NewzIntel.com

Category: United States of America

  • MIL-OSI Security: Louisville Man Sentenced to 2 Years and 7 Months in Federal Prison for Illegally Possessing Firearms and a Machine Gun

    Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

    Louisville, KY – A local man was sentenced on June 12, 2025, to 2 years and 7 months in federal prison for possession of firearms and ammunition by a convicted felon and illegal possession of a machine gun.

    U.S. Attorney Kyle G. Bumgarner of the Western District of Kentucky, Special Agent in Charge John Nokes of the ATF Louisville Field Division, and Chief Paul Humphrey of the Louisville Metro Police Department made the announcement.

    According to court documents, Caleb Pace, 29, was sentenced to 2 years and 7 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for illegally possessing a Glock, Model 17, 9-millimeter pistol; a Kel-Tec, Model P50, 5.7 x 28-millimeter pistol; a Glock Switch (machine gun conversion device); and ammunition.

    On March 22, 2024, LMPD Detectives were conducting surveillance at 314 N 43rd Street. Pace was observed on a surveillance camera armed with firearms. Detectives conducted a vehicle stop, and a search of the vehicle produced three firearms including the firearms that Pace was observed possessing on the surveillance camera. Pace was prohibited from possessing a firearm because he had previously been convicted of the following felony offenses.

    On December 17, 2010, in Jefferson Circuit Court, Pace was convicted of burglary in the second degree.

    On February 10, 2015, in Jefferson Circuit Court, Pace was convicted of burglary in the third degree, complicity to wanton endangerment in the first degree (seven counts), complicity to criminal mischief in the first degree, and assault under extreme emotional disturbance.

    “This is great work by ATF and LMPD to take another dangerous felon off the streets of Louisville. Equally important, a pistol capable of automatic fire was seized by law enforcement and will no longer be passed around among those wishing to do significant harm to others,” said U.S. Attorney Kyle Bumgarner.

    “Machine gun conversion devices – commonly known as ‘Glock switches’- are illegal to possess under federal law. These devices enable a semi-automatic pistol to fire fully automatic, discharging approximately 30 rounds in just two seconds. Their possession presents a serious threat to public safety and to law enforcement officers. The ATF remains committed to working closely with the United States Attorney’s Office and our local partners to prioritize investigations and enforcement actions targeting individuals who possess or use these dangerous devices,” said ATF Special Agent in Charge John Nokes of the Louisville Division.

    There is no parole in the federal system.   

    This case was investigated by the ATF and LMPD. 

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Erwin Roberts prosecuted the case.

    This conviction is a part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).

    This case is also a part of the Prohibited Firearm Possessor Initiative (PFP), a collaborative partnership between all levels of law enforcement and prosecutors to reduce violent crime and firearm offenses. On January 23, 2024, Louisville Metro initiated a gun crime reduction initiative focused on investigating and prosecuting illegal firearm possession. The PFP partners include the Louisville Metro Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office, the Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky.

    ###

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: USS San Diego, USS Rushmore Join USS America in Sydney

    Source: United States Navy

    SYDNEY — Amphibious transport dock ship USS San Diego (LPD 22), amphibious dock landing ship USS Rushmore (LSD 47), and embarked elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) arrived in Sydney, Australia, for a routine port visit while conducting operations in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations, June 15.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Task Force 66 applies lessons learned from the Black Sea Battle Lab to exercise BALTOPS 25 alongside NATO partners

    Source: United States Navy

    UTSKA, Poland – Commander, Task Force (CTF) 66, U.S. 6th Fleet’s purpose-built all-domain task force with the mission of integrating Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) into fleet operations, is participating in Baltic Operations 2025 (BALTOPS) June 5-20, 2025.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Blue Ridge Departs Guam Following Port Visit

    Source: United States Navy

    APRA HARBOR, Guam – The U.S. 7th Fleet flagship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) and embarked 7th Fleet staff departed Guam following a scheduled port visit, June 14-17. This port visit marked the first time Blue Ridge has visited Guam since 2020.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Justice Department Requires Safran to Divest Assets to Proceed with Acquisition of Raytheon Assets

    Source: US State of North Dakota

    The Proposed Settlement Requires a Substantial Divestiture Package That Will Preserve Competition for Critical Flight Control Components

    The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division announced today that it will require Safran, S.A. and Safran USA Inc. (Safran) to divest its North American actuation business and related assets to resolve antitrust concerns arising from its proposed $1.8 billion acquisition of Collins Aerospace’s actuation and flight control business from RTX Corporation (RTX) (formerly Raytheon Technologies). The divestiture resolves concerns that the transaction would recombine assets that were divested as part of the Division’s settlement of United Technologies Corporation’s (UTC) acquisition of Rockwell Collins in 2018. UTC merged with Raytheon Company in 2020, forming Raytheon Technologies.

    The Antitrust Division filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the proposed transaction. At the same time, the Division filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the Division’s competitive concerns.

    “Today’s settlement is a structural solution to an acquisition that would have harmed competition for important aircraft components that are critical to passenger safety. The proposed divestiture to Woodward, an established provider in the aerospace industry, ensures that American customers will continue to benefit from competition, and the incentives of Woodward, the merging parties, and their customer base are aligned with the remedy’s success,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “This settlement is another example of our commitment to transparency and relief that secures robust and enforceable commitments from the merging parties that account for industry dynamics. The Antitrust Division will apply heightened scrutiny to transactions that propose to recombine assets divested in response to the Division’s prior enforcement actions, taking appropriate consideration for changes in competitive conditions.”

    As detailed in the complaint, Safran and RTX are two of the leading suppliers in the market for trimmable horizontal stabilizer actuators (THSAs) for large aircraft. A THSA helps an aircraft maintain the proper altitude during flight and is critical to the safety and performance of the aircraft. Safran and RTX compete head-to-head to develop and sell this critical component. Without the proposed divestiture, Safran’s acquisition of RTX’s actuation and flight control business would likely result in higher prices, lower quality, and reduced innovation to the detriment of customers and American consumers. The proposed divestiture of Safran’s North American actuation business includes the assets Safran had acquired under the Division’s 2018 settlement with UTC and Rockwell Collins. Safran has since operated these assets as a viable competitor in the market for THSAs.

    The proposed settlement requires Safran to divest its North American actuation business, including THSAs and secondary flight control actuators, and its Canada-based electronic control unit, to Woodward Inc., an American company with significant experience in the aerospace industry, including serving large aircraft manufacturers. The divestiture assets also include the tangible and intangible assets necessary to produce and sell THSAs, secondary flight control actuators, and electronic control units. Woodward is expected to hire certain key Safran employees that today support the divested business lines.

    The Antitrust Division, the European Commission, and the Competition and Markets Authority cooperated closely throughout the course of their respective investigations.

    Safran is a French multinational company with its headquarters in Paris, France. Safran produces a wide range of products for the aviation, space, and defense sectors. In 2024, Safran had revenues of approximately €27 billion. 

    RTX is an American multinational company, incorporated in Delaware and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. RTX is a major provider of aerospace and defense products and systems. In 2024, RTX had revenues of approximately $80 billion.

    As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed settlement, along with the Department’s competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register. Any person may submit written comments concerning the proposed settlement within 60 days of its publication to Soyoung Choe, Acting Chief, Defense, Industrials, and Aerospace Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 Fifth Street, NW, Suite 8700, Washington, D.C. 20530 or via email at ATR.DIA.Information@usdoj.gov. At the conclusion of the public comment period, the court may enter the final judgment upon finding that it is in the public interest.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Justice Department Requires Safran to Divest Assets to Proceed with Acquisition of Raytheon Assets

    Source: United States Attorneys General

    The Proposed Settlement Requires a Substantial Divestiture Package That Will Preserve Competition for Critical Flight Control Components

    The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division announced today that it will require Safran, S.A. and Safran USA Inc. (Safran) to divest its North American actuation business and related assets to resolve antitrust concerns arising from its proposed $1.8 billion acquisition of Collins Aerospace’s actuation and flight control business from RTX Corporation (RTX) (formerly Raytheon Technologies). The divestiture resolves concerns that the transaction would recombine assets that were divested as part of the Division’s settlement of United Technologies Corporation’s (UTC) acquisition of Rockwell Collins in 2018. UTC merged with Raytheon Company in 2020, forming Raytheon Technologies.

    The Antitrust Division filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the proposed transaction. At the same time, the Division filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the Division’s competitive concerns.

    “Today’s settlement is a structural solution to an acquisition that would have harmed competition for important aircraft components that are critical to passenger safety. The proposed divestiture to Woodward, an established provider in the aerospace industry, ensures that American customers will continue to benefit from competition, and the incentives of Woodward, the merging parties, and their customer base are aligned with the remedy’s success,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “This settlement is another example of our commitment to transparency and relief that secures robust and enforceable commitments from the merging parties that account for industry dynamics. The Antitrust Division will apply heightened scrutiny to transactions that propose to recombine assets divested in response to the Division’s prior enforcement actions, taking appropriate consideration for changes in competitive conditions.”

    As detailed in the complaint, Safran and RTX are two of the leading suppliers in the market for trimmable horizontal stabilizer actuators (THSAs) for large aircraft. A THSA helps an aircraft maintain the proper altitude during flight and is critical to the safety and performance of the aircraft. Safran and RTX compete head-to-head to develop and sell this critical component. Without the proposed divestiture, Safran’s acquisition of RTX’s actuation and flight control business would likely result in higher prices, lower quality, and reduced innovation to the detriment of customers and American consumers. The proposed divestiture of Safran’s North American actuation business includes the assets Safran had acquired under the Division’s 2018 settlement with UTC and Rockwell Collins. Safran has since operated these assets as a viable competitor in the market for THSAs.

    The proposed settlement requires Safran to divest its North American actuation business, including THSAs and secondary flight control actuators, and its Canada-based electronic control unit, to Woodward Inc., an American company with significant experience in the aerospace industry, including serving large aircraft manufacturers. The divestiture assets also include the tangible and intangible assets necessary to produce and sell THSAs, secondary flight control actuators, and electronic control units. Woodward is expected to hire certain key Safran employees that today support the divested business lines.

    The Antitrust Division, the European Commission, and the Competition and Markets Authority cooperated closely throughout the course of their respective investigations.

    Safran is a French multinational company with its headquarters in Paris, France. Safran produces a wide range of products for the aviation, space, and defense sectors. In 2024, Safran had revenues of approximately €27 billion. 

    RTX is an American multinational company, incorporated in Delaware and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. RTX is a major provider of aerospace and defense products and systems. In 2024, RTX had revenues of approximately $80 billion.

    As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed settlement, along with the Department’s competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register. Any person may submit written comments concerning the proposed settlement within 60 days of its publication to Soyoung Choe, Acting Chief, Defense, Industrials, and Aerospace Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 Fifth Street, NW, Suite 8700, Washington, D.C. 20530 or via email at ATR.DIA.Information@usdoj.gov. At the conclusion of the public comment period, the court may enter the final judgment upon finding that it is in the public interest.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: AvePoint Launches New Advanced Security and Optimization Features to Elements Platform

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    JERSEY CITY, N.J., June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — AvePoint (NASDAQ: AVPT), the global leader in data security, governance and resilience, today announced new capabilities for the AvePoint Elements Platform that enable managed service providers (MSPs) to enhance data security offerings, streamline IT management, and provide optimization services at scale. Through seamless marketplace integration, deep risk user insights, and license and storage optimization, AvePoint is reinforcing its commitment to accelerating profitability and efficiency for MSPs, making their security practices more robust and efficiently organized.

    With nearly a third of small and midsized businesses (SMBs) falling victim to cyberattacks and 81% of SMBs believing AI is increasing the need for additional security controls, MSPs are in the midst of a tremendous market opportunity to take advantage of a rapidly growing market for Managed Security Services. The AvePoint Elements Platform makes it easy to scale deployments and follow through on the desire to standardize their support with one vendor – a goal of nearly three quarters of MSPs today.

    “In today’s market, MSPs must balance robust security measures with resource optimization and operational efficiency,” said Scott Sacket, Senior Vice President of Partner Strategy, AvePoint. “These new features demonstrate the evolution of AvePoint Elements to empower MSPs to navigate challenges with confidence and create sustainable competitive advantage in today’s rapidly changing business landscape.”

    New capabilities generally available today in the AvePoint Elements Platform include:

    • Marketplace Integration: It can be difficult to manage licenses across multiple vendor portals, leading to administrative inefficiencies that can disrupt client services. The platform now integrates with major distributors, allowing partners to purchase, track, and manage all client licenses directly from the Elements dashboard without switching between multiple vendor portals. This unified approach eliminates billing errors, reduces administrative overhead, and ensures MSPs never miss renewal opportunities.
    • Risk User Insight: MSPs face increasing pressure to detect insider threats and suspicious user behavior across their clients’ environments but lack the tools to monitor activities comprehensively without dedicating significant manual resources. This comprehensive feature continuously monitors user activities across network security, configuration security, endpoint security, and identity access management, using customizable rules to identify potential risks before they become breaches. MSPs can now proactively detect suspicious behavior patterns, reduce their liability exposure, and offer clients enhanced security monitoring services that command premium pricing.
    • License Optimization: MSPs can struggle to track license utilization across multiple client environments, resulting in wasted spending on unused or inactive user accounts. This feature analyzes license usage across multiple client tenants, automatically detecting inactive or blocked users and enabling seamless license reassignment without manual intervention. Partners can recover significant wasted license costs for clients while positioning themselves as strategic cost optimization advisors.
    • Storage Optimization: 47% of MSPs report being overwhelmed by the volume of security data they manage, suggesting that compliance and archiving tasks are a major drain on technical resources. This solution allows partners to configure and execute archiving jobs across multiple customers simultaneously, with self-restoration capabilities for end users and industry-specific compliance rules. MSPs can dramatically reduce manual archiving work, ensure clients meet regulatory requirements without constant oversight, and free up technical staff to focus on strategic security services that drive higher margins.

    “These new features align perfectly with our mission for the Elements Platform: streamlining IT management, enhancing data security, and providing optimization services at scale,” said Coby Liang, Head of EMEA, AvePoint. “By helping our partners identify areas to offer value-added services, we’re supporting them in their transition from traditional reselling to comprehensive managed services, ultimately improving their margins and strengthening their client relationships.”

    This release builds upon AvePoint’s strategic investments in its channel business in 2025, including the acquisition of Ydentic, the next-generation Elements platform launch in February and additional security and management capabilities introduced in April.

    For more information on AvePoint Elements, visit the website.        

    About AvePoint:

    Beyond Secure. AvePoint is the global leader in data security, governance, and resilience, going beyond traditional solutions to ensure a robust data foundation and enable organizations everywhere to collaborate with confidence. Over 25,000 customers worldwide rely on the AvePoint Confidence Platform to prepare, secure, and optimize their critical data across Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and other collaboration environments. AvePoint’s global channel partner program includes approximately 5,000 managed service providers, value-added resellers, and systems integrators, with our solutions available in more than 100 cloud marketplaces. To learn more, visit www.avepoint.com.

    Forward-Looking Statements

    This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws including statements regarding the future performance of and market opportunities for AvePoint. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “would,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will likely result,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: changes in the competitive and regulated industries in which AvePoint operates, variations in operating performance across competitors, changes in laws and regulations affecting AvePoint’s business and changes in AvePoint’s ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and ability to identify and realize additional opportunities, and the risk of downturns in the market and the technology industry. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the “Risk Factors” section of AvePoint’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Copies of these and other documents filed by AvePoint from time to time are available on the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and AvePoint does not assume any obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements after the date of this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. AvePoint does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations. Unless the context otherwise indicates, references in this press release to the terms “AvePoint,” “the Company,” “we,” “our” and “us” refer to AvePoint, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

    Disclosure Information

    AvePoint uses the https://www.avepoint.com/ir website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

    Investor Contact
    AvePoint
    Jamie Arestia
    ir@avepoint.com
    (551) 220-5654

    Media Contact
    AvePoint
    Nicole Caci
    pr@avepoint.com  
    (201) 201-8143

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Northstrive Biosciences Announces Initiation of Phase II of Collaboration to Develop AI Powered Therapies for Obesity and Cardiometabolic Diseases

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    • Northstrive Biosciences and Yuva Biosciences previously announced a collaboration leveraging MitoNova™, YuvaBio’s proprietary mitochondrial science-focused artificial intelligence platform, to discover and develop novel pharmaceutical treatments for obesity, type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic conditions.
    • Phase II of this collaboration involves compiling a selection of small molecule candidates that promote mitochondrial health in obesity and cardiac diseases.

    NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Northstrive Biosciences Inc. (“Northstrive”), a subsidiary of PMGC Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: ELAB) (the “Company,” “PMGC,” “we,” or “our”), today announced the initiation of Phase II of the AI Development Program with strategic partner Yuva Biosciences, Inc. (“YuvaBio”). As part of the Phase II objective, both companies will collaborate to leverage MitoNova™, YuvaBio’s AI mitochondrial science-focused artificial intelligence platform, to compile a selection of small molecule candidates that promote mitochondrial health in obesity and cardiac diseases.

    YuvaBio will use MitoNova™ to virtually screen a large-scale library of diverse, drug-like small molecules and predict which candidates are most likely to promote mitochondrial health. YuvaBio will then analyze results of this screen, including chemical and bioactivity properties, to highlight opportunities for biological validation. Then, YuvaBio will compile an initial list of synthetic compounds for muscle preservation and metabolic health.

    About Northstrive Biosciences Inc.

    Northstrive Biosciences Inc., a PMGC Holdings Inc. company, is a biopharmaceutical company focusing on the development and acquisition of cutting-edge aesthetic medicines. Northstrive Biosciences’ lead asset, EL-22, leverages an engineered probiotic approach to address obesity’s pressing issue of preserving muscle while on weight loss treatments, including GLP-1 receptor agonists. For more information, please visit www.northstrivebio.com.

    About PMGC Holdings Inc.

    PMGC Holdings Inc. is a diversified holding company that manages and grows its portfolio through strategic acquisitions, investments, and development across various industries. Currently, our portfolio consists of three wholly owned subsidiaries: Northstrive Biosciences Inc., PMGC Research Inc., and PMGC Capital LLC. We are committed to exploring opportunities in multiple sectors to maximize growth and value. For more information, please visit https://www.pmgcholdings.com.

    Forward-Looking Statements

    Statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Words such as “believes,” “expects,” “plans,” “potential,” “would” and “future” or similar expressions such as “look forward” are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy, activities of regulators and future regulations and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. These and other risks are described more fully in PMGC Holdings’ filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including the “Risk Factors” section of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, filed with the SEC on March 28, 2025, and its other documents subsequently filed with or furnished to the SEC. Investors and security holders are urged to read these documents free of charge on the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date on which they were made. Except to the extent required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

    IR Contact:
    IR@pmgcholdings.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The Inca string code that reveals Peru’s climate history

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sabine Hyland, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews

    The author studying specimens. Author provided, CC BY

    Five centuries ago, the Incas ruled the western half of South America with the help of a unique form of writing based on coloured and knotted cords. These strings, called khipus, recorded major events, tracked economic matters, and even encoded biographies and poetry, according to the Spanish chroniclers who witnessed their use.

    Most khipus have knots that indicate numbers that we can “read”, but we’ve lost the ability to interpret what those numbers mean. Recent discoveries are bringing us closer to deciphering these mysterious strings. In a remote community set high in the Peruvian Andes, my team and I have found khipus that were used by villagers to track climate change.

    Last year, I was invited to study the centuries-old khipus preserved in the village of Santa Leonor de Jucul in the Peruvian Andes. The 97 khipus conserved by villagers include the largest khipu in the world, which is over 68 metres long.

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    An elderly ritual specialist, Don Lenin Margarito, told me that the khipus recorded the annual ritual offerings given at different sacred places in the surrounding landscape. Miniature pink ritual bags stuffed with coca leaves and tobacco hang from the cords, representing the sacred purpose of these ancient strings. Rather than communicating through knots, the Jucul khipus record data with different kinds of tassels.

    For example, a tassel made of fuzzy beige llama tails indicates that an offering was performed at the sacred lake of Paccha-cocha, high in the mountains. The fluffiness of the llama tails is like a rain cloud, Don Lenin explained, representing the fact that offerings given at Paccha-cocha are thought to bring rain.

    Different kinds of tassels indicate offerings made at other ritual sites, each one of which is thought to have its own effect on the local environment. Rituals involving the spirits of the dead, for instance, are thought to halt flooding.

    If you look at one of the Jucul khipus and you see that there were a lot of offerings to Paccha-cocha that year, you know that this was a time of drought since the offerings were given to increase the rain.

    When speaking with community members, we learned that the khipus used to be kept in public so that they could be consulted by the elders. Andean people of the past looked at these khipus as a record of the climate, and they studied them to understand the patterns of what was going on, just as we do today.

    New methods

    New methods for obtaining precise radiocarbon dates for khipus have been pioneered by a team headed by khipu researcher Ivan Ghezzi.

    Efforts are now underway to get accurate radiocarbon dates for the Jucul khipus, which will provide a chronology of these climate-based offerings.

    If we can chart the khipus and then date them, we will have a record of climate data from this region that was created by the local Andean people themselves. In their current state, the Jucul khipus are threatened by insects, mould and rodents. The British Museum recently granted funding to clean, preserve and display the khipus so that these precious objects from the Andean past will persevere into the future.

    There are only five villages in the Peruvian Andes where ancestral khipus are kept. These rare archives offer tantalising clues about how khipus encoded information.

    Research in other villages with living khipu traditions has led to breakthroughs in the significance of khipu colour patterns and phonology. Many Inka khipus possess tassels which we believe may reveal the subject matter of the associated khipu. If we could unlock the significance of the tassels on the Jucul khipus, it might allow us to interpret more precisely the meaning of Inca cords.

    Sabine Hyland receives funding from the British Academy, the British Museum, the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA), the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, and the National Geographic Society.

    – ref. The Inca string code that reveals Peru’s climate history – https://theconversation.com/the-inca-string-code-that-reveals-perus-climate-history-258528

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Preserving Energy Ties with Canada

    Source: US State of New York

    arlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul participated in an economic development roundtable with Northeastern Governors and Canadian Premiers in Boston, Massachusetts.

    VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

    AUDIO: The Governor’s remarks are available in audio form here.

    PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

    A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:

     First of all, thank you to Governor Maura Healey for inviting us here to the beautiful Massachusetts State House and convening the Northeastern Governors as well as the Eastern Canadian Premiers and Representatives. It’s an important conversation, and perhaps it should have started at the outset because we’re reminding ourselves of the shared interests, the common bond that exists between all of us.

    It’s not just the tourism or the industries that the governor just spoke of — it’s our neighbors. These are relationships that have now been damaged because of rhetoric out of Washington as well as tariffs. Which, how do you spell tariff? It is nothing more than a T-A-X — tax. And Americans need to know that this is a tax on everything they buy, and it hurts our competitiveness and we stand to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs if these truly go into effect as envisioned.

    So I always want to call out what this is all about as well as condemning the insults to our Canadian friends, and we want them to come back to our country, but we understand the anger that they feel. But I’m worried about families in New York State and the additional cost that they’re going to spend on everything, including energy.

    Energy is now becoming a huge cost driver for our homes, and we have great relationships. Next year, we’ll power over one million homes with hydroelectric power from Quebec. That starts because you have a friendship, a relationship of trust and I’m very excited about announcing that I launched it in my very first days as Governor.

    The electric grid is so important because we’re bringing Micron, we’re bringing semiconductor manufacturers, we’re bringing artificial intelligence companies that are going to be huge consumers of power. And I want to make sure that we continue being as competitive as we can.

    But we have to use that, and Canada has been a friend of ours in providing this, so I don’t want any more rhetoric, tariffs or anything that’s going to set our relationship further back than it already has been. Now it’s time to start healing and having our own individual relationships between New York, our own states and the various provinces to secure our energy future regardless of what happens in Washington.

    We have to operate as independent actors in this space and think of ourselves because clearly Washington is not, and I apologize. I have to get back to the great State of New York because it’s always complicated — something’s always complicated.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: Nutanix Study Finds Public Sector Embraces Generative AI, but Faces Security, Skills, and Infrastructure Gaps

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SAN JOSE, Calif., June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, announced the findings of its seventh annual global Public Sector Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report, which measures enterprise progress with cloud adoption in the industry. The research showed that 83% of public sector organizations have a GenAI strategy in place, with 54% actively implementing, and 29% preparing for implementation.

    As public sector organizations ramp up GenAI adoption, 76% of IT decision-makers say their current infrastructure needs moderate to significant improvement to support modern, cloud native applications at scale. This year’s public sector ECI found that infrastructure modernization emerged as a top priority, underscoring the growing demand for systems capable of meeting GenAI’s requirements for enterprise-ready data security, data integrity, and resilience.

    This year’s report also revealed that public sector leaders are increasingly leveraging GenAI applications/workloads into their organizations. Real-world GenAI use cases across the public sector gravitate towards constituent/employee support and experience solutions (e.g., chatbots) and content generation. However, concerns remain with 92% of public sector leaders highlighting the need for their organizations to do more to secure GenAI models and applications. The results of that need, according to 96% of respondents, is security and privacy becoming higher priorities for their organizations.

    “Generative AI is no longer a future concept, it’s already transforming how we work,” said Greg O’Connell, VP, Federal Sales, Public Sector at Nutanix. “94% of public sector organizations are already putting AI to work and expect returns in as little as one year. As public sector leaders look to see outcomes, now is the time to invest in AI-ready infrastructure, data security, privacy, and training to ensure long-term success.”

    Public sector survey respondents were asked about GenAI adoptions and trends, Kubernetes and containers, how they’re running business and mission critical applications today, and where they plan to run them in the future. Key findings from this year’s report include:

    • GenAI solution adoption and deployment in the public sector will necessitate a more comprehensive approach to data security. Public sector respondents indicate a significant amount of work needs to be done to improve the foundational levels of data security/governance required to support GenAI solution implementation and success. 92% of public sector respondents agree that their organization could be doing more to secure its GenAI models and applications. Luckily, many IT decision-makers in the public sector are aware of this impending sea change, with 96% of respondents agreeing that GenAI is changing their organization’s priorities, with security and privacy becoming higher priorities.
    • Prioritize infrastructure modernization to support GenAI at scale across public sector organizations. Running modern applications at enterprise scale requires infrastructure solutions that can support the necessary requirements for complex data security, data integrity, and resilience. Unfortunately, 76% of respondents in the public sector believe their current IT infrastructure requires at least moderate improvement to fully support cloud native apps/containers. Furthermore, IT infrastructure investment was ranked as a top area of improvement among public sector respondents, a sign that IT decision-makers are aware of the need to improve.
    • GenAI solution adoption in the public sector continues at a rapid pace, but there are still challenges to overcome. When it comes to GenAI adoption, public sector metrics show progress, with 94% of respondents saying their organization is leveraging GenAI applications/workloads today. Most public sector organizations believe GenAI solutions will help improve levels of productivity, automation, and efficiency. However, organizations in the public sector also note a range of challenges and potential hindrances regarding GenAI solution development and deployment, including data security and privacy, and the need for continued upskilling and hiring to support new GenAI projects/solutions.
    • Application containerization and Kubernetes deployment are expanding across the public sector. Application containerization is increasingly pervasive across industry sectors and is set to expand in adoption across the public sector as well, with 96% of segment respondents saying their organization is at least in the process of containerizing applications. This trend may be driven by the fact that 91% of respondents in the public sector agree their organization benefits from adopting cloud native applications/containers.

    For the seventh consecutive year, Nutanix commissioned a global research study to learn about the state of global enterprise cloud deployments, application containerization trends, and GenAI application adoption. In the Fall of 2024, U.K. researcher Vanson Bourne surveyed 1,500 IT and DevOps/Platform Engineering decision-makers around the world. The respondent base spanned multiple industries, business sizes, and geographies, including North and South America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific-Japan (APJ) region.

    To learn more about the report and findings, please download the full Public Sector Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index, here and read more in the blog here.

    About Nutanix
    Nutanix is a global leader in cloud software, offering organizations a single platform for running applications and managing data, anywhere. With Nutanix, companies can reduce complexity and simplify operations, freeing them to focus on their business outcomes. Building on its legacy as the pioneer of hyperconverged infrastructure, Nutanix is trusted by companies worldwide to power hybrid multicloud environments consistently, simply, and cost-effectively. Learn more at www.nutanix.com or follow us on social media @nutanix.

    © 2025 Nutanix, Inc. All rights reserved. Nutanix, the Nutanix logo, and all Nutanix product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or unregistered trademarks of Nutanix, Inc. (“Nutanix”) in the United States and other countries. Other brand names or marks mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s). This press release is for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes a warranty or other binding commitment by Nutanix. This release may contain express and implied forward-looking statements, which are not historical facts and are instead based on Nutanix’s current expectations, estimates and beliefs. The accuracy of such statements involves risks and uncertainties and depends upon future events, including those that may be beyond Nutanix’s control, and actual results may differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied by such statements. Any forward-looking statements included herein speak only as of the date hereof and, except as required by law, Nutanix assumes no obligation to update or otherwise revise any of such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

    Media Contact:
    Gabrielle Moynan
    pr@nutanix.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: When developing countries band together, lifesaving drugs become cheaper and easier to buy − with trade-offs

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst

    Pooling procurement of drugs could increase the availability of essential treatments around the globe. narvo vexar/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    Procuring lifesaving drugs is a daunting challenge in many low- and middle-income countries. Essential treatments are often neither available nor affordable in these nations, even decades after the drugs entered the market.

    Prospective buyers from these countries face a patent thicket, where a single drug may be covered by hundreds of patents. This makes it costly and legally difficult to secure licensing rights for manufacturing.

    These buyers also face a complex and often fragile supply chain. Many major pharmaceutical firms have little incentive to sell their products in unprofitable markets. Quality assurance adds another layer of complexity, with substandard and counterfeit drugs widespread in many of these countries.

    Organizations such as the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool have effectively increased the supply of generic versions of patented drugs. But the problems go beyond patents or manufacturing – how medicines are bought are also crucially important. Buyers for low- and middle-income countries are often health ministries and community organizations on tight budgets that have to negotiate with sellers that may have substantial market power and far more experience.

    We are economists who study how to increase access to drugs across the globe. Our research found that while pooling orders for essential medicines can help drive down costs and ensure a steady supply to low- and middle-income countries, there are trade-offs that require flexibility and early planning to address.

    Understanding these trade-offs can help countries better prepare for future health emergencies and treat chronic conditions.

    Pooled procurement reduces drug costs

    One strategy low-income countries are increasingly adopting to improve treatment access is “pooled procurement.” That’s when multiple buyers coordinate purchases to strengthen their collective bargaining power and reduce prices for essential medicines. For example, pooling can help buyers meet the minimum batch size requirements some suppliers impose that countries purchasing individually may not satisfy.

    Compared with decentralized procurement, pooled procurement eases transactions by connecting buyers and sellers in groups.
    Lucy Xiaolu Wang and Nahim Bin Zahur, CC BY-NC-ND

    Countries typically rely on four models for pooled drug procurement:

    • One method, called decentralized procurement, involves buyers purchasing directly from manufacturers.

    • Another method, called international pooled procurement, involves going through international institutions such as the Global Fund’s Pooled Procurement Mechanism or the United Nations.

    • Countries may also purchase prescription drugs through their own central medical stores, which are government-run or semi-autonomous agencies that procure, store and distribute medicines on behalf of national health systems. This method is called centralized domestic procurement.

    • Finally, countries can also go through independent nonprofits, foundations, nongovernmental organizations and private wholesalers.

    We wanted to understand how different procurement methods affect the cost of and time it takes to deliver drugs for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, because those three infectious diseases account for a large share of deaths and cases worldwide. So we analyzed over 39,000 drug procurement transactions across 106 countries between 2007 and 2017 that were funded by the Global Fund, the largest multilateral funder of HIV/AIDS programs worldwide.

    We found that pooled procurement through international institutions reduced prices by 13% to 20% compared with directly buying from drug manufacturers. Smaller buyers and those purchasing drugs produced by only a small number of manufacturers saw the greatest savings. In comparison, purchasing through domestic pooling offered less consistent savings, with larger buyers seeing greater price advantages.

    The Global Fund and the United Nations were especially effective at lowering the prices of older, off-patent drugs.

    Trade-offs with pooled procurements

    Cost savings from pooled drug procurement may come with trade-offs.

    While the Global Fund reduced unexpected delivery delays by 28%, it required buyers to place orders much earlier. This results in longer anticipated procurement lead time between ordering and delivery – an average of 114 days more than that of direct purchases. In contrast, domestic pooled procurement shortened lead times by over a month.

    Our results suggest a core tension: Pooled procurement improves prices and reliability but can reduce flexibility. Organizations that facilitate pooled procurement tend to prioritize medicines that can be bought at high volume, limiting the availability of other types of drugs. Additionally, the longer lead times may not be suitable for emergency situations.

    With the spread of COVID-19, several large armed conflicts and tariff wars, governments have become increasingly aware of the fragility of the global supply chain. Some countries, such as Kenya, have sought to reduce their dependence on international pooling since 2005 by investing in domestic procurement.

    But a shift toward domestic self-sufficiency is a slow and difficult process due to challenges with quality assurance and large-scale manufacturing. It may also weaken international pooled systems, which rely on broad participation to negotiate better terms with suppliers.

