ruskin University
Brazil’s president Lula da Silva is one of the Latin American leaders who are concerned about misinformation being used to undermine democracy.Focuspix/Shutterstock
Bosses of tech giants Meta, Google and X had front row seats at Donald Trump’s recent presidential inauguration. This special treatment highlighted the increasingly cosy relationship between leaders of technology companies and the White House.
Just a few weeks before the ceremony, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg had pledged to “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more”.
Zuckerberg also highlighted, and criticised, the restrictions that the European Union and Latin American nations had put in place to legally restrict the social media giants. These include liability for moderation and limiting targeted advertising.
However, Latin America is emerging as the region which is moving fast to protect democratic institutions from misuse of social media, and other technology.
For instance, Brazil’s proposed fake news bill (Lei das Fake News) seeks to regulate social media and curb misinformation. It has faced strong opposition from Google. The bill is still under consideration by Brazil’s Congress.
Other examples include how, in August 2024, Brazil’s Supreme Court temporarily banned X for failing to comply with legal requirements, including blocking social media accounts accused of spreading misinformation linked to the 2022 election. X had also failed to appoint a local legal official.
The platform remained suspended until October 8 2024, when X complied with the court’s orders, paid fines totalling 28 million reals (£3.9 million), and appointed a legal representative.
Brazil temporarily banned social media network X.
The court decision has been part of a broader effort in Brazil to protect its democracy and restrict potential disruption from use of technology or social media.
This push intensified after allies of then president Jair Bolsonaro used social media to spread misinformation (ahead of the 2022 elections), and then attack democratic institutions, and mobilise supporters in the lead-up to the January 8 2023 attacks on government buildings.
Digital platforms were used to spread false claims of voter fraud and discredit mainstream media as well as spread misinformation about Bolsonaro’s opponents. These efforts fuelled conspiracy theories and protests, which later turned violent. In response, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court tightened regulations, ordering platforms to remove false election claims.
But the region’s regulatory efforts extend beyond social media into other emerging technologies. Colombia, Ecuador and Chile – among others – are currently debating regulations of artificial intelligence (AI) and looking at AI’s human rights and environmental impact.
Chile was the first country to recognise neurorights (brain rights) in its constitution, ensuring protections against the misuse of neurotechnology, such as brain-computer interfaces that could read or manipulate thoughts, emotions or cognitive processes. These developing technologies could be used in medicine, but also raise ethical concerns about privacy and cognitive freedom.
Political leaders across Latin America also regularly challenge global technology leaders over their effect on society. Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric, has criticised Elon Musk’s support for far-right movements. Brazil’s president, Lula da Silva, said the world did not have to put up with Musk’s “far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”. Brazil’s first lady, Janja Lula da Silva, was even more direct. During a global summit on social media regulation, she declared: “I’m not afraid of you, fuck you, Elon Musk.”
History of authoritarianism
Many people in Latin America remember how political power was abused in the recent past to undermine democracy. During the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, many businesses supported repressive regimes.
In the early 1970s, Chilean president Salvador Allende had tried to establish the Cybersyn Project, an ambitious initiative to create an economic planning system using networked telex machines and an early form of algorithmic decision-making. It was designed to enhance state control over the economy, while reducing dependence on foreign corporations. But Cybersyn was dismantled after the US-backed military coup that installed Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Today, Latin America may be better positioned to counter foreign influence than it was in the 1970s. Brazil’s leadership at the recent G20 global summit, where it successfully pushed for social media and artificial intelligence regulation, showed that there is a regional will to push back against the demands, and power, of Silicon Valley’s technology giants.
The question is whether these countries can sustain their efforts against pressure from big companies, economic pressure (such as tariffs) and shifting geopolitical alliances. If they do, Latin American nations could provide a much-needed counterweight to corporate influence, and an example to the rest of the world of what could be achieved.
Sebastian Smart receives funding from FONDECYT-Chile
Consider the popular idea that you need to love yourself first, before you can find love from others. It was set out in the German psychologist Erich Fromm’s book The Art of Loving in 1956 and has been popularised in recent years by drag queen RuPaul’s catchphrase “if you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?”
But is it actually true? If we think of self-love in an extreme sense, as raging egocentricity, then the answer is a resounding “no”. Philosophers who reject self-love do so for this reason. Iris Murdoch is a case in point. She warned her readers that the proper direction of attention should always be outwards. Love others, not yourself.
This is a very sacrificial way of thinking about love. If we think about love as the most important way of valuing anything, then of course self-love is desirable. The person who has no self-love has no proper sense of their own worth as a unique, feeling being.
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This is the insight captured by the idea that we must love ourselves first. It’s endorsed by the classical philosophical tradition and is especially evident in discussions of friendship by Aristotle and Cicero where a friend is “another self” – someone who is due the same love that we have for ourselves.
They treat love for ourselves as a basic background to a good life, and hold that something has gone badly wrong when any of us lacks such an attitude. This is a far less sacrificial way of thinking. One in which being loved and loving ourselves turn out to be inseparable.
This is the insight that the catchphrase about loving yourself first plays upon. But it puts things the wrong way around. Coming to love ourselves often happens as a result of being loved by another person. It is an outcome, not a first step.
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In your 20s and 30s, you may find that all around you people have paired off. There is a game going on, played out with varying degrees of success. Some people find themselves always on the outside of this game. They have never had a girlfriend or boyfriend. Never even received a Valentine’s Day card. They may have wanted these things, and waited for them, but nothing has happened.
Many people live like this, with an exclusion from romantic love that makes it feel almost impossible to form an appropriate sense of self-worth. Those in this position cannot will themselves into self-love as a way of propelling themselves into the game. And they also cannot educate themselves into self-love.
In your 20s and 30s, you may find that all around you, people have paired off. Detail from Hesperus, the Evening Star, Sacred to Lovers by Joseph Noel Paton (1857). Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Even philosophers cannot do so. Immanuel Kant argued in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) that we are all autonomous rational agents and that this makes us equally valuable. But for those without a romantic history, their experience is not one of being equally valued.
What they need is not a special effort of will but the experience of being loved. Or of having been loved by someone that they themselves have loved. We cannot draw a sense of our own value from the love of someone we do not admire, or from the kind of abusive person who systematically undermines our sense of self-esteem. Being loved by someone dreadful, or just wildly unpleasant, is unlikely to fill any of us with warm fuzzy feelings. No matter how smitten we are. No matter what flowers and chocolate they send.
Being loved by someone we love, someone we value, is a different matter. Nothing shows us our own value so effectively.
A good deal of my own sense of value, for example, does not come from a recognition of my autonomy or from a self-willed effort to think nice thoughts about myself. It stems instead from being loved by my wife Suzanne. Without this experience of being loved, everything else would be diminished.
Being lovable
Most of us enjoy an approximation to this experience of being loved long before we ever experience actual romantic love.
Most of us have been loved by our parents, and up to a point by our siblings and friends. We even may have been loved by our pets – or at least by the dog, if not by the cat. But at a certain point, we want love of a more intimate and grownup sort. Love from someone who could simply pass us by in the street, but who does not do so. Without it, an adult sense of self-worth may remain permanently out of reach.
This does not mean to say that that every day must be a whirlwind of romance, or even that we have to be continuously in a relationship.
Suzanne and myself seem to have mated for life. We still buy one another flowers and chocolates for Valentine’s Day rather than gift vouchers and lawnmowers. Suzanne gets the flowers, I get the chocolates. It is a ritual in which we both win. But many people are just as content moving from one relationship to another.
