FALL RIVER, Mass. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in partnership with Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, arrested illegally present Brazilian national Cristiano Schneider Capdevila Croxato during a traffic stop in Fall River April 8. The 47-year-old criminal alien was convicted of assault and battery on a family or household member Nov. 19, 2024, and has a long list of criminal charges in his past.
“Mr. Schneider violated the terms of his lawful admission to the United States, and since then, he’s apparently committed a laundry list of crimes that put Massachusetts residents at risk,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde. “Boston isn’t a place for serial criminals to hide. Our officers will continue to prioritize the safety of our communities by arresting, detaining and removing criminal alien offenders to prevent them from threatening our families, friends or neighbors.”
Since Schneider entered the U.S. in November 2018, he’s been arraigned on the following charges:
Violation of an abuse prevention order on March 29, 2024.
Receiving a stolen motor vehicle on May 20, 2024.
Indecent assault and battery on a person 14 years or over on May 20, 2024.
Indecent assault and battery on a person 14 years or over — two counts — on July 12, 2024.
Schneider has a current and open restraining order and a closed restraining order. He is on active probation with the Fall River District Court until Nov. 18, 2025.
He will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the United States.
Report crimes and suspicious activity by dialing 866-DHS-2-ICE (866-347-2423) or completing the online tip form.
Learn more about ICE’s mission to increase public safety in our New England communities on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @EROBoston.
“Nearly 40 years ago, Congress passed a federal ban on the sale of machine guns, recognizing that the risk these weapons of war pose to our communities is unacceptably high. Last Friday, the Trump administration effectively lifted that ban and legalized machine guns across the United States.
“By allowing the sale and civilian use of Forced Trigger Resets (FTR), Donald Trump has given any gun-owner the ability to turn their AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon capable of firing 400 rounds a minute.
“Machine guns are designed for free-fire military combat zones, not for streets, schools, and communities across America. Unleashing them on our communities will supercharge an already devastating gun violence crisis.
“Approximately 125 Americans will be killed by guns today, and 12 of them will be children. It is every elected official’s duty to work to reduce that number and keep their communities safe, not further endanger the American people out of fealty to gun manufacturers seeking to drive up profits at the public’s expense.
“I call on so-called moderate Republicans to finally put commonsense gun safety legislation on the floor. Do not sit idly by while your president endangers the American people you swore an oath to protect.”
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (12th District of Michigan)
Representatives Debbie Dingell (MI-06) and Don Beyer (VA-08), co-chairs of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) Caucus, along with Vern Buchanan (FL-16), introduced a resolution recognizing Friday, May 16 as Endangered Species Day. The resolution highlights the strong role that the ESA has played in safeguarding America’s imperiled species and the need to prioritize conservation efforts to address the biodiversity crisis impacting plants and wildlife worldwide.
The critical protections in the Endangered Species Act are currently at risk due to a Trump Administration proposal to rescind the definition of “harm” under the law. The proposed rule change would prohibit only actions that directly hurt or kill actual animals, but not the habitats they rely on. We know that habitat loss and destruction are the leading causes of species decline and extinction. If finalized, this change would be devastating to already fragile species and put currently healthy ones at risk.
“For more than five decades, the Endangered Species Act has been our most effective tool to protect America’s imperiled wildlife, preventing the extinction of some of our most beloved animals like the bald eagle, grizzly bear, and Florida manatee,” said Dingell. “Healthier wildlife populations mean healthier ecosystems, which results in stronger shorelines, less intense wildfires, better water quality, and fewer pests, among many other positive impacts. As the United States continues to face an unprecedented and worsening biodiversity crisis, and the critical protections of the ESA are under attack, we must fight harder than ever to defend them.”
“When the Trump-Musk-Vance Administration wrongly and carelessly fired probationary federal workers, the ESA programs based here in the Northern Virginia office lost species expert biologists with important state and community relationships critical to recovery goals. They lost people who were working to make the endangered species consultation process more efficient so infrastructure projects could move forward in ways that helped protect vulnerable wildlife.” said Beyer. “The ESA is currently working to protect and recover more than 2,000 species of plants and animals, all crucial to maintaining our country’s rich biodiversity and natural heritage. Cutting the core, dependable investment of the federal government’s staff time, expertise, and dollars could have devastating impacts, including breaking up longstanding public-private partnerships. It’s on all of us who support the ESA to support those that work, often silently, to keep the Endangered Species Act alive and properly functioning! I thank my colleagues, Reps. Dingell and Buchanan for helping champion this fight with me.”
In the United States and around the world, more than 2,300 species are recognized as at risk of extinction now or in the foreseeable future, and many more are experiencing declines in populations and future viability. Many scientists categorize our planet’s current biodiversity crisis as the sixth mass extinction event, with plant and wildlife species across the globe facing heightened risk of extinction that is largely driven by human activity.
Dingell has long worked to protect endangered species across America, fighting to prevent the rollback of the critical safeguards in the Endangered Species Act under the previous Trump Administration.
View the full text of the resolution here. Learn more about the ESA Caucus here.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (12th District of Michigan)
Representatives Debbie Dingell (MI-06), David Joyce (OH-14), and Michael McCaul (TX-10), introduced a resolution honoring May 17 as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) Awareness Day to support expanded research for treatments and care for DIPG. DIPG is the leading cause of childhood death due to brain tumors, and less than one percent of its victims live more than five years after diagnosis.