    Scaling up drug production in low-income countries can be difficult.
    Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo

    Interestingly, we found little evidence that international pooled procurement influences pricing for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a major purchaser of HIV treatments for developing countries. PEPFAR-eligible products do not appear to benefit more from international pooled procurement than noneligible ones.

    However, domestic procurement institutions were able to secure lower prices for PEPFAR-eligible products. This suggests that the presence of a large donor such as PEPFAR can cut costs, particularly when countries manage procurement internally.

    USAID cuts and global drug access

    While international organizations such as the Medicines Patent Pool and the Global Fund can address upstream barriers such as patents and procurement in the global drug supply chain, other institutions are essential for ensuring that medicines actually reach patients.

    The U.S. Agency for International Development had played a significant role in delivering HIV treatment abroad through PEPFAR. The Trump administration’s decision in February 2025 to cut over 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts amounted to a US$60 billion reduction in overall U.S. assistance globally. An estimated hundreds of thousands of deaths are already happening, and millions more will likely die.

    The World Health Organization warned that eight countries, including Haiti, Kenya, Nigeria and Ukraine, could soon run out of HIV treatments due to these aid cuts. In South Africa, HIV services have already been scaled back, with reports of mass layoffs of health workers and HIV clinic closures. These downstream cracks can undercut the gains from efforts to make procuring drugs more accessible if the drugs can’t reach patients.

    Because HIV, tuberculosis and malaria often share the same treatment infrastructure – including drug procurement and distribution networks, laboratory systems, data collection, health workers and community-based services – disruption in the management of one disease can ripple across the others. Researchers have warned of a broader unraveling of progress across these infectious diseases, describing the fallout as a potential “bloodbath” in the global HIV response.

    Research shows that supporting access to treatments around the world doesn’t just save lives abroad. It also helps prevent the next global health crisis from reaching America’s doorstep.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. When developing countries band together, lifesaving drugs become cheaper and easier to buy − with trade-offs – https://theconversation.com/when-developing-countries-band-together-lifesaving-drugs-become-cheaper-and-easier-to-buy-with-trade-offs-255383

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Companies haven’t stopped hiring, but they’re more cautious, according to the 2025 College Hiring Outlook Report

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Murugan Anandarajan, Professor of Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems, Drexel University

    Recent college grads face a tough job market in 2025, but employers are still hiring. sturti/E+ via Getty Images

    Every year, I tell my students in my business analytics class the same thing: “Don’t just apply for a job. Audition for it.”

    This advice seems particularly relevant this year. In today’s turbulent economy, companies are still hiring, but they’re doing it a bit more carefully. More places are offering candidates short-term work experiences like internships and co-op programs in order to evaluate them before making them full-time offers.

    This is just one of the findings of the 2025 College Hiring Outlook Report. This annual report tracks trends in the job market and offers valuable insights for both job seekers and employers. It is based on a national survey conducted in September 2024, with responses from 1,322 employers spanning all major industries and company sizes, from small firms to large enterprises. The survey looks at employer perspectives on entry-level hiring trends, skills demand and talent development strategies.

    I am a professor of information systems at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business in Philadelphia, and I co-authored this report along with a team of colleagues at the Center for Career Readiness.

    Here’s what we found:

    Employers are rethinking talent pipelines

    Only 21% of the 1,322 employers we surveyed rated the current college hiring market as “excellent” or “very good,” which is a dramatic drop from 61% in 2023. This indicates that companies are becoming increasingly cautious about how they recruit and select new talent.

    While confidence in full-time hiring has declined, employers are not stepping away from hiring altogether. Instead, they’re shifting to paid and unpaid internships, co-ops and contract-to-hire roles as a less risky route to identify talent and “de-risk” full-time hiring.

    Employers we surveyed described internships as a cost-effective talent pipeline, and 70% told us they plan to maintain or increase their co-op and intern hiring in 2025. At a time when many companies are tightening their belts, hiring someone who’s already proved themselves saves on onboarding reduces turnover and minimizes potentially costly mishires.

    For job seekers, this makes every internship or short-term role more than a foot in the door. It’s an extended audition. Even with the general market looking unstable, interest in co-op and internship programs appears steady, especially among recent graduates facing fewer full-time opportunities.

    These programs aren’t just about trying out a job. They let employers see if a candidate shows initiative, good judgment and the ability to work well on a team, which we found are traits employers value even more than technical skills.

    What employers want

    We found that employers increasingly prioritize self-management skills like adaptability, ethical reasoning and communication over technical skills such as digital literacy and cybersecurity. Employers are paying attention to how candidates behave during internships, how they take feedback, and whether they bring the mindset needed to grow with the company.

    This reflects what I have observed in classrooms and in conversations with hiring managers: Credentials matter, but what truly sets candidates apart is how they present themselves and what they contribute to a company.

    Based on co-op and internship data we’ve collected at Drexel, however, many students continue to believe that technical proficiency is the key to getting a job.

    In my opinion, this disconnect reveals a critical gap in expectations: While students focus on hard skills to differentiate themselves, employers are looking for the human skills that indicate long-term potential, resilience and professionalism. This is especially true in the face of economic uncertainty and the ambiguous, fast-changing nature of today’s workplace.

    Technology is changing how hiring happens

    Employers also told us that artificial intelligence is now central to how both applicants and employers navigate the hiring process.

    Some companies are increasingly using AI-powered platforms to transform their hiring processes. For example, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia uses platforms like HireVue to conduct asynchronous video interviews. HR-focused firms like Phenom and JJ Staffing Services also leverage technologies such as AI-based resume ranking, automated interview scheduling and one-way video assessments.

    Not only do these tools speed up the hiring process, but they also reshape how employers and candidates interact. In our survey, large employers said they are increasingly relying on AI tools like resume screeners and one-way video interviews to manage large numbers of job applicants. As a result, the candidate’s presence, clarity in communication and authenticity are being evaluated even before a human recruiter becomes involved.

    At the same time, job seekers are using generative AI tools to write cover letters, practice interviews or reformat resumes. These tools can help with preparation, but overreliance on them can backfire. Employers want authenticity, and many employers we surveyed mentioned they notice when applications seem overly robotic.

    In my experience as a professor, the key is teaching students to use AI to enhance their effort and not replace it. I encourage them to leverage AI tools but always emphasize that the final output and the impression it makes should reflect their own thinking and professionalism. The bottom line is that hiring is still a human decision, and the personal impression you make matters.

    This isn’t just about new grads

    While our research focuses on early-career hiring, these findings apply to other audiences as well, such as career changers, returning professionals and even mid-career workers. These workers are increasingly being evaluated on their adaptability, behavior and collaborative ability – not just their experience.

    Many companies now offer project-based assignments and trial roles that let them evaluate performance before making a permanent hire.

    At the same time, employers are investing in internal reskilling and upskilling programs. Reskilling refers to training workers for entirely new roles, often in response to job changes or automation, while upskilling means helping employees deepen their current skills to stay effective and advance in their existing roles. Our report indicates that approximately 88% of large companies now offer structured upskilling and reskilling programs. For job seekers and workers alike, staying competitive means taking the initiative and demonstrating a commitment to learning and growth.

    Show up early, and show up well

    So what can students, or anyone entering or reentering the workforce, do to prepare?

    • Start early. Don’t wait until senior year. First- and second-year internships are growing in importance.

    • Sharpen your soft skills. Communication, time management, problem-solving and ethical behavior are top priorities for employers.

    • Understand where work is happening. Over 50% of entry-level jobs are fully in-person. Only 4% are fully remote. Show up ready to engage.

    • Use AI strategically. It’s a useful tool for research and practice, not a shortcut to connection or clarity.

    • Stay curious. Most large employers now offer reskilling or upskilling opportunities – and they expect employees to take initiative.

    One of the clearest takeaways from this year’s report is that hiring is no longer a one-time decision. It’s a performance process that often begins before an interview is even scheduled.

    Whether you’re still in school, transitioning in your career or returning to the workforce after a break, the same principle applies: Every opportunity is an audition. Treat it like one.

    Murugan Anandarajan 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.

    – ref. Companies haven’t stopped hiring, but they’re more cautious, according to the 2025 College Hiring Outlook Report – https://theconversation.com/companies-havent-stopped-hiring-but-theyre-more-cautious-according-to-the-2025-college-hiring-outlook-report-257870

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Observers of workplace mistreatment react as strongly as the victims − at times with a surprising amount of victim blaming

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jason Colquitt, Professor of Management, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame

    Workplace mistreatment harms observers, too. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

    Picture this: On your way out of the office, you notice a manager berating an employee. You assume the worker made some sort of mistake, but the manager’s behavior seems unprofessional. Later, as you’re preparing dinner, is the scene still weighing on you – or is it out of sight, out of mind?

    If you think you’d still be bothered, you’re not alone. It turns out that simply observing mistreatment at work can have a surprisingly strong impact on people, even for those not directly involved. That’s according to new research led by Edwyna Hill, co-authored by Rachel Burgess, Manuela Priesemuth, Jefferson McClain and me, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

    Using a method called meta-analysis – which takes results from many different studies and combines them to produce an overall set of findings – we reviewed the growing body of research on what management professors like me call “third-party perceptions of mistreatment.” In this context, “third parties” are people who observe mistreatment between a perpetrator and the victim, who are the first and second parties.

    We looked at 158 studies published in 105 journal articles involving thousands of participants. Those studies explored a number of different forms of workplace mistreatment ranging from incivility to abusive supervision and sexual harassment. Some of those studies took part in actual workplaces, while others examined mistreatment in tightly controlled laboratory settings.

    The results were striking: We found that observing a co-worker being mistreated on the job has significant effects on the observers’ emotions. In fact, we found that observers of mistreatment may be as affected by what happened as the people actually involved in the event.

    These reactions fall along a spectrum – some helpful, others less so. On the encouraging side, we found that observers tend to judge perpetrators and feel empathy for victims. These reactions discourage mistreatment by creating a climate that favors the victim. On the other hand, we found that observers may also enjoy seeing their co-workers suffer – an emotion called “schadenfreude” – or blame the victim. These sorts of reactions damage team dynamics and discourage people from reporting mistreatment.

    Why it matters

    These findings matter because mistreatment in the workplace is disturbingly common – and even more frequently observed than experienced. One recent study found that 34% of employees have experienced workplace mistreatment firsthand, but 44% have observed it happening to someone else. In other words, nearly half of workers have likely seen a scenario like the one described at the start of this article.

    Unfortunately, the human resources playbook on workplace mistreatment rarely takes third parties into account. Some investigation occurs, potentially resulting in some punishment for the perpetrator and some support for the victim. A more effective response to workplace mistreatment would recognize that the harm often extends beyond the victim – and that observers, too, may need support.

    What still isn’t known

    What’s needed now is a better understanding of the nuances involved in observing mistreatment. Why do some observers react with empathy, while others derive pleasure from the suffering of others? And why might observers feel empathy for the victim but still respond by judging or blaming them? Answering these questions is a crucial next step for researchers and leaders seeking to design more effective workplace policies.

    The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

    Jason Colquitt 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.

    – ref. Observers of workplace mistreatment react as strongly as the victims − at times with a surprising amount of victim blaming – https://theconversation.com/observers-of-workplace-mistreatment-react-as-strongly-as-the-victims-at-times-with-a-surprising-amount-of-victim-blaming-255761

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The hidden bias in college admissions tests: How standardized exams can favor privilege over potential

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Zarrina Talan Azizova, Associate Professor of Education, Health and Behavior, University of North Dakota

    At first glance, calls from members of Congress to restore academic merit in college admissions might sound like a neutral policy.

    In our view, these campaigns often cherry-pick evidence and mask a coordinated effort that targets access and diversity in American colleges.

    As scholars who study access to higher education, we have found that when these efforts are paired with pressure to reinstate standardized tests, they amount to a rollback of inclusive practices.

    A Department of Education letter sent to congressional offices from Feb. 14, 2025, stated that is “unlawful for an educational institution to eliminate standardized testing to achieve a desired racial balance or to increase racial diversity.” The letter also claimed that the most widely used admissions tests, the SAT and ACT, are objective measures of merit.

    In our recent peer-reviewed article, we analyzed more than 70 empirical studies about the SAT’s and ACT’s roles in college admissions. Our work found several flaws in how these exams function, especially for historically underserved students.

    Measuring college readiness

    Supporters of admissions tests contend that they are objective tools for measuring whether students are ready for college-level coursework.
    The Good Brigade/Digital Vision via Getty Images

    Several elite universities – including Yale, Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – have reinstated SAT or ACT requirements, reversing test-optional policies that institutions expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    These changes have reignited debates about how well these tests measure students’ academic preparedness and how colleges should weigh them in admissions decisions.

    During a May 21, 2025, hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, some witnesses argued that using test scores allows colleges to admit students based on merit. Others maintained that test scores can function as barriers to higher education.

    Our research shows that while these tests are statistically reliable – that is, they produce consistent results for students across subjects and during multiple attempts under similar conditions – they are not as valid as some argue.

    High school grade-point averages are typically better predictors of students’ success in college than either test.

    In addition, the tests are not equitable or similarly predictive for all students, especially given gender, race and socioeconomic demographics.

    That is because they systematically favor those with more access to high-quality schooling, stable socioeconomic conditions and opportunities to engage with test prep coaches and courses. That test prep can cost thousands of dollars.

    In short, both tests tend to reflect privilege more than potential.

    For example, students from higher-income households routinely outperform their peers on the ACT and SAT.

    This isn’t surprising, considering wealthier families can afford test prep services, private tutoring and test retakes. These advantages translate into higher scores and open doors to selective colleges and scholarship opportunities.

    Meanwhile, students from low-income families often face challenges – such as less experienced instructors and less access to high-level science, math and advanced placement courses – that test scores do not factor in.

    Reflecting deep inequities

    In the U.S., high school GPA can be a better predictor than standardized tests of college success.
    Clerkenwell/Vetta via Getty Images

    In our published review, we found that these disparities aren’t incidental – they’re systemic.

    Our review revealed long-standing evidence of bias in test design and differences in average scores along lines of race, gender and language background.

    These outcomes don’t just reflect academic differences; they reflect inequities that shape how students prepare for and perform on these tests.

    We also found that high school GPA outperforms standardized tests in predicting college success. GPA captures years of classroom performance, effort and teacher feedback. It reflects how students navigate real-world challenges, not just how they perform on a single timed exam.

    For many students, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds, grades can offer a better indication of how prepared they are for college-level work.

    This issue matters because admissions decisions aren’t just technical evaluations – they are value statements. Choosing to center test scores in admissions rewards certain kinds of knowledge, experiences and preparation.

    The American Council on Education defines equity as opportunities for success. It means building educational environments that recognize diverse forms of potential and equip all learners to thrive.

    It’s worth noting that research on testing often focuses on elite institutions, where standardized test scores are more likely to be used as high-stakes screening tools. Our systematic review found that, even in elite schools, the tests’ ability to accurately predict college academic performance is often limited (moderate in statistical terms).

    But most college students attend state universities, public regional universities, minority-serving institutions, or colleges that accept most applicants. Our study found that at these institutions, standardized test scores are even less likely to predict how students will do.

    This may be because state universities and public regional universities are more likely to serve highly diverse student populations, including older, part-time and first-generation students and those who are balancing work and family responsibilities.

    Where does higher ed go from here?

    Prioritizing standardized tests in college admissions could close the doors of opportunity for some capable students.
    David Schaffer/istock via Getty Images Plus

    With the debate over the role of standardized tests in the admissions process, higher education stands at a crossroads: Will colleges yield to political pressure and narrow definitions of merit and ignore equity? Or will institutions reaffirm their mission by embracing broader, fairer tools for recognizing talent and supporting student success?

    The answer depends on what values are prioritized.

    Our research and that of others make it clear that standardized tests should not be the gatekeepers of opportunity.

    If universities define merit on test scores alone, they risk closing the doors of opportunity to capable students.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. The hidden bias in college admissions tests: How standardized exams can favor privilege over potential – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-bias-in-college-admissions-tests-how-standardized-exams-can-favor-privilege-over-potential-256967

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: A radical proposal to abolish state government and strengthen American democracy

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephen Legomsky, John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus, Washington University in St. Louis

    Abolish all the states? Zoonar/Getty Images Plus

    Get rid of states? Legal scholar Stephen Legomsky, who taught for 34 years at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, has just published a book, “Reimagining the American Union,” that proposes a radical idea: Abolish state government. The Conversation’s politics and democracy editor, Naomi Schalit – a former statehouse reporter herself – interviewed Legomsky about the provocative idea behind his book, in which he advocates moving most of the functions of state government down to the local level, closer to those represented and governed by it.

    You propose abolishing states. Why?

    The book is a thought experiment. The proposal I’m offering is long term. I realize we need states during the current political moment.

