SEATTLE, May 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Trupanion, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRUP), a leader in medical insurance for cats and dogs, announced today that Margi Tooth, Chief Executive Officer and President, will present at the William Blair 45th Annual Growth Stock Conference on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, at 3:20 p.m. CT and will participate in meetings with investors throughout the day.
The presentation will be webcast live and can be accessed on Trupanion’s Investor Relations website at http://investors.trupanion.com.
About Trupanion:
Trupanion is a leader in medical insurance for cats and dogs throughout the United States, Canada, and certain countries in Continental Europe with over 1,000,000 pets currently enrolled. For over two decades, Trupanion has given pet owners peace of mind so they can focus on their pet’s recovery, not financial stress. Trupanion is committed to providing pet parents with the highest value in pet medical insurance with unlimited payouts for the life of their pets. With its patented process, Trupanion is the only North American provider with the technology to pay veterinarians directly in seconds at the time of checkout. Trupanion is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol “TRUP”. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, WA. Trupanion policies are issued, in the United States, by its wholly-owned insurance entity American Pet Insurance Company and, in Canada, by Accelerant Insurance Company of Canada. Policies are sold and administered in Canada by Canada Pet Health Insurance Services, Inc. dba Trupanion 309-1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver, BC V7J 0A2 and in the United States by Trupanion Managers USA, Inc. (CA license No. 0G22803, NPN 9588590). Canada Pet Health Insurance Services, Inc. is a registered damage insurance agency and claims adjuster in Quebec #603927. For more information, please visit trupanion.com.
Contact:
Laura Bainbridge, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications Gil Melchior, Director, Investor Relations Investor.Relations@trupanion.com
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, May 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zero Hash, the leading crypto and stablecoin infrastructure platform, today announced it has secured regulatory approval to operate in Argentina through its approval as a registered Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) with the National Securities Commission (CNV) of Argentina. This marks another significant milestone in Zero Hash’s strategic global expansion plans. Zero Hash was awarded approval after completing a rigorous registration process overseen by Argentina’s financial regulatory authorities, who have established some of the most comprehensive crypto regulatory frameworks in Latin America.
The newly obtained registration enables Zero Hash to onboard Argentinian customers to its growing suite of digital asset services, including stablecoin payments, payouts, and crypto trading services, in full compliance with local regulatory requirements. The achievement adds to Zero Hash’s extensive global regulatory footprint and marks Zero Hash’s continued growth in Latin America following its previous expansion into Brazil.
“Securing regulatory approval in Argentina represents the continued acceleration in our international growth strategy,” said Edward Woodford, CEO of Zero Hash. “This registration allows us to serve the vibrant Argentinian market, reinforcing our commitment to operate within jurisdictional regulatory frameworks to serve customers anywhere, anytime, 24/7/365.”
Argentina has emerged as one of Latin America’s most dynamic cryptocurrency markets. Research shows that 65% of Argentina’s population frequently uses mobile wallets and payment applications for transactions, one of the highest adoption rates in Latin America. Additionally, Argentina has the eighth-largest volume in stablecoin payouts among the more than 60 countries handled by Zero Hash’s global stablecoin payouts rail. Like other markets worldwide, Argentinians use digital assets to protect against high inflation and currency instability.
The extensive regulatory process requires compliance with stringent anti-money laundering protocols, comprehensive KYC procedures, and robust security standards. With this approval, Zero Hash can now:
Provide compliant digital asset services to Argentinian businesses and consumers.
Establish local operations to better serve the regional market.
Contribute to the growth of Argentina’s emerging digital economy.
“We build our business through proper regulatory channels,” added Stephen Gardner, Chief Legal Officer at Zero Hash. “Our approach has always been to work collaboratively with local regulators to ensure we meet or exceed compliance requirements in every market we enter.”
This regulatory approval comes at a crucial time for Argentina’s growing freelance workforce. Recent survey data highlights significant challenges within the country’s traditional financial infrastructure, with 88% of respondents indicating that current local banking and payment systems fail to adequately serve freelancers due to high fees, currency volatility issues, and payment delays.
“Our entry into Argentina addresses a genuine market need,” added Woodford. “Our research shows that an overwhelming 92% of Argentinian freelancers prefer cryptocurrency payment options. We’ve incorporated these options for our local teams in Argentina, recognizing they deserve fair compensation without diminishing their earnings through unfavorable exchange rates. This reflects the real-world utility of digital assets in providing financial stability, reducing transaction costs, and enabling timely compensation for services rendered.”
About Zero Hash Zero Hash is the leading infrastructure provider for crypto, stablecoin, and tokenized assets. Its API and embeddable dev-kit enables innovators to easily launch solutions across cross-border payments, commerce, trading, remittance, payroll, tokenization and on/off-ramps.
Zero Hash powers solutions for some of the largest and innovative companies including Interactive Brokers, Stripe, Shift4, Franklin Templeton, Felix Pago, Kalshi and LightSpark. Zero Hash Holdings is backed by investors, including Point72 Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and NYCA.
In the United States, Zero Hash LLC is a FinCen-registered Money Service Business and a regulated Money Transmitter that can operate in 51 U.S. jurisdictions. Zero Hash LLC and Zero Hash Liquidity Services LLC are licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Zero Hash Trust Company LLC has been approved by the North Carolina Commissioner of Banks as a non-depository trust company. For information about our global regulatory footprint, including our Argentinian registrations, see here.
Zero Hash Disclosures
The Zero Hash services and product offerings may not be available in all jurisdictions, including in the State of New York. Crypto and stablecoin holdings held in Zero Hash accounts are not subject to FDIC or SIPC protections in the U.S., or any such equivalent protections that may exist outside of the U.S. Zero Hash’s technical support and enablement of any asset is not an endorsement of such asset and is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset. The value of any cryptocurrency, including digital assets pegged to fiat currency, commodities, or any other asset, may go to zero.
Learn more by visiting zerohash.com or following us on X @ZeroHashX
Media Contacts Zero Hash Shaun O’Keeffe (855) 744-7333 media@zerohash.com
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
JERUSALEM/SANAA, May 28 (Xinhua) — Israeli warplanes on Wednesday struck the main airport of the Yemeni capital Sanaa and several aircraft belonging to Houthi forces, the Israeli army said in a statement.
The attack destroyed the last aircraft used by Houthi forces, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
“This is a clear signal and a direct continuation of our policy: whoever opens fire on Israel will pay a high price,” he warned.
He noted that Israel would continue to strike Yemeni ports and strategic infrastructure used by the Houthis and their allies. “The airport in Sanaa will be destroyed again and again,” the statement said.
The Israeli minister also warned that the Houthis would find themselves “under a sea and air blockade.”
Airport CEO Khaled al-Shayef confirmed that a fourth Yemeni national airline plane, Yemenia Airline Company, was destroyed in Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday morning.
Since November 2023, the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, have carried out regular missile and drone strikes on Israel. They say they are doing so in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The group has said it will stop the attacks if Israel ends its military operations and blockade of Gaza. –0–
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Retired and active operators, civilians, and combat support representing warfighters from every era of American combat since the Vietnam War, reunited with former and current teammates on May 22, 2025, to celebrate a milestone – 50 years of Naval Special Warfare Group (NSWG) 1.
Before then, recording was done mechanically, scratching sound waves onto rolled paper or a cylinder. Such recordings suffered from low fidelity and captured only a small segment of the audible sound spectrum.
By using electrical microphones, amplifiers and electromechanical recorders, record companies could capture a far wider range of sound frequencies, with much higher fidelity. For the first time, recorded sound closely resembled what a live listener would hear. Over the ensuing years, sales of vinyl records and record players boomed.
The technology also allowed some enterprising music fans to make recordings in surprising and innovative ways. As a physician and scholar in the medical humanities, I am fascinated by the use of X-ray film to make recordings – what was known as “bone music,” or “ribs.”
This rather bizarre, homemade technology became a way to skirt censors in the Soviet Union – and even played an indirect role in its dissolution.
Skirting the Soviet censorship regime
At the end of World War II, Soviet censorship shifted into high gear in an effort to suppress a Western culture deemed threatening or decadent.
Many books and poems could circulate only through “samizdat,” a portmanteau of “self” and “publishing” that involved the use of copy machines to reproduce forbidden texts. Punishments inflicted on Soviet artists and citizens for producing or disseminating censored materials included loss of employment, imprisonment in gulags and even execution.
The phonographic analog of samizdat was often referred to as “roentgenizdat,” which was derived from the name of Wilhelm Roentgen, the German scientist who received the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901 for his discovery of X-rays.
Roentgen’s work revolutionized medicine, making it possible to peer inside the living human body without cutting it open and enabling physicians to more easily and accurately diagnose skeletal fractures and diseases such as pneumonia.
Today, X-rays are produced and stored digitally. But for most of the 20th century they were created on photographic film and stored in large film libraries, which took up a great deal of space.
Because exposed X-ray films cannot be reused, hospitals often recycled them to recoup the silver they contained.
Making music from medicine
In the Soviet Union in the 1940s, some clever people realized that X-ray film was just soft enough to be etched by an electromechanical lathe, or sound recording device.
To make a “rib,” or “bone record,” they would use a compass to trace out a circle on an exposed X-ray film that might bear the image of a patient’s skull, spine or hands. They then used scissors to cut out the circle, before cutting a small hole in the middle so it would fit on a conventional record player.
Then they would use a recording device to cut either live sound or, more commonly, a bootleg record onto the X-ray film. Sound consists of vibrations that the lathe’s stylus etches into grooves on the disc. Such devices were not widely available, meaning that only a relatively small number of people could produce such recordings.
A disc-cutting lathe demonstrates the production of an X-ray record at a 2021 exhibition in Berlin, Germany. Adam Berry/Getty Images
The censors kept a close eye on record companies. But anyone who could obtain a recording device could record music on pieces of X-ray film, and these old films could be obtained after hospitals threw them out or purchased at a relatively low price from hospital employees.
Compared with professionally produced vinyl records, the sound quality was poor, with recordings marred by extraneous noises such as hisses and crackles. The records could be played only a limited number of times before the grooves would wear out.
Nonetheless, these resourceful recordings were shared, bought and sold entirely outside of official channels into the 1960s and 1970s.
A window into another life
Popular artists “on the bone” included Ella Fitzgerald and Elvis Presley, whose jazz and rock ’n’ roll recordings, to the ears of many Soviet citizens, represented freedom and self-expression.
In his book “Bone Music,” cultural historian Stephen Coates describes how Soviet authorities viewed performers such as The Beatles as toxic because they appeared to promote a brand of amoral hedonism and distracted citizens from Communist party priorities.