“It’s impossible to express the pain and devastation a family faces when their child is diagnosed with cancer. A battle with cancer at any age is hard, but especially for a child who should have a lifetime full of opportunities ahead of them,” said Dingell. “DIPG is responsible for the most pediatric brain tumor deaths each year and consistently has one of the lowest survival rates. We must redouble our efforts to confront childhood cancer with the urgency it requires by supporting efforts that will spread awareness and spur new research endeavors that inspire new treatments and cures. Together, we can show these young children and their families that they are not alone in their fight.”
“I am proud to introduce this bipartisan resolution to raise awareness for the more than 300 children in America suffering from this heartbreaking disease,” said Joyce. “DIPG is one of the deadliest forms of pediatric cancer, devastating children, parents, and families. We must work together to find a cure to ensure no child has to face this illness ever again.”
“With a heartbreaking survival rate of less than one percent, DIPG is considered the most lethal form of childhood cancer,” said McCaul. “We must do everything in our power to change that and give these children the futures they deserve. As founder of the Childhood Cancer Caucus, I’m proud to join Rep. Dingell and others in raising awareness of DIPG as we work toward a cure. For the precious young lives diagnosed with this disease, there’s no time to waste.”
“I am so very grateful to Congresswoman Dingell for not giving up on our kids by continuing to champion this resolution! They truly have no other voice or national visibility and I’m indebted to her for her unwavering commitment to them and to representing the interests of the American People. The most devastating part of the DIPG diagnosis experience for my 3-year old son Jack and our family was to hear that there were no solutions for him because the lives of children with brain cancer don’t represent a good enough “investment incentive” to the powers that be. If no one knows, no one cares and nothing changes. Congresswoman Dingell won’t let that happen!” said Janet Demeter, Founder of DIPG Advocacy Group.
This resolution aims to raise awareness and support efforts by the Carr family, who launched the Chad Tough Foundation in 2015 in honor of five-year-old Chad Carr of Ann Arbor, who lost his battle with DIPG in 2015; Jack’s Angels Foundation that was launched in honor of three-year-old Jack Demeter who lost his battle with DIPG in 2012; and every family impacted by DIPG.
The following text contains opinion that is not, or not necessarily, that of MIL-OSI –
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Republican Governors Association Rapid Response Director Kollin Crompton released a statement following the final New Jersey Democrat Primary Debate:
“Democrat rule in Trenton has been a disaster, leading to skyrocketing costs, failed schools, and New Jersey families getting the short end of the stick. Just take it from the Democrats on stage tonight. Every candidate on stage gave a compelling indictment of their fellow Democrats’ leadership, and not a one made the case for how they’d be any different. If New Jersey voters are looking for real change and get the state back on track, the message tonight was clear: look elsewhere.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – A Lexington business owner, Matthew Buresh, 65, was sentenced on Friday by U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell to 24 months in prison, for two counts of failure to pay taxes.
Buresh was the owner and President of CR Cable Construction Inc. (CR), a company operating in Lexington that installed underground utility lines. As the owner of the company, Buresh was required to remit trust fund taxes withheld from employee paychecks, such as individual income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes, as well as the matching amounts contributed by the employer, to the IRS on quarterly basis. These taxes are generally known as “employment taxes.”
According to his plea agreement, between March 2018 and December 2022, Buresh knew that his company was required to make deposits of the employment taxes to the IRS on a periodic basis, but chose not to pay the employment taxes withheld from CR’s employees’ paychecks to the IRS. Buresh was notified of CR employment taxes due and owing, accounted for such taxes, had sufficient funds to pay them, but willfully chose not to pay a significant portion of those employment taxes from 2018 through 2022. At the same time, between 2017 and 2022, Buresh withdrew $2.9 million in cash from CR’s bank account to pay for business expenses, his wages, and his distributions.
Under federal law, Buresh must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for three years. Buresh is also required to pay $805,787.82 in restitution.
Paul McCaffrey, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; and Karen Wingerd, Special Agent in Charge, IRS-Criminal Investigations, Cincinnati Field Division, jointly announced the sentence.
The investigation was conducted by the IRS. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brittany Dunn-Pirio is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.
ALBANY, NEW YORK – Nathaniel Drescher, age 41, of Latham, New York, was arraigned last Thursday on an indictment charging him with attempted coercion and enticement of a minor and the commission of a felony offense against a minor by a registered sex offender. Drescher was ordered detained pending trial.
United States Attorney John A. Sarcone III and Craig L. Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), made the announcement.
According to the indictment, Drescher knowingly attempted to persuade, induce, and entice a child whom he believed to be 11 years old to engage in sexual activity. This conduct follows Drescher’s 2012 convictions in Johnson County, Texas, for online solicitation of a minor. The charges in the indictment are merely accusations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
United States Attorney Sarcone stated: “This conduct, as alleged, was especially egregious because the defendant had committed a similar offense before in Texas. With our state and federal law enforcement partners, we will continue to ensure that sex offenders are prosecuted to the fullest extent to the law when they commit new crimes.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge Tremaroli stated: “This indictment proves crimes against our most vulnerable will be met with swift and decisive action. The FBI, together with our law enforcement partners, is committed to protecting children and bringing predators like Mr. Drescher to justice.”
If convicted on all counts, Drescher faces at least 20 years and up to life in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and a term of supervised release of at least 5 years and up to life. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statutes the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors. In addition, Drescher would have to continue to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.
The FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force is investigating the case, with assistance from the New York State Police. Assistant United States Attorney Allen J. Vickey is prosecuting the case as Part of Project Safe Childhood.