    I think the states are the root cause of many, if not most, of the current dangers faced by U.S. democracy. I also see the states as a significant source of fiscal waste. We don’t need three levels of government – national, state and local – all regulating us and all taxing us. Two would do just fine. And after careful, detailed analysis, I concluded that every benefit ever claimed for state government could be achieved at least as well, and in many cases better, by the local governments.

    I’m imagining the framers sitting in Independence Hall. And you go back in time and suggest to them not having states. I think most of them would drop dead at the thought, because it ultimately implies a much more powerful federal government. What would you say to them?

    After they stop laughing, I would emphasize that I’m not proposing a wholesale transfer of power from the states to an all-powerful, all-knowing central government. Yes, some of the functions currently performed by the states could better be performed at the national level, but I’m proposing that the lion’s share devolve down to the local governments, which are even closer to the people they represent than the state legislatures can ever be.

    Some of the most ardent Federalists, including Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson, referred to the states as “artificial beings” or “imaginary beings.” They accepted the states only because keeping them was politically essential to getting the required nine state ratifications, not because they thought states were a good idea.

    George Washington’s working copy of the Constitution from Aug. 6, 1787.
    National Archives, Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention

    What functions would your plan hand over to the federal government?

    A prime example is licensing. I looked up all the different occupations that require state licenses. I was astonished: practically every health care profession, barbers, engineers, lawyers, architects, the list is endless.

    If you live near a state line, you can’t practice in both states unless you get two licenses. If you move to another state, you have to get another license. This seems silly. The human anatomy, human hair, engineering principles, don’t change as you cross from New York to New Jersey. Nor do we need 50 different state driver’s licenses; a single national license administered through local agencies would be more efficient.

    You say states are the root cause of the greatest threats to American democracy. What are those threats?

    The structural threats are those that are baked into the Constitution itself. The Electoral College is one. On five occasions, the Electoral College has awarded the presidency to the candidate whom the voters rejected nationwide. And there were many, many near misses where the popular vote loser almost became president, making many such future instances a statistical certainty.

    Perhaps even more important, every state, no matter how large or how small, gets the same number of U.S. senators. In fact, a majority of the U.S. population is represented by only about 18% of the Senate. The minority gets the other 82%.

    These counter-majoritarian defects in the elections of both presidents and senators have a ripple effect. They skew the composition, and thus the decisions, of the federal courts. Three of the current Supreme Court justices were appointed by President Donald Trump after he had lost the national popular vote; five of the current Supreme Court justices were confirmed by senators who collectively represented only a minority of the U.S. population.

    Here’s one especially jarring statistic: From 1969 until today, the Democratic presidential nominees won the national popular vote in a slight majority of the elections. Yet, during the presidential terms that resulted from those elections, Republican presidents have gotten to make 15 of the 20 Supreme Court appointments.

    The Constitution also gives the states broad powers to regulate and run national elections. State legislatures have used those powers to pass gerrymandering, voter suppression and other counter-majoritarian laws.

    If you devolve these functions and services to localities, wouldn’t you end up with a mirror of the current state-level structure? Wouldn’t this just send a lot of state personnel down to the local level?

    Yes, much of that structure would devolve. However, I see that as a good thing. Devolution is unavoidable in a country this size. Not everything can be done by the central government. The question for me is, do we need two levels of subordinate political subdivisions or one? One seems more efficient. And when problems are too big for one local government to handle on its own, it can partner with other local governments or with the national government, just as many local governments do today.

    Abolishing state government means no more meetings of the state legislature, like this one in the Maine House of Representatives on Jan. 4, 2023, at the State House in Augusta.
    AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty

    If there were no states to gerrymander or pass voter-suppression laws, wouldn’t some national government agency just do it instead?

    Redistricting would be performed by a nonpartisan redistricting commission that I propose be made up of technicians, mainly demographers, statisticians and geographers, under broad, general principles enacted by Congress. That’s what almost every other democracy in the world does today.

    Why did you write this book?

    For a long time, I’ve been distressed about so many of the dangers to our democracy. So, one day, I found myself compiling what ended up becoming a fairly long mental list of all of my democracy-related grievances.

    A list of grievances like in the Declaration of Independence!

    That’s a nice analogy. And as I thought about that list, it suddenly struck me that the vast majority of these problems couldn’t occur without states. That got me thinking about whether we really need states in the first place.

    If it’s just a thought experiment, something that’s not going to happen, why would you think it’s worthwhile spending time writing this?

    And why would I be so vain as to think anybody would want to waste their time reading it?

    And your answer is, ‘Because I’m an academic!’

    It’s that, plus more. I do hope there’s some scholarly value in this. But I’m also writing for the long term. States are secure for now, but history teaches us that the more distant future is full of surprises.

    Stephen Legomsky 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.

    – ref. A radical proposal to abolish state government and strengthen American democracy – https://theconversation.com/a-radical-proposal-to-abolish-state-government-and-strengthen-american-democracy-256955

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The use of federal troops to quell Los Angles protests recalls militarized law enforcement during the Civil Rights Movement

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Justin Randolph, Assistant Professor of U.S. History, Texas A&M University

    The National Guard and protesters stand off outside of a downtown jail in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    President Donald Trump activated 4,000 National Guard troops on June 10, 2025, to quell protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids – without the normal request from the state. He has also sent to Los Angeles hundreds of U.S. Marines, with the goal of protecting the unprecedented deportation operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    If this all feels exceptional, it should. Governors typically activate their own state troops, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would do on June 11 ahead of expected immigration protests.

    California quickly sued the president. A federal court has sided with the state, but an appeals court will weigh the Trump administration’s use of the U.S. code on armed services to activate the National Guard, which relies on protesters constituting either an “invasion” or “rebellion.”

    “What we’re witnessing is not law enforcement – it’s authoritarianism,”
    California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on June 10.

    Protesters report violent responses from Los Angeles police, too. Nonetheless, Newsom’s invocation of authoritarianism is apt.

    The last example of a president federalizing troops over the objection of a state government dates to Jim Crow segregation, a period marked by legal practices that routinely denied due process and citizenship rights to Black Americans in the South. In the 1960s, numerous Black freedom struggles took stands against this authoritarianism backed by militarized law enforcement.

    As a scholar of U.S. history, I’ve just completed a book on Jim Crow policing and the ways Black Americans fought back against racist law and order. I think the militarization of policing in Los Angeles opens important questions about democracy and state violence.

    Jim Crow dreams

    During the Civil Rights Movement, the federal government activated National Guard troops over Southern state objections when those states would neither enforce court orders nor protect protesters.

    In those cases, presidents protected people with the help of troops. In Trump’s case, he’s using troops to protect the government from protesters.

    The Trump administration’s vision of law enforcement aims for the type of militarized authority that state governments institutionalized under Jim Crow policing. If your political enemy is perceived more like an enemy combatant, the rules of legal procedure, especially due process, might not apply. Policing becomes war.

    When you see the words “Jim Crow,” your mind may jump to photos of racially segregated water fountains. But Jim Crow was far more than that. It was homegrown racial authoritarianism, or the repression of freedom of thought and action.

    Before troops enforced civil rights, Black Southerners saw the National Guard as an enemy rather than a friend.

    In the words of Ida B. Wells-Barnett after a white riot against Black residents in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1917, “The police were either indifferent or encouraged the barbarities. … The major part of the National Guard was indifferent or inactive. No organized effort was made to protect the Negroes or disperse the murdering groups.”

    Eisenhower sends in the troops

    The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education changed things. It overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that legalized racial segregation and ruled that segregated public school education was unconstitutional. This significantly altered the federal government’s responsibility in the South’s legal system of white supremacy.

    The first test came in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Though numerous school districts across the South quietly desegregated, Southern governors such as Arkansas’ Orville Faubus resisted the planned desegregation of Little Rock Central High School.

    Seven of nine Black students walk onto the campus of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., with a National Guard officer as an escort on Oct. 15, 1957.
    AP Photo/File

    Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to stop Black children at the door. For nearly three weeks, Guardsmen blocked the small group of Black students – known as the “Little Rock Nine” – who were supposed to attend the school before President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them to stand down.

    Eisenhower deployed U.S. Army riot troops to Little Rock under the Insurrection Act. In the end, the Little Rock Nine began their studies at Central High despite the much-photographed spitting from the white mob that surrounded the school.

    State troops, state rights

    Next came the desegregation of interstate transportation.

    In spring 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality, a civil rights advocacy group, sent buses of integrated passengers through the Deep South. White terrorists attacked Freedom Riders, as these activists became known, three times in Alabama.

    But state authorities had learned from the Little Rock experience. Southern governors in Alabama and Mississippi deployed the National Guard themselves. This time they intended to only minimally protect Freedom Riders to block federal law enforcement. In Mississippi, police arrested and prison guards tortured Freedom Riders in the state penitentiary. Mob violence killed no one.

    James Meredith, center, is escorted by federal marshals as he appears for his first day of class at the previously all-white University of Mississippi on Oct. 1, 1962.
    AP Photo, File

    The same was not true during the desegregation of public universities.

    When U.S. marshals arrived to enforce the court order enrolling James Meredith at the University of Mississippi in September 1962, a white riot erupted. State law enforcement withdrew from the scene. Two men died, and many more were injured.

    President John F. Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard and sent them in to restore order. The next summer, he did the same in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to preemptively halt a riot at the University of Alabama.

    The occasion became a publicity stunt for Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace. He temporarily blocked the entrance to Foster Auditorium, intent on stopping the court-ordered registration of three Black students.

    “I stand before you here today in place of thousands of other Alabamians whose presence would have confronted you,” Wallace said to federal authorities. A National Guard general said, “Sir, it is my sad duty to ask you to step aside under the orders of the President of the United States.”

    A National Guard general informs Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace that the guard was under federal control, as the two meet at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on June 11, 1963.
    AP Photo, File

    Wallace also triggered the last federal use – until now – of the National Guard. Alabama’s Selma-to-Montgomery march began as a memorial to Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young Black civil rights activist who was killed by police on Feb. 26, 1965. The march became primarily a symbol for the year’s Voting Rights Act.

    In an important change, President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the National Guard to protect marchers. State troopers and sheriff’s deputies had terrorized marchers, including John Lewis, who was almost beaten to death on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.

    Democracy is in the streets

    The history of the National Guard in the South is an important part of what’s unfolding in Los Angeles and across the nation.

    For most of the National Guard’s history in the South, political leaders used domestic military power to preserve the interests of racial authoritarians, not racial egalitarians. Little Rock, Tuscaloosa, Selma: Those moments when troops protected racial justice protesters at home stand out as some of America’s most hopeful moments.

    Recent statements by Trump administration officials help illustrate how it envisions using military power in domestic law enforcement. On June 8, 2025, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “to arrest rioters” – a request beyond the original order to protect ICE agents.

    And on June 12, Noem said that “the military people that are working on this operation … are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country.”

    The National Guard and Marines are reportedly protecting immigration enforcement. But what might happen if they directly interact with protests?

    With diverse tactics, protesters are halting business as usual because they see a mass-deportation regime terrorizing and disappearing people in their communities. U.S. courts tend to agree with their analysis but seem powerless to enforce even basic due process rights for those detained by ICE.

    These activists show the messy work of American social change. Their work may look like “anarchy” to even some Democrats. It may be maligned as “invasion” and “rebellion” by the Trump administration.

    But the calls to constrain ICE follow an American tradition of fighting authoritarianism.

    Justin Randolph 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.

    – ref. The use of federal troops to quell Los Angles protests recalls militarized law enforcement during the Civil Rights Movement – https://theconversation.com/the-use-of-federal-troops-to-quell-los-angles-protests-recalls-militarized-law-enforcement-during-the-civil-rights-movement-258866

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: AI ‘reanimations’: Making facsimiles of the dead raises ethical quandaries

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston

    This screenshot of an AI-generated video depicts Christopher Pelkey, who was killed in 2021. Screenshot: Stacey Wales/YouTube

    Christopher Pelkey was shot and killed in a road range incident in 2021. On May 8, 2025, at the sentencing hearing for his killer, an AI video reconstruction of Pelkey delivered a victim impact statement. The trial judge reported being deeply moved by this performance and issued the maximum sentence for manslaughter.

    As part of the ceremonies to mark Israel’s 77th year of independence on April 30, 2025, officials had planned to host a concert featuring four iconic Israeli singers. All four had died years earlier. The plan was to conjure them using AI-generated sound and video. The dead performers were supposed to sing alongside Yardena Arazi, a famous and still very much alive artist. In the end Arazi pulled out, citing the political atmosphere, and the event didn’t happen.

    In April, the BBC created a deep-fake version of the famous mystery writer Agatha Christie to teach a “maestro course on writing.” Fake Agatha would instruct aspiring murder mystery authors and “inspire” their “writing journey.”

    The use of artificial intelligence to “reanimate” the dead for a variety of purposes is quickly gaining traction. Over the past few years, we’ve been studying the moral implications of AI at the Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and we find these AI reanimations to be morally problematic.

    Before we address the moral challenges the technology raises, it’s important to distinguish AI reanimations, or deepfakes, from so-called griefbots. Griefbots are chatbots trained on large swaths of data the dead leave behind – social media posts, texts, emails, videos. These chatbots mimic how the departed used to communicate and are meant to make life easier for surviving relations. The deepfakes we are discussing here have other aims; they are meant to promote legal, political and educational causes.

    Chris Pelkey was shot and killed in 2021. This AI ‘reanimation’ of him was presented in court as a victim impact statement.

    Moral quandaries

    The first moral quandary the technology raises has to do with consent: Would the deceased have agreed to do what their likeness is doing? Would the dead Israeli singers have wanted to sing at an Independence ceremony organized by the nation’s current government? Would Pelkey, the road-rage victim, be comfortable with the script his family wrote for his avatar to recite? What would Christie think about her AI double teaching that class?

    The answers to these questions can only be deduced circumstantially – from examining the kinds of things the dead did and the views they expressed when alive. And one could ask if the answers even matter. If those in charge of the estates agree to the reanimations, isn’t the question settled? After all, such trustees are the legal representatives of the departed.

    But putting aside the question of consent, a more fundamental question remains.

    What do these reanimations do to the legacy and reputation of the dead? Doesn’t their reputation depend, to some extent, on the scarcity of appearance, on the fact that the dead can’t show up anymore? Dying can have a salutary effect on the reputation of prominent people; it was good for John F. Kennedy, and it was good for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

    The fifth-century B.C. Athenian leader Pericles understood this well. In his famous Funeral Oration, delivered at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, he asserts that a noble death can elevate one’s reputation and wash away their petty misdeeds. That is because the dead are beyond reach and their mystique grows postmortem. “Even extreme virtue will scarcely win you a reputation equal to” that of the dead, he insists.

    Do AI reanimations devalue the currency of the dead by forcing them to keep popping up? Do they cheapen and destabilize their reputation by having them comment on events that happened long after their demise?

    In addition, these AI representations can be a powerful tool to influence audiences for political or legal purposes. Bringing back a popular dead singer to legitimize a political event and reanimating a dead victim to offer testimony are acts intended to sway an audience’s judgment.

    It’s one thing to channel a Churchill or a Roosevelt during a political speech by quoting them or even trying to sound like them. It’s another thing to have “them” speak alongside you. The potential of harnessing nostalgia is supercharged by this technology. Imagine, for example, what the Soviets, who literally worshipped Lenin’s dead body, would have done with a deep fake of their old icon.

    Good intentions

    You could argue that because these reanimations are uniquely engaging, they can be used for virtuous purposes. Consider a reanimated Martin Luther King Jr., speaking to our currently polarized and divided nation, urging moderation and unity. Wouldn’t that be grand? Or what about a reanimated Mordechai Anielewicz, the commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, speaking at the trial of a Holocaust denier like David Irving?

    But do we know what MLK would have thought about our current political divisions? Do we know what Anielewicz would have thought about restrictions on pernicious speech? Does bravely campaigning for civil rights mean we should call upon the digital ghost of King to comment on the impact of populism? Does fearlessly fighting the Nazis mean we should dredge up the AI shadow of an old hero to comment on free speech in the digital age?

    No one can know with certainty what Martin Luther King Jr. would say about today’s society.
    AP Photo/Chick Harrity

    Even if the political projects these AI avatars served were consistent with the deceased’s views, the problem of manipulation – of using the psychological power of deepfakes to appeal to emotions – remains.

    But what about enlisting AI Agatha Christie to teach a writing class? Deep fakes may indeed have salutary uses in educational settings. The likeness of Christie could make students more enthusiastic about writing. Fake Aristotle could improve the chances that students engage with his austere Nicomachean Ethics. AI Einstein could help those who want to study physics get their heads around general relativity.

    But producing these fakes comes with a great deal of responsibility. After all, given how engaging they can be, it’s possible that the interactions with these representations will be all that students pay attention to, rather than serving as a gateway to exploring the subject further.