“It is true that from time to time they are caught, their equipment confiscated, and they may even be brought to court. But then they may be released and be free to go wherever they like. The judges decide that they are, of course, parasites, but they are not dangerous. They are getting suspended sentences! But these record producers are not just engaged in illegal operations. They corrupt young people diligently and methodically with a squeaky cacophony and spread explicit obscenities.”
Bone music was inherently subversive.
For one thing, it was against the law. Moreover, the music itself suggested that a different sort of life is possible, beyond the strictures of Communist officials. How could a political system that prohibited beautiful music, many asked, possibly merit the allegiance of its citizens?
The ability of citizens to get around the censors and spread Western thought, whether through books or bone music, helped chip away at the government’s legitimacy.
One Soviet-era listener Coates interviewed long after the USSR’s collapse described the joy of listening to these illicit recordings:
“I was lifted up off the ground, I started flying. Rock’n’roll showed me a new world, a world of music, words, and feelings, of life, of a different lifestyle. That’s why, when I got my first records, I became a happy man. I felt like a changed person, it was as if I was born again.”
The playing of a bootleg record from the Soviet Union, recorded on an X-ray negative.
Richard Gunderman 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.
When the computer or phone you’re using right now blinks its last blink and you drop it off for recycling, do you know what happens?
At the recycling center, powerful magnets will pull out steel. Spinning drums will toss aluminum into bins. Copper wires will get neatly bundled up for resale. But as the conveyor belt keeps rolling, tiny specks of valuable, lesser-known materials such as gallium, indium and tantalum will be left behind.
Those tiny specks are critical materials. They’re essential for building new technology, and they’re in short supply in the U.S. They could be reused, but there’s a problem: Current recycling methods make recovering critical minerals from e-waste too costly or hazardous, so many recyclers simply skip them.
Sadly, most of these hard-to-recycle materials end up buried in landfills or get mixed into products like cement. But it doesn’t have to be this way. New technology is starting to make a difference.
A treasure trove of critical materials is often overlooked in e-waste, including gallium in LEDs, indium in LCDs, and tantalum in surface mount capacitors. Ansan Pokharel/West Virginia University, CC BY
As demand for these critical materials keeps growing, discarded electronics can become valuable resources. My colleagues and I at West Virginia University are developing a new technology to change how we recycle. Instead of using toxic chemicals, our approach uses electricity, making it safer, cleaner and more affordable to recover critical materials from electronics.
Even worse, nearly half the electronics that people in Northern America sent to recycling centers end up shipped overseas. They often land in scrapyards, where workers may use dangerous methods like burning or leaching using harsh chemicals to pull out valuable metals. These practices can harm both the environment and workers’ health. That’s why the Environmental Protection Agency restricts these methods in the U.S.
The tiny specks matter
Critical minerals are in most of the technology around you. Every phone screen has a super-thin layer of a material called indium tin oxide. LEDs glow because of a metal called gallium. Tantalum stores energy in tiny electronic parts called capacitors.
All of these materials are flagged as “high risk” on the U.S. Department of Energy’s critical materials list. That means the U.S. relies heavily on these materials for important technologies, but their supply could be easily disrupted by conflicts, trade disputes or shortages.
Right now, just a few countries, including China, control most of the mining, processing and recovery of these materials, making the U.S. vulnerable if those countries decide to limit exports or raise prices.
At West Virginia University’s Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering, I and materials scientist Edward Sabolsky asked a simple question: Could we find a way to heat only specific parts of electronic waste to recover these valuable materials?
If we could focus the heat on just the tiny specks of critical minerals, we might be able to recycle them easily and efficiently.
This equipment isn’t very different from the microwave ovens you use to heat food at home, just bigger and more powerful. The basic science is the same – electromagnetic waves cause electrons to oscillate, creating heat.
In our approach, though, we’re not heating water molecules like you do when cooking. Instead, we heat carbon, the black residue that collects around a candle flame or car tailpipe. Carbon heats up much faster in a microwave than water does. But don’t try this at home; your kitchen microwave wasn’t designed for such high temperatures.
West Virginia University researchers are using this experimental microwave reactor to recycle critical materials from end-of-life electronics. Ansan Pokharel/West Virginia University, CC BY
In our recycling method, we first shred the electronic waste, mix it with materials called fluxes that trap impurities, and then heat the mixture with microwaves. The microwaves rapidly heat the carbon that comes from the plastics and adhesives in the e-waste. This causes the carbon to react with the tiny specks of critical materials. The result: a tiny piece of pure, sponge-like metal about the size of a grain of rice.
This metal can then be easily separated from leftover waste using filters.
So far, in our laboratory tests, we have successfully recovered about 80% of the gallium, indium and tantalum from e-waste, at purities between 95% and 97%. We have also demonstrated how it can be integrated with existing recycling processes.
Many important technologies, from radar systems to nuclear reactors, depend on these special materials. While the Department of Defense uses less of them than the commercial market, they are a national security concern.
We’re planning to launch larger pilot projects next to test the method on smartphone circuit boards, LED lighting parts and server cards from data centers. These tests will help us fine-tune the design for a bigger system that can recycle tons of e-waste per hour instead of just a few pounds. That could mean producing up to 50 pounds of these critical minerals per hour from every ton of e-waste processed.
If the technology works as expected, we believe this approach could help meet the nation’s demand for critical materials.
How to make e-waste recycling common
One way e-waste recycling could become more common is if Congress held electronics companies responsible for recycling their products and recovering the critical materials inside. Closing loopholes that allow companies to ship e-waste overseas, instead of processing it safely in the U.S., could also help build a reserve of recovered critical minerals.
But the biggest change may come from simple economics. Once technology becomes available to recover these tiny but valuable specks of critical materials quickly and affordably, the U.S. can transform domestic recycling and take a big step toward solving its shortage of critical materials.
Terence Musho has received funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Patrick Aguilar, Professor of Practice of Organizational Behavior, Washington University in St. Louis
Pharmacies are more than just stores – they’re vital links between people and their health care.
One of us, Patrick, witnessed this firsthand in 2003 while working as a pharmacy technician at Walgreens in a midsize West Texas town. Each day involved handling hundreds of prescriptions as they moved through the system – meticulously counting pills, deciphering doctors’ handwriting and sorting out confusing insurance issues. The experience revealed that how pharmacies are owned and managed is as much a public health issue as it is a financial one.
Fast-forward to today, and Walgreens – one of the world’s largest pharmacy chains, which filled nearly 800 million U.S. prescriptions in 2024 – is at a turning point. In March, the company announced it would be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners for US$10 billion, just 10% of its peak market value. That deal takes the storied pharmacy chain off the public market for the first time in nearly 100 years.
We’re professors who study the intersection of medicineand business, and we think this deal offers a window into the future of pharmacy care. It matters not just to pharmacists but also to the tens of millions of Americans who rely on outlets like Walgreens to meet their everyday health needs.
The rise and struggles of Walgreens
A lot has changed in the pharmacy industry since 1901, when Charles R. Walgreen Sr. purchased the Chicago drugstore where he served as a pharmacist. The company went public in 1927, expanded rapidly throughout the 20th century and grew to 8,000 stores by 2013. By 2014, a merger with the European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots made Walgreens one of the largest pharmacy chains in the world.
More recently, however, the picture for the pharmacy industry hasn’t been so rosy. Labor costs have risen. Front-end retail sales – things like snacks, greeting cards and cosmetics – have fallen. And financial pressures from pharmacy benefit managers – those third-party groups that manage the cost of prescription drug benefits on the behalf of insurers – have grown.
All of these things have significantly constrained revenues across the industry, leading stores to shutter. Some estimates suggest that as many as one-third of U.S. retail pharmacies have closed since 2010.
Against that backdrop, Sycamore Partners’ March acquisition of Walgreens raises big questions. What does Sycamore see in this investment, and what might their strategies imply about the future of American pharmacy care?
Framing the private equity bet
Private equity firms typically buy companies, streamline their operations and seek to sell them for a profit within five to seven years of the acquisition.
This growing movement of private equity into the global economy is by no means limited to health care. In 2020, private equity firms employed 11.7 million U.S. workers, or about 7% of the country’s total workforce. The total assets under management by such investors have grown by over 11% annually over the past two decades, a trend that’s expected to continue.
In looking at Walgreens, Sycamore, like many of these businesses, likely sees an opportunity to buy low, cut costs and improve profitability. One survey of private equity investors found that the most common self-reported sources of value creation in these deals for companies of Sycamore’s size were changing the product and marketing it more robustly to drive demand, changing incentives for those within the business, and facilitating a high-value exit.
While private owners may have more patience than public markets, critics argue that private equity firms tend to have a short-term focus, looking for quick, predictable services of margin improvement – like, for example, cutting jobs.
There’s some evidence in favor of that claim. One study found that employment often drops in the years following a private equity buyout. And if the focus shifts to repaying debt or prepping for resale, long-term projects, such as investing in future innovation, can get deprioritized.
The history of privatized public companies offers a mix of successes and failures. Dell Technologies and hotel chain Hilton are two prominent examples of companies that went private, restructured successfully and came back stronger. In those cases, going private helped management focus without the constant pressure of quarterly earnings reports.
On the other hand, companies such as Toys R Us, which was taken private in 2005 and filed for bankruptcy in 2018, show how high debt and missed innovation can lead to collapse.
What’s next for Walgreens
So, where does this leave Walgreens − and the investors involved in the deal?
As the dust settles on the purchase, Sycamore has indicated an interest in splitting Walgreens into three business units: one focused on U.S. pharmacies, one on U.K. pharmacies and one on U.S. primary health care through its VillageMD subsidiary.
That’s not unusual: Sycamore has used a similar approach before with its investment in the office supply retailer Staples, a strategy that has garnered strong financial returns but been called into question for its long-term sustainability.
Given the significant financial challenges VillageMD has faced since its acquisition by Walgreens, this represents an opportunity to separately evaluate and optimize its performance. Meanwhile, Sycamore’s historic focus on retail and customer-focused businesses might help it modernize the in-store experience or optimize staffing.
For more than a century, Walgreens has survived and adapted to sweeping changes in retail. Now, it’s entering a new chapter – one that could reshape not just its own future but the role of pharmacies in American life.
Will Sycamore help Walgreens thrive, using its resources to strengthen services and deliver more value to customers? Or will pressure to generate quick returns create problems? Either way, the answer matters – not just for investors but for anyone who’s ever relied on their neighborhood pharmacy to stay healthy.
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.
Four helicopters carrying an arrest team whirled over the mountains near Mexico’s southwestern coast toward Cervantes’ compound in the town of Villa Purificación, the heart of the infamous Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel.
As the lead helicopter pulled within range, bullets from a truck-mounted, military-grade machine gun on the ground struck the engine. Before it reached the ground, the massive helicopter was hit by a pair of rocket-powered grenades.