Project Safe Childhood is a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
CONCORD – A Dunbarton man was sentenced in federal court for possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), Acting U.S. Attorney Jay McCormack announces.
Scott Currier, age 48, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliott to 144 months in federal prison and 10 years of supervised release. Currier was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $38,000. In May 2024, Currier pleaded guilty to one count of possession of CSAM.
“The defendant is a convicted sex offender who repeatedly exploited children,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Jay McCormack. “Thanks to the vigilant efforts and critical leads from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, law enforcement was able to identify the defendant and swiftly investigate his conduct. This office will relentlessly pursue and hold predators accountable, and we will use every tool at our disposal to protect children from exploitation and revictimization.”
“Currier’s criminal history of aggravated felonious sexual assault makes his possession of hundreds of images of child sexual abuse material all the more troubling. Friday’s significant sentence takes a repeat sex offender off the streets and puts him into federal prison for over a decade while also offering restitution to identified victims of child sexual exploitation found in the materials he possessed,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Krol for Homeland Security Investigations New England.
The defendant was identified through a CyberTip reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children based on internet activity that was traced to his residence. Based on that tip, law enforcement executed a search warrant at the defendant’s home that resulted in the seizure of a computer that was found to contain over 700 files of suspected CSAM. The defendant faced enhanced penalties in this matter due to a prior state conviction for aggravated felonious sexual assault.
Homeland Security Investigations led the investigation. Valuable assistance was provided by the Dunbarton Police Department and the New Hampshire Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kasey Weiland is prosecuting the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
ALBANY, NEW YORK – Kani Bassie, age 36, of Brooklyn, New York, and Jermon Brooks, age 20, of Richmond, Virginia, pled guilty last week to their roles in a multi-million-dollar bank fraud conspiracy led by Oluwaseun Adekoya, age 39, a Nigerian citizen. United States Attorney John A. Sarcone III and Craig L. Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), made the announcement.
Bassie and Brooks admitted that they were members of a conspiracy to defraud financial institutions all over the country by obtaining the personal identifying information (“PII”) of individuals and using lower-level “workers” to impersonate the identity-theft victims to conduct fraudulent banking transactions in their names. Bassie and Brooks supervised and oversaw lower-level coconspirators who withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars from identity-theft victims in the Northern District of New York and all over the country. Bassie admitted to conspiring with alleged ringleader Adekoya to launder bank fraud proceeds in transactions designed to conceal and disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, and control of the proceeds and to use bank fraud proceeds to reinvest in the ongoing conspiracy.
Adekoya, the alleged ringleader of the conspiracy, faces trial beginning June 9, 2025 before United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino on a second superseding indictment charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, one count of money laundering conspiracy, and nine counts of aggravated identity theft. The charges against Adekoya in the second superseding indictment are merely accusations. He is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
“And then there was one,” United States Attorney Sarcone said. “We look forward to trial. We appreciate the efforts of the FBI, and many other law enforcement partners across the country, in uncovering this scheme.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge Tremaroli stated: “The FBI takes very seriously our responsibility to investigate and pursue those who commit fraud for personal gain. We will continue working with our law enforcement partners to hold accountable those who use illegal means and criminal behavior to take advantage of others.”
The prosecution is the result of an ongoing investigation led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI Albany Field Office, which began after the May 2022 arrest of David Daniyan, a/k/a “Bamikole Laniyan,” a/k/a “David Enfield,” a/k/a “Africa,” age 60, of Brooklyn, New York, Gaysha Kennedy, age 46, of Brooklyn, and Victor Barriera, age 64, of the Bronx, New York, by the Cohoes Police Department after the trio traveled to the Capital Region to commit bank fraud. According to documents previously filed in the case, the investigation has uncovered over $2 million in fraudulent transactions to date. Thirteen defendants have pled guilty and forfeited hundreds of thousands of dollars in proceeds, luxury apparel, and jewelry.
At sentencing later this year, Bassie and Brooks face a maximum term of 30 years’ incarceration for the bank fraud conspiracy, Bassie faces a maximum term of 20 years’ incarceration for the money laundering conspiracy, and Bassie and Brooks face a mandatory consecutive term of 2 years’ incarceration for their convictions of aggravated identity theft. The defendants will be ordered to pay restitution and will also face a term of post-incarceration supervised release of up to 5 years.
FBI Albany is investigating the case, with assistance from the FBI Field Offices in New York, Newark, Richmond and Resident Agencies in Westchester, New York; Brooklyn/Queens, New York; Garrett Mountain, New Jersey; and Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Additional assistance was provided by other law enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement – Enforcement & Removal Operations (New York Field Office & Albany sub-office); U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service (Buffalo Field Office & St. Albans Resident Office); U.S. Social Security Administration – Office of the Inspector General; New York law enforcement agencies including the New York State Police; Cohoes PD; Colonie PD; Elmira PD; Corning PD; Plattsburgh PD; Florida law enforcement agencies including the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office and Escambia County Sheriff’s Office; the Pennsylvania State Police; Alabama law enforcement agencies including the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office, Gasden PD, and Rainbow City PD; Georgia law enforcement agencies including the Georgia State Patrol, Bartow County Sheriff’s Office, and Morrow PD; Kansas law enforcement agencies including Lawrence PD and Overland Park PD; New Hampshire law enforcement agencies including Rochester PD, Manchester PD, and Amherst PD; the Delaware State Police; Maryland law enforcement agencies including the Maryland State Police, Harford County Sheriff’s Office and Baltimore County Sheriff’s Office; Wisconsin law enforcement agencies including Onalaska PD and Eau Claire PD; and Indiana law enforcement agencies including the Allen County Sheriff’s Office.