    Living on in the living

    In a poem written in memory of W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden tells us that, after the poet’s death, Yeats “became his admirers.” His memory was now “scattered among a hundred cities,” and his work subject to endless interpretation: “the words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.”

    The dead live on in the many ways we reinterpret their words and works. Auden did that to Yeats, and we’re doing it to Auden right here. That’s how people stay in touch with those who are gone. In the end, we believe that using technological prowess to concretely bring them back disrespects them and, perhaps more importantly, is an act of disrespect to ourselves – to our capacity to abstract, think and imagine.

    Nir Eisikovits directs UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center, which receives funding from the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He’s also a data ethics advisor to mindguard.com

    Daniel J. Feldman 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.

    – ref. AI ‘reanimations’: Making facsimiles of the dead raises ethical quandaries – https://theconversation.com/ai-reanimations-making-facsimiles-of-the-dead-raises-ethical-quandaries-256771

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Nostalgic foods and scents like fresh-cut grass and hamburgers grilling bring comfort, connection and well-being

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Chelsea Reid, Associate Professor of Psychology, College of Charleston

    The foods and scents we associate with our childhoods can provide a meaningful source of comfort and connection. zeljkosantrac/E+ via Getty Images

    Walking around my neighborhood in the evening, I am hit by the smells of summer: fresh-cut grass, hamburgers grilling and a hint of swimming pool chlorine. These are also the smells of summers from my adolescence, and they remind me of Friday evenings at the community pool with my friends and our families gathered around picnic tables between swims. The memories always brings a smile to my face.

    As a social psychologist, I shouldn’t feel surprised to experience this warm glow. My research focuses on nostalgia – a sentimental longing for treasured moments in our personal pasts – and how nostalgia is linked to our well-being and feelings of connection with others.

    Triggered by sensory stimuli such as music, scents and foods, nostalgia has the power to mentally transport us back in time. This might be to important occasions, to moments of triumph and – importantly – moments revolving around close family and friends and other important people in our lives.

    As it turns out, this experience is good for us.

    How the concept of nostalgia evolved

    For centuries, nostalgia was considered unhealthy.

    In the 1600s, a Swiss medical student named Johannes Hofer studied mercenaries in the Italian and French lowlands who longed desperately for their mountain homelands. Witnessing their weeping and despondency, he coined the term nostalgia and attributed it to a brain disease. Other thinkers of the time echoed this view, which persisted through the 18th and 19th centuries.

    However, early thinkers made an error: They assumed that nostalgia was causing unpleasant symptoms. It may have been the reverse. Unpleasant experiences, such as loneliness and grief, can arouse nostalgia, which can then help people cope more effectively with these hardships.

    Today, researchers view nostalgia as a predominantly positive, albeit bittersweet, emotional experience that serves as a source of psychological well-being. Importantly, this view has been supported by scientific research.

    Part of what makes nostalgia so intense is the bittersweet blend of feelings that it brings up.

    How nostalgia inspires connection and belonging

    Nostalgia provides many benefits. It enhances feelings of optimism and inspiration and makes people view themselves more positively. When people feel nostalgic, they feel a greater sense that their lives are meaningful.

    The social benefits of nostalgia are particularly well supported. Nostalgia increases empathy and the willingness of people to give to those around them, such as volunteering for community events and donating to charities.

    Nostalgia also makes people feel more socially connected to their loved ones by enhancing feelings that they are loved by, connected to, protected by and trusting of others. Nostalgia helps people feel more secure in their close relationships and enhances relationship satisfaction.

    While nostalgia is a universal experience, it is also deeply personal. The moments for which we are each nostalgic and the stimuli that might trigger our nostalgic memories can vary from one person to the next depending on the experiences that each of us have. But people within the same culture may find similar stimuli to be nostalgic for them. In a 2013 study, for instance, my team found that American participants rated pumpkin pie spice as the most nostalgia-evoking scent out of a variety of options.

    Many nostalgia-inducing scents vary from person to person, but pumpkin pie spice may be one of the most evocative scents in the U.S.
    Redjina Ph/Moment via Getty Images

    The nostalgic power of scents and foods

    In 1922, the French novelist Marcel Proust wrote about the strength of scents and foods to elicit nostalgia. He vividly described how the experience of smelling and eating a tea-soaked cake mentally transported him back to childhood experiences with his aunt in her home and village. This sort of experience is now often referred to as the Proust effect.

    Science has confirmed what Proust described. Our olfactory system, the sensory system responsible for our sense of smell, is closely linked to brain structures associated with emotions and autobiographical memory. Smells combine with tastes to create our perception of flavor.

    Foods also tend to be central to social gatherings, making them easily associated with these memories. For instance, a summer barbecue might feel incomplete to some without slices of juicy watermelon. And homemade pumpkin pie may be an essential dessert at many Thanksgiving tables. The watermelon or pie may then serve as what are known in social psychology as social surrogates, foods that serve as stand-ins for valued relationships due to their inclusion at past occasions with loved ones.

    My research team and I wanted to know how people benefited from feeling nostalgic when they encountered the scents and foods of their pasts. We began in 2011 by exposing study participants to 33 scents and chose 12 of them for our study. Participants rated some scents, such as pumpkin pie spice and baby powder, as highly evocative of nostalgia, while rating others – such as money and cappuccino –as less evocative.

    Those who experienced more nostalgia when smelling the scents experienced greater positive emotions, greater self-esteem, greater feelings of connection to their past selves, greater optimism, greater feelings of social connectedness and a greater sense that life is meaningful.

    We came to similar conclusions when we studied nostalgia for foods. Foods seemed to be more strongly linked to nostalgia than either scents or music when comparing the amount of nostalgia our participants experienced for foods to what previous research participants experienced for scents and songs. More recently, we found that nostalgic foods are comforting and that people find nostalgic foods comforting because those nostalgic foods remind them of important or meaningful moments with their loved ones.

    For some, a summer barbecue wouldn’t be complete without the smell and taste of juicy watermelon.
    GMVozd/E+ via Getty Images

    Balancing benefits and trade-offs

    Although nostalgia can be associated with foods that should be eaten only in moderation – such as burgers and cookies – there are other ways to channel our nostalgia through foods.

    We can have nostalgia with healthy foods. For instance, orange slices remind me of halftime at childhood soccer matches. And many people, including our research participants, feel intense nostalgia around watermelon. Other researchers have found that tofu is a nostalgic food for Chinese participants.

    But when nostalgia does involve consumption of unhealthy foods, there are still other ways to experience it without the health trade-offs. We found that participants experienced the benefits of food-evoked nostalgia just from imagining and writing about the foods – no consumption necessary. Other researchers have found that drawing comforting foods can enhance well-being. Even consuming less healthy foods more mindfully helps people enjoy their food while reducing their caloric consumption.

    Once seen as detrimental to our health, nostalgia provides us with an opportunity to reap numerous rewards. With nostalgic foods, we might be able to nourish both our bodies and our psychological health.

    Chelsea Reid 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.

    – ref. Nostalgic foods and scents like fresh-cut grass and hamburgers grilling bring comfort, connection and well-being – https://theconversation.com/nostalgic-foods-and-scents-like-fresh-cut-grass-and-hamburgers-grilling-bring-comfort-connection-and-well-being-256192

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: When you lose your health insurance, you may also lose your primary doctor – and that hurts your health

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jane Tavares, Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer of Gerontology, UMass Boston

    Seeing the same doctor on a regular basis is good for your health. Morsa Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images

    When you lose your health insurance or switch to a plan that skimps on preventive care, something critical breaks.

    The connection to your primary care provider, usually a doctor, gets severed. You stop getting routine checkups. Warning signs get missed. Medical problems that could have been caught early become emergencies. And because emergencies are both dangerous and expensive, your health gets worse while your medical bills climb.

    As gerontology researchers who study health and financial well-being in later life, we’ve analyzed how someone’s ties to the health care system strengthen or unravel depending on whether they have insurance coverage. What we’ve found is simple: Staying connected to a trusted doctor keeps you healthier and saves the system money. Breaking that link does just the opposite.

    And that’s exactly what has us worried right now. Members of Congress are debating whether to make major cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs. If the Senate passes its own version of the tax-and-spending package that the House approved in May 2025, millions of Americans will soon face exactly this kind of disruption – with big consequences for their health and well-being.

    How people end up uninsured

    Someone can lose their health insurance for a number of reasons. For many Americans, coverage is tied to employment. Being fired, retiring before you turn 65 and become eligible to enroll in the Medicare program, or even getting a new job can mean losing insurance. Others wind up uninsured due to a different array of changes: moving to a different state, getting divorced or aging out of a parent’s plan after their 26th birthday.

    And those who buy their own coverage may find that they can no longer afford the premiums. In 2024, average premiums on the individual market exceeded more than US$600 per month for many adults, even with subsidies.

    Government-sponsored insurance programs can also leave you vulnerable to this predicament. The Senate is currently considering its own version of a tax-and-spending bill the House of Representatives passed in May that would make cuts and changes to Medicaid. If the provisions in the House bill are enacted, millions of Americans who get health insurance through Medicaid – a health insurance program jointly run by the federal government and the states that is mainly for people who have low incomes or disabilities – would lose their coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

    Medicaid was established in the 1960s, explains a scholar of the program’s history.

    Consequences of becoming uninsured

    Health insurance is more than a way to pay medical bills; it’s a doorway into the health care system itself. It connects people to health care providers who come to know their medical history, their medications and their personal circumstances.

    When that door closes, the effects are immediate. Uninsured people are much less likely to have a usual source of care – typically a doctor or another primary care provider or clinic you know and trust. That relationship acts as a foundation for managing chronic conditions, staying current with preventive screenings and getting guidance when new symptoms arise.

    Researchers have found that adults who go uninsured for even six months become significantly more likely to postpone care or forgo it altogether to save money. In practical terms, this means they’re less likely to be examined by someone who knows their medical history and can spot red flags early.

    The Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law enacted during the Obama administration, made the number of Americans without insurance plummet. The share of people without insurance fell from 16% in 2010 to 7.7% in 2023.

    The people who got insurance coverage, particularly those who were middle age, saw big improvements in their health.

    Researching the results

    In research that looked at data collected from 2014 to 2020, we followed what happened to 12,000 adults who were 50 or older and lived across the nation.

    Our research team analyzed how their experiences changed when they lost, and sometimes later regained, a regular source of care during those six years.

    Many of the participants in this study had multiple chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

    The results were striking.

    Those who didn’t see the same provider on a regular basis were far less likely to feel heard or respected by health care professionals. They had fewer medical appointments, filled fewer prescriptions and were less likely to follow through with recommended treatments.

    Their health also deteriorated considerably over the six years. Their blood pressure and blood sugar levels rose, and they had more elevated indicators of kidney impairment compared with their counterparts who had regular care providers.

    The longer they went without consistent health care, the worse these clinical markers became.

    Warning signs

    Preventive care is one of the best tools that both patients and their health care providers have to head off major health problems. This care includes screenings like cholesterol and blood pressure checks, mammograms, PAP smears and prostate exams, as well as routine vaccinations. But most people only get preventive care when they stay engaged with the health care system.

    And that’s far more likely when you have stable and comprehensive health insurance coverage.

    Our research team also examined what happened to preventive care based on whether the participants had a regular doctor. We found that those who kept seeing the same providers were almost three times more likely to get basic preventive services than those who did not.

    Over time, these missed preventive care opportunities can add up to a big problem. They can turn what could have been a manageable issue into an emergency room visit or a long, expensive hospital stay.

    For example, imagine a man in his 50s who no longer gets cholesterol screenings after losing insurance coverage. Over several years, his undiagnosed high cholesterol leads to a heart attack that could have been prevented with early medication. Or a woman who skips mammograms because of out-of-pocket costs, only to face a late-stage cancer diagnosis that might have been caught years earlier.

    Waiting too long to deal with a health condition can mean you make a trip to the emergency room, increasing the cost of care for you and others.
    FS Productions/Tetra images via Getty Images

    Shifting the costs

    Patients whose conditions take too long to be diagnosed aren’t the only ones who pay the price.

    We also studied how stable care relationships affect health care spending. To do this, we linked Medicare claims cost data to our original study and tracked the medical costs of the same adults age 50 and older from 2014 to 2020. One of our key findings is that people with regular care providers were 38% less likely to incur above-average health care costs.

    These savings aren’t just for patients – they ripple through the entire health care system. Primary care stability lowers costs for both public and private health insurers and, ultimately, for taxpayers.

    But when people lose their health care coverage, those savings disappear.

    Emergency rooms see more uninsured patients seeking care that could have been handled earlier and more cheaply in a clinic or doctor’s office. While hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, much of the resulting cost goes unreimbursed.

    Hospitals foot the bill for about two-thirds of those losses. They pass the other third along to private insurance companies through higher hospital fees. Those insurers, in turn, raise their customers’ premiums. Larger taxpayer subsidies can then be required to keep hospitals open.

    Seeing Medicaid as a lifeline

    For the nearly 80 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid, the program provides more than coverage.

    It contributes to the health care stability our research shows is critical for good health. Medicaid makes it possible for many Americans with serious medical conditions to have a regular doctor, get routine preventive services and have someone to turn to when symptoms arise – even when they have low incomes. It helps prevent health care from becoming purely crisis-driven.

    As Congress considers cutting Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars, we believe that lawmakers should realize that scaling back coverage would break the fragile links between millions of patients and the providers who know them best.

    Jane Tavares receives funding from from the SCAN Foundation, the RRF Foundation for Aging, and Milbank Memorial Fund .

    Marc Cohen receives funding from the SCAN Foundation, the RRF Foundation for Aging and Milbank Memorial Fund .

    – ref. When you lose your health insurance, you may also lose your primary doctor – and that hurts your health – https://theconversation.com/when-you-lose-your-health-insurance-you-may-also-lose-your-primary-doctor-and-that-hurts-your-health-258380

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Precise measurement standards have revolutionized museum science, helping nail down where artifacts are from

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Edward Vicenzi, Research Scientist, Museum Conservation Institute, Smithsonian Institution

    Museums and their bountiful collections are research bastions. Douglas Rissing/iStock via Getty Images

    On a cool February morning in 1904, a spark ignited a fire in the heart of downtown Baltimore. Within hours, a raging inferno swept eastward across the harbor district, consuming everything in its path. By evening, the local firefighters were overwhelmed, and the city sent telegrams to the fire chiefs of major Northeastern cities pleading for help in battling the blaze.

    Washington, Philadelphia and New York, along with other cities, responded quickly with dozens of engine companies. Yet when they arrived at the scene, many responders could not hook up to Baltimore’s hydrants since each city had its own threading standards to connect fire hoses.

    The fire resulted in damages of over US$3.5 billion in today’s dollars. It created a call for a national standard of threads for hoses and fire hydrant outlets. These standards now improve emergency responses across the country – and the same concept of standardization allows for consistency and replicability in scientific research.

    An illustration of the aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire in February 1904.
    Fred Pridham/Wikimedia Commons

    In science, the ideal way to evaluate data is related to the concept driving the calls for uniform fire hose equipment. When scientists compare their results to those obtained in other laboratories, or with previously published data, the comparisons are most meaningful if all datasets were made with standardized practices and reference materials.

    Museum scientists like us provide compelling insights into the natural world, prehistory and historical culture heritage. Like that of many other scientists, our work, and the measurements we take day to day, depends upon standard references.

    Here we offer two fascinating stories from the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Institute that highlight how scientific measurement standards allow for exciting new discoveries:

    You are what you drink

    In 2007, the New Mexico Bureau of Reclamation exhumed the remains of dozens of Civil War-era soldiers from the ruins of Fort Craig. They had been left behind when the fort was abandoned in 1885.

    A historical view of Fort Craig, N.M.
    Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico, CC BY-NC-SA

    Anthropologists from the Smithsonian and the Bureau of Reclamation in New Mexico identified the remains as belonging to a diverse range of people – including a few dozen African American Buffalo Soldiers, a group that made up a relatively small percentage of the U.S. military at that time.

    Historical records tell researchers that most of the military units at Fort Craig mobilized out of Kentucky and Virginia, but official records don’t always tell the full story. The group of project scientists, which included one of us, Christine France, needed a way to confirm the origin of these individuals and restore some identity to these forgotten soldiers.

    The researchers decided to use stable isotope analysis on the bones. This technique counts the number of atoms of a particular element in the sample that have one or more extra neutrons – this is the “heavy” isotope – and compares it with the number of atoms that have a normal number of neutrons – this is the “light” isotope.

    Drinking water in southern latitudes has more naturally occurring heavy oxygen atoms compared with northern latitudes. If a soldier’s bones had a relatively high ratio of the heavy to the light oxygen atoms, that soldier likely spent more time drinking water from the South.