This .50-caliber cartridge was found stuck in the truck-mounted Browning M2HB machine gun that the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel used to damage a Mexican Security Forces Super Cougar helicopter. ATF
Four soldiers from Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense were killed in the crash. Three more soldiers were killed in the firefight that followed, and another 12 were injured.
The engagement was the first known incident of a cartel shooting down a military aircraft in Mexico. The cartel’s retaliation for the attempted arrest was swift and brutal. It set fire to trucks, buses, banks, gasoline stations and businesses. The distractions worked. Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” escaped.
The Browning machine gun that took down the helicopter was traced to a legal firearm purchase in Oregon made by a U.S. citizen. And a Barrett .50-caliber rifle used in the ambush was traced to a sale in a U.S. gun shop in Texas 4½ years before.
Many military-grade weapons like these are trafficked into Mexico from the U.S. each year, aided by loose standards for firearm dealers and gun laws that favor illicit sales.
We – a professor of economic development who has been tracking gun trafficking for more than 10 years, and an investigative journalist – spent a year sifting through documents to find the number, origins and characteristics of weapons flowing from the U.S. to Mexico.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – the agency known as ATF tasked with regulating the industry – publishes the number of U.S. guns seized in Mexico and traced back to U.S. dealers, but it doesn’t provide an official trafficking estimate. The 2003 Tiahrt Amendments bar the ATF from creating a database of firearm sales and prohibit federal agencies from sharing detailed trace data outside of law enforcement.
To estimate weapons flow, we gathered trafficking estimates, including leaked data, previous research, firearm manufacturing totals and the ATF trace data.
The model we generated gave us a conservative middle estimate: About 135,000 firearms were trafficked across the border in 2022. In contrast, Ukraine, engaged in a war with Russia, received 40,000 small arms from the United States between January 2020 and April 2024 – an average of 9,000 per year.
An increase in guns trafficked to Mexico from the U.S. relates to an increase in Mexico’s homicide rate.
More of the most destructive weapons come from independent gun dealers versus large chain stores – 16 times as many assault-style weapons and 60 times as many sniper rifles.
The trafficking flow drives an arms race between criminals and Mexican law enforcement; the U.S. gun industry profits on sales to both.
ATF oversight of dealers reduces the likelihood their guns are resold on the illicit market.
Following the flow
Since 2008, the U.S. has spent more than US$3 billion to help stabilize Mexico through the rule of law and stem its surges of extreme violence, much of it committed with U.S. firearms. Many programs are funded through the U.S. State Department, which is facing budget cuts, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has sustained deep cuts.
Meanwhile, the gun industry and its supporters have undercut these efforts by fighting measures to regulate gun sales.
From 2015-2023, 185,000 guns linked to crimes in Mexico were sent to the ATF to be traced – the process of using a firearm’s serial number and other characteristics to identify the trail of gun ownership. About 125,000 of those weapons have been traced back to the U.S.
Our analyses show that U.S.-Mexico firearms trafficking has dire implications for ordinary Mexicans – and that U.S. regulatory actions can have an enormous impact. This adds to a growing body of research tying U.S.-sold guns to Mexico-based gangs and cartels, illegal drug trafficking, homicide rates, corruption of Mexican officials, illicit financial transactions and migration trends.
Oregon guns tied to cartel
The Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel is poised to be the biggest player in the drug cartel game. El Mencho, still at large, is one of the most powerful people directing the flow of heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamines into the United States, while orchestrating campaigns of fear, intimidation and displacement in Mexico.
The Browning .50-caliber rifle that aided El Mencho’s evasion in 2015 was manufactured by a company based in Morgan, Utah, and legally sold to Erik Flores Elortegui, a U.S. citizen.
Elortegui fled the country after he was indicted in Oregon for smuggling guns into Mexico and is now at the top of the ATF’s most wanted list. He wasn’t alone in his gunrunning schemes. According to a grand jury indictment, Elortegui purchased 20 firearms through an accomplice, Robert Allen Cummins, in 2013 and 2014. Cummins was straw purchasing – buying weapons under his name for Elortegui.
Two of the .50-caliber weapons that Cummins purchased for Elortegui – the long rifles on the right – were among those later recovered from a tractor trailer in Sonora, Mexico. USA v. Robert Allen Cummins. USA v. Robert Allen Cummins
Before she gave Cummins a 40-month prison sentence in 2017, Judge Ann Aiken admonished him for the pain and suffering his weapons were likely going to cause. She told him to read “Dreamland,” which chronicles America’s opioid crisis and its connection to Mexican drug cartels.
After their mother was killed by organized crime five years ago, Emylce Ines Espinoza-Alarcon’s sister’s family migrated to the States, she said.
Espinoza-Alarcon, her children and other relatives were more recently driven from their homes by violence. “As a parent, you try to flee to a different place where they might be safe,” Espinoza-Alarcon said. She said she believes American weapons are to blame, but there “is nowhere else for us to go.”
Emylce Ines Espinoza-Alarcon holds her toddler as she listens while her aunt, Alicia Zomora-Guevara, front, describes the cartel attack on her town that forced their families into exile. Zomora-Guevara’s son, Kevin Jait Alarcon-Zamora, stands to the right, and Espinoza-Alarcon’s son and teenage daughter sit on the Mexico City hotel room bed in front of her. Sean Campbell, CC BY-ND
A 2023 survey found that 88% of the 180,000 Mexican migrants to the U.S. that year were fleeing violence – a flip from 2017 when most were coming for economic opportunity.
The ATF’s enforcement
ATF inspections keep illicit guns in check, our analysis shows.
The agency’s primary enforcement tools are inspections, violations reports, warning letters and meetings, and, when inspectors find violations that are reckless or willfully endanger the public, revocation notices.
But the bureau’s 2025 congressional budget request points out that it would need 1,509 field investigators to reach its goal of inspecting each dealer at least once every three years.
This is a condensed version. To learn more about the connections between U.S. gun sales, U.S. regulations, Mexican drug cartels and migration, read the full investigation
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.
Pennsylvania residents may get sticker shock when they see their electric bills this summer. Aging infrastructure, extreme weather, transmission bottlenecks and increased demand are sending electricity rates soaring.
Widespread rate hikes across the commonwealth started in December 2024 and are continuing in 2025. Rising prices are related to how the wholesale electricity market in Pennsylvania operates, among other factors. Utilities are paying much more than in previous years to ensure they can meet their customers’ future demand, and these costs are being passed on to consumers.
For example, Philadelphia residents were among those hit with a 10% rate increase that went into effect in January 2025 for all residential customers of PECO, Pennsylvania’s largest electric and gas utility. Some of PECO’s residential customers will see an additional 12.5% rate increase kick in on June 1, 2025.
A notice from PECO sent May 21, 2025.
As Penn State University professors who research energy law and electricity markets, we want to suggest five ways Pennsylvania consumers can lower their electric bills amid price hikes.
1. Use less
Much like when gasoline prices rise, the best response for individual consumers when electric rates go up is often to use less electricity.
Weatherization has an added benefit: improved health. In addition to maintaining a more comfortable indoor temperature, weatherizing paired with ventilation improvements can improve indoor air quality and control indoor moisture and mold.
Making a home more energy efficient can be tricky for low-income people, who might not be able to afford the costs, and renters, who don’t own the premises. However, Pennsylvania offers several programs to help residents make energy efficiency improvements, and organizations such as the Philadelphia Energy Authority try to reach low-income households.
Through the state’s low income usage reduction program, eligible tenants can receive help installing energy-saving features with written permission from their landlord. The multifamily weatherization assistance program has also provided grants for weatherization measures such as insulation and “air sealing to reduce infiltration” in buildings with five or more units that meet income criteria for residents.
Pennsylvania has what is called “retail electricity choice,” which means residents can pick who generates their electricity. For example, consumers can shop around for different rates charged per kilowatt-hour of electricity they consume or for electricity produced from wind and solar power.
But electricity customers cannot choose who carries that electricity to their residences. That is done by a regulated electric distribution company, or utility, with a monopoly on service.
Consumers can sometimes reduce their bills by choosing a cheaper offer for generation. But retail choice can be risky if consumers do not carefully read the conditions of the contract.
For example, some plans charge a higher rate than the default rate from the distribution company. Others charge different rates depending on whether the electricity is consumed during peak or off-peak hours. And still others lock customers into long contracts at a fixed price. This becomes undesirable if the default electricity rate drops lower than the contracted rate.
3. Try solar
For those who own their home, installing rooftop solar panels is another way to avoid higher electric bills.
The cost of solar panels has fallen steadily for many years, and rising electric rates make the economics of solar better.
Pennsylvania also has fairly advantageous rules for “net metering, which allows solar homeowners to get credits from the utility for excess solar power fed back into the grid.
For example, say a customer uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a month and their rooftop solar panels generate 1,200 kilowatt-hours. They won’t have to pay for the 1,000 kilowatt-hours they used, and those additional 200 kilowatt-hours will be credited on their next monthly electric bill.
Additionally, a number of federal and state tax incentives are available for rooftop solar energy in Pennsylvania. These incentives offset some of the up-front costs of installing solar panels.
Buying solar panels is a high up-front expense, however, even with tax credits. Programs such as Solarize Greater Philadelphia can help reduce the cost. But keep in mind that not all properties have roofs that are large, strong or sunny enough to benefit from solar.
For homeowners with suitable roofs, third-party solar is another option. This is when a company installs and continues owning the solar panels and charges the customer a fixed rate for the electricity produced by the solar panels. This rate is typically cheaper than the rate offered by the utility. But as with any contract, consumers need to read the fine print carefully and understand the long-term obligation.
4. Go to a public hearing
Local electric utilities are regulated by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. Pennsylvania residents can file formal complaints with the PUC about rate hikes, or they can attend one of PUC’s public input hearings.
Consumers might want to pay particular attention to the commission’s proceedings as it considers new electric rates and regulation for data centers and other large-load customers. These rates will determine which costs are shouldered by the data center operators and which costs wind up on the electric bills of all Pennsylvanians.
Consumers can file comments to advocate for a rate-sharing plan they believe will be fair.
5. Think holistically
As Americans continue to digitize their lives, electricity demand – and therefore prices – will likely continue to rise.
Given that growing electricity demand contributes to higher future rates, consumers may want to think about the energy-intensive online applications they use, such as data storage and all the AI features that tech companies are integrating into their products.
Consumers might also want to consider the types of energy they want produced in their neighborhood. Many people understandably oppose constructing new energy facilities in their communities due to the aesthetic impacts, use of land and in some cases pollution. But this opposition can also slow the construction of new energy generation.