What seems to matter in each case is seeing ourselves as lovable. Whether we are serial daters, or hibernate with a lifelong partner like two creatures in a burrow. What we really need is the experience of having been loved romantically, at some point in time. And the knowledge that it could happen again. A recognition that we may sometimes have bad romantic luck, and may have made mistakes – but that we remain fundamentally lovable.
Tony Milligan 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.
US tariffs – both threatened and imposed – on trade partners including China, Canada, Mexico and the EU quickly set off waves of retaliatory measures. The latest commodities in the sights of president Donald Trump are steel and aluminium – with tariffs of 25% announced for all imports. But not only do these taxes disrupt well-established trade flows, they ignite concerns over the very future of globalisation.
Yet amid this uncertainty, it’s possible that there may be a silver lining. Trump may inadvertently be paving the way for a realignment of trade relationships and the emergence of new economic blocs. Such partnerships could foster more resilient and regionally focused economic cooperation.
Trump’s decision to levy tariffs on its major trading partners disrupts the fundamental tenets of the gravity model of trade. According to this theory, trade between two nations is largely determined by their economic size and proximity. For instance, introducing tariffs to the close economic relationship between the US and Canada, underpinned by their shared border, effectively increases the distance between the two by raising costs and reducing the volume of bilateral trade.
However, these disruptions can inadvertently encourage diversification of trade relationships. As companies and governments seek to mitigate the risks associated with tariffs, they may begin to explore new markets and alternative supply chains. This could ultimately lead to a more dispersed and – potentially – more stable global trade system.
Yet as Trump continues to test the limits of his power, he is learning it is not so easy to defy gravity. Already, the president has dialled down tariffs on Canada and Mexico, while China has struck back with retaliatory measures.
One positive spin-off of the trade war may be the reinforcement of regional alliances. With traditional trade flows disrupted, countries are increasingly incentivised to strengthen ties with neighbouring economies.
North American outlook
Canada and Mexico, long considered natural trading partners of the US, might pivot towards deepening their economic cooperation. They may also look to bilateral agreements with other partners as well as seeking new markets, strengthening ties with China and Japan.
The USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) provides a strong foundation for trade. But attempts to dismantle this arrangement could see Canada and Mexico accelerating efforts to build closer economic ties with other regions, reducing their exposure to the US market.
Trump reveals his plans for sweeping steel tariffs on “everybody”.
Trump’s planned tariffs on steel threaten to undermine the USMCA. After all, it is designed to foster integrated supply chains and low-tariff economic cooperation among the three countries. This is likely to escalate trade tensions across the bloc, forcing a reassessment of the trade agreement’s key terms and destabilising the established relationships.
European Union outlook
The imposition of tariffs on the EU could lead to deepening integration among its member states. Faced with new pressures from the US, the EU might accelerate initiatives aimed at consolidating internal trade, harmonising regulations and promoting intra-European supply chains.
Member states, with France at the forefront, are already advocating for a united response to counteract US protectionism. They hope to signal a strong political commitment to resist the pressures from Trump.
Asia-Pacific outlook
China, as the world’s second-largest economy behind the US, may seek to expand its trade relationships in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. As China’s economic growth model is export-led, it may seek stronger partnerships with regional players and invest in new trade agreements. This could potentially give rise to an even more integrated Asian economic community.
A new economic order
Whatever else plays out, these tariff wars signal a reordering of the global economic landscape. Such disruptions, though painful in the short term, can create long-term changes that rebalance economic systems. The natural trading partner hypothesis reinforces this view by highlighting how countries with shared cultural, historical and geographical ties are likely to deepen their economic relationships in the face of external shocks.
Table of US trade
Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis (2025) Author provided
In this new order, traditional superpowers may find themselves challenged by unified responses from other nations. By imposing tariffs, the US risks isolating itself from these emerging alliances, while its major trading partners may become united in their efforts to counterbalance rising American protectionism.
The ripple effects of the US tariff row extend well beyond the directly involved countries, with significant implications for global trade networks. For the UK, already coping with the aftermath of Brexit, this new environment offers both challenges and opportunities.
With US-led protectionism disrupting traditional trade channels, the UK could seize the opportunity to diversify its export markets by forging stronger ties with the EU and digging deeper into its Commonwealth alliances. It could reinforce its position as a hub for international commerce while continuing to cultivate its relationship with the US. Managing Trump is a delicate balancing act for prime minister Keir Starmer, as both are expected to be in office for four years.
A word of caution – negotiating international trade agreements is a complex and lengthy process. This is the hard lesson learned by the UK. Its trade with the EU (its most important commercial partner) shrank after Brexit, driving the quest for new trading partners and agreements. But these fruits are slow to materialise.
The UK formally requested accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in February 2021, but only signed the accession protocol in July 2023.
And we should not forget that in 2024 the UK halted its trade talks with Canada after two years of negotiations, due to disagreements over the standards on some agricultural products.
Tariffs come with challenges, but they might also be the beginning of a slow and painful change towards a more balanced and robust global economic order.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: United Kingdom UK Parliament (video statements)
How is Government going to fix NHS dentistry?
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is examining the effectiveness of the Government’s plans to fix NHS dentistry.
The Committee will hear from senior officials at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England (NHSE), including DHSC’s interim permanent secretary Sir Chris Whitty, and NHSE’s Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard.
Just under half of the population had seen an NHS dentist in the 24 months pre-pandemic. This had only recovered to 40% by March 2024. The previous Government published its Dental Recovery Plan in February 2024, aiming to expand access to NHS dentistry over the next year. Other challenges for NHS dental delivery include the current dental contract acting as a disincentive to provide NHS care, falling numbers of dentists providing such care, and falling real-terms spend on NHS dentistry.
The NAO found that as of November 2024, it was not clear that any additional courses of treatment had been delivered under the recovery plan; just one dentist appeared to have been appointed under its new ‘golden hello’ recruitment scheme; and fewer new patients appeared to have been seen following the introduction of the Government’s new patient premium. Ministers had also decided to leave the procurement of mobile dental vans to local commissioners.
Other likely topics to be explored at the session include:
• The current condition of NHS dentistry and the impact of the dental recovery plan, which has an ambition to deliver an additional 1.5m courses of treatment by the end of March 2025;
• Addressing regional inequalities in access to dentistry, and the barriers to securing access to NHS dentistry for more people in England; and
• Future plans to recover NHS dentistry.
Source: United Kingdom UK Parliament (video statements)
Will airports expansion drive regional economic growth?
Whether expanding airports in the south east of England can benefit the rest of the UK economy will be the focus of a Transport Committee evidence session.
MPs will question Aviation Minister Mike Kane MP and a senior Department for Transport official, following a panel with economists and industry experts.
It comes after the Government recently announced support for a third runway at Heathrow and proposed expansions at Gatwick, Luton and other airports.
Witnesses may be asked to consider economic factors linked to airport expansion such as: the tourism industry, tax revenues generated, the UK’s large aircraft manufacturing sector, increased capacity for air freight, and catalytic effects on other businesses.
The New Economics Foundation, which is represented among witnesses in this session, has said it has been “some time” since the Government has assessed the “marginal economic impact” that airports expansion may have. The think tank has also pointed to varying methods of calculating the net economic impact that increased air travel has on the UK economy. For example, whether greater outbound travel by Brits could see a larger proportion of consumer spending happen abroad rather than at home, and to what extent that is offset by money spent in the UK from international tourists.