Assistant United States Attorneys Benjamin S. Clark, Mathew M. Paulbeck, and Joshua R. Rosenthal are prosecuting this case.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-CA-53)
May 19, 2025
In recognition of today’s deadline for policy recommendations due to the Trump Administration on ways to expand IVF access, Rep. Sara Jacobs (CA-51) penned an op-ed for Fox News, calling on President Trump to support her bicameral legislation to expand TRICARE to cover IVF for service members and military families.
Read Rep. Sara Jacobs’ Op-Ed Here
In part, Rep. Sara Jacobs said:
“Military families need IVF access. They deserve it. And they’ve earned it. That’s why I introduced the “IVF for Military Families Act” alongside Illinois Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth to require TRICARE to cover infertility diagnosis and treatment, including IVF. Our legislation would cover up to three complete egg retrievals, unlimited embryo transfers, and the necessary medications for IVF and intrauterine insemination (IUI)….
“I’m (obviously) skeptical of Trump’s commitment to expanding IVF access, but he has called himself the “Fertilization President” and the “father of IVF.” If he wants that to be true, he should throw his support behind a demographic that has already sacrificed so much for the safety and security of our country: our military families.”
FARGO, North Dakota – Adm. Stuart B. Munsch, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa and commander of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, concluded a successful visit to Fargo, May 17, where he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from North Dakota State University (NDSU) and delivered remarks at both the university’s commencement and two U.S. military ROTC commissioning ceremonies.
Tampa, Florida – U.S. District Judge William F. Jung has sentenced Marquis Lamar McCullough (39, Tampa) to imprisonment for life for distributing fentanyl, the use of which resulted in the deaths of two victims. On February 13, 2025, a federal jury found McCullough guilty of two counts of distribution of fentanyl, the use of which resulted in the death of a person, and one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl. The court sentenced McCullough to life imprisonment for each count of distribution of fentanyl resulting in death, 30 years on the count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and ordered that the sentences be served consecutively to prison sentences McCullough is currently serving in the Florida Department of Corrections.
According to court records and the evidence presented at trial, on April 22, 2021, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) deputies responded to the residence of K.K. to conduct a wellness check. They found K.K. dead when they entered his apartment and found two baggies with small quantities of fentanyl in the residence. Detectives reviewed K.K.’s cellphone and found communications with a woman who appeared to help K.K. purchase fentanyl the previous evening. During the investigation, detectives found the woman, who explained that K.K. could not get heroin from his usual source, so he asked her to buy some for him from her source. She arranged a meeting with McCullough, who was her supplier, and she purchased the fentanyl and provided it to K.K. The woman provided McCullough’s phone number to the detectives.
On May 6, 2021, the son of N.M. found his father dead, lying in his bed, and called 911 to report the death. HCSO deputies and detectives responded to the residence, and inside N.M.’s wallet they found a baggie with a small amount of fentanyl. While reviewing calls and texts on N.M.’s phone, a detective determined that the last three calls placed by N.M. were to McCullough’s phone number, and the call and text history indicated that McCullough was N.M.’s supplier. Later that day, detectives planned to purchase fentanyl from McCullough, using N.M.’s cellphone to set up the meeting. When McCullough arrived at the meet location, he tried to call N.M., but when his calls went unanswered, McCullough fled the area. An arrest team pursued his vehicle and apprehended McCullough.
The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner’s Office investigated both deaths and determined that the use of fentanyl caused the deaths of K.K. and N.M.
Before he committed these offenses, McCullough had been convicted in Hillsborough County, Florida, for trafficking in cocaine, and he served a prison sentence of 60 months. He was also convicted in state court in 2022 for trafficking in fentanyl and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, and he is currently serving a sentence of seven years in the Florida Department of Corrections for those crimes.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, and the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Michael Sinacore and Ross Roberts.
Houston, TX , May 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Elev8 Corporate Finance, the private credit advisor behind the GrowthBridge™ platform, has rolled out a new compensation structure that replaces traditional broker commissions with a single flat engagement fee and a performance-based exit fee. The change frees more capital for borrowers on day one while tying Elev8’s earnings to a successful refinance or payoff.
“Borrowers now see one clear number up front, then pay the balance only when the bridge does its job,” said Greg Williams, Founder of Elev8. “It aligns our incentives with the CEO’s ultimate goal: a clean, lower-cost take-out.”
Under the new model, clients avoid stacked origination points and hidden monitoring charges. Instead, they pay a fixed engagement fee to secure underwriting and lender alignment. A performance-based success fee is due only when the bridge loan refinances or is paid off. If Elev8 secures the next facility, we discount the exit fee to reward loyalty.
The firm’s GrowthBridge™ program offers two tracks. GrowthBridge™ Core funds bridge loans from $500,000 to $2 million in as little as one to three weeks, making it ideal for Merchant Cash Advance refinance, rapid working capital, and opportunistic growth. GrowthBridge™ Select covers $2 million to $30 million-plus transactions in roughly three to five weeks, supporting acquisitions, large-scale debt consolidation, and capital-expenditure projects. Both tracks emphasize senior-secured structures with flexible payment options and monthly—or interest-only—schedules that preserve cash flow.