Better processes for community involvement can enable the construction of generation with fewer negative impacts. These processes include, among other things, more detailed developer-community discussions and more comprehensive and thoughtful community benefits agreements. These agreements allow communities to negotiate services and resources that the energy developer will provide them. Such offerings might include vocational training programs, financial or other donations, or commitments to hire local labor.
Hannah Wiseman receives or has recently received funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Arnold Ventures, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Center for Rural Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. She is a member of the Center for Progressive Reform.
Seth Blumsack receives or has recently received funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Heising Simons Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Center for Rural Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Benjamin Gonzalez O’Brien, Associate Professor of Political Science, San Diego State University
While sanctuary policies for immigrants have grown in the U.S. since the 1980s, the Trump administration is the first to challenge them. Marcos Silva/iStock/Getty Images Plus
San Francisco, Chicago and New York are among the major cities – as well as more than 200 small towns and counties and a dozen states – that over the past 40 years have adopted what is often known as sanctuary policies.
There is not a single definition of a sanctuary policy. But it often involves local authorities not asking about a resident’s immigration status, or not sharing that personal information with federal immigration authorities.
So when a San Francisco police officer pulls someone over for a traffic violation, the officer will not ask if the person is living in the country legally.
American presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, have chosen to leave sanctuary policies largely unchallenged since different places first adopted them in the 1970s. This changed in 2017, when President Donald Trump first tried to cut federal funding to sanctuary places, claiming that their policies “willfully violate Federal law.” Legal challenges during his first term stopped him from actually withholding the money.
At the start of his second term, Trump signed two executive orders in January and April 2025 which again state that his administration will withhold federal money from areas with sanctuary policies.
“Working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist!!!” Trump said, according to an April White House statement. This statement was immediately followed by his April executive order.
These two executive orders task the attorney general and secretary of homeland security with publishing a list of all sanctuary places and notifying local and state officials of “non-compliance, providing an opportunity to correct it.” Those that do not comply with federal law, according to the orders, may lose federal funding.
San Francisco and 14 other sanctuary cities, including New Haven, Connecticut, and Portland, Oregon, sued the Trump administration in February on the grounds that it was illegally trying to coerce cities to comply with its policies. A U.S. district court judge in California issued an injunction on April 24preventing the administration – at least for the time being – from cutting funding from places with sanctuary policies.
However, as researchers who have studied sanctuary policies for over a decade, we know that Trump’s claim that sanctuary policies violate federal immigration law is not correct.
It’s true that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration. Yet there is no federal requirement that state or local governments participate or cooperate in federal immigration enforcement, which would require an act of Congress.
In 1979, the Los Angeles Police Department was the first to announce a prohibition on local officials asking about a resident’s immigration status.
However, it was not until the 1980s that the sanctuary movement took off, when hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Nicaraguans fled civil war and violence in their home countries and migrated to the U.S. This prompted a number of cities to declare solidarity with the faith-based sanctuary movement that offered refuge to Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Nicaraguan asylum seekers facing deportation.
In 1985, Berkeley, Calif., and San Francisco pledged that city officials, including police officers, would not report Central Americans to immigration authorities as long as they were law abiding.
“We are not asking anyone to do anything illegal,” Nancy Walker, a supervisor for San Francisco, said in 1985, according to The New York Times. “We have got to extend our hand to these people. If these people go home, they die. They are asking us to let them stay.”
Today, there are hundreds of sanctuary cities, towns, counties and states across the country that all have a variation of policies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Sometimes – but not always – places with sanctuary policies bar local law enforcement agencies from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the country’s main immigration enforcement agency.
A large part of ICE’s work is identifying, arresting and deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. In order to carry out this work, ICE issues what is known as “detainer requests” to local law enforcement authorities. A detainer request asks local law enforcement to hold a specific arrested person already being held by police until that person can be transferred to ICE, which can then take steps to deport them.
While places without sanctuary policies tend to comply with these requests, some sanctuary jurisdictions, like the state of California, only do so in the cases of particular violent criminal offenses.
Yet local officials in sanctuary places cannot legally block ICE from arresting local residents who are living in the country illegally, or from carrying out any other parts of its work.
However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2018 case involving San Francisco and Santa Clara County, California, that the president could not refuse to “disperse the federal grants in question without congressional authorization.”
These cases were in the process of being appealed to the Supreme Court when the Department of Justice, under Biden, asked that they be dismissed.
Other Supreme Court rulings also suggest that the Trump administration’s claim that it can withhold federal funding from sanctuary places rests on shaky legal ground.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 and again in 1997 that the federal government could not coerce state or local governments to use their resources to enforce a federal regulatory program, or compel them to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.
Under pressure
The first Trump administration was not generally successful, with the exception of the split over the Edward Byrne Memorial Assistance Grant Program, at stripping funding from sanctuary places. But cutting federal funding – even if it happens temporarily – can be economically damaging to cities and counties while they challenge the decision in court.
Local officials also face other kinds of political pressure to comply with the Trump administration’s demands.
A legal group founded by Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff in the Trump administration, for example, sent letters to dozens of local officials in January threatening criminal prosecution for their sanctuary policies.
Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, a sanctuary city, testifies during a House committee hearing on sanctuary city mayors on March 5, 2025, in Washington. Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
The real effects of sanctuary policies
One part of Trump’s argument against sanctuary policies is that places with these policies have more crime than those that do not.
But there is no established relationship between sanctuary status and crime rates.
There is, however, evidence that when local law enforcement and ICE work together, it reduces the likelihood of immigrant and Latino communities to report crimes, likely for fear of being arrested by federal immigration authorities.
Sanctuary policies are certainly worthy of debate, but this requires an accurate representation of what they are, what they do, and the effects they have.
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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nicholas J. Cull, Professor of Communication, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
The bluegrass group Della Mae plays at an orphanage in Kyrgyzstan on its State Department-sponsored American Music Abroad tour in 2012.Photo: Paul Rockower
Previous U.S. administrations have realized this, including during President Donald Trump’s first term, when his team, led by Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce, raised the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs budget to an all-time high.
Modern Jazz Quartet traveled to Germany in 1960 as jazz ambassadors on a State Department-sponsored tour.
Giving politics a human dimension
Government-funded cultural diplomacy is an old practice. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison’s government hosted a delegation of leaders from Latin America on a 5,000-mile rail tour around the American heartland as a curtain raiser for the first Pan-American conference. The visitors met a variety of American icons, from wordsmith Mark Twain to gunsmiths Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson.
President Teddy Roosevelt initiated the first longer-term cultural exchange program by spending money raised from an indemnity imposed on the Chinese government for its mishandling of the Boxer Rebellion, during which Western diplomats had been held hostage. The program, for the education of Chinese people, included study in the U.S. In contrast, European powers did nothing special with their share of the money.
This work went into high gear during the 1950s. The U.S. sought to stitch postwar Germany back into the community of nations, so that nation became a particular focus. Programs linked emerging global leaders to Americans with similar interests: doctor to doctor; pastor to pastor; politician to politician.
Visits gave a human dimension to political alignment, and returnees had the ability to speak to their countrymen and women with the authority of personal experience.
From jazz to promoting peace
The globally focused International Visitor Leadership Program built early-career relationships between U.S. citizens and young foreign leaders who later played a central role in aligning their nations with American policy.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s note from 10 Downing Street about her 1967 exchange visit to the US – ‘Forevermore I shall be a true friend to the United States.’ U.S. Department of State
Current programs include bringing emerging highfliers in tech, music and sports to the U.S. to connect to and be mentored by Americans in the same field and then go home to be part of a living network of enhanced understanding. Such programs are in danger of being cut under Trump.
Five U.S. hip-hop artists traveled to Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2024 to perform for audiences and collaborate with local artists as part of the State Department’s Next Level program. U.S. Department of State
Personal experience conquers stereotypes
How exactly does this work advance U.S. security?
I see these exchanges as the national equivalent to the advice given to a diplomat in kidnap training: Try to establish a rapport with your hostage-taker so that they will see the person and be inclined to mercy.
The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is the part of the Department of State that cultivates empathy and implicitly counters the claims of America’s detractors with personal experience. Quite simply, it is harder to hate people you really know. More than this, exchanged people frequently become the core of each embassy’s local network.
Of course, an exchange program is just one part of a nation’s reputational security.
Reputation flows from reality, and reality is demonstrated over time. Historically, America’s reputation has rested on the health of the country’s core institutions, including its legal system and higher education as well as its standard of living.
U.S. reputational security has also required reform.
In the 1950s, when President Dwight Eisenhower faced an onslaught of Soviet propaganda emphasizing racism and racial disparities within the U.S., he understood that an effective response required that the U.S. not only showcase Black achievement but also be less racist. Civil rights became a Cold War priority.
As lawmakers in Washington debate federal spending priorities, building relationships through cultural tools may not survive budget cuts. Historically, both sides of the political aisle have failed to appreciate the significance of investing in cultural relations.
In 2013, when still a general heading Central Command, Jim Mattis, later Trump’s secretary of defense, was blunt about what such lack of regard would mean. In 2013 he told Congress: ‘If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition, ultimately.“
Nicholas J. Cull 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.
Cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF, is a clear, colorless liquid that plays a crucial role in maintaining the health and function of your central nervous system. It cushions the brain and spinal cord, provides nutrients and removes waste products.
Despite its importance, problems related to CSF often go unnoticed until something goes wrong.
Recently, cerebrospinal fluid disorders drew public attention with the announcement that musician Billy Joel had been diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus. In this condition, excess CSF accumulates in the brain’s cavities, enlarging them and putting pressure on surrounding brain tissue even though diagnostic readings appear normal. Because normal pressure hydrocephalus typically develops gradually and can mimic symptoms of other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, it is often misdiagnosed.
I am a neurologist and headache specialist. In my work treating patients with CSF pressure disorders, I have seen these conditions present in many different ways. Here’s what happens when your cerebrospinal fluid stops working.
What is cerebrospinal fluid?
CSF is made of water, proteins, sugars, ions and neurotransmitters. It is primarily produced by a network of cells called the choroid plexus, which is located in the brain’s ventricles, or cavities.
Cerebrospinal fluid circulates throughout the brain and spinal cord. OpenStax, CC BY-SA
CSF has several critical functions. It protects the brain and spinal cord from injury by absorbing shocks. Suspending the brain in this fluid reduces its effective weight and prevents it from being crushed under its own mass. Additionally, CSF helps maintain a stable chemical environment in the central nervous system, facilitating the removal of metabolic waste and the distribution of nutrients and hormones.
If the production, circulation or absorption of cerebrospinal fluid is disrupted, it can lead to significant health issues. Two notable conditions are CSF leaks and idiopathic intracranial hypertension.
Cerebrospinal fluid leak
A CSF leak occurs when the fluid escapes through a tear or hole in the dura mater – the tough, outermost layer of the meninges that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.