Heathrow has itself previously said that expansion would mean growing its workforce of 28,600 people to over 100,000. The cross-party Committee will question a representative of Frontier Economics, a think tank commissioned by Heathrow Airport to look into the potential economic benefits of building a third runway.
There will also be questions about the capacity of airports around the UK, whether they are surpassing or failing to meet demand, forecasts on future demand, and the role that larger ‘hub’ airports could play with smaller regional ones – a ‘hub and spoke’ model.
The Minister and DfT will be asked to explain how airport expansion will fit into a wider national strategy for the aviation sector, and how air travel strategically links with other transport networks such as roads and railways.
Source: United States Senator for Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is highlighting the dire consequences for lifesaving research at Wisconsin’s Universities after President Donald Trump and Elon Musk announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be making significant, illegal cuts to critical funding used to discover medical breakthroughs. The NIH announced that it is arbitrarily capping indirect cost rates at 15%, which will slash funding that helps research institutions, like the University of Wisconsin, conduct research, operate their facilities and labs, pay staff, and buy equipment needed for groundbreaking work to find cures for diseases and treatments for patients.
“Cutting funding for lifesaving cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and cancer will hurt Wisconsin families. Period. These illegal cuts will not only mean fewer treatment options for Americans down the road, but it also will cost Wisconsinites their jobs across our state,” said Senator Baldwin. “Elon Musk and Donald Trump are stripping away investments that help Wisconsin families to make room for their tax cut for billionaires and the biggest corporations. I’m standing up for Wisconsin and doing everything I can to push back on this illegal funding cut that will cost American lives and livelihoods.”
“For decades, the federal government and research universities have had a deep and extremely successful partnership to produce important research for the good of the nation.?UW–Madison has long been a research powerhouse, and this effort is central to our purpose. Federal funding has contributed to a wide variety of critical innovations and discoveries at UW–Madison, from weather satellites that save lives during natural disasters to the ‘UW Solution’ that advanced the practice of organ transplantation by extending the viability of human organs,” said the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Today, campus researchers are leading a major national NIH grant to unlock the mysteries surrounding Alzheimer’s disease in a quest for better treatments, and ultimately, a cure. Work done here saves lives with innovations like cell therapies to treat cancer and heart attacks, improvements in medical imaging, and new treatments for diabetes. Our research enterprise is at the heart of the Wisconsin Idea, our commitment to innovating for the public good and doing work that makes a difference for Wisconsin and the world.”
“As we continue to assess the situation and its potential impact on our university, we recognize the significant role of NIH-funded research at UW-Milwaukee, totaling $7.9 million from 2019 to 2027. These projects support critical research that enhance quality of life by improving physical and mental health interventions, disease prevention strategies and public health policies. Examples of these projects include studies on genetic mutations linked to birth defects in children, the neuroscience of aging and the effects of wheelchair use on shoulder pain,” said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone.
Indirect costs are necessary expenses for universities that support research, including paying key support staff, maintaining equipment, and operating labs, among other activities. Slashing this funding will shift billions of dollars in burdens to states and their taxpayers, who cannot afford to pay the difference. According to a lawsuit filed by 22 states including Wisconsin to block the Trump Administrative directive, this cut to NIH funding at UW-Madison would eliminate approximately $65 million in funding – which would mean layoffs and immediately halting research programs including potentially terminating clinical trials. UW-Madison could be forced to not only stop admitting new patients to some clinical trials, but to scale back ongoing clinical trials. This means slower and fewer treatments for adult and pediatric cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, degenerative neurologic diseases, and more. A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the NIH funding cuts from going into effect, issuing a temporary restraining order, and setting a hearing for February 21.
Implementing the Trump Administration’s 15% cap on indirect costs would mean an immediate loss of billions of dollars that have already been committed at research institutions across the country to employ tens of thousands of researchers and other workers. It would mean an immediate halt of life-saving health research and cutting-edge biomedical innovations that produce vaccines and cures for diseases like cancer and addiction. It would have a ripple effect across the private sector as it disrupts partnerships with private institutions, causing some of them to go bankrupt. Business communities, mayors, governors, and Chambers of Commerce across the country have all expressed concerns about the devastating impact imposing this illegal, arbitrary policy would have on local and state economies.
Research institutions in Wisconsin, including the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Medical College of Wisconsin, Marquette University, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, among other University of Wisconsin System schools, will be impacted by these funding cuts.
As Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies, Senator Baldwin is responsible for writing the bill that funds the NIH, which explicitly prohibits NIH from taking this arbitrary action.
LAREDO, Texas – Two U.S. citizens have been ordered to federal prison for attempting to bring a 7-year-old Mexican minor into the United States for personal financial gain, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Sisters Naidelyn Yuliana Vielma Jimenez, 22, Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and Bianca Jackeline Vielma Jimenez, 23, Laredo, pleaded guilty Sept. 17 and Oct. 17, 2024, respectively.
U.S. District Judge Diana Saldaña has now imposed a 36-month-term of imprisonment for both sisters to be immediately followed by three years of supervised release.
On July 9, 2024, both women arrived at the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge at Laredo along with their 16-year-old sister and a 7-year-old male. At that time, they all purported to be one family unit and that the male was their 15-year-old brother.
They showed authorities a video and photograph allegedly depicting the boy with their family. They also presented a copy of their 15-year-old brother’s documents as additional proof to convince them the child was their brother.
However, law enforcement did not believe the boy was the same one depicted and that the child in the vehicle was much younger. Further investigation revealed that the child was not related to the women.
The two older sisters ultimately admitted they had made an agreement to smuggle the Mexican child into the United States and transport him to San Antonio for a fee of $3,000.
“Prior open border policies have inflicted an incalculable human toll, much of which has unfortunately fallen upon innocent children,” said Ganjei. “The Department of Justice, and, in particular, the Southern District of Texas, will do whatever it takes to destroy the market for the trafficking and smuggling of children. For those who profit off this misery, you will be found and prosecuted.”
Both women were permitted to remain on bond and voluntarily surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future
Customs and Border Protection conducted this investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose Homero Ramirez prosecuted this case.
PITTSBURGH, Pa. – A citizen of Mexico has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on a charge of illegal re-entry of a removed alien, Acting United States Attorney Troy Rivetti announced today.
The one-count Indictment named Juan Antonio Lopez Mauricio, 25, as the sole defendant.
According to the Indictment, on January 30, 2025, Mauricio was found in this District after having been removed from the United States four times between 2012 and 2015.
The law provides for a maximum total sentence of up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both. Under the federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed would be based upon the seriousness of the offense and the prior criminal history of the defendant.
Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca L. Silinski is prosecuting this case on behalf of the United States.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations conducted the investigation leading to the Indictment.
An indictment is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
PITTSBURGH, Pa. – A citizen of Guatemala has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on a charge of illegal re-entry of a removed alien, Acting United States Attorney Troy Rivetti announced today.
The one-count Indictment named Eric Estuardo Hernandez-Ramos, 19, as the sole defendant.
According to the Indictment, on January 25, 2025, Hernandez-Ramos was found in the Western District of Pennsylvania after having been removed from the United States on or about December 18, 2023.
The law provides for a maximum total sentence of up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both. Under the federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed would be based upon the seriousness of the offense and the prior criminal history of the defendant.
Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca L. Silinski is prosecuting this case on behalf of the United States.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations conducted the investigation leading to the Indictment.
An indictment is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Source: United States Senator for Colorado John Hickenlooper
NET Act will ensure broadband projects, like those from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, remain on track by identifying supply chain gaps early
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper, Shelley Moore Capito, Gary Peters, and Jerry Moran reintroduced their bipartisan Network Equipment Transparency (NET) Act to increase broadband supply chain transparency through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make sure federal broadband programs stay on track.