    Researchers have measured oxygen isotopes in other archaeological remains and in water all over North America, giving us a water “isotope map.” But matching the bone isotope values to the water map is like comparing apples to oranges, and every lab has subtle variations in its instruments. The scientists needed to normalize and calibrate the isotope ratios they had measured to a reference standard.

    In this case, the standard was the average oxygen isotope value of ocean water, a convention that stable isotope researchers agreed upon as a consistent and readily available value. The researchers now had a uniform way to say how many more – or fewer – heavy oxygen isotopes the bones contained compared to the ocean water standard.

    Other archaeology labs and the North American water isotope map use that same standard comparison, allowing them to directly compare all the bone isotope values to one another, and to the North American water isotope map.

    Ultimately, the method helped the team identify several soldiers who came from quite far away to join the company, including individuals who likely grew up in the mid-Atlantic, New England and Southeast.

    The exact circumstances that brought these soldiers together is lost to history. But the researchers’ ability to assign them geographic provenance with the help of reference standards gave them further insight into this pivotal time in U.S. history.

    Volcanic glass mirrors

    Humans have always been fascinated by looking at themselves in the mirror. In Mesoamerica – modern-day central and southern Mexico together with northern Central America – archaeologists have found convex round objects so finely polished that they have been termed mirrors.

    But instead of using them for vanity, shamans from ancient times likely used them as a tool to access portals to other dimensions.

    The oldest Preclassic mirrors (2000 BCE to 250 CE) were fashioned from polished iron ores, but later Postclassic period mirrors (900 CE to 1450 CE) were made from obsidian, a typically black silica-rich volcanic glass.

    The collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian contain six large, rectangular obsidian mirrors, purchased in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their labels state they come from the “Valley of Mexico.”

    Obsidian tablets, a view of both their front and back sides, found in the National Museum of the American Indian collections.
    NMAI, Martinez et al (2022)

    Archeologists rarely find rectangular obsidian mirrors like these at pre-Columbian dig sites. So, local artisans skilled in stone polishing likely made these unusually shaped objects upon request by Spanish invaders around the time of European contact. But which Mesoamerican culture did they come from?

    Scientists from the Museum Conservation Institute, including two of us, Thomas Lam and Edward Vicenzi, and a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, worked with staff at the National Museum of the American Indian on an effort to pinpoint which volcano created the obsidian in the mirrors.

    The location of the obsidian source would indicate whether the Aztecs who controlled eastern central Mexico, or the Purépecha who controlled an area west of the Aztecs, produced the objects, as both had ample sources of obsidian in their territories.

    To conduct such a study, the researchers required two types of reference materials: obsidian that had erupted from known volcanic locations, and a reference obsidian that scientists already knew the composition of to confirm the quality of the analysis.

    The first reference obsidians, from known locations, told the researchers about the differences in geochemistry of the volcanoes in central Mexico. That information allowed them to match the mirror analyses to the known volcanic location analyses and their map coordinates. The second reference obsidian served as a quality control specimen for the analysis.

    Museum Conservation Institute scientists used a nondestructive technique called X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to analyze ratios of elements in the obsidians. The process works by “exciting” atoms in the obsidian, and a spectrum of X-ray energies is given off as the atoms “relax.”

    Scientists analyzed the obsidian shards to see which elements were present in them in which ratios, and where in Mexico obsidian contained similar elements at similar ratios.
    Sharps et al. (2021)

    The results showed that all the specimens came from a region controlled by the Purépecha, not the Aztecs. The museum curators updated their records describing the mirrors to include this new information about their origin.

    Creating standards

    Standardized measurement procedures and reference materials play a central role in museum science. Organizations dedicated to rigorous measurement science, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal government agency, help create some of these standards and research new measurement procedures.

    Without their leadership, it would be far more difficult for researchers like us to produce high-quality data and discern the relationships between specimens in the natural and cultural heritage sciences. With quality measurement standards in our toolbox, we are finding new insights into human history and the natural world.

    Edward Vicenzi is a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Material Measurement Laboratory.

    Christine France and Thomas Lam do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Precise measurement standards have revolutionized museum science, helping nail down where artifacts are from – https://theconversation.com/precise-measurement-standards-have-revolutionized-museum-science-helping-nail-down-where-artifacts-are-from-254025

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Elisabeth Weber, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

    German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Israeli President Isaac Herzog prepare to shake hands in Berlin on May 12, 2025. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

    Friedrich Merz did something unprecedented for a German chancellor in late May 2025: publicly criticize Israel in unvarnished, unequivocal terms.

    “What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, I no longer understand the goal,” he said in a televised interview. He added, “To harm the civilian population in such a way … can no longer be justified as a fight against terrorism.”

    A day later, during a summit with prime ministers of Nordic countries in Finland, Merz doubled down. “I take a very, very critical view of what has happened in Gaza,” he said in reference to Israel’s bombing campaign and the blockade of food and other aid.

    Merz is not alone in the German government. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also weighed in, noting that Germany’s stance against antisemitism and its “full support” for the right of Israel to exist “must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip.”

    Criticism by outside governments of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas that killed close to 1,200 people has been present since the war in Gaza began. At first, it was largely confined to countries in the Global South. But more recently it has included countries in the West.

    Still, as a scholar of the Shoah – the Hebrew term for the Holocaust – I know that this rebuke from Germany hits differently. Post-war Germany has a long-standing political commitment to Israel’s security. It is a commitment rooted in the nation’s historical responsibility for the Nazis’ annihilation of European Jews and that has been staunchly reaffirmed by German governments since the 1952 agreement of reparations between the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, and the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion.

    ‘Staatsräson’ and its critics

    In 2008, then-chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to call this commitment to Israel’s security Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state.” In a speech she gave to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, on March 18, 2008, Merkel emphasized that “only if Germany acknowledges its perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe of German history can we shape the future humanely.” She went on to assert that Germany’s “historic responsibility” is “part of my country’s raison d’état.” She added: “Israel’s security is never negotiable for me as German chancellor.”

    The argument that Israeli security is Germany’s “reason of state” was reiterated by Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, during his visit to Israel on Oct. 17, 2023 – just 10 days after the Hamas attack. Standing next to Scholz, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian militant group “the new Nazis.”

    Tracing back the term’s origins and history, renowned historian Enzo Traverso recently noted that theorists and practitioners of “reason of state” agree that the concept “denotes the violation by a political power of its own ethical principles in service to a higher interest, generally the safeguarding of its own power.”

    The problem with Germany’s invocation of the “Staatsräson” as prioritizing the security of Israel above other concerns is that it implies defending policies even if they contravene Germany’s foundational ethical principles, such as those declared in its constitution. Article 1 asserts that the German people “acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world.”

    Such principles were born out of the recognition of the horrendous violation of human rights under the Nazi regime and the acknowledgment of Germany’s “perpetual responsibility,” as Merkel put it.

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks ahead of a special session of the Israeli parliament on March 18, 2008.
    Sebastian Scheiner/Pool/Getty Images

    In Germany’s public discourse, as well as school curricula, the Shoah is always described as absolutely unique.

    But as Israeli-American genocide and Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has argued, this assertion is also open to criticism:

    “Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Holocaust, from which it also derives its unique commitment to Israel, has arguably put it in a morally highly dubious position of both long denying its own past colonial crimes [in Namibia] and of denying Israel’s culpability in the present destruction of Gaza, including the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.”

    Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Shoah also leaves little room for an acknowledgment of the Nakba – the violent expulsion of around 800,000 Palestinians before, during and after the foundation of the state of Israel.

    And it leaves no room for a recognition of how both catastrophes, the Shoah and the Nakba, are, as Bartov insists, “inextricably entangled.”

    Antisemitism definitions — and their critics

    As a consequence of Germany’s responsibility for the Shoah and its commitment to its uniqueness, the country has some of the strictest laws to combat antisemitism in the world. But critics also note widespread conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.

    Germany, like the United States,
    has adopted a definition of antisemitism authored in 2004 by American lawyer Kenneth Stern and espoused in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. That definition includes 11 examples of antisemitism, seven of which pertain to Israel.

    It has been criticized for being too vague, leading to the labeling of Jewish and non-Jewish people who oppose the current Israeli war in Gaza as “antisemitic.”

    Stern, who describes himself as Zionist, has sharply criticized the misuse of his definition to stifle academic freedom and criticism of the actions of the Israeli nation.

    In an article for the conservative Germany newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Israeli legal scholar Itamar Mann
    argued that Germany “needs a new definition of antisemitism.”

    He applauded the recent adoption, by the German leftist party Die Linke, of a separate definition of antisemitism laid out in the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Formulated in 2021 by more than 350 respected scholars, many of them Jewish, the declaration rejects labeling as antisemitic political speech that “criticizes or opposes Zionism as a form of nationalism.”

    Mann calls on the German government to implement policies to “protect all Jews, including those who … reject the current Israeli government and insist on a vocabulary that allows us to be Jewish and to criticize Israel.”

    A historic shift?

    The recent remarks of Merz may represent a subtle but sure shift in Germany’s “Staatsräson” and how it engages with its historical debt, Israel and antisemitism.

    And that may be a first step in moving away from a “Staatsräson” that, in the words of scholar of Middle Eastern politics Lena Obermaier, is “detrimental for Palestinians and progressive Jews” and gives Israel international cover when accused of massive violations of international law.

    What Merkel called Germany’s “perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe” of the Holocaust would, from my perspective as a scholar of the Shoah, demand nothing less.

    Elisabeth Weber 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.

    – ref. German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds – https://theconversation.com/german-chancellors-rebuke-of-israel-marks-a-shift-in-state-policy-that-has-long-put-such-criticism-out-of-bounds-258156

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Global: German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Elisabeth Weber, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

    German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Israeli President Isaac Herzog prepare to shake hands in Berlin on May 12, 2025. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

    Friedrich Merz did something unprecedented for a German chancellor in late May 2025: publicly criticize Israel in unvarnished, unequivocal terms.

    “What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, I no longer understand the goal,” he said in a televised interview. He added, “To harm the civilian population in such a way … can no longer be justified as a fight against terrorism.”

    A day later, during a summit with prime ministers of Nordic countries in Finland, Merz doubled down. “I take a very, very critical view of what has happened in Gaza,” he said in reference to Israel’s bombing campaign and the blockade of food and other aid.

    Merz is not alone in the German government. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also weighed in, noting that Germany’s stance against antisemitism and its “full support” for the right of Israel to exist “must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip.”

    Criticism by outside governments of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas that killed close to 1,200 people has been present since the war in Gaza began. At first, it was largely confined to countries in the Global South. But more recently it has included countries in the West.

    Still, as a scholar of the Shoah – the Hebrew term for the Holocaust – I know that this rebuke from Germany hits differently. Post-war Germany has a long-standing political commitment to Israel’s security. It is a commitment rooted in the nation’s historical responsibility for the Nazis’ annihilation of European Jews and that has been staunchly reaffirmed by German governments since the 1952 agreement of reparations between the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, and the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion.

    ‘Staatsräson’ and its critics

    In 2008, then-chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to call this commitment to Israel’s security Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state.” In a speech she gave to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, on March 18, 2008, Merkel emphasized that “only if Germany acknowledges its perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe of German history can we shape the future humanely.” She went on to assert that Germany’s “historic responsibility” is “part of my country’s raison d’état.” She added: “Israel’s security is never negotiable for me as German chancellor.”

    The argument that Israeli security is Germany’s “reason of state” was reiterated by Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, during his visit to Israel on Oct. 17, 2023 – just 10 days after the Hamas attack. Standing next to Scholz, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian militant group “the new Nazis.”

    Tracing back the term’s origins and history, renowned historian Enzo Traverso recently noted that theorists and practitioners of “reason of state” agree that the concept “denotes the violation by a political power of its own ethical principles in service to a higher interest, generally the safeguarding of its own power.”

    The problem with Germany’s invocation of the “Staatsräson” as prioritizing the security of Israel above other concerns is that it implies defending policies even if they contravene Germany’s foundational ethical principles, such as those declared in its constitution. Article 1 asserts that the German people “acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world.”

    Such principles were born out of the recognition of the horrendous violation of human rights under the Nazi regime and the acknowledgment of Germany’s “perpetual responsibility,” as Merkel put it.

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks ahead of a special session of the Israeli parliament on March 18, 2008.
    Sebastian Scheiner/Pool/Getty Images

    In Germany’s public discourse, as well as school curricula, the Shoah is always described as absolutely unique.

    But as Israeli-American genocide and Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has argued, this assertion is also open to criticism:

    “Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Holocaust, from which it also derives its unique commitment to Israel, has arguably put it in a morally highly dubious position of both long denying its own past colonial crimes [in Namibia] and of denying Israel’s culpability in the present destruction of Gaza, including the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.”

    Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Shoah also leaves little room for an acknowledgment of the Nakba – the violent expulsion of around 800,000 Palestinians before, during and after the foundation of the state of Israel.

    And it leaves no room for a recognition of how both catastrophes, the Shoah and the Nakba, are, as Bartov insists, “inextricably entangled.”

    Antisemitism definitions — and their critics

    As a consequence of Germany’s responsibility for the Shoah and its commitment to its uniqueness, the country has some of the strictest laws to combat antisemitism in the world. But critics also note widespread conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.

    Germany, like the United States,
    has adopted a definition of antisemitism authored in 2004 by American lawyer Kenneth Stern and espoused in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. That definition includes 11 examples of antisemitism, seven of which pertain to Israel.

    It has been criticized for being too vague, leading to the labeling of Jewish and non-Jewish people who oppose the current Israeli war in Gaza as “antisemitic.”

    Stern, who describes himself as Zionist, has sharply criticized the misuse of his definition to stifle academic freedom and criticism of the actions of the Israeli nation.

    In an article for the conservative Germany newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Israeli legal scholar Itamar Mann
    argued that Germany “needs a new definition of antisemitism.”

    He applauded the recent adoption, by the German leftist party Die Linke, of a separate definition of antisemitism laid out in the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Formulated in 2021 by more than 350 respected scholars, many of them Jewish, the declaration rejects labeling as antisemitic political speech that “criticizes or opposes Zionism as a form of nationalism.”

    Mann calls on the German government to implement policies to “protect all Jews, including those who … reject the current Israeli government and insist on a vocabulary that allows us to be Jewish and to criticize Israel.”

    A historic shift?

    The recent remarks of Merz may represent a subtle but sure shift in Germany’s “Staatsräson” and how it engages with its historical debt, Israel and antisemitism.

    And that may be a first step in moving away from a “Staatsräson” that, in the words of scholar of Middle Eastern politics Lena Obermaier, is “detrimental for Palestinians and progressive Jews” and gives Israel international cover when accused of massive violations of international law.

    What Merkel called Germany’s “perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe” of the Holocaust would, from my perspective as a scholar of the Shoah, demand nothing less.

    Elisabeth Weber 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.

    – ref. German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds – https://theconversation.com/german-chancellors-rebuke-of-israel-marks-a-shift-in-state-policy-that-has-long-put-such-criticism-out-of-bounds-258156

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI: NXP Completes Acquisition of TTTech Auto to Accelerate the Transformation to Software-Defined Vehicles

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) today announced the completion of the acquisition of TTTech Auto, a leader in innovating unique safety-critical systems and middleware for software-defined vehicles (SDVs), pursuant to the terms of the previously announced agreement from January 2025.

    The open and modular offering of the NXP CoreRide platform and TTTech Auto’s MotionWise safety middleware helps automakers overcome software and hardware integration barriers, while reducing complexity and development efforts and increasing scalability and cost-efficiency required for next-generation vehicles.

    To continue operating within an open industry ecosystem, TTTech Auto’s services will remain with neutral position, supporting various System-on-Chips manufacturers, OEMs and 3rd party software partners. This will advance SDV capabilities while maintaining stringent safety and performance standards and ensuring data protection.

    Forward Looking Statements

    This document includes forward-looking statements which include statements regarding NXP’s acquisition of TTTech Auto, as well as any other statements which are not historical facts. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to numerous factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Except for any ongoing obligation to disclose material information as required by the United States federal securities laws, NXP does not have any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements after NXP distributes this document, whether to reflect any future events or circumstances or otherwise. For a discussion of potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the risk factors and other cautionary statements included in NXP’s SEC filings. Copies of NXP’s SEC filings are available on NXP’s Investor Relation website, https://investors.nxp.com or from the SEC website, www.sec.gov. 

    About NXP Semiconductors
    NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) is the trusted partner for innovative solutions in the automotive, industrial & IoT, mobile, and communications infrastructure markets. NXP’s “Brighter Together” approach combines leading-edge technology with pioneering people to develop system solutions that make the connected world better, safer, and more secure. The company has operations in more than 30 countries and posted revenue of $12.61 billion in 2024. Find out more at www.nxp.com. 