The dura can be damaged from head injuries or punctured during surgical procedures involving the sinuses, brain or spine, such as lumbar puncture, epidurals, spinal anesthesia or myelogram. Spontaneous CSF leaks can also occur without any identifiable cause.
CSF leaks were originally thought to be relatively rare, with an estimated annual incidence of 5 per 100,000 people. However, with increased awareness and advances in imaging, health care providers are discovering more and more leaks. They tend to occur more frequently in middle-aged adults and are more common in women than men.
An upright headache could be a sign of a CSF leak.
Unfortunately, it’s common for health care providers to misdiagnose a CSF leak as another condition, like migraine, sinus infections or allergies. What can make diagnosing a CSF leak challenging is its broad symptoms. Most people with a CSF leak have a positional headache that improves when lying down and worsens when standing. Pain is usually felt in the back of the head and may involve the neck and between the shoulder blades. In addition to headaches, patients may experience ringing in the ears, vision disturbances, memory problems, brain fog, dizziness and nausea.
Conservative treatment for a CSF leak involves rest, lying flat and increasing your fluid intake to give your spine time to heal the puncture. Increasing your caffeine consumption to an equivalent of three to four cups of coffee per day can also help by increasing CSF production through stimulating the choroid plexus. Caffeine also relieves pain by interacting with adenosine receptors, which are key players in the body’s pain perception mechanisms.
If a conservative approach is not successful, an epidural blood patch may be necessary. In this procedure, blood is drawn from your arm and injected into your spine. The injected blood can help form a covering over the hole and promote the healing process. Headache improvement can be fast, but if the patch does not work or the results are short-lived, additional testing may be needed to better locate the site of the leak. In rare cases, surgery may be recommended. Most patients with a CSF leak respond to some form of these treatments.
Idiopathic intracranial hypertension
Idiopathic intracranial hypertension is a disorder involving an excess of CSF that elevates pressure inside the skull and compresses the brain. The term “idiopathic” indicates that the cause of the raised pressure is unknown.
Most patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension have a history of obesity or recent weight gain. Other risk factors include taking certain medications such as tetracycline, excessive vitamin A, tretinoin, steroids and growth hormone. Middle-aged obese women are 20 times more likely to be diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial hypertension than other patient groups. As obesity becomes more prevalent, so too does the incidence of this condition.
Idiopathic intracranial hypertension results from increased intracranial pressure.
Patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension typically experience headaches and vision changes, tinnitus or eye pain. Papilledema, or swelling of the optic disc, is the hallmark finding on a fundoscopic examination of the back of the eye. Clinicians may also observe paralysis of the patient’s eye muscles.
Normal pressure hydrocephalus, Joel’s diagnosis, is a form of this condition that commonly results in difficulty walking, loss of bladder control and cognitive impairment, sometimes referred to as the “wet, wobbly and wacky” triad. Joel’s diagnosis has brought awareness to this underrecognized but potentially treatable disorder, which is often managed through surgically placing a shunt to divert excess fluid and relieve symptoms.
Brain imaging of patients suspected of having idiopathic intracranial hypertension is crucial to excluding other causes of elevated CSF pressure, such as brain tumors or blood clots in the brain. A lumbar puncture or spinal tap to measure the pressure and composition of CSF is also central to diagnosis.
Since high intracranial pressure can damage the optic nerve and lead to permanent vision loss, the primary goal of treatment is to decrease pressure and preserve the optic nerve. Treatment options include weight loss, dietary changes and medications to reduce CSF production. Surgical procedures can also reduce intracranial pressure.
Future directions and unknowns
Cerebrospinal fluid is indispensable for brain health. Despite advances in understanding diseases related to CSF, several aspects remain unclear.
The exact mechanisms that lead to conditions like CSF leaks and idiopathic intracranial hypertension are not fully understood, though there are many theories. Further research is vital to enhance diagnostic accuracy and effective treatments for CSF disorders.
Danielle Wilhour 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.
Source: United States of America – Department of State (video statements)
Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio meets with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul at the Department of State, on May 23, 2025.
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Under the leadership of the President and Secretary of State, the U.S. Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity. On behalf of the American people we promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.
The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President’s chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service and U.S. Agency for International Development.
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United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) brought together military medical professionals and leaders from 19 partner nations for the third biennial Medical Security Cooperation Exchange (MSCE), held from May 11 to 15, 2025, in San Antonio, Texas. The event served as a pivotal opportunity to strengthen regional medical collaboration, accelerate innovation, and enhance readiness across the coalition.
San Diego, Calif. – Ensuring the health and well-being of its personnel is critical to maintaining Naval Special Warfare’s (NSW) position as the nation’s premier maritime special operations force. Unauthorized use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) during training and operations poses a serious threat, potentially leading to injury, death, and long-term health problems.
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid operator for most of the state, is increasingly curtailing solar- and wind-powered electricity generation as it balances supply and demand amidst rapid renewables capacity growth.
Grid operators must balance supply and demand to maintain a stable electric system. The output of wind and solar generators is reduced either through price signals or, rarely, through an order to reduce output during periods of:
Congestion, when power lines don’t have enough capacity to deliver available energy
Oversupply, when generation exceeds customer electricity demand
In 2024, CAISO curtailed 3.4 million megawatthours (MWh) of utility-scale wind and solar output, a 29% increase from the amount of electricity curtailed in 2023.
Solar accounted for 93% of all the energy curtailed in CAISO in 2024. CAISO curtailed the most solar in the spring, when solar output was relatively high and electricity demand was relatively low, because moderate spring temperatures meant less demand for space heating or air conditioning.
In 2014, a combined 9.7 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar photovoltaic capacity had been built in California. By the end of 2024, that number had grown to 28.2 GW.
CAISO also curtails solar generation to leave room for natural gas generation. A certain amount of natural gas generation must stay online throughout the day to comply with North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) reliability standards and to have generation online in time to ramp up in the evening hours.
Solar energy supplies almost half of CAISO’s electricity demand between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., but demand increases in the later evening hours when people come home from work and turn up air conditioners or electric heaters and turn on lights, ovens, computers, and televisions. This need is especially apparent on hot summer evenings after the sun has set and no longer produces solar power overnight.
CAISO is trying to reduce curtailments in several ways:
Trading with neighboring balancing authorities to try to sell excess solar and wind power
Incorporating battery storage into ancillary services, energy, and capacity markets
Including curtailment reduction in transmission planning
In addition, starting this year, companies are planning to use excess renewable energy to make hydrogen, some of which will be stored and mixed with natural gas for summer generation at the Intermountain Power Project’s new facility scheduled to come online in July.
The Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) is a real-time market that allows participants outside of CAISO to buy and sell energy to balance demand and supply. In 2024, more than 274,000 MWh of curtailments were avoided by trading within the WEIM, equivalent to about 8% of the electricity curtailed that year. The Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM) is expected to be operational by May 2026 and will allow CAISO another outlet to sell solar energy.
To further reduce renewable curtailments and increase the stability of the grid, CAISO is promoting the addition of flexible resources that can quickly respond to sudden increases and decreases in demand. Battery storage, recently the key flexible resource to come online, allows some renewable energy to be stored and used 4-8 hours later in the day. Batteries can charge using excess solar power at midday and then discharge that energy when the sun is going down, providing electricity during hours when it is most needed. Battery capacity in CAISO increased by 45% in 2024, from 8.0 GW in 2023 to 11.6 GW in 2024 according to our survey of recent and planned capacity changes. However, in the spring, more solar energy than can be used within a day is often produced. Without more transmission capacity or a long-term storage solution, high curtailments during this time of year can still occur.
overnor Kathy Hochul today directed that flags on all State government buildings be flown at half-staff in honor of New York State Police retired First Sergeant Michael E. Snell, who passed away on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at the age of 56. First Sergeant Snell’s passing is attributed to an illness stemming from his assignment in and around the World Trade Center site following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“First Sergeant Snell honorably served the people of New York State for 23 years, making the ultimate sacrifice for his fellow New Yorkers when it mattered the most,” Governor Hochul said. “On behalf of New York State, I extend my deepest gratitude for First Sergeant Snell’s contribution to the protection of our state, and send my heartfelt condolences to his family.”
First Sergeant Snell retired from the New York State Police on May 24, 2023, after more than two decades of service. He is survived by his wife, Tammy Snell, and their four children: Wyatt, Ashton, Harrison and Lawson.
EDISON, N.J., May 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ: EOSE) (“Eos” or the “Company”), America’s leading innovator in designing, manufacturing, and providing zinc-based long duration energy storage systems sourced and manufactured in the United States, today announced it has secured an order with Faraday Microgrids to deploy a 3 MW / 15 MWh Eos Z3™ system for a commercial microgrid application on tribal land in California.
Funded partially by the California Energy Commission (CEC), the project will support the development of a renewable energy microgrid featuring a highly flexible long duration energy storage system, designed to bolster resilience for the tribe’s facilities, provide critical backup power, and deliver demand savings and utility ancillary services.
“This strategic project further demonstrates the performance and reliability of our Z3 systems in real world applications,” said Nathan Kroeker, Eos Chief Commercial Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer. “As a repeat order through our established partners at Faraday and the CEC, this deployment serves as a testament to the strength of our commercial relationships and reinforces our mission to deliver resilient, reliable and domestically manufactured energy solutions.”
The project highlights Eos’ continued momentum in California’s growing energy market and its role in supporting American energy independence. Along with its Z3 systems, Eos will also provide integration services to ensure seamless deployment and operation.
“It is our great pleasure to once again partner with Eos to deploy their cutting-edge zinc-bromide energy storage technology in one of the largest renewable energy microgrids in the Western United States,” said Faraday Chief Executive Officer, David Bliss. “This will support a Native American community and contribute to bulk grid-edge power stability and availability – demonstrating the ability of distributed energy resources to support the safety and growth of vibrant communities in California and across North America.”
This is Eos’ eighth project in partnership with the CEC, and second with Faraday Microgrids, highlighting the Company’s growing presence in this critical market and the state’s commitment to advancing Made-in-USA energy storage applications.
About Eos Energy Enterprises
Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc. is accelerating the shift to American energy independence with positively ingenious solutions that transform how the world stores power. Our breakthrough Znyth™ aqueous zinc battery was designed to overcome the limitations of conventional lithium-ion technology. It is safe, scalable, efficient, sustainable, manufactured in the U.S., and the core of our innovative systems that today provides utility, industrial, and commercial customers with a proven, reliable energy storage alternative for 3 to 12-hour applications. Eos was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Edison, New Jersey. For more information about Eos (NASDAQ: EOSE), visit eose.com.