Recent transactions underscore the model’s impact. In a $4.5 million refinance for a Texas-based distributor, Elev8’s flat-fee approach reduced financing costs by 70 percent, directed cash back into inventory, and closed in under three weeks—without any equity dilution.
According to the client’s CFO, “Elev8’s transparent fee structure put six figures back into our working capital and eliminated daily cash drains. It felt like a true partnership from start to finish.” Elev8’s disciplined cash-flow underwriting and two decades of private credit expertise have produced a loan default rate below one percent while consistently funding deals in weeks rather than quarters. By offering a rebate on the exit fee when borrowers transition to a permanent bank or asset-based facility, Elev8 also establishes a natural loyalty loop that rewards long-term collaboration.
About Elev8 Corporate Finance
Elev8 Corporate Finance structures fast, flexible bridge loans for lower-middle-market companies across the United States and Canada. Through its GrowthBridge™ Core and Select programs, the firm delivers senior-secured, non-bank capital from $500,000 to $30 million+ for growth, recapitalizations, and high-cost debt replacement. Elev8 combines institutional-grade underwriting with principal-level oversight to fund strategic capital in weeks—not quarters.
SINGAPORE, May 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As Bitcoin surged from $74,500 to break the $100,000 threshold, many analysts agree that a new crypto bull market has officially begun. In this environment, savvy investors are increasingly turning to high-leverage futures trading as a way to maximize returns with minimal capital.
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Source: United States of America – Department of State (video statements)
Secretary Rubio had the honor of visiting the Vatican and attending His Holiness Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural Mass in St. Peter’s Square. As the first American pontiff begins his sacred ministry, the Secretary looks forward to the opportunities for continued collaboration.
The IAM Union Rail Division and Transportation Communications Union/IAM (TCU/IAM) stood shoulder to shoulder with other labor unions and transit advocates at the Pennsylvania State Capitol to send a loud and unified message: public transit workers and the communities they serve must not be abandoned.
Dozens of union members, transit riders, and community allies rallied in Harrisburg, Pa., to call on state lawmakers to pass urgently needed legislation that would provide stable, long-term funding for Pennsylvania’s mass transit systems.
Without immediate action, public transit services, particularly those operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), face devastating cuts and fare hikes that would disproportionately impact working families, seniors, and students across the state.
“This fight is not just about transit, it’s about people,” said Josh Hartford, IAM Special Assistant to the International President for the Rail Division. “Every route slashed, every job cut, every fare hike—it’s a direct hit to the livelihoods of our members and their communities. We are calling on the Pennsylvania legislature to do what’s right: fund public transit and protect the workers who keep it running.”
“TCU/IAM and IAM Union members know firsthand what’s at stake,” said TCU-IAM National President Artie Maratea. “Cuts to service don’t just mean fewer trains and buses, they mean lost jobs, weakened communities, and an erosion of the public infrastructure that millions rely on every single day.”
The IAM Union and TCU/IAM reaffirm their commitment to working in solidarity with all labor allies and local leaders to ensure public transportation remains safe, accessible, and reliable for everyone.
ADVISORY – WASHINGTON COUNTY – Lt. Gov. Austin Davis to Highlight Shapiro-Davis Administration’s Investments to Create More Jobs and Build Shovel-Ready Sites for Businesses
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis and state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley will join state and local leaders and economic development officials for a news conference to highlight investments by the Shapiro-Davis Administration to create more jobs and build shovel-ready sites for businesses Monday, May 19, at 1:30 p.m. at 462 Cracker Jack Rd., Monongahela, PA 15063.
The Shapiro-Davis Administration is delivering a $250,000 planning grant to the Mon Valley Alliance through the first round of the PA SITES (Pennsylvania Strategic Investments to Enhance Sites) program.
WHO: Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, DEP Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley, state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, Carroll Township Supervisor Ken Hillman, Fallowfield Township Supervisor Bruce Smith, representatives from the Mon Valley Alliance
WHAT: News conference to highlight investments by the Shapiro-Davis Administration to create more jobs and build shovel-ready sites for businesses
WHEN: Monday, May 19, at 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: 462 Cracker Jack Rd., Monongahela, PA 15063
RSVP: Members of the news media who are interested in attending must RSVP to Kirstin Alvanitakis at kirstinalv@pa.gov to receive logistical details.
Source: United States of America – The White House (video statements)
Last week, during National Police Week, law enforcement officers visited the White House and voiced their support for No Tax on Overtime—a key part of President Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill.
One officer called it “a huge advantage to law enforcement across the country.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, Chief of Navy Reserve and Commander, Navy Reserve Force, announced the selection of Air Traffic Controller 1st Class (AW/SW/IW) Stephanie Y. Ramirez as the 2024 Navy Reserve Sailor of the Year (RSOY), in a ceremony, May 16.
Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren
May 19, 2025
Liam Barry, constituent: “I can’t believe I’m reading this letter 8 years later, still fighting for my mom to have health care. Cutting Medicaid will affect millions of American families just like mine, Republican and Democrat alike.”
Warren: “[T]his is a righteous fight. Back in 2017, we stopped them from ending health care for millions of people, we can do it again.”
Watch on YouTube
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a new video underscoring how Congressional Republicans’ plans for massive cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act will hurt families. The video, featuring a teenage constituent from Worthington, MA, tells the story of how his family will be harmed by the proposed cuts, and draws a connection between Republicans’ assault on health care in 2017 and today.