Previous supply chain disruptions have delayed broadband infrastructure projects. A lack of transparency into the health of the telecommunications supply chain may contribute to future equipment shortages as federal broadband programs prioritize high-speed, reliable, and accessible networks.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invested billions to jumpstart broadband projects nationwide. This bill would help to identify supply chain issues earlier so they can be addressed with less impact on these ongoing projects.
“Our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will connect every Coloradan to reliable high-speed internet,” said Hickenlooper. “Supply chain disruptions delay the rollout of these projects. We have no time to waste.”
“In order to effectively connect our communities, it’s critical that our federal agencies work to address any potential problems that would slow or hinder this process of deployment. I’m proud to join my colleagues in reintroducing the NET Act, which will provide us with another tool to monitor the supply chain so these crucial projects can be executed in a timely manner,” Capito said.
“Resilient, efficient supply chains are essential to keeping prices low and ensuring Americans can get the products they need, and that includes broadband internet,” said Peters. “This bipartisan bill would fortify the investments we made in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand high-speed, affordable internet by identifying issues in the broadband supply chain early, before they impact American businesses, workers, and consumers. I’ll continue to fight for high-speed internet access for all Michiganders.”
“In this digital age, access to reliable internet can determine the success of farms, businesses and even health care in rural communities,” said Moran. “Adding transparency to the supply chains that support broadband infrastructure projects will help speed up the rollout of programs designed to increase internet activity for rural America.”
Specifically, the bill would require the FCC’s Communications Marketplace Report to describe to Congress the impact of supply chain disruptions on the timely completion or deployment of broadband infrastructure projects.
The senators previously introduced the NET Act in the 118th Congress.
Full text of the bill is available HERE.
Source: United States Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tina Smith (D-MN) called on the Trump Administration’s Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Acting Director William W. Lothrop to reconsider the decision to deactivate Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Duluth and ensure that BOP employees can continue to serve in Duluth.
“The employees of FPC Duluth and their families strengthen the local economy and have deep roots in the Duluth area,” wrote the Senators. “They have expressed their frustration that the deactivation of FPC Duluth will mean either commuting to Federal Correctional Institution Sandstone — approximately 90 minutes away — relocating to a new state or leaving BOP altogether.”
“We urge you to direct the Bureau of Prisons to reconsider its decision to deactivate FPC Duluth, and engage with the employees and community in Duluth,” the Senators continued.
This letter is a follow-up to an earlier oversight letter that Senators Klobuchar and Smith sent to former Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Colette Peters on December 23, 2024, expressing their concern regarding the deactivation.
The full text of the letter is available here and below:
Dear Acting Director Lothrop:
This is a follow up to a letter we sent to former Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Colette Peters on December 23, 2024, expressing our frustration and concern regarding the deactivation of Federal Prison Camp Duluth (FPC Duluth).
We renew our questions below:
On what basis did the BOP determine that the facilities at FPC Duluth are dilapidated, and did the BOP do an assessment of how FPC Duluth’s facilities compare to other minimum-security facilities?
Did the BOP solicit any input from the employees at FPC Duluth, local community leaders, or other stakeholders when making the decision to deactivate FPC Duluth?
What steps is the BOP taking to ensure that employees whose livelihoods are impacted by FPC Duluth’s deactivation can remain in the Duluth area?
The employees of FPC Duluth and their families strengthen the local economy and have deep roots in the Duluth area. They have expressed their frustration that the deactivation of FPC Duluth will mean either commuting to Federal Correctional Institution Sandstone — approximately 90 minutes away — relocating to a new state or leaving BOP altogether.
We are disappointed that the BOP has not kept our offices briefed on its progress to ensure our constituents can find other employment and that the inmates are being transferred in accordance with the law.
We urge you to direct the Bureau of Prisons to reconsider its decision to deactivate FPC Duluth, and engage with the employees and community in Duluth.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Alan W. Filion, 18, of Lancaster, California, was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for making interstate threats to injure the person of another.
According to the plea agreement, from approximately August 2022 to January 2024, Filion made over 375 swatting and threat calls, including calls in which he claimed to have planted bombs in the targeted locations or threatened to detonate bombs and/or conduct mass shootings at those locations. Filion targeted religious institutions, high schools, colleges and universities, government officials, and numerous individuals across the United States.
Filion intended his calls to cause large-scale deployment of police and emergency services units to the targeted locations. During these calls, he provided information to law enforcement and emergency services agencies that he knew to be false, such as false names, false claims that he and others had placed explosives in particular locations, false claims that he and others possessed dangerous weapons, including firearms and explosives, and false claims that he and other individuals had committed, or intended to imminently commit, violent crimes.
In some instances, armed law enforcement officers approached and entered a targeted residence with their weapons drawn and detained individuals that occupied the residence. Indeed, Filion claimed in a post on Jan. 20, 2023, that when he swats someone, he “usually get[s] the cops to drag the victim and their families out of the house cuff them and search the house for dead bodies.” Additionally, Filion’s calls caused law enforcement officers and dispatchers to respond, and to be unavailable in response to other emergencies.
Filion became a serial swatter for both profit and recreation. He claimed in a Jan. 19, 2023, online post that his “first” swatting was like “2 to 3 years ago” and that “6-9 months ago [he] decided to turn it into a business. . .” On several occasions, Filion placed posts on social media channels advertising his services and swatting-for-a-fee structure.
On Jan.18, 2024, Filion was arrested in California on Florida state charges arising from a May 2023 threat he made to a religious institution in Sanford, Florida. In that threat, he claimed to have an illegally modified AR-15, a Glock 17 pistol, pipe bombs, and Molotov cocktails. He said that he was going to imminently “commit a mass shooting” and “kill everyone” he saw. He pleaded guilty in federal court to making that threat.
Filion also pleaded guilty to making three other threatening calls: an October 2022 call to a public high school in the Western District of Washington, in which he threatened to commit a mass shooting and claimed to have planted bombs throughout the school; a May 2023 call to a Historically Black College or University in the Northern District of Florida, in which he claimed to have placed bombs in the walls and ceilings of campus housing that would detonate in about an hour; and a July 2023 call to a local police department dispatch number in the Western District of Texas, in which he falsely identified himself as a senior federal law enforcement officer, provided the federal law-enforcement officer’s residential address to the dispatcher, claimed to have killed the federal officer’s mother, and threatened to kill any responding police officers.
The FBI and U.S. Secret Service investigated the case, with valuable assistance provided by the Seminole County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office; the Anacortes (Washington) Police Department; the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; the California Department of Justice; the Los Angeles County (California) Sheriff’s Office; and the Volusia County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kara Wick for the Middle District of Florida prosecuted the case, with valuable assistance from the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section; the State Attorney’s Office for Seminole County, Florida, 18th Judicial Circuit; and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Western District of Washington, Northern District of Florida, Western District of Texas, and District of Columbia.
A New York man was arrested and charged in a superseding indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York for hiring someone to kill his estranged husband, who was murdered in Rio de Janeiro in January 2024. Sikkema made his initial court appearance on the superseding indictment today in the Southern District of New York.
According to court documents, beginning in 2023, Daniel Sikkema, 54, of New York City, offered another individual (CC-1) money in exchange for CC-1 killing Sikkema’s estranged husband, with whom Sikkema was involved in contentious divorce proceedings. The victim, who was a U.S. citizen, had amassed a multi-million-dollar estate and often traveled to Rio de Janeiro where he maintained property. In advance of the victim’s murder, Sikkema sent CC-1 money using a stolen identity and intermediaries in an effort to conceal the source of the payments.