About Faraday Microgrids
Faraday Microgrids is the trusted guide for hospitals, industrial facilities, and institutions seeking energy independence. We design, build, and operate turnkey microgrid systems that cut energy costs, boost reliability, and support sustainability—without the complexity. From financing to installation and long-term support, Faraday delivers custom energy systems that keep critical operations running, no matter what.
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our expected revenue, for the fiscal years December 31, 2025, our path to profitability and strategic outlook, statements regarding orders backlog and opportunity pipeline, statements regarding our expectation that we can continue to increase product volume on our state-of-the-art manufacturing line, statements regarding our future expansion and its impact on our ability to scale up operations, statements regarding our expectation that we can continue to strengthen our overall supply chain, statements regarding our expectation that our new comprehensive insurance program will provide increased operational and economic certainty, statements that refer to the delayed draw term loan with Cerberus, milestones thereunder and the anticipated use of proceeds, statements that refer to outlook, projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intends,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are based on our management’s beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and the information currently available to, them. Because such statements are based on expectations as to future financial and operating results and are not statements of fact, actual results may differ materially from those projected.
Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to: changes adversely affecting the business in which we are engaged; our ability to forecast trends accurately; our ability to generate cash, service indebtedness and incur additional indebtedness; our ability to achieve the operational milestones on the delayed draw term loan; our ability to raise financing in the future; risks associated with the credit agreement with Cerberus, including risks of default, dilution of outstanding Common Stock, consequences for failure to meet milestones and contractual lockup of shares; our customers’ ability to secure project financing; the amount of final tax credits available to our customers or to Eos pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act; the timing and availability of future funding under the Department of Energy Loan Facility; our ability to continue to develop efficient manufacturing processes to scale and to forecast related costs and efficiencies accurately; fluctuations in our revenue and operating results; competition from existing or new competitors; our ability to convert firm order backlog and pipeline to revenue; risks associated with security breaches in our information technology systems; risks related to legal proceedings or claims; risks associated with evolving energy policies in the United States and other countries and the potential costs of regulatory compliance; risks associated with changes to the U.S. trade environment; our ability to maintain the listing of our shares of common stock on NASDAQ; our ability to grow our business and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain our management and key employees; risks related to the adverse changes in general economic conditions, including inflationary pressures and increased interest rates; risk from supply chain disruptions and other impacts of geopolitical conflict; changes in applicable laws or regulations; the possibility that Eos may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; other factors beyond our control; risks related to adverse changes in general economic conditions; and other risks and uncertainties.
The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to additional risks, uncertainties, and factors, including those more fully described in the Company’s most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. Further information on potential risks that could affect actual results will be included in the subsequent periodic and current reports and other filings that the Company makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Moreover, the Company operates in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment, and new risks and uncertainties may emerge that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.
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, except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
The common element in each of these policies is a promise from Trump’s inaugural speech that his administration would recognize only two genders: male and female.
These executive orders make life difficult for transgender people, many of whom do identify as women or men, just not the sex they were assigned at birth. Apart from that, however, the emphasis on two and only two genders denies the existence of another group that is often misunderstood: nonbinary people.
Trans vs. nonbinary
I am a sociologist who studies gender. Over the past few years, co-researchers and I have interviewed 123 nonbinary people in three regions in America: the South, the Midwest and the West Coast. These interviewees spoke about how nonbinary people’s increased visibility in society in recent years helped them feel more welcome and liberated from gender stereotypes.
All of the respondents are nonbinary. They do not want to be seen as the opposite sex from what they were assigned at birth; they do not feel they were “born in the wrong body.”
Rather, they want to avoid being forced into the either/or labels that the categories “masculine” and “feminine” or “man” and “woman” entail. They opt out of those binary identifications altogether.
Decades of research, some of it our own, have shown that sex and gender are different from one another. Sex refers to primary and secondary sex characteristics, while gender is about the cultural meanings built upon sex categories.
Gender is a social system that justifies rules and expectations that differentiate between the rights and social roles of men and women. These systems vary across time and place. Today, there are societies such as those in Iceland, Barbados and Bosnia-Herzegovina where women lead the government, while in other societies women must be covered or secluded at home.
Sense of self
Most of the people we talked to were under age 30. Typically, they rejected the societal pressure to adopt the personality characteristics that are stereotypically associated with their biological sex, such as submissiveness for women and toughness for men.
Many of them also reject the ways people are expected to dress and use their bodies to show whether they are men or women. Some people who had been raised as boys wore nail polish and earrings, for example, while sporting a beard. Others wore long earrings and makeup – though those kinds of choices do not necessarily mean someone is trans or nonbinary. Many of the respondents who had been raised as girls, meanwhile, chose to wear masculine clothing. They wanted to mix and match traditional symbols of gender.
Many of the respondents had felt that binary gender identities never quite fit, and they described feeling overjoyed or relieved when they learned about the word “nonbinary”: an identity that offered a more accurate reflection of their sense of self.
“I was just kind of a flesh blob to myself, until I kind of found out that there was a term … nonbinary. And I heard the term and I was like, “Oh, that actually sounds correct for me. That actually feels right …”
Another person we interviewed remembered:
“Before I knew what to call myself … it was like a sense of emptiness. … I finally found that piece to put in that empty spot. And it feels more full now. Like, I feel complete now.”
He, she, they
The implications of that discovery were quite diverse, however. Although all the interviewees identified as nonbinary, what that meant for how they wanted to interact with their friends and families differed dramatically.
For about half of our respondents, using the pronouns “they/them” rather than he/him or she/her was very important, because using that pronoun made them feel respected. Indeed, when asked how they felt being referred to as they/them, one person told us:
“It felt like magic. It felt like everything just went into place and everything fit. And I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, this is … this is it.‘”
Other people we interviewed didn’t really care how others refer to them: he, she or they. Some of these people described having a flexible sense of their own gender. Some days they feel more feminine and use “she”; other days they feel more masculine, and “he” might work better.
“I don’t have to choose one,” one person told us about their pronouns. “I just need all of them in the arsenal.”
Still others said they don’t care about a “proper” pronoun because they do not think gender should matter at all. They don’t want to be a third category, a “they.” Instead, they hope for a world where their body parts do not determine how they’re perceived or treated, and so gender is not central to their identity. They would like to do without gender entirely.
Significance – for everyone
The people we interviewed want the right to live in peace without being forced into a gender category. The recent executive orders deny this freedom by declaring that gender “does not provide a meaningful basis for identification” – contradicting a decades-long consensusin the social sciences on the distinction between sex and gender.
Understanding that sex and gender are related but different matters not only for people who identify as nonbinary or transgender, but for everyone. Without that understanding, it is far too easy to presume socially constructed gender differences are essentially biological and to stigmatize people who do not follow strict gender norms. If you believe the myth that biology alone is the sole reason women and men differ, it would be easy to presume, for example, that women are naturally less ambitious or that men cannot be as nurturing.
If I have learned anything from our team’s research on nonbinary young people, it is that human beings are creative and try to carve out a place for themselves in the world. The evidence suggests that gender nonconformity and diversity is wide and deep in America. What is at stake, however, is how much freedom or oppression individuals will face as they express themselves.
Barbara J. Risman has received funding from the National Science Foundation for the research discussed in this article.
Infectious diseases such as gonorrhea or chlamydia are often overlooked factors that affect fertility in men. Accumulating evidence suggests that a common single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii may also be a contributor: An April 2025 study showed for the first time that “human sperm lose their heads upon direct contact” with the parasite.
I am a microbiologist, and my lab studies Toxoplasma. This new study bolsters emerging findings that underscore the importance of preventing this parasitic infection.
In addition to eggs, tissue cysts present in the meat of warm-blooded animals can spread toxoplasmosis as well if they are not destroyed by cooking to proper temperature.
While most hosts of the parasite can control the initial infection with few if any symptoms, Toxoplasma remains in the body for life as dormant cysts in brain, heart and muscle tissue. These cysts can reactivate and cause additional episodes of severe illness that damage critical organ systems.
While immunocompromised patients are most at risk for testicular toxoplasmosis, it can also occur in otherwise healthy individuals. Imaging studies of infected mice confirm that Toxoplasma parasites quickly travel to the testes in addition to the brain and eyes within days of infection.
Knowing that Toxoplasma can reside in male reproductive organs has prompted analyses of fertility in infected men. A small 2021 study in Prague of 163 men infected with Toxoplasma found that over 86% had semen anomalies.
Not all studies, however, produce a link between toxoplasmosis and sperm quality.
Toxoplasma can directly damage human sperm
Toxoplasmosis in animals mirrors infection in humans, which allows researchers to address questions that are not easy to examine in people.
Testicular function and sperm production are sharply diminished in Toxoplasma-infected mice, rats and rams. Infected mice have significantly lower sperm counts and a higher proportion of abnormally shaped sperm.
In that April 2025 study, researchers from Germany, Uruguay and Chile observed that Toxoplasma can reach the testes and epididymis, the tube where sperm mature and are stored, two days after infection in mice. This finding prompted the team to test what happens when the parasite comes into direct contact with human sperm in a test tube.
After only five minutes of exposure to the parasite, 22.4% of sperm cells were beheaded. The number of decapitated sperm increased the longer they interacted with the parasites. Sperm cells that maintained their head were often twisted and misshapen. Some sperm cells had holes in their head, suggesting the parasites were trying to invade them as it would any other type of cell in the organs it infiltrates.
The researchers speculate that the harmful effects Toxoplasma may have on sperm could be contributing to large global declines in male fertility over the past decades.
Sperm exposed to Toxoplasma. Arrows point to holes and other damage to the sperm; asterisks indicate where the parasite has burrowed. The two nonconfronted controls at the bottom show normal sperm. Rojas-Barón et al/The FEBS Journal, CC BY-SA
Preventing toxoplasmosis
The evidence that Toxoplasma can infiltrate male reproductive organs in animals is compelling, but whether this produces health issues in people remains unclear. Testicular toxoplasmosis shows that parasites can invade human testes, but symptomatic disease is very rare. Studies to date that show defects in the sperm of infected men are too small to draw firm conclusions at this time.
Additionally, some reports suggest that rates of toxoplasmosis in high-income countries have not been increasing over the past few decades while male infertility was rising, so it’s likely to only be one part of the puzzle.
Regardless of this parasite’s potential effect on fertility, it is wise to avoid Toxoplasma. An infection can cause miscarriage or birth defects if someone acquires it for the first time during pregnancy, and it can be life-threatening for immunocompromised people. Toxoplasma is also the leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the United States.
The probability of any American having dementia in their lifetime may be far greater than previously thought. For instance, a 2025 study that tracked a large sample of American adults across more than three decades found that their average likelihood of developing dementia between ages 55 to 95 was 42%, and that figure was even higher among women, Black adults and those with genetic risk.