    NXP and the NXP logo are trademarks of NXP B.V. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. © 2025 NXP B.V

    For more information, please contact:

    NXP-Corp
    NXP-Auto

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8029b30c-b73f-4318-9a1a-ed675027c8bf

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Full Minnesota Delegation Statement Condemning the Politically Motivated Violence in Minnesota

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn)

    The Minnesota Congressional Delegation stands united in condemning the politically motivated violence in Minnesota.

    My joint statement with Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Tina Smith, Congressman Tom Emmer, Congresswoman Angie Craig, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Congressman Pete Stauber, Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach, Congressman Brad Finstad, and Rep. Kelly Morrison:

    “Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence. We are praying for John and Yvette’s recovery and we grieve the loss of Melissa and Mark with their family, colleagues, and Minnesotans across the state. We are grateful for law enforcement’s swift response to the situation and continued efforts.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: PENSACOLA MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO CYBERSTALKING AND SENDING OBSCENE MATERIALS TO MINOR FEMALES

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    PENSACOLA, FLORIDA – Charles M. Schmaltz, 28, of Pensacola, Florida, pled guilty in federal court for cyberstalking and sending obscene materials to minor females. The plea was announced by John P. Heekin, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida.

    U.S. Attorney Heekin said: “Protecting children from online exploitation and abuse is of paramount importance, and my office will aggressively pursue, prosecute, and seek punishment to the fullest extent of the law for those who prey upon our most innocent, vulnerable populations. My message to offenders is clear: if you prey upon our children, you had better pray we don’t find you.”

    Court documents reflect that Schmaltz communicated with multiple minor females between 2022 – 2024 by utilizing ten or more social media accounts to contact them.  The minor females, and later their parents, repeatedly requested that Schmaltz cease communicating with them.  Instead, Schmaltz sent sexually explicit content to the minor females, including extremely graphic communications about engaging in sexual acts with the minors and images of his own genitals.  The minor females in this case ranged in age from 9 – 15 years old.  Schmaltz was eventually caught through the work of a multi-agency investigation in North Florida and South Alabama, where some of the victims were located.

    Schmaltz faces up to thirty years’ imprisonment, and lifetime supervision upon release.  

    The case involved a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, and the Dale County Sheriff’s Office as well as Dothan Police Department in South Alabama. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David L. Goldberg.

    Sentencing is scheduled for July 17, 2025, at 1:00 pm at the United States Courthouse in Pensacola before United States District Judge T. Kent Wetherell, II.

    This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice and led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Divisions Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), it marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

    The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida is one of 94 offices that serve as the nation’s principal litigators under the direction of the Attorney General.  To access public court documents online, please visit the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida website. For more information about the United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Florida, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/fln/index.html.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Oxbridge / SurancePlus to Speak at Yield Day NYC and Attend Permissionless IV

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Oxbridge Re Holdings Limited (Nasdaq: OXBR) (“Oxbridge Re”), together with its subsidiary SurancePlus, is engaged in the tokenization of Real-World Assets (“RWAs”), initially with tokenized reinsurance securities and in providing reinsurance solutions to property and casualty insurers in the Gulf Coast region of the United States.

    Today, the company is pleased to announce its upcoming participation in Yield Day NYC and Permissionless IV, two leading events advancing real-world asset (RWA) innovation and institutional adoption in decentralized finance.

    On Monday, June 23rd, SurancePlus will be a featured sponsor and speaker at Yield Day NYC, hosted by RWA Builders at Apella, Suite 200 in Midtown Manhattan. The featured panel, “The Dividend Layer of DeFi,” at 4:45 PM ET will include:

    • Jay Madhu, Chairman and CEO of Oxbridge and SurancePlus
    • David Silverman, SVP of Strategic Product Initiatives, Polygon Labs
    • Mike Revy, Founder and CEO, Bulla Network
    • Anil Jaladi, Founder and CEO, cSigma Finance (Moderator)

    As a network member of RWA Builders, SurancePlus is proud to be part of the growing ecosystem enabling institutional-grade RWA tokenization through compliant, forward-looking infrastructure.

    From there, the Oxbridge and SurancePlus team will attend Permissionless IV, held June 24–26 at Industry City in Brooklyn—one of the largest global gatherings for developers, capital allocators, and blockchain innovators. The event features keynotes, panels, workshops, and side events focused on scaling institutional adoption and real-world applications of on-chain finance.

    Team members will be on-site throughout both events to meet with partners, showcase Oxbridge’s tokenized reinsurance offerings—EtaCat Re and ZetaCat Re—and engage with prospective collaborators on new strategic opportunities.

    Investors, asset managers, and collaborators are encouraged to contact the team to arrange a meeting.

    This announcement follows yesterday’s release of a new partnership between SurancePlus and Midnight, a privacy-first blockchain developed by the creators of Cardano. Chosen as one of SurancePlus’ partnered blockchain networks, Midnight brings powerful privacy infrastructure at a time when a growing number of global qualified investors are seeking confidentiality alongside compliance. The collaboration enables privacy-enabled, audit-grade RWA tokenization—advancing a new standard for secure, transparent, and compliant capital flows.

    Jay Madhu, CEO of Oxbridge, commented, “We look forward to joining Yield Day and Permissionless IV. These events bring together credible builders and capital allocators focused on the future of real-world assets. As interest in on-chain privacy grows, our partnership with Midnight broadens the infrastructure we can explore for secure, compliant reinsurance on-chain.”

    Meet Oxbridge / SurancePlus in New York

    Investors and potential partners interested in Oxbridge and SurancePlus’ tokenized reinsurance offerings are encouraged to connect with the team during the event. Contact details are provided below.

    Disclaimer: This press release does not constitute an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy the EtaCat Re or ZetaCat Re tokenized reinsurance securities (the “Securities”). The Securities are not required to be, and have not been, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, in reliance on the exemptions provided by Regulation S and SEC Rule 506(c) thereunder. Offers and sales of the Securities are made only by, and pursuant to, the terms set forth in the Confidential Private Placement Memorandum relating to the Securities. The offering of the Securities is not being made to persons in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky, or other laws of such jurisdiction.

    About Oxbridge Re Holdings Limited

    Oxbridge Re Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: OXBR, OXBRW) (“Oxbridge”) is headquartered in the Cayman Islands. The company offers tokenized Real-World Assets (“RWAs”) as tokenized reinsurance securities and reinsurance business solutions to property and casualty insurers, through its wholly owned subsidiaries SurancePlus Inc., Oxbridge Re NS, and Oxbridge Reinsurance Limited.

    Insurance businesses in the Gulf Coast region of the United States purchase property and casualty reinsurance through our licensed reinsurers Oxbridge Reinsurance Limited and Oxbridge Re NS.

    Our Web3-focused subsidiary, SurancePlus Inc. (“SurancePlus”), has developed the first “on chain” reinsurance RWA of its kind to be sponsored by a subsidiary of a publicly traded company. By digitizing interests in reinsurance contracts as on-chain RWAs, SurancePlus has democratized the availability of reinsurance as an alternative investment to both U.S. and non U.S. investors.

    Company Contact:
    Oxbridge Re Holdings Limited
    Jay Madhu, CEO
    +1 345-749-7570
    jmadhu@oxbridgere.com

    Forward-Looking Statements

    This press release may contain forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “project” and other similar words and expressions are intended to signify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and conditions but rather are subject to various risks and uncertainties. A detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from such forward-looking statements is included in the section entitled “Risk Factors” contained in our Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on 26th March 2024 and in our other filings with the SEC. The occurrence of any of these risks and uncertainties could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, financial condition and results of operations. Any forward-looking statements made in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release and, except as required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statement contained in this press release, even if the Company’s expectations or any related events, conditions or circumstances change.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: The Keg Royalties Income Fund Enters into Arrangement Agreement

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Not for distribution to U.S. News wire services or dissemination in the U.S.

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Keg Royalties Income Fund (the “Fund”) (TSX: KEG.UN) today announced that, further to the non-binding letter of intent previously announced on May 5, 2025 (the “LOI”), it has entered into an arrangement agreement (the “Arrangement Agreement“) with 1543965 B.C. Ltd. (the “Purchaser“) an affiliate of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (collectively with its affiliates, “Fairfax”) pursuant to which the Purchaser has agreed to acquire all of the issued and outstanding units of the Fund (“Units”) other than Units already owned by Fairfax, for a price of $18.60 per Unit (the “Purchase Price”), payable in cash (the “Transaction”). The Transaction is not subject to a financing condition. The Fund will continue to pay its monthly cash distribution to unitholders (“Unitholders”) until the Transaction is completed, including a prorated cash distribution for the month in which the closing of the Transaction (the “Closing”) occurs, as well as a special cash distribution based on the Fund’s historical practice of paying annual special distributions, prorated for the portion of the fiscal year completed as of the Closing.

    Kip Woodward, Chairman of the Fund, commented, “The Transaction offers the Fund’s unitholders a substantial premium at a compelling valuation, as well as immediate liquidity. It also provides the Keg business with additional financial flexibility in the hands of a committed, well-capitalized owner with a long-term perspective. We are very pleased to have reached this definitive agreement with Fairfax for our unitholders, following our announcement of the non-binding LOI last month.”

    Benefits of the Transaction to Unitholders

    The Transaction, if completed, will provide numerous benefits to Unitholders, including the following:

    • Compelling Value and Significant Premium – the Purchase Price represents a 30.8% premium to the closing price for the Units on May 2, 2025 (the last trading day prior to the announcement of the LOI), and a 34.7% premium to the 20-day volume weighted average trading price as of that date.
    • Certainty and Immediate Liquidity – the Purchase Price is 100% payable in cash, with no financing condition, providing Unitholders with certainty and immediate liquidity.
    • Continued Distributions to Closing – the Fund will continue to pay its monthly cash distribution to Unitholders of $0.0946 per Unit until the Transaction is completed, including a prorated monthly distribution for the month in which the Closing occurs, as well as a special cash distribution based on the Fund’s historical practice of paying annual special distributions, with such special cash distribution being set at $0.055 per Unit for the 2025 fiscal year, prorated for the portion of the fiscal year completed as of the Closing.

    Trustee Recommendation

    The Transaction is the product of extensive, arm’s length negotiations that took place between the board of trustees of the Fund (the “Trustees”) and representatives of Fairfax. Throughout the negotiations, the Trustees were advised by independent and highly qualified legal and financial advisors.

    In connection with their review of the Transaction, the Trustees retained Fort Capital Partners (“Fort Capital”) as its independent valuator in accordance with Multilateral Instrument 61-101 – Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (“MI 61-101“). Fort Capital delivered an oral opinion to the Trustees that, as of June 16, 2025, and subject to certain assumptions, limitations and qualifications to be set forth in the written formal valuation that will be included in the management information circular (the “Circular“) that will be sent to the Unitholders in connection with the special meeting to be called to approve the Transaction (the “Special Meeting“), the fair market value of the Units is in the range of $16.50 to $19.50 per Unit (the “Formal Valuation“). Fort Capital has also delivered an oral fairness opinion to the Trustees that, as of June 16, 2025, and subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications to be set forth in Fort Capital’s written fairness opinion that will be included in the Circular, the consideration to be received by the Unitholders (other than Fairfax) pursuant to the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to the Unitholders (other than Fairfax) (the “Fort Capital Fairness Opinion“).

    Additionally, Capital West Partners (“Capital West”), financial advisor to the Trustees, provided an oral fairness opinion to the Trustees stating that, as of June 16, 2025, and subject to certain assumptions, limitations and qualifications to be set forth in Capital West’s written fairness opinion that will be included in the Circular, the consideration to be received by the Unitholders (other than Fairfax) pursuant to the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to the Unitholders (other than Fairfax) (together with the Fort Capital Fairness Opinion, the “Fairness Opinions“).

    The Trustees of the Fund, after receiving legal and financial advice, the Fairness Opinions and the Formal Valuation, have unanimously determined that the Transaction is in the best interests of the Fund and fair to the Unitholders (other than Fairfax) and unanimously recommend that the Unitholders vote in favour of the Transaction.

    Copies of the Formal Valuation and the Fairness Opinions, as well as additional details regarding the terms and conditions of the Transaction, will be contained in the Circular, which will be filed with applicable Canadian securities regulators, made available on the SEDAR+ profile of the Fund at www.sedarplus.ca and mailed to the Unitholders in connection with the Special Meeting.

    Transaction Structure and Details

    The Transaction is structured as a statutory plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia), pursuant to which, among other things, the Purchaser will acquire all of the issued and outstanding Units, other than Units already owned by Fairfax, for the Purchase Price payable in cash.

    The Transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year and is subject to customary closing conditions, including court approval, the approval of the Unitholders (as further described below), approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange and regulatory approval under the Competition Act (Canada).

    Completion of the Transaction will be subject to the approval of (i) more than two-thirds (66 2/3%) of the votes cast by Unitholders present in person or represented by proxy at the Special Meeting and (ii) the majority of the votes cast by Unitholders present in person or represented by proxy at the Special Meeting, excluding the votes of Fairfax (which currently owns approximately 33.92% of the Units on a fully-diluted basis, including securities exchangeable into Units (“Exchangeable Units”)) and any other Unitholders whose votes are required to be excluded for the purposes of “minority approval” under MI 61-101. Further details regarding the applicable voting requirements will be contained in the Circular.

    The Trustees and certain other Unitholders, including individuals who are directors and/or officers of certain subsidiaries of the Fund, and, as previously announced, the largest holder of outstanding Units (without taking into account any Exchangeable Units held by Fairfax), have agreed to vote their respective Units, if any, in favour of the resolution approving the Transaction, subject to certain customary conditions set forth in voting and support agreements (the “Support Agreements”). These Unitholders who have entered into Support Agreements currently hold an aggregate of approximately 14.7% of the issued and outstanding Units on an undiluted basis (representing approximately 9.9% of the issued and outstanding Units on a fully diluted basis, including the Exchangeable Units).

    Advisors

    Capital West Partners and Lawson Lundell LLP are acting as financial advisor and legal advisor, respectively, to the Trustees in respect of the Transaction. Torys LLP is acting as legal advisor to Fairfax in respect of the Transaction.

    Forward Looking Information

    This news release contains “forward-looking information” and “forward-looking statements” (collectively, “forward-looking information”) within the meaning of applicable securities laws. This information includes, but is not limited to, statements concerning the Fund’s objectives, its strategies to achieve those objectives, as well as statements made with respect to the Trustees’ beliefs, plans, estimates, projections and intentions, and similar statements concerning anticipated future events, results, circumstances, performance or expectations that are not historical facts. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “expects”, “estimates”, “intends”, “anticipates”, “believes”, or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might”, “will”, “will be taken”, “occur” or “be achieved”. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, intentions, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent the Trustees’ expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events or circumstances. Forward-looking information in this news release, which includes, among other things, statements relating to the Transaction (including statements in respect of the consummation of the Transaction, the payment of cash distributions, and the satisfaction of the conditions precedent thereto, in each case, if at all), is necessarily based on a number of opinions and assumptions that the Trustees considered appropriate and reasonable as of the date such statements are made in light of their experience, current conditions and expected future developments, including the assumption that the Transaction can be completed on acceptable terms and that any conditions precedent can be satisfied.

    Risks and uncertainties related to the Transaction include, but are not limited to: the possibility that the Transaction will not be completed on the terms and conditions currently contemplated; failure of the Fund and Fairfax to obtain the required regulatory, court, stock exchange and Unitholder approvals for, or satisfy other conditions to effect, the Transaction; the risk that the Transaction may involve unexpected costs, liabilities or delays; the risk of a change in general economic conditions; the risk that, prior to the completion of the Transaction, the business of KRL (as defined below) may experience significant disruptions; the risk that any legal proceedings may be instituted against the Fund or determined adversely to the interests of the Fund; and other risk factors contained in filings made by the Fund with the Canadian securities regulators, including the Fund’s annual information form dated March 25, 2025 and financial statements and related management discussion and analysis for the financial year ended December 31, 2024 filed with the securities regulatory authorities in certain jurisdictions of Canada and available at www.sedarplus.ca.

    Although the Trustees have attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other risk factors not presently known to them or that they presently believe are not material that could also cause actual results or future events to differ materially from those expressed in such forward- looking information. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. No forward-looking statement is a guarantee of future results. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date made. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the Fund’s expectations as of the date of this news release (or as the date they are otherwise stated to be made) and are subject to change after such date. However, the Fund disclaims any intention or obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities laws in Canada. All of the forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements.

    About The Keg Royalties Income Fund

    The Fund is a limited purpose, open-ended trust established under the laws of the Province of Ontario that, through The Keg Rights Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of the Fund, owns certain trademarks and other related intellectual property used by Keg Restaurants Ltd. (“KRL”). Vancouver-based KRL is the leading operator and franchisor of steakhouse restaurants in Canada and has a substantial presence in select regional markets in the United States. KRL has been named the number one restaurant company to work for in Canada in the latest edition of Forbes “Canada’s Best Employers 2025” survey.