The victim was murdered by CC-1 on Jan. 14, 2024.
Sikkema is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a murder-for-hire, one count of murder-for-hire, one count of conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign county, and one count of passport fraud. If convicted, he faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison or death. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon for the Southern District of New York, and Assistant Director in Charge James E. Dennehy of the FBI New York Field Office made the announcement.
The FBI investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Chelsea Schinnour of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meredith Foster and Remy Grosbard for the Southern District of New York are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
A New York man was arrested and charged in a superseding indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York for hiring someone to kill his estranged husband, who was murdered in Rio de Janeiro in January 2024. Sikkema made his initial court appearance on the superseding indictment today in the Southern District of New York.
According to court documents, beginning in 2023, Daniel Sikkema, 54, of New York City, offered another individual (CC-1) money in exchange for CC-1 killing Sikkema’s estranged husband, with whom Sikkema was involved in contentious divorce proceedings. The victim, who was a U.S. citizen, had amassed a multi-million-dollar estate and often traveled to Rio de Janeiro where he maintained property. In advance of the victim’s murder, Sikkema sent CC-1 money using a stolen identity and intermediaries in an effort to conceal the source of the payments.
The victim was murdered by CC-1 on Jan. 14, 2024.
Sikkema is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a murder-for-hire, one count of murder-for-hire, one count of conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign county, and one count of passport fraud. If convicted, he faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison or death. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon for the Southern District of New York, and Assistant Director in Charge James E. Dennehy of the FBI New York Field Office made the announcement.
The FBI investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Chelsea Schinnour of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meredith Foster and Remy Grosbard for the Southern District of New York are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Headline: Azure for mission-critical workloads in healthcare: EHR and beyond
In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, digital transformation is no longer a luxury but a necessity. One of the most critical components of this transformation is the electronic health record (EHR) system, which plays a pivotal role in healthcare operations and care delivery. Organizations are actively exploring alternatives for their traditional on-premises infrastructures to overcome significant challenges, including high capital expenditure, frequent expensive hardware refresh cycles, outdated security protocols, and most importantly, managing the data web of siloed systems. By leveraging connected EHR systems in the cloud, providers can also unlock the full potential of their data and further deliver data-driven AI innovations.
Epic® on Azure
Azure for mission-critical workloads
Migrating EHR systems to Microsoft Azure provides healthcare organizations with a robust platform for mission-critical workloads, ensuring optimized performance, fast data access, built-in disaster recovery, and enhanced security features, such as AI-powered threat detection and automated compliance monitoring. On top of that, Azure maximizes cloud investments, offering new possibilities to harness data to springboard AI innovations.
Data is at the heart of healthcare. Hospitals produce more than 50 petabytes of data across more than 10 siloed systems every year. As the healthcare industry faces the dual challenges of managing vast amounts of unstructured data and a shortage of workforce, up to 97% of healthcare data goes unused, highlighting a significant missed opportunity for operational excellence and better patient insights.1 One of the biggest benefits for healthcare customers on Azure is the ability to unify their multi-modal healthcare data for analytics and AI with healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric that lets them ingest, store, and analyze data from various sources and modalities. While Fabric unifies your data, Microsoft Purview delivers the data governance service that helps you classify the data across your data estate, including identification for sensitive data. Integrating Microsoft Purview with healthcare data solutions in Fabric not only strengthens security but also help you ensure compliance, enabling healthcare organizations to govern their data with confidence. We are acutely aware of the industry expectations in which our technology is utilized, and this is one of the many reasons why our healthcare customers trust Azure for mission-critical workloads.
As we continue to deliver data innovations, we see our customers use their connected data on a wide spectrum of AI capabilities. With Azure AI, healthcare organizations can accelerate innovation through predictive analytics, automate clinical tasks, and improve patient interactions with the help of ambient AI solutions like DAX Copilot (directly embedded in EHR systems), as well as take advantage of Microsoft healthcare AI models in Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, a collection of cutting-edge multi-modal generative AI models that benefit imaging and radiology workflows.
Enhanced support for mission-critical
Mission-critical workloads demand comprehensive support. In 2024, Microsoft Unified enhanced its support for mission-critical workloads in healthcare through its Mission Critical Offerings. This initiative provides proactive support to improve the health, resiliency, and performance of healthcare systems via regular assessments, guidance, and optimization recommendations, ensuring business continuity and addressing unique healthcare challenges.
Collaborating for technology excellence: A strategic partnership that stands out
Our commitment to mission-critical is reflected in our collaborations with leading EHR providers such as Epic®. This long-standing relationship of more than 20 years has yielded an optimized solution for Epic® on Azure, offering a robust, purpose-built platform backed by joint-reference architecture. Recently, Microsoft announced expanded scalability on Azure for healthcare organizations, specifically for running Epic®’s Chronicles* Operational Database (ODB), increasing its capacity to 65 million global references per second (GRefs/s), a 171% enhancement from 2023 on the new Mbv3 VM series.
The collaboration with Epic® extends well beyond the cloud infrastructure—to several products and capabilities part of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Epic® and Microsoft have expanded their collaboration to integrate advanced AI technologies such as Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and the DAX Copilot into Epic®’s EHR system. The integration helps provide AI-powered clinical insights, streamline administrative processes, and improve clinician productivity through features like note summarization and automated coding suggestions.
Delivering value beyond infrastructure: The Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare promise
Microsoft’s well-rounded partnership with Epic® is one of the many reasons why Azure is the cloud of choice for many of our healthcare customers.
The decision to move mission-critical workloads to the cloud is often not just about infrastructure. Customers like Mercy chose Azure to not only modernize their infrastructure but also extract value from sizeable data archives. Mercy’s digital transformation on Azure enabled it to connect previously siloed data and use several Microsoft services such as Azure Data Lake to result in positive business outcomes. For example, by empowering care teams with smart dashboards and insights into factors that determine patient discharge, Mercy has been able to reduce patient stay durations significantly. Mercy employs Azure AI Document Intelligence to scan and recognize information on patient’s insurance cards which then gets updated on their EHR records automatically.
We recognize our customer’s desire to have a complete digital transformation in the cloud that transcends every layer of the stack, and Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare lets us deliver to that promise. It encapsulates a broad spectrum of innovative data and AI innovations from Microsoft, purpose-built for the healthcare industry, enabling our customers to achieve their cloud-first goals faster and easier. Recently, Microsoft announced several innovations as part of the portfolio, including new healthcare AI models in Azure AI Foundry, capabilities for healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, the healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio, and an AI-powered nursing workflow solution.
As customers realize the value of consolidating their IT investments around a single vendor, Azure is increasingly being adopted for mission-critical workloads. By seamlessly connecting and delivering value across all layers of the stack, Azure for mission-critical extends a customer’s return on cloud investments. Customers like St. Luke’s University Health System are reaping the benefits of their Epic® on Azure migration by taking advantage of several synergies in the Microsoft portfolio, like the interoperability of Microsoft Teams with Epic®. Security is of paramount importance when dealing with patient records, and customers like Jefferson Health migrate their Epic® environments to Azure with high confidence with Microsoft Defender for end-point detection and response.
Next steps
As we continue to transform mission-critical workloads in the cloud, we are making it easier for our partners and customers to create connected experiences at every point of care, empower their healthcare workforce, and unlock the value from their data, all with uncompromised privacy and security. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is supporting healthcare organizations on every step of their journey toward shaping a healthier future.