Now, a great deal of attention is being paid to how to stave off cognitive decline in the aging American population. But what is often missing from this conversation is the role that chronic stress can play in how well people age from a cognitive standpoint, as well as everybody’s risk for dementia.
We are professors at Penn State in the Center for Healthy Aging, with expertise in health psychology and neuropsychology. We study the pathways by which chronic psychological stress influences the risk of dementia and how it influences the ability to stay healthy as people age.
Recent research shows that Americans who are currently middle-aged or older report experiencing more frequent stressful events than previous generations. A key driver behind this increase appears to be rising economic and job insecurity, especially in the wake of the 2007-2009 Great Recession and ongoing shifts in the labor market. Many people stay in the workforce longer due to financial necessity, as Americans are living longer and face greater challenges covering basic expenses in later life.
Therefore, it may be more important than ever to understand the pathways by which stress influences cognitive aging.
Social isolation and stress
Although everyone experiences some stress in daily life, some people experience stress that is more intense, persistent or prolonged. It is this relatively chronic stress that is most consistently linked with poorer health.
In a recent review paper, our team summarized how chronic stress is a hidden but powerful factor underlying cognitive aging, or the speed at which your cognitive performance slows down with age.
It is hard to overstate the impact of stress on your cognitive health as you age. This is in part because your psychological, behavioral and biological responses to everyday stressful events are closely intertwined, and each can amplify and interact with the other.
Stress is often missing from dementia prevention efforts
A robust body of research highlights the importance of at least 14 different factors that relate to your risk of Alzheimer’s disease, a common and devastating form of dementia and other forms of dementia. Although some of these factors may be outside of your control, such as diabetes or depression, many of these factors involve things that people do, such as physical activity, healthy eating and social engagement.
What is less well-recognized is that chronic stress is intimately interwoven with all of these factors that relate to dementia risk. Our work and research by others that we reviewed in our recent paper demonstrate that chronic stress can affect brain function and physiology, influence mood and make it harder to maintain healthy habits. Yet, dementia prevention efforts rarely address stress.
Avoiding stressful events and difficult life circumstances is typically not an option.
Where and how you live and work plays a major role in how much stress you experience. For example, people with lower incomes, less education or those living in disadvantaged neighborhoods often face more frequent stress and have fewer forms of support – such as nearby clinics, access to healthy food, reliable transportation or safe places to exercise or socialize – to help them manage the challenges of aging
As shown in recent work on brain health in rural and underserved communities, these conditions can shape whether people have the chance to stay healthy as they age.
Over time, the effects of stress tend to build up, wearing down the body’s systems and shaping long-term emotional and social habits.
Lifestyle changes to manage stress and lessen dementia risk
The good news is that there are multiple things that can be done to slow or prevent dementia, and our review suggests that these can be enhanced if the role of stress is better understood.
Whether you are a young, midlife or an older adult, it is not too early or too late to address the implications of stress on brain health and aging. Here are a few ways you can take direct actions to help manage your level of stress:
Prioritize your mental health and well-being to the extent you can. Things as simple as talking about your worries, asking for support from friends and family and going outside regularly can be immensely valuable.
If your doctor says that you or someone you care about should follow a new health care regimen, or suggests there are signs of cognitive impairment, ask them what support or advice they have for managing related stress.
If you or a loved one feel socially isolated, consider how small shifts could make a difference. For instance, research suggests that adding just one extra interaction a day – even if it’s a text message or a brief phone call – can be helpful, and that even interactions with people you don’t know well, such as at a coffee shop or doctor’s office, can have meaningful benefits.
The same behaviors that keep your heart healthy are also beneficial for your brain.
Walkable neighborhoods, lifelong learning
A 2025 study identified stress as one of 17 overlapping factors that affect the odds of developing any brain disease, including stroke, late-life depression and dementia. This work suggests that addressing stress and overlapping issues such as loneliness may have additional health benefits as well.
However, not all individuals or families are able to make big changes on their own. Research suggests that community-level and workplace interventions can reduce the risk of dementia. For example, safe and walkable neighborhoods and opportunities for social connection and lifelong learning – such as through community classes and events – have the potential to reduce stress and promote brain health.
Importantly, researchers have estimated that even a modest delay in disease onset of Alzheimer’s would save hundreds of thousands of dollars for every American affected. Thus, providing incentives to companies who offer stress management resources could ultimately save money as well as help people age more healthfully.
Although research on potential biomedical treatments is ongoing and important, there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. However, if interventions aimed at reducing stress were prioritized in guidelines for dementia prevention, the benefits could be far-reaching, resulting in both delayed disease onset and improved quality of life for millions of people.
Jennifer E. Graham-Engeland receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Martin J. Sliwinski receives funding from The National Institutes of Health
Upexi now has 679,677 SOL, valued at $121.2 million at the current price of $178.261
TAMPA, Fla., May 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Upexi, Inc. (NASDAQ: UPXI), a brand owner specializing in the development, manufacturing, and distribution of consumer products with diversification into the cryptocurrency space, today announced it purchased 77,879 locked SOL at $151.50 each for a total of $11.8 million. At the current $178.26 price of SOL, this represents a $2.1 million, or 17.7%, built-in gain for investors.
Upexi now holds 679,677 SOL, acquired for $96.5 million and valued at $121.2 million, for a gain of $24.5 million inclusive of both SOL appreciation and the discount. 58% of Upexi’s SOL is locked and was purchased at a discount.
Allan Marshall, CEO of Upexi, commented, “Our recent purchase both provides investors access to discounted locked Solana that they may not otherwise have, while also effectively doubling the staking yield in a safe and prudent manner. We remain laser-focused on acquiring and HODLing as much SOL as possible for the benefit of our shareholders.”
1Spot price of $178.26 at 5:00 pm EST on May 27, 2025.
About Upexi, Inc. Upexi is a brand owner specializing in the development, manufacturing and distribution of consumer products. The Company has entered the Cryptocurrency industry and cash management of assets through a Cryptocurrency Portfolio. For more information on Upexi’s treasury strategy and future developments, visit www.upexi.com.
Forward Looking Statements This news release contains “forward-looking statements” as that term is defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Statements in this press release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. For example, the Company is using forward looking statements when it discusses the anticipated use of proceeds. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with business strategy, potential acquisitions, revenue guidance, product development, integration, and synergies of acquiring companies and personnel. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward- looking statements. Although we believe that the beliefs, plans, expectations, and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual report on Form 10-K and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Company Contact Brian Rudick, Chief Strategy Officer Email:brian.rudick@upexi.com Phone: (216) 347-0473
Investor Relations Contact KCSA Strategic Communications Valter Pinto, Managing Director Email: Upexi@KCSA.com Phone: (212) 896-1254
DEVENS, Mass., May 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Electric Hydrogen, a U.S. manufacturer of advanced electrolyzers, has selected The Weitz Company, through an affiliate, as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partner for the installation of its 100 megawatt (MW) HYPRPlant at Infinium’s Roadrunner eFuels project in West Texas.
Project Roadrunner is expected to be the world’s largest eFuels facility, producing synthetic aviation fuel, diesel and naphtha for aviation and heavy transport markets.
Electric Hydrogen’s complete electrolysis solution, HYPRPlant, leverages the company’s proprietary high-power proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology to deliver ultra-low-cost hydrogen made with renewable energy. Built mostly in Texas and shipped as modular skids, the system reduces total installed project costs by as much as 60% and significantly shortens deployment timelines.
The Weitz Company brings deep industrial EPC experience to the project, ensuring reliable and professional execution. The project will boost local job creation in West Texas.
“Electric Hydrogen’s technology opens new market opportunities for us in clean energy infrastructure,” said Jesse Hammes, Vice President of Industrial at The Weitz Company. “We’re proud to contribute our expertise to a project of this scale and significance.”
“This is a defining moment for our company and the renewable hydrogen sector,” said Josh Stewart, Vice President of Deployment at Electric Hydrogen. “Working with Weitz, we’re demonstrating that American-made electrolyzer systems can deliver at industrial scale, on time and on budget at significantly lower total cost than competing solutions.”
To learn more about Electric Hydrogen’s HYPRPlant, visit https://eh2.com/.
About Electric Hydrogen Electric Hydrogen manufactures, delivers and commissions the world’s most powerful electrolyzers to make clean hydrogen projects economically viable today. The company’s complete HYPRPlant includes all system components required to turn water and electricity into the lowest cost clean hydrogen. Electric Hydrogen has a team of more than 300 people in the United States and Europe. The company was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Devens, Massachusetts. To learn more about how critical industries leverage Electric Hydrogen’s advanced proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology, visit https://eh2.com/.
About The Weitz Company Founded in 1855, The Weitz Company is a full-service construction company, general contractor, design builder, and construction manager that serves all 50 U.S. states. Weitz is one of the oldest general contractors in the United States and an industry leader in Industrial construction, Senior Living, Student Housing, Mission Critical construction, Commercial construction, virtual design and more. Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, The Weitz Company annually ranks in the top tier of Engineering News-Record (ENR) magazine’s Top 400 Contractors and Building Design+Construction’s Giants 300 Contractors lists. As a member of the Orascom Construction PLC global group, Weitz leverages the group’s international expertise and leading innovative strategies to deliver premier results to our clients across market sectors. You can read more about The Weitz Company at https://www.weitz.com/.
Showcasing Future-Driven SAP Finance and AI Solutions for Digital Transformation Leaders
Boston, MA – May 28, 2025 – xSuite North America is pleased to announce its annual User Conference, taking place on June 17–18, 2025, atthe Battery Wharf Hotel in Boston.Tailored for finance and IT decision-makers, this one-and-a-half-day event will spotlight next-generation technologies shaping the future of finance, including artificial intelligence (AI), e-invoicing, SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) solutions, intelligent archiving, and customer success enablement.
Attendees can look forward to expert-led sessions, hands-on insights, and real-world use cases illustrating how xSuite empowers organizations to transform finance operations with intelligent automation and SAP-integrated workflows.
Exploring Innovation: AI, Cloud, and Digital Finance Solutions
As cloud computing and AI continue to redefine the finance function, xSuite will use this platform to unveil product innovations and outline its strategic roadmap. The conference will feature insights into emerging technology trends and customer-centric enhancements across its solution portfolio.
A highlight of the event will be two customer presentations by Altenloh and Century Aluminum, detailing their journey with xSuite for automated invoice processing. The case study will walk attendees through project initiation, key challenges, implemented solutions, and the tangible results achieved.
Conference Highlights – Day One: Strategy, Solutions, and Insights
1. AI-Driven Invoice Processing in SAP This session will spotlight xSuite’s AI Solutions including Prediction Server, an AI-powered tool that analyzes invoice data to automate decisions across postings and workflows. Leveraging machine learning, it generates smart suggestions for account assignments, cost centers, approval routing, company codes, and more.