In 2017, Senator Warren read her then-10-year-old constituent’s letter to President Trump on the Senate floor. In the letter, Liam Barry explained that his family relies on protections in the Affordable Care Act for coverage due to his mother’s illness, and asked Trump not to cut their care. In the newly-released video, entitled “Liam’s Letter to President Trump on Medicaid: 8 Years Later,” a now 18-year-old Liam reads a new version of his letter, and Senator Warren shares her thoughts on today’s fight.
“I can’t believe I’m reading this letter eight years later, still fighting for my mom to have health care. Cutting Medicaid will affect millions of American families just like mine, Republican and Democrat alike,” said Liam Barry.
“I talk a lot about righteous fights — this is a righteous fight. Back in 2017, we stopped [Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress] from ending health care for millions of people. We can do it again,” said Senator Warren.
Transcript:Liam’s Letter to President Trump on Medicaid: 8 Years Later YouTube May 19, 2025
Liam Barry (2017): Dear President Trump
Liam Barry (2025): and Republicans in Congress.
Liam Barry (2017): My name is Liam Barry
Liam Barry (2025): and I am 18 years old. 8 years ago, my Senator, Elizabeth Warren, read a letter I wrote to you about my mom on the Senate floor.
Senator Warren (2017): I don’t know if President Trump ever read that letter, but I’m going to read it right now into the congressional record: “Dear President Trump, my name is Liam Barry, and I am 10 years old.”
Liam Barry (2017): My mother has been very ill.
Liam Barry (2025): My mother is still very ill. Thanks to Medicaid, my mom gets the care she needs and the medication she needs. If you cut Medicaid,
Liam Barry (2017): My mother will not be able to get the care she needs.
Liam Barry (2025): I can’t believe I’m reading this letter eight years later, still fighting for my mom to have health care. Cutting Medicaid will affect millions of American families just like mine, Republican and Democrat alike.
Liam Barry (2017): I know there are millions of kids in the same situation as me, so please think of them when you read this. Sincerely, Liam Barry.
Senator Warren (2017): Mr. President, I get letters and emails everyday from families begging me not to let Republicans in Congress tear up health care in this country.
Senator Warren (2025): I’m still getting letters from people who are terrified that Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to tear away their health care. I talk a lot about righteous fights — this is a righteous fight. Back in 2017, we stopped them from ending health care for millions of people. We can do it again.
HANOI, Vietnam, May 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Hyra Holdings, a global innovation group investing in frontier technologies, today announced that shareholders have formally approved three landmark initiatives during its 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM). These include the launch of the $500 million Hyra Combinator Venture Fund, a major expansion of the company’s decentralized AI infrastructure, and an official roadmap to IPO by 2030.
The 2025 Annual General Meeting marks a strategic turning point in Hyra Holdings’ global expansion journey
Accelerating Innovation Across AI, Blockchain, and Web3 Since 2024, Hyra Holdings has launched three pioneering platforms that redefine the decentralized technology landscape:
Hyra Network: A Layer-3 blockchain designed for ultra-scalable, cross-chain Web3 applications.
Hyra AI: The world’s first edge-powered, decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Hyra Bid: A reverse auction marketplace powered by blockchain for fair, transparent bidding.
Hyra’s ecosystem surpassed 1 million global users, with active operations and strategic expansions in Singapore, Dubai, and the United States—positioning the company as a key enabler of the next-generation digital economy.
2M+ Edge AI Devices and $30M Data Center in Asia Hyra AI now powers over 2 million edge AI devices across 205+ countries and territories, delivering a combined 360,000 TFLOPS of compute power—projected to reach 918,000 TFLOPS by the end of 2025.
“We are shifting the AI paradigm from cloud to edge,” said Chung Tran, Founder and Chairman of Hyra Holdings. “Real-time AI now lives on the devices people already use—smartphones, routers, and personal nodes.”
To support this decentralized infrastructure, Hyra will begin construction in Q4/2025 on Hyra Zone, a sovereign AI data center based in Asia. The facility’s $30 million Phase 1 investment has already been approved at the AGM.
$500M Hyra Combinator Fund – Fueling Deep-Tech Ventures Hyra’s new venture arm, the Hyra Combinator Fund, aims to raise $500 million by 2030. The fund will utilize a blended capital structure, combining institutional investments, venture partnerships, and public-private co-investment.
Its goal: incubate and accelerate 150+ startups in the fields of AI, Fintech, Web3, and Quantum Computing—particularly in emerging and undercapitalized markets.
“We’re not just deploying capital—we’re building the infrastructure, networks, and systems that future innovation depends on,” said Mr. Tran Nam Chung.
IPO Roadmap: A Hybrid Global Strategy Hyra Holdings reaffirmed its IPO roadmap to 2030, evaluating listing options across Singapore, Dubai, and the United States.
The company will maintain its Hybrid Holding Model, combining centralized strategic direction at the group level with decentralized execution across product companies: Hyra AI, Hyra Network, and Hyra Digital.
Hyra’s 2030 targets include:
9 core products launched
Active presence in 30+ countries
1 billion TFLOPS in decentralized compute power
About Hyra Holdings Hyra Holdings is a global innovation group founded in 2021 and headquartered in Singapore. With operations across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the United States, Hyra invests in and builds foundational technologies for the intelligent digital economy—including decentralized AI, Web3 infrastructure, and next-gen digital services. Its portfolio spans product ecosystems, venture funding, and strategic partnerships to enable decentralized innovation and inclusive growth.