*Epic® and Chronicles are trademarks of Epic Systems Corporation.
1World Economic Forum, 4 ways data is improving healthcare, December 2019.
When Married at First Sight Australia bride Lauren Hall said her main goal was to “serve” her man, the reality show contestant was reflecting a growing trend in western culture – the so-called tradwife lifestyle.
Tradwives are women who choose to take up traditional gendered roles within the home, centred around serving their husband and children. This version of wifehood is underpinned by a deference to one’s husband.
Because of this, tradwives tend to be financially dependent on their husbands and many also give over decision-making rights to their husbands. In essence, the tradwife lifestyle rejects the past seven decades of feminism.
But why is being a tradwife growing in popularity in 2025, and how has it become so marketable?
The rise (or return) of tradwives
Social media is partly to blame. The tradwife trend has risen in visibility across platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.
Influencer Hannah Neeleman from Ballerina Farm is one of the most prolific tradwife influencers, topping ten-million followers on her Instagram page.
Other Instagram accounts such as Ekaterina Anderson and Aria Lewis are popular in their own right, with followers ranging from 100,000 to 200,000.
All promote a joy of domesticity. They post about their daily tasks of baking, preparing meals, raising children and, for many, connecting to the land and living sustainably.
However, underneath this joy of domesticity is often an advocation of subservience. Many tradwives openly promote the daily pleasure they get from serving their husbands, who they argue are the “natural” head of the household.
Marketing a romanticised lifestyle
Why, then, is this version of femininity so desirable?
For one, tradwives market a romanticised lifestyle. Theirs is reminiscent of the 1950s: a golden age economically, where employment was high, consumables were affordable and the male breadwinner was supported at home by a subservient wife.
The tradwife lifestyle also promotes a pioneering domesticity. Tradwife influencers often post about baking their own bread, make their own preserves and mending their family’s clothes.
Many also wear pioneering-type clothing – blouses and long skirts with the signature tradwife apron. A number of tradwives such as Aria Lewis also have their own clothing and merchandise lines for their followers to buy.
People’s need for “ontological security” (security of the self) – a term coined in 1984 by sociologist Anthony Giddens – is another reason why the tradwife lifestyle is followed by so many women today.
Broadly speaking, ontological security denotes a desire for a stable identity. Academics Catarina Kinnvall and Jennifer Mitzen offer this explanation:
As the world is becoming more fragile, contentious, and conflictual, we are, Giddens argues, prone to seek a sense of security, a “protective cocoon”, in established norms and routines and in beliefs about particular narratives of home and secure pasts.
The tradwife identity offers women this security: a stable, strictly defined and seemingly uncomplicated identity that is predicated solely on serving one’s husband and children. The nostalgia for the 1950s and the pioneering “return to basics” life feeds this sense of security.
A double entanglement
It also seems women are desiring the tradwife lifestyle due to the damaging effects of “double entanglement”.
Society constantly tells women they can “have it all”: sexual freedom, any career they desire and an ability to choose whether or not to become mothers.
In reality, however, this is an empty promise. Sexually assertive women, women who appear overly dominant in the workplace, and women who choose not to mother are often heavily shamed in society.
Herein lies the double-entanglement. Women are told they can choose how to live their lives but are then shamed for choosing ways of living that are actually seen as unfeminine.
It is possible the tradwife identity offers women a version of femininity that provides safe haven from being shamed as “pariahs” in society.
Sadly, though, there is no safe haven. When you strip away the romanticism of domesticity, the tradwife lifestyle only furthers the difficulties women face today by breeding a deep misogyny that is based on an intense subjugation of women.
The new female right
This misogyny is further entrenched by many tradwives’ association with the far-right women’s movement, which is gaining popularity within the United States.
The BBC’s America’s New Female Right documentary explores the rise of this movement and how it further feeds into narratives that femininity ought to be based on submission to men.
It seems this version of womanhood will only gain momentum as the world veers even farther to the far right. The uncertainty of today – with frequent economic crises, climate emergencies and other crises of humanity – will only fuel the need for a nostalgic, seemingly simpler life.
On the surface, this is what many feel a traditional return to womanhood offers. But the costs of giving up the gains of feminism are not clear.
Christina Vogels 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sven Batke, Associate Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange – Reader in Plant Science, Edge Hill University
A tomato greenhouse in north-west England. Sven Batke, CC BY-NC-ND
When was the last time you walked into a supermarket and marvelled at the abundance of exotic fruits and vegetables, even in the dead of winter? This luxury, now an expectation, only became common in the mid-20th century, reaching the UK some decades later.
Not long ago, winter produce in UK supermarkets was limited; root vegetables like carrots, potatoes, and parsnips, alongside hardy greens such as kale and cabbage. Fruits were even scarcer, mostly apples and pears. Today’s variety owes much to advances in global trade and smarter greenhouses, which help extend growing seasons and bring once seasonal produce to shelves all year round.
Fast forward just one generation, and now supermarket shelves are stocked with dragon fruit, bananas, coconuts, avocados, and a variety of exotic nuts and vegetables. These items not only hail from the farthest reaches of the globe, but have also been bred to offer consumers unique sensory experiences or health benefits, such as higher concentrations of antioxidants. It’s no surprise that most of these exotic foods are often not grown locally or even within Europe.
According to the latest government figures from 2023, 53% of the vegetables consumed in the UK are imported, and only 17% of fruits are grown locally. The contrast is stark when you look at exports, which remain relatively small (about 100,000 tonnes in 2023).
UK food security could be improved by growing more produce inside smart greenhouses. Sven Batke, CC BY-NC-ND
How often do you eat a UK-grown strawberry or tomato outside summer? Many such vegetables come from the Netherlands, Morocco and Spain, while most fruit comes from Colombia, Costa Rica and Brazil. No surprise, given their warmer climates. The UK averages 9-12°C annually, compared to Morocco’s 18-20°C.
Increasing demand for exotic foods available year-round has made the UK’s food system vulnerable to external market fluctuations. Disruptions, such as trade barriers following Brexit or global hikes in energy prices due to the Ukraine war have placed supply chains under strain.
Empty supermarket shelves could become more common if we see disruptions in supply chains, putting further pressure on the undervalued domestic growing sector. But could the UK grow more of its own food and reduce reliance on volatile global markets?
Hi-tech solutions
Protected horticulture (specifically in the food sector, as opposed to ornamental plants) involves growing fruits and vegetables year-round in controlled environments, such as polytunnels, greenhouses and indoor vertical farms.
These facilities regulate temperature, humidity and light, and in some cases, even atmospheric gases like CO₂. Water and nutrient inputs are also tightly controlled, reducing waste by up to 95% compared to traditional field-grown methods. This allows year-around protection from the elements. They are often overlooked despite holding the key to solving some of the current food security challenges.
As part of the Greenhouse Innovation Consortium, my team of biologists, geographers and I recently mapped over 12,000 greenhouses in Britain. Estimates suggest that around 70% of these structures are more than 40 years old.
So why haven’t we seen more UK-grown fruits and vegetables on supermarket shelves if we have the technology to produce them? One major reason is the high energy demand of indoor growing, especially in cold and cloudy weather – something we are all too familiar with in the UK. For example, 2024 has seen one of the worse years in total recorded sun hours.
The UK’s horticulture sector has also received very little government support over the years. There are few incentives for growers to adopt new technology or upgrade infrastructure. Many UK growers still have not adopted technologies like automatic harvest robots or AI-controlled systems, and even simple upgrades like LED growing lights could boost yield by over 50%. However, resource management in this sector requires experience and making these changes is a fine balancing act.