2. E-Invoicing Roadmap and Strategy Attendees will gain a comprehensive view of xSuite’s strategic roadmap for e-invoicing, with a focus on upcoming features, performance enhancements, and initiatives designed to optimize digital finance operations.
3. End-to-End P2P Solutions for SAP and SAP BTP xSuite will present a holistic approach to purchase-to-pay processes, order management, a supplier portal, and archiving—demonstrating seamless integration with SAP S/4HANA and SAP BTP environments.
Networking and Collaboration Opportunities The first day will close with dedicated networking sessions, allowing attendees to connect with peers, exchange ideas, and explore xSuite’s role as a strategic partner in digital transformation initiatives.
Day Two: Hands-On Training for xSuite Administrators
The second day of the conference will feature technical training sessions tailored for on-site administrators of xSuite solutions. These workshops will equip participants with the practical knowledge needed to manage and optimize their xSuite environments effectively.
Event Details: xSuite User Conference North America June 17-18, 2025 Battery Wharf Hotel, Boston Waterfront Three Battery Wharf Boston, MA 02109, US
June17: 10:00 AM – 04:00 PM June 18: 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM
More information and registration: https://news.xsuite.com/en/user-conference-2025-north-america#Anmeldung
About xSuite Group
xSuite is a software manufacturer of applications for document-based processes and provides standardized, digital solutions worldwide that enable simple, secure, and fast work. We focus mainly on the automation of important work processes in conjunction with end-to-end document management. Our core competence lies in accounts payable (AP) automation in SAP (including e-invoicing), for leading companies worldwide, as well as for public clients. This is supplemented by applications for purchasing and order processes as well as archiving – all delivered from a single source, including both software components and services. xSuite solutions operate in the cloud or in hybrid scenarios. We take pride in the high-quality solutions we offer, as evidenced by the regular certifications we receive for our SAP solutions and deployment environments.” With over 300,000 users benefitting from our solutions, xSuite processes more than 80 million documents per year in over 60 countries.
Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Ahrensburg, Germany, xSuite has around 300 staff across nine locations worldwide – in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Our company has an established information security management system that is certified in accordance with ISO 27001:2022.
Press Contact Headquarters: Barbara Wirtz xSuite Group GmbH Tel. +49 4102 883836 barbara.wirtz@xsuite.com www.xsuite.com
Texas children’s performance on an annual reading test was basically flat from 2012 to 2021, even as the state spent billions of additional dollars on K-12 education.
I recently did a peer-reviewed deep dive into the test design documentation to figure out why the reported results weren’t showing improvement. I found the flat scores were at least in part by design. According to policies buried in the documentation, the agency administering the tests adjusted their difficulty level every year. As a result, roughly the same share of students failed the test over that decade regardless of how objectively better they performed relative to previous years.
From 2008 to 2014, I was a bilingual teacher in Texas. Most of my students’ families hailed from Mexico and Central America and were learning English as a new language. I loved seeing my students’ progress.
Yet, no matter how much they learned, many failed the end-of-year tests in reading, writing and math. My hunch was that these tests were unfair, but I could not explain why. This, among other things, prompted me to pursue a Ph.D. in education to better understand large-scale educational assessment.
Ten years later, in 2024, I completed a detailed exploration of Texas’s exam, currently known as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. I found an unexpected trend: The share of students who correctly answered each test question was extraordinarily steady across years. Where we would expect to see fluctuation from year to year, performance instead appears artificially flat.
The STAAR’s technical documents reveal that the test is designed much like a norm-referenced test – that is, assessing students relative to their peers, rather than if they meet a fixed standard. In other words, a norm-referenced test cannot tell us if students meet key, fixed criteria or grade-level standards set by the state.
In addition, norm-referenced tests are designed so that a certain share of students always fail, because success is gauged by one’s position on the “bell curve” in relation to other students. Following this logic, STAAR developers use practices like omitting easier questions and adjusting scores to cancel out gains due to better teaching.
Ultimately, the STAAR tests over this time frame – taken by students every year from grade 3 to grade 8 in language arts and math, and less frequently in science and social studies – were not designed to show improvement. Since the test is designed to keep scores flat, it’s impossible to know for sure if a lack of expected learning gains following big increases in per-student spending was because the extra funds failed to improve teaching and learning, or simply because the test hid the improvements.
Why it matters
Ever since the federal education policy known as No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2002 and tied students’ test performance to rewards and sanctions for schools, achievement testing has been a primary driver of public education in the United States.
Texas’ educational accountability system has been in place since 1980, and it is well known in the state that the stakes and difficulty of Texas’ academic readiness tests increase with each new version, which typically come out every five to 10 years. What the Texas public may not know is that the tests have been adjusted each and every year – at the expense of really knowing who should “pass” or “fail.”
Students who are marginalized by racism, poverty or language have historically tended to underperform on standardized tests. STAAR’s design makes this problem worse.
What still isn’t known
I plan to investigate if other states or the federal government use similarly designed tests to evaluate students.
My deep dive into Texas’ test focused on STAAR before its 2022 redevelopment. The latest iteration has changed the test format and question types, but there appears to be little change to the way the test is scored. Without substantive revisions to the scoring calculations “under the hood” of the STAAR test, it is likely Texas will continue to see flat performance.
The Texas Education Agency, which administers the STAAR tests, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Jeanne Sinclair receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.
Bears are a growing presence in Connecticut, and while they’re an important part of our ecosystem, safely sharing space with them is essential.
“Black bears are the only bear species found in Connecticut,” says Tracy Rittenhouse, an associate professor in UConn’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment. “They typically avoid people, but they’re curious animals and are always on the lookout for food, especially during the spring when they are emerging from hibernation and in the fall, as bears eat as much as possible to build fat for hibernation.”
The challenge arises as we coexist in spaces, with more houses being built in wooded areas. The state’s bear population is expanding into new areas and once a female with cubs establishes a home range in a town, the number of bears in that town will continue to increase for several years.
Bears become comfortable around people if they learn that residential areas provide easy meals, examples include birdseed, garbage, pet food, and fallen apples from trees. Easy meals lead to new habits for bears and more frequent human encounters. An example of a new habit in Connecticut is bears entering homes, with 70 reports of bears entering homes in the 2024 State of the Bears report.
Connecticut’s black bear population is estimated at around 1,200 in total. While most live west of the Connecticut River, the population is expanding to the eastern side of the state.
Adults weigh from 250 to 550 pounds, and a female can have between one and five cubs. Bears prefer to live in forestland and areas with thick underbrush, making many of our landscapes ideal habitats. While grasses, fruits, nuts, and berries are usual food sources, bears are omnivores, and will also eat insects, small mammals, livestock, and deer. Their excellent sense of smell easily leads them to food sources.
“Sometimes residents with good intentions accidentally put themselves, their loved ones, and their neighbors at increased risk through their actions, like hanging nectar-filled feeders which are just as attractive to large black bears as they are to delicate hummingbirds,” says Amy Harder, associate dean for extension in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR). “That’s why one of the main roles of UConn Extension is to share expertise from the University to help residents make informed decisions.”
Removing food sources helps prevent bear conflicts. Here are a few simple steps:
Secure your garbage bins. Store them in a garage or shed if possible and put them out only on the morning of pickup.
Take down bird feeders. Bird feeders attract bears and should especially be removed from March to November when natural food is available.
Pick up fallen fruit. Tree fruits and garden crops are another easy meal, especially apples, pumpkins, and other seasonal crops.
Feed pets indoors. Pet food should be provided indoors or remove the outdoor bowls immediately after feeding.
Bear encounters still occur, even with the necessary precautions. It’s important to know how to respond to ensure safety.
“If you encounter a bear, stay calm. Do not run. Bears typically avoid confrontation and will move away if they don’t feel threatened,” Rittenhouse says. “Instead, back away slowly while facing the bear. Make yourself look large by raising your arms or standing on a chair. Use a calm voice and give the bear plenty of space to retreat.”
Hikers and those working outdoors in areas where bears are active should consider carrying bear spray as a precaution, which offers a highly effective, nonlethal deterrent if used correctly. Bear spray must be easily accessible while working or hiking and users should pay attention to the wind direction to avoid spraying themselves.
If you have seen bears in your neighborhood, consider keeping bear spray accessible when grilling in your backyard. Don’t leave a big plate of food on the table next to the grill. Pets and children should be supervised outdoors in neighborhoods where bears are regularly observed.
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) tracks bear sightings and encourages everyone to report bear sightings. This is especially important if the bear is approaching people or damaging property. Wildlife officials monitor bear activity and educate communities about staying safe. So far, there have already been 500 bear sightings in 2025, and last year, sightings were reported in 159 of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities, according to DEEP, with Simsbury reporting the greatest number of sightings at 967.
If you live near bears, consider installing an electric fence around your garden, especially during peak growing season. Bear noses are knee-height, and fences should have three or four strands. Harvest ripe fruits and vegetables and remove rotting produce. Use bear-resistant compost bins and avoid putting food scraps or fruit waste into open piles. Beekeepers also need to protect their hives.
UConn’s bear story map shows bear activity and the geographic locations with the highest bear and human conflict frequency. The story map documents research completed in 2012 and 2013 into the population size and location throughout the state. There is a new study by Rittenhouse and partners that will describe quantitatively how much diet and movements have changed over the last 10 years.
“Bears are not out to harm us. Coexisting with bears means respecting their presence and taking steps to discourage bears from using areas frequented by people. If we remove food attractants, bears are less likely to spend time in backyards,” Rittenhouse says. “By taking simple steps around your home, garden, and yard, we can reduce bear conflicts and live alongside one of Connecticut’s most iconic wild animals.”
This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused on Fostering Sustainable Landscapes at the Urban-Rural Interface.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, May 28 (Xinhua) — Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called on the United States to effectively ensure and protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign students, including Chinese ones, at a regular press conference on Wednesday.
Commenting on media reports that the US administration has ordered its embassies and consulates to suspend the processing of student visas, Mao Ning noted that the Chinese side has always advocated not interfering with normal educational cooperation and academic exchanges.
“We call on the American side to actually ensure and protect the legitimate rights and interests of students from China and other countries,” Mao Ning said. -0-
Source: United States of America – Federal Government Departments (video statements)
On October 18th, 2024, Nicholas Quets traveled to Rocky Point, Mexico, where upon entry, he encountered a Sinaloa cartel checkpoint. These cartel members attempted to steal his pickup truck before shooting him in the back through his heart, ultimately taking his life at just 31 years old. President Trump and Secretary Noem have taken decisive action to dismantle drug cartels.