As a Canadian citizen living and working in education in the United Kingdom, I was invited to attend by the High Commission of Canada in London.
The occasion provided a relaxing yet exciting opportunity to reflect on my involvement embedding sustainability into education related to innovation and intellectual property (IP) rights law.
Royal Gardens as oasis
King Charles has been a lifelong supporter of sustainability education, which is a new addition to the curricula. For me, the Royal garden and lake beautifully highlighted concerns with sustainability.
The King’s Royal garden at the Palace is an oasis in the city of London, alive with foliage and wildlife that guests may stroll around and explore. According to the event leaflet: “A survey of the Garden by the London Natural History Society revealed a wealth of flora and fauna, some quite rare species.”
‘The garden party at Buckingham Palace for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee,’ painting by Frederick Sargent, 1887. (Royal Collection (U.K.) 407255/Wikipedia)
Why intellectual property and sustainability?
Since 2004, I have been an innovation, intellectual property rights and business law educator. My research group contributed to a publication called The Guide to The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), developed to explore the connections between the United Nation’s 17 SDGs, sustainable development and IP.
Intellectual property is of concern because we need to envision and build a common future with innovation and creativity. How sustainability challenges are overcome depends on the commercialization of new green technology catalysts.
This “tubercle” technology, named for a rounded point of a bone, also has applications for hydroelectric turbines and for revolutionizing fan design. These blades, featuring tubercles (bumps) on the leading edge, reduce aerodynamic drag and improve performance. WhalePower also generates revenue by licensing its patented technology to other companies to use in wind turbines.
Patents encourage knowledge sharing
Patents encourage knowledge sharing, because the way the invention works must be disclosed, rather than kept secret.
For example, new tidal energy inventors can read Whalepower’s patents and be inspired to further advance the new technology with additional incremental innovations.
In this manner, IP often stimulates investment by providing the legal rights needed to justify longer-term investment in a changing landscape of innovation.
The significant role of IP rights in promoting sustainability gained a higher profile when the United Kingdom’s Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) became an Official Nominator for the annual Earthshot Prizelaunched by Prince William’sRoyal Foundation in 2020.
CIPA provides crucial IP rights checks to finalists, ensuring that their innovations have no outstanding IP issues. This partnership is an example of how the Royal Family works together with CIPA to use the power of IP to help solve sustainability challenges.
As the King stated when he was Prince of Wales in 2017: “Mine is not a new commitment, but perhaps you will allow me to restate my determination to join you in continuing to do whatever I can, for as long as I can, to maintain not only the health and vitality of the ocean and all that depends upon it, but also the viability of that greatest and most unique of living organisms — nature herself.”
Janice Denoncourt is affiliated with the British Association for Canadian Studies (BACS)..
Hundreds of universities around the world are now engaging in psychedelic research. And psychedelic legalization initiatives are taking hold.
Psychedelics are becoming big business. Just as private capital flooded the cannabis sector years ago, a psychedelic gold rush is underway.
Wealthy entrepreneurs are investing in the psychedelic industry while biotechnology start-ups are raising capital and running clinical trials on novel psychedelic molecules. Venture capitalists are eyeing the prospects of a new lucrative mass market.
The authors of this article have a new book out: ‘Psychedelic Capitalism’ published by Fernwood. (Fernwood)
Three causes for concern
To date, most debates about psychedelics have offered little critical analysis of their relationship to the political economy of modern capitalism and broader power structures. In our new book Psychedelic Capitalism, we make three central claims about the so-called psychedelic renaissance.
First, the medicalization of psychedelics is likely to restrict access and reinforce existing health and social inequalities.
Second, the corporatization of psychedelics will enable economic elites to dominate the market while appropriating the vast reservoir of knowledge built up by Indigenous communities, public institutions and underground researchers.
And third, rather than representing progressive drug reform, the limited legalization of select psychedelics for medical use will help to entrench and sustain the drug war and the criminalization of most drug use.
Ignoring community knowledge
Across North America, we’re seeing a medicalization of psychedelics, where a range of problems are presented as treatable by these substances. This is happening in a way that boosts corporate control of the process and pushes aside community and Indigenous knowledge.
We have seen this scenario play out in Australia. Substances such as psilocybin and MDMA are legally available, but only through a doctor’s prescription and at great financial cost — raising questions about equity, access and who these therapies are for.
Framing psychedelics as pharmaceutical commodities and individualized health-care solutions reinforces the prohibitionist narrative that these substances are unsuitable for use outside of the medical context. This narrative shifts attention away from how medicalized use might perpetuate a neoliberal ideology — locating mental “disorder” within an individual, rather than addressing more systemic causes such as poverty, inequality and social exclusion.
A system built on expensive individual therapy, medically trained gatekeepers and hyper-controlled clinical access is not the model that most advocates have envisioned.
A pill-only model for productivity and happiness
The foundations of psychedelic capitalism were largely created by public innovation at the public’s expense and are now in the process of being taken over by private capital.
Psychedelic conferences increasingly resemble corporate trade shows. The psychedelic tourism industry continues to expand and cater to elite clients. For-profit companies like Mind Medicine and Compass Pathways are eliminating psychotherapy from their treatment protocols and embracing a “pill-only” model favoured by Big Pharma.
Psychedelics, including microdosing and psychedelic-assisted therapy, are marketed as a way for the general population to extract more work out of their already overworked lives, and to be happy about it in the process.
Companies are competing to capture intellectual property to harness profits from existing compounds and erect legal barriers around new chemicals and their applications.