Most British greenhouses are more than 40 years old so investment is needed to upgrade them. Sven Batke, CC BY-NC-ND
But the future can be bright – if we choose to make it so. To grow more produce all year round without compromising on flavour, the sector needs more investment in local expertise and cutting-edge facilities.
From precision horticulture to advanced AI-controlled greenhouses, with the right drive and investment, the UK could move towards a more sustainable food production system. Sweden for example is currently investing over £700 million into horticulture.
While achieving 100% self-sufficiency may not be feasible due to other demands on land, such as housing, conservation, and industry, creating a more resilient and less dependent food sector would benefit everyone (not to mention reducing food miles).
The UK’s food future doesn’t have to rely on global markets. With investment and innovation, the country can build a resilient, sustainable food system. Year-round demand for exotic produce has exposed supply chain fragility, but fostering domestic growth and technology can change the narrative.
It’s not about turning back the clock, but about making the most of what the UK has while driving forward the solutions that make sense for the country’s future. The answer is not just more local food. It’s smarter, more resilient food systems that can weather whatever challenges lie ahead.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Sven Batke works together with industry growers and manufactures in the horticulture industry. The work we are doing is part of the Greenhouse Innovation Consortium, which aims to support local growers in the UK.
Lung cancer cases are increasing in people who have never smoked, especially in women, a new study by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency has found.
The findings, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, reveal that lung adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer among non-smokers, accounts for nearly 60% of lung cancer cases in women compared to 45% in men.
About 2.5 million new lung cancer cases were diagnosed worldwide in 2022 – an increase of 300,000 since 2020. The study suggests that environmental factors, particularly air pollution, along with genetic predisposition and immune responses, may be driving this rise in non-smoking-related lung cancer.
One of the most significant risk factors for lung cancer in non-smokers is genetic mutations, especially mutations in the EGFR gene. This gene provides instructions for producing a protein on the surface of cells involved in growth and division.
Mutations in this gene drive uncontrolled cell division and tumour growth. They are found in 50% of lung adenocarcinomas in non-smoking Asian women and 19% in non-smoking western women – compared with 10–20% in non-smoking men.
Advances in genetic testing have made it easier to detect these mutations. However, rising exposure to air pollution, which is known to trigger EGFR mutations – may also be contributing to their increasing prevalence.
Other genetic changes that drive tumour growth include mutations in the genes ALK and ROS1, which are found in about 5% of lung cancer cases in non-smokers. These mutations are more often seen in younger non-smoking women, particularly in Asia. Thankfully, improved screening programmes, especially in east Asian countries, have helped detect these mutations more frequently.
Mutations in TP53, a crucial tumour-suppressing gene, also appear to be more commonly found in non-smoking women than in men. This gene prevents cells from becoming cancerous, and its mutation leads to out-of-control cell growth. The hormone oestrogen can interact with TP53 mutations, making lung cancer more likely to develop in women over time.
Another gene that is worth mentioning is KRAS. Mutations in this gene are usually associated with smoking-related lung cancer, however, they are increasingly being found in non-smokers – particularly women.
Recent studies suggest that exposure to tiny particles in the air, or PM2.5 (so-called because they are 2.5 micrometres or smaller) may be responsible for these mutations in non-smoker women.
Since PM2.5 levels continue to rise in many towns and cities, exposure to these particles could be another factor not only in lung cancer but also in other types of cancers in women.
In addition to genetic predisposition, hormone fluctuations may influence tumour growth in women. Oestrogen receptors are found in lung tissue, and experimental studies suggest that oestrogen promotes tumour growth. Studieshave shown.) that women who receive hormone-replacement therapy (HRT), have a lower risk of lung cancer compared with women not on HRT, suggesting that natural oestrogen cycles may provide some level of protection.
Chronic inflammation
Beyond genetics and hormones, chronic inflammation could also explain why lung cancer is rising among non-smoking women.
Women are more likely to develop autoimmune diseases than men, and problems with the immune system can play a role in cancer. Persistent inflammation can cause repeated damage to tissues, leading to changes in DNA and promote abnormal cell growth, all of which raise the risk of cancer.
Women with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus have a higher chance of getting lung cancer, possibly because of long-lasting inflammation in the lungs. Inflammatory molecules – like interleukin-6 and tumour necrosis factor-alpha – can exacerbate the cancer by helping tumour cells survive and spread.
Autoimmune diseases have been increasing globally, probably because of environmental changes, changes in diet and shifts in gut microbiomes (the constellation of microorganisms that live in our guts and play an important role in our health). Because women are disproportionately affected by autoimmune conditions, they may be more vulnerable to chronic inflammation-driven cancer.
As life expectancy increases, more women are accumulating years of immune system activation, leading to a higher risk of developing inflammation-related lung cancer. In addition, things like pollution, household chemicals and work-related exposures can make immune system problems worse, increasing the risk of cancer even more.
Air pollution has long been recognised as a significant factor in lung cancer risk, but emerging evidence suggests that women may be particularly vulnerable. Studies show that women’s lung anatomy and function make them more susceptible to the harmful effects of pollutants. Women’s lungs are smaller than men’s, with narrower airways, which might cause more fine particles, like PM2.5, to get trapped in their lungs.
Additionally, oestrogen has been shown to amplify inflammatory responses when exposed to pollutants, potentially making lung tissue more prone to damage that can lead to lung cancer.
Women are more exposed to air pollution than men, but in a different way. While men often face pollution from factory work, women spend more time indoors where toxic fumes from cooking and heating are more common.
Air pollution in the home, especially from things like wood, coal and kerosene, can raise the risk of lung cancer. Women working in places such as textile factories, beauty salons and hospitals are also more exposed to harmful chemicals that can damage the lungs. In rapidly growing cities, women are often in areas with high traffic and factory pollution.
More significant
Women are biologically more likely than men to develop certain genetic mutations that increase the risk of lung cancer. However, factors like rising pollution, changes in hormone levels, immune system imbalances and longer life expectancy are making these risks even more significant.
Recent research suggests that HPV, a virus, may also contribute to lung cancer in women, underscoring the need for further study and preventative measures.
Understanding the roles of immune, hormonal, genetic and viral factors is key to spotting lung cancer early, creating more effective treatments and developing better ways to prevent it.
Pinar Uysal-Onganer 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.
Narwhal tusks reveal how they’re affected by declining Arctic ice. Saifullahphtographer
We have a natural fascination with time – how landscapes have been carved over millennia, how our bodies grow and sag with age, how the stars traverse the sky each night. Scientists probe the layers beneath our feet to understand the secrets of our past. Geologists and palaeontologists sample ice, rock and fossils to reconstruct past climates and species and archaeologists pick through ancient “dustbins” (middens) in excavation sites to reimagine our historical dinner time.
Similarly, most living things produce records of their own existence in layered body tissues – often in the form of daily or yearly growth bands. The most familiar of these so-called biochronologies are tree rings, which form every year in response to seasonal cycles in temperature and rainfall.
Dendrochronology – the art of tree-ring counting – allows us to precisely date trees. Based on the rings in its trunk, a bristlecone pine in eastern California known as Methuselah is said to be the world’s oldest living thing at 4,856 years old.
Methuselah, the world’s oldest living tree. Xiaoling Sun
It’s not just the number of rings, either – their width tells us whether the tree was thriving in a particular year, or suffering due to drought. Chemical compounds locked into the wood offer clues about atmospheric changes, including those produced by volcanic eruptions.