    About Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited

    Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited is a holding company which, through its subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance and the associated investment management.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Combining Sustainable Growth with Performance: Boralex Announces Its Strategic Plan and Financial Objectives for 2030

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    MONTRÉAL, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Boralex inc. (“Boralex” or the “Company”) (TSX: BLX) announces its Strategic Plan and Financial Objectives for 2030.

    2030 Strategy Highlights

    • Acceleration of organic growth, leveraging our high-quality pipeline of projects and growth path
    • Maintain disciplined financial management with precise expected returns indicators, a solid balance sheet, flexible and agile financing and the introduction of a cash flows per share growth objective.  
    • Three simplified pillars: growth, efficiency and long-term differentiation.
    • Two markets in strong leadership position: Canada, with strong growth potential in Quebec and Ontario, and France, with significant potential to optimize revenues and cash flows from operating assets.
    • Two expanding markets: certain U.S. states, including solar in New York State, and the United Kingdom through the development of a long-term growth platform.
    • Increase in the weighted average remaining contract duration1 from 11 years in 2024 to 14 years by 2030.
    • Keeping up the pace of growth: double the Company’s installed capacity2 every five years within a diverse, inclusive, and responsible work environment aimed at a net-zero trajectory by 2050.

    “We are very proud to present the results of our 2030 strategic planning exercise. In a context where climate risk remains one of the main business risks globally, our strategy aims to combine sustainable growth with performance through the production of renewable and affordable energy,” said Patrick Decostre, President and Chief Executive Officer of Boralex. “By executing this plan, we are unlocking the full potential of our business model, which will allow us to seize the most promising opportunities in the four markets where we are already active and where demand for renewable energy is growing rapidly,” he added.

    “This growth, supported by a development projects pipeline and growth path of 8 GW, will be carried out in a disciplined manner and will continue to focus on securing long-term power purchase agreements with an increasingly diversified customer base. Moreover, the increase in the weighted average remaining duration of our contracts from 11 to 14 years will enable us to implement highly competitive financing structures and reinvest these long-term secured funds into an increasing number of profitable projects in the coming years,” Mr. Decostre continued.

    Boralex’s 2030 Strategy is rooted in a long-term value creation perspective, as it will enable targeted investments in projects that will materialize not only over the next five years, but also in following years, replicating the approach adopted in the 2021-2025 Strategic Plan. The 2030 Strategy builds on the significant efforts made over the past five years to create a high-quality development portfolio, enabling us to set fully organic growth targets over which we have greater control. As a result, this approach carries a lower level of risk compared to the previous plan, which relied on an important expected portion coming from mergers and acquisitions.

    Financial Objectives and Main Business Indicators 2025–20303

    100% Organic financial objectives

    • Compound annual growth rate (CAGR)4 of operating income between 12% to 14%, consolidated EBITDA(A)4 between 7% to 9% and combined EBITDA(A)4 between 8% to 10%.
    • CAGR of cash flows related to operating activities per share4 and of discretionary cash flows per share4 between 8% to 10%.

    Main business indicators

    • Total planned investments4 of $6.8 billion plus $1.2 billion for projects scheduled to be commissioned after 2030.
    • Minimum levered internal rate of return (IRR)4 on investments threshold between 10% and 12% adjusted for specific risks by region and technology as well as changes in cost of capital.
    • Payout ratio4 of 20% to 40% of discretionary cash flows.

    “Boralex will continue to grow by applying the same financial discipline that has driven its success in recent years. We will become even more agile by further diversifying our sources of financing. This will include a proactive approach to capital recycling for our most mature assets or those with high value-creation potential, as well as evaluating partnerships for larger-scale projects,” said Bruno Guilmette, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Boralex.

    “Our 100% organic financial objectives reflect the high potential of our development pipeline and growth path, which has nearly tripled over the past five years. We are also introducing a new target in this plan: the growth of discretionary cash flows per share—a metric aligned with investor expectations and with the variable compensation of our employees. We are therefore highly confident that these objectives, combined with our discipline, will enable Boralex to maximize value creation for its shareholders and all stakeholders,” Mr. Guilmette added.

    Investor Day 2025

    Boralex presented its 2030 Strategy and objectives to a group of investors, financial analysts, and bankers gathered in Toronto. The presentation was also broadcast live for business partners who were unable to attend in person. On this occasion, the executive team and regional leaders outlined the key elements and financial targets of the 2030 Strategy, the various growth opportunities and outlooks by region and technology, as well as the company’s approach to risk management and sustainability. A replay of the event and all presentation materials are available on Boralex’s website in the Investors section.

    About Boralex

    At Boralex, we have been providing affordable renewable energy accessible to everyone for over 30 years. As a leader in the Canadian market and France’s largest independent producer of onshore wind power, we also have facilities in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Over the past five years, our installed capacity has increased by more than 50% to 3.2 GW. We are developing a portfolio of projects in development and construction of 8 GW in wind, solar and storage projects, guided by our values and our corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach. Through profitable and sustainable growth, Boralex is actively participating in the fight against global warming. Thanks to our fearlessness, discipline, expertise and diversity, we continue to be an industry leader. Boralex’s shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BLX. 

    For more information, visit boralex.com or sedarplus.com. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.

    Non-IFRS and other financial measures

    Performance measures

    In order to assess the performance of its assets and reporting segments, Boralex uses various performance measures. Management believes that these measures are widely accepted financial indicators used by investors to assess the operational performance of a company and its ability to generate cash through operations. The non-IFRS and other financial measures also provide investors with insight into the Corporation’s decision making as the Corporation uses these non-IFRS financial measures to make financial, strategic and operating decisions. It is important to note that the non-IFRS financial measures should not be considered as substitutes for IFRS measures. They are primarily derived from the audited consolidated financial statements, but do not have a standardized meaning under IFRS; accordingly, they may not be comparable to similarly named measures used by other companies. In addition, these non-IFRS financial measures are not audited and have important limitations as analytical tools. Investors are therefore cautioned not to consider them in isolation or place undue reliance on ratios or percentages calculated using these non-IFRS financial measures.

    Non-GAAP financial measures
    Specific financial measure Use Composition Most directly comparable IFRS measure
    Financial data – Combined (all disclosed financial data) To assess the performance and the ability of a company to generate cash from its operations and investments in joint ventures and associates. Results from the combination of the financial information of Boralex Inc. under IFRS and the share of the financial information of the Interests.

    Interests in joint ventures and associates, Share in earnings (losses) of joint ventures and associates and Distributions received from joint ventures and associates are then replaced with Boralex’s respective share in the financial statements of the Interests (revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities, etc.).

    		 Respective financial data –Consolidated
    Discretionary cash flows To assess the cash generated from operations and the amount available for future development or to be paid as dividends to common shareholders while preserving the long-term value of the business. Net cash flows related to operating activities before “change in non-cash items related to operating activities,” less:

    (i) distributions paid to non-controlling shareholders;
    (ii) additions to property, plant and equipment (maintenance of operations);
    (iii) repayments on non-current debt (projects) and repayments to tax equity investors;
    (iv) principal payments related to lease liabilities;
    (v) adjustments for non-operational items; plus
    (vi) development costs (from the statement of earnings).

    		 Net cash flows related to operating activities
    Non-GAAP financial measures – Non-GAAP ratios
    Specific financial measure Use Composition
    Discretionary cash flows per share To assess the amount per share available for future development or to be paid as dividends to common shareholders while preserving the long-term value of the business as well as to assess operating results.

    Financial objective 2030

    		 The discretionary cash flows amount divided by the weighted average number of basic outstanding shares.
    Payout ratio To assess ability to sustain current dividends as well as ability to fund its future development.

    Main business indicator 2030

    		 The amount of dividends paid to shareholders divided by the discretionary cash flows amount.
    Other financial measures – Total of segment measures
    Specific financial measure Most directly comparable IFRS measure
    EBITDA(A) Operating income
    Other financial measures – Total of segment measures
    Specific financial measure Most directly comparable IFRS measure
    Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) The CAGR is a growth rate indicating the annual variation as if the growth had been constant throughout the period for a period of more than one fiscal year.
    Net Cash flows related to operating activities per share

    Financial objective 2030    		 The amount of cash flows from operating activities is divided by the weighted average number of basic outstanding shares.
    Total planned investments

    Main business indicator 2030

    		 Total planned investments represent the sums that will need to be invested to complete the projects up to commissioning.
    Internal rate of return (IRR)

    Main business indicator 2030

    		 The IRR is a profitability indicator that measures the average annual return of an investment, taking into account levered cash flows.


    Assumptions regarding forward-looking information

    Assumptions and risk factors regarding the forward-looking information in our 2030 strategic targets are presented below.

    Assumptions regarding forward-looking information
    Forward-looking information Key assumptions Most relevant risk factors
    2030 Installed capacity Results solely from the contribution of organic projects, excluding the impact of potential merger and acquisition transactions. Lag in commissioning time if obtaining the required permits is more complicated and takes longer than expected and if the Corporation encounters issues related to the availability of materials.
    Weighted average residual duration of contracts 2030 Growth of installed capacity according to the strategic plan and obtaining targeted contracts for new projects that will be commissioned. Delay in the commissioning of organic projects and contractual conditions different from those initially planned.
    Projects under construction Investments, EBITDA(A) and forecasted discretionary cash flows to meet the target IRR of 10% to 12% set by management for projects under construction. Possible variation in construction costs related to the complexity of work, the supply of materials and equipment and availability of labour necessary for the construction of projects.
    2030 Operating Result and EBITDA(A) 2030 Prices of energy sales or feed-in premium contracts, proportion of production sold at market prices, annual anticipated production, cost structures to support growth. Competition in requests for proposals, lag in commissioning time for organic projects and completion of merger and acquisition transactions, price curve volatility and weather conditions impacting the total volume of power generated by the Corporation.
    Cash flow per share 2030 Largely related to the expected EBITDA(A), and to project financing ranging from 70% to 80% of the total planned investment and the number of shares outstanding. Possible fluctuations related to deviations in the expected EBITDA(A) target and market conditions for financing and issuing new equity instruments


    Disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements

    Certain statements contained in this release, including those related to results and performance for future periods, installed capacity targets, EBITDA(A) and discretionary cash flows, the Corporation’s strategic plan, business model and growth strategy, organic growth and growth through mergers and acquisitions, obtaining an investment grade credit rating, payment of a quarterly dividend, the Corporation’s financial targets, the projects commissioning dates, the portfolio of renewable energy projects, the Corporation’s Growth Path, the bids for new storage and solar projects and its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives are forward-looking statements based on current forecasts, as defined by securities legislation. Positive or negative verbs such as “will,” “would,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “plan,” “project,” “continue,” “intend,” “assess,” “estimate” or “believe,” or expressions such as “toward,” “about,” “approximately,” “to be of the opinion,” “potential” or similar words or the negative thereof or other comparable terminology, are used to identify such statements.

    Forward-looking statements are based on major assumptions, including those about the Corporation’s return on its projects, as projected by management with respect to wind and other factors, opportunities that may be available in the various sectors targeted for growth or diversification, assumptions made about EBITDA(A) margins, assumptions made about the sector realities and general economic conditions, competition, exchange rates as well as the availability of funding and partners. While the Corporation considers these factors and assumptions to be reasonable, based on the information currently available to the Corporation, they may prove to be inaccurate.

    Boralex wishes to clarify that, by their very nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and that its results, or the measures it adopts, could be significantly different from those indicated or underlying those statements, or could affect the degree to which a given forward-looking statement is achieved. The main factors that may result in any significant discrepancy between the Corporation’s actual results and the forward-looking financial information or expectations expressed in forward-looking statements include the general impact of economic conditions, fluctuations in various currencies, fluctuations in energy prices, the risk of not renewing PPAs or being unable to sign new corporate PPA, the risk of not being able to capture the US or Canadian investment tax credit, counterparty risk, the Corporation’s financing capacity, cybersecurity risks, competition, changes in general market conditions, industry regulations and amendments thereto, particularly the legislation, regulations and emergency measures that could be implemented for time to time to address high energy prices in Europe, litigation and other regulatory issues related to projects in operation or under development, as well as certain other factors considered in the sections dealing with risk factors and uncertainties appearing in Boralex’s MD&A for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024.

    Unless otherwise specified by the Corporation, forward-looking statements do not take into account the effect that transactions, non-recurring items or other exceptional items announced or occurring after such statements have been made may have on the Corporation’s activities. There is no guarantee that the results, performance or accomplishments, as expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, will materialize. Readers are therefore urged not to rely unduly on these forward-looking statements.

    Unless required by applicable securities legislation, Boralex’s management assumes no obligation to update or revise forward- looking statements in light of new information, future events or other changes.

    For more information

    Source: Boralex inc.        

    1 The weighted average remaining duration also includes non-activated contracts for newly commissioned sites.
    2 Installed capacity reflects 100% of Boralex’s subsidiaries in which Boralex is the controlling shareholder. It also reflects Boralex’s share in entities over which it does not have control, and which are accounted for using the equity method.
    3 For more information on the key assumptions and risk factors related to the targets of the 2030 strategic plan, refer to the section Non-IFRS financial measures and other financial measures of this press release.
    4 The compound annual growth rate, cash flows from operating activities per share, total planned investments, and internal rate of return are additional financial measures. The Combined is a non-GAAP financial measure and does not have a standardized definition under IFRS. Therefore, this measure may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies. Discretionary cash flows per share and the payout ratio are non-GAAP ratios and do not have a standardized definition under IFRS. EBITDA(A) is a total of sector measures. In 2024, net cash flows from operating activities amounted to $411 million, after adjusting to exclude the change in accounts payable related to the inframarginal rent contribution, representing an amount of $196 million. This adjustment primarily reflects a payment made during the third quarter of the fiscal year. The inframarginal rent contribution is no longer applicable in 2025. For more details, refer to the section Non-GAAP Financial Measures and Other Financial Measures in this press release.

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  • MIL-OSI: Intermex and the New York Red Bulls Join Forces to Bring Financial Services to Northeastern Communities Through the Shared Passion for Soccer

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    MIAMI, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMXI) (“Intermex” or the “Company”), a leading money remittance provider to Latin America and the Caribbean, today announced a new official partnership with the New York Red Bulls, one of Major League Soccer’s most dynamic and community-focused clubs. This collaboration brings together two organizations committed to serving and celebrating the diverse cultural richness of the Latino community, using soccer as a powerful platform for connection.

    With over 85 million soccer fans across the United States and Latinos representing nearly 70% of MLS viewership, this partnership with the New York Red Bulls strengthens Intermex’s commitment to remain close to its customers in the northeast region — not only through financial services, but by supporting the sport that represents identity, family, and tradition for millions of Latino households.

    “Intermex was built by Latinos for Latinos. Partnering with the New York Red Bulls allows us to engage directly with the vibrant northeast latin communities we proudly serve, in one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world,” said Marcelo Theodoro, Chief Product, Marketing & Digital Officer at Intermex. “NY Red Bulls represents the cutting edge of the sport, This partnership demonstrates Intermex’s ambition to expand, grow, and redefine what it means to move money and provide financial services with meaning in the digital age.”

    “The Red Bulls and Sports Illustrated Stadium are proud to welcome Intermex to our club and venue,” said Scott Epstein, Head of Corporate Partnerships, New York Red Bulls. “As valued partners, we both pride ourselves on the exceptional customer and fan experience we strive to deliver.”

    Through this partnership, Intermex and the New York Red Bulls will collaborate on in-stadium activations, community outreach events, and cultural initiatives that spotlight the passion, pride, and identity that soccer brings to Latino families across the Tri-State area.

    About Intermex
    Founded in 1994, Intermex applies proprietary technology to enable consumers to send money from the United States, Canada, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany to more than 60 countries. The company facilitates digital money movement through its website and mobile app, as well as through a vast network of retail agents and company-operated stores. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Intermex also operates international offices in Puebla, Mexico; Guatemala City, Guatemala; London, England; and Madrid, Spain. Learn more at www.intermexonline.com.

    About New York Red Bulls
    The New York Red Bulls are one of 29 teams in Major League Soccer (MLS). The club is owned by the global energy drink and media company Red Bull GmbH and plays its home matches at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey. Since joining MLS as a founding member in 1996, the Red Bulls have won three Supporters’ Shields, earned multiple playoff appearances, and continue to serve as a leader in youth development through its Academy system. The club is deeply committed to connecting with the diverse communities of the New York and New Jersey metro area through soccer, community programs, and fan engagement. For more information, visit www.newyorkredbulls.com.

    Investor Relations Contact:
    Alex Sadowski
    Investor Relations Coordinator
    ir@intermexusa.com
    305-671-8000

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