Tree rings are famously detailed life records. Veroja
Let’s not not stop at trees – your own tooth cement, nails and hair are forming chemical and visual records of your own life experience right now, storing traces of food, drink and drugs you have consumed. They can also produce “stress marks” during trauma or pregnancy, when a mother literally breaks her own body tissues to grow and nourish her baby.
Recent studies, for instance, have applied forensic analyses of whale earwax to explore their stress levels during historic whaling days. Narwhal tusks, meanwhile, have helped explain how declining Arctic sea ice has affected their diet and exposure to pollution.
The importance of otoliths
In my lab, we work with aquatic animals – from fish scales and ear bones to squid eyes and beaks. Like decoding a biological black box, we analyse chemical constituents in the growth layers to reconstruct a detailed picture of the individual’s prior health, diet and movements.
Some biochronologies are more “fickle”, forming layers at unpredictable rates, including the eye lenses of fish and turtle scutes. Others, such as bird feathers, are shorter lived due to periodic moulting. Yet they all share the important feature of serial growth, producing valuable archives that we can probe to build a picture of the animal’s life.
Probably the best known biochronometer in the animal world – and my own personal obsession – is the fish otolith, or ear bone (Ancient Greek: oto is ear and líthos is stone). We humans have tiny ear stones (otoconia), whose primary function is to maintain balance, but fish otoliths are also crucial for hearing, as well as featuring specific properties that make them particularly valuable markers of biochronology.
Unlike “normal” bones, fish otoliths are composed of calcium carbonate crystals and are metabolically inert, meaning they never get broken down and rebuilt. Instead they keep growing – even during periods of starvation – producing daily and annual growth bands.
These beautiful crystalline structures are also highly resistant to degradation and vary in shape between species. This enables scientists to use a combination of “otolith atlases” and artificial intelligence to identify popular choices of fish from otoliths left behind in ancient human middens, as well as in the contemporary stomach contents or poop of predators such as seals, albatrosses and squid.
Otoliths have driven my research for almost two decades. I’ve been fascinated by animal migration and the ecological and evolutionary processes underpinning these long and dangerous journeys ever since taking a “movement ecology” class at the University of Edinburgh with the brilliant Professor Victoria Braithwaite in 2003.
I decided I wanted to track marine animals myself, and my lab now primarily uses otolith and eye lens chemistry to reconstruct fish habitat use and growth rates, and the temperatures they experienced through their lives. We are now also investigating how well these same structures track reproductive events, chronic stress and exposure to pollution.
And we are working with international teams to understand how hypoxia (low oxygen zones or “dead zones”) affect fish growth and reproduction. Ultimately, this data allows us to connect stressful events in a fish’s past to its lifetime health and survival, which is important for predicting a species’ persistence.
For example, a recent study used otolith-derived metabolic rates of Atlantic bluefin tuna to show their vulnerability to future climate change. Meanwhile in California, we used otolith chemistry to understand the impact of dams on salmon migration and survival, revealing that – on many rivers – dams have made it impossible for salmon to escape into the mountains during summer, which is essential for enabling them to resist the increasingly severe droughts afflicting the region.
Conservation
Fisheries managers read the rings on millions of otoliths each year to track individual cohorts and look for warning signs of overfishing, but I would argue that biochronologies are still underused in this field. For example, fisheries managers could use otoliths to track the movements of juveniles too small to be tagged (those under 4cm long), since chemical markers make it possible to identify where they grew up. This would allow these managers to earmark productive or struggling “nursery habitats” for protection or improvement, respectively.
We consistently find that rivers and estuaries play a critical role in the survival and growth of valuable species such as salmon, sea bass and anchovies. Juvenile fish often have such high natural mortality rates – often only 1% survive to their first birthday – that even small improvements to their survival can result in large boosts in abundance and make wild fisheries more sustainable.
Small improvements to survival of wild salmon could make a huge difference to their sustainability. Jakub Rutkiewicz
As such, let’s keep up the momentum to clean and restore our rivers and beaches, and to embrace monitoring tools such as biochronologies to learn which actions produce the biggest benefits. Next time you think about banging the glass at an aquarium, just remember that the fish inside are listening – and recording you too.
Anna Sturrock receives funding from a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship
The Ugandan government and the World Health Organization recently confirmed an outbreak of Sudan virus disease. The index (first-known) case of this outbreak is thought to be a 32-year-old male nurse from a hospital in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.
The WHO reported two main clusters, related to the patient’s family and a hospital cluster. At the time of writing, the index case is the sole recorded death. The second case was the patient’s wife, and as of February 11, there were nine confirmed cases.
Outbreaks of this virus are relatively rare. This new outbreak is the ninth to have been recorded since 1976 when the virus was first identified and – as was practice at the time – named after the location where this first outbreak took place, southern Sudan.
A 2022 Sudan virus outbreak also in Uganda resulted in 164 cases and 77 deaths (a fatality rate of 47%). There are no treatments or vaccines against the Sudan virus.
Sudan virus disease is essentially a disease very similar to Ebola. The Ebola virus has caused several high-profile outbreaks. The west Africa 2014-16 outbreak was the largest with 28,600 cases and 11,325 deaths.
The Sudan and Ebola viruses both come from the orthoebolavirus family, but they have different proteins and genetic components, so the immune response to each virus is different. As such, it’s thought that the Ebola vaccines will not be effective against the Sudan virus.
For the current Sudan virus outbreak, there are efforts to deploy vaccine candidates and also monoclonal antibody medicines. These medicines create antibodies that aim to stop the virus from replicating.
In 2022, the WHO recommended two monoclonal antibodies for use against Ebola. There is enthusiasm for similar research related to treatments for the Sudan virus.
A phase 1 vaccine trial, the earliest phase of testing in humans, is underway.
The similarities in structure between these two types of orthoebolavirus mean that the symptoms in patients are similar. The illness for both viruses may typically begin with fever, aches and fatigue with potential progression onto diarrhoea, vomiting and unexplained bleeding.
Laboratory testing is needed to differentiate between the diseases, though the urgent need for isolation remains.
Early supportive treatment has been shown to reduce mortality rates of Sudan and Ebola virus disease, giving the patient time for their body to recover. This usually involves replacing fluids and treating pain, fever and other possible infections, such as malaria.
The reporting of the 2022 Sudan virus disease outbreak described how patients would first visit care facilities that were outside of the mainstream health service. There were many new infections across late August 2022 from within private health facilities that drove transmission early on in the outbreak. This suggested a low level of infection prevention and control, and quite possibly a lack of equipment and good practice to contain serious infections.
When cases were confirmed, most known contacts who developed symptoms were referred to specialist units for testing and hospital care. These referrals typically happened in October, and the outbreak was declared over by the end of November 2022. Although we lack vital tools such as effective vaccines and drugs, contact tracing and appropriate infection control can contain serious outbreaks such as these.
Climate change driving distribution
Climate change will have an effect on the geographical distribution of new and emerging infections, such as Ebola and Sudan virus disease and the Crimean-Congo virus. Mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever, will find new habitats while dengue and West Nile virus are already becoming more common in Europe and North America.
International cooperation for addressing global health threats is vital. However, these efforts will be hindered by the volatility and lack of coherence from key stakeholders such as the US government. The world faces uncertain times, and these are ideal circumstances for the Sudan virus and other infectious diseases to thrive.
Michael Head has previously received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Research England and the UK Department for International Development, and currently receives funding from the UK Medical Research Foundation.