There has been a surge of new patent applications (and granted patents) in the U.S. on substances such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT, 5-MeO DMT and mescaline that seek to secure exclusivity, monopolize supply chains and privatize knowledge that already exists in the public domain.
Psychedelics have been swept up into the well-rehearsed capitalist playbook where private players are fabricating exclusionary rights over what are ultimately the products of collective human struggle and intellectual achievement.
Medical legalization of psychedelics
The medicalized approach to psychedelic mainstreaming also connects to drug law and policy.
Across North America, the biomedical approach is the main influence on drug law and the primary avenue for psychedelic access in most jurisdictions. This approach is widely supported by psychedelic capitalists who have a financial stake in medical legalization and want to limit legal access to anything outside of the medical-pharma frame.
In the United States, places like Oregon and Colorado have more holistic legal models that include elements of community control to prevent corporate capture. But most state initiatives remain limited in scope and are centred around medicalized therapy, particularly for military veterans. Even in Oregon, which has been lauded for its progressive drug policies, there has been an unmistakable drift toward medicalization.
Canada’s cannabis industry exemplifies how processes of legalization can become intertwined with the interests of corporate-dominated industries.
As Michael Devillaer, professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences and author of Buzz Kill (2024), has explained, the cannabis industry has prioritized profit maximization, product promotion and increased consumption at the expense of public health concerns.
What is best for public interest?
As the medical legalization of psychedelics deepens, we are likely to see the intensification of criminal penalties for recreational and other uses.
In fact, police seizures of psychedelics like psilocybin in the U.S. have increased in recent years. Global arrests for the transportation of compounds such as ayahuasca, iboga and peyote have also increased.
These problems are likely to be exacerbated by systems of bifurcated scheduling, where a drug product is placed in a different class from the active ingredient or substance.
For example, if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were to approve psilocybin for depression or MDMA for PTSD, it is likely that only FDA-approved medicinal psilocybin and MDMA products would be rescheduled, while the substances themselves would continue to be prosecuted as restricted narcotics.
It is in the public interest to move beyond a myopic focus on medical legalization to a more open, decriminalized model of public access. An approach like this would not only mitigate the threats associated with corporate capture, it would also reduce the harms associated with criminalization and the war on drugs.
Community-controlled decriminalization is a better path to mainstreaming psychedelics than relinquishing power to the medical industry and pharmaceutical cartels that provide monopolized services to primarily affluent customers.
And treating drug use and dependence as a public health issue and incentivizing harm reduction and support services for at-risk populations would go a long way to mitigating the tragedies of the drug war.
Kevin Walby receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Jamie Brownlee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eran Ben-Joseph, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
The U.S. Housing Corporation built nearly 300 homes in Bremerton, Wash., during World War I.National Archives
In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years.
These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems.
Few Americans are aware that such an ambitious and comprehensive public housing effort ever took place. Many of the homes are still standing today.
But as an urban planning scholar, I believe that this brief historic moment – spearheaded by a shuttered agency called the United States Housing Corporation – offers a revealing lesson on what government-led planning can achieve during a time of national need.
Government mobilization
When the U.S. declared war against Germany in April 1917, federal authorities immediately realized that ship, vehicle and arms manufacturing would be at the heart of the war effort. To meet demand, there needed to be sufficient worker housing near shipyards, munitions plants and steel factories.
So on May 16, 1918, Congress authorized President Woodrow Wilson to provide housing and infrastructure for industrial workers vital to national defense. By July, it had appropriated US$100 million – approximately $2.3 billion today – for the effort, with Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson tasked with overseeing it via the U.S. Housing Corporation.
Over the course of two years, the agency designed and planned over 80 housing projects. Some developments were small, consisting of a few dozen dwellings. Others approached the size of entire new towns.
For example, Cradock, near Norfolk, Virginia, was planned on a 310-acre site, with more than 800 detached homes developed on just 100 of those acres. In Dayton, Ohio, the agency created a 107-acre community that included 175 detached homes and a mix of over 600 semidetached homes and row houses, along with schools, shops, a community center and a park.
Designing ideal communities
Notably, the Housing Corporation was not simply committed to offering shelter.
Its architects, planners and engineers aimed to create communities that were not only functional but also livable and beautiful. They drew heavily from Britain’s late-19th century Garden City movement, a planning philosophy that emphasized low-density housing, the integration of open spaces and a balance between built and natural environments.
Milton Hill, a neighborhood designed and developed by the United States Housing Corporation in Alton, Ill. National Archives
Importantly, instead of simply creating complexes of apartment units, akin to the public housing projects that most Americans associate with government-funded housing, the agency focused on the construction of single-family and small multifamily residential buildings that workers and their families could eventually own.
This approach reflected a belief by the policymakers that property ownership could strengthen community responsibility and social stability. During the war, the federal government rented these homes to workers at regulated rates designed to be fair, while covering maintenance costs. After the war, the government began selling the homes – often to the tenants living in them – through affordable installment plans that provided a practical path to ownership.
A single-family home in Davenport, Iowa, built by the U.S. Housing Corporation. National Archives
Though the scope of the Housing Corporation’s work was national, each planned community took into account regional growth and local architectural styles. Engineers often built streets that adapted to the natural landscape. They spaced houses apart to maximize light, air and privacy, with landscaped yards. No resident lived far from greenery.
In Quincy, Massachusetts, for example, the agency built a 22-acre neighborhood with 236 homes designed mostly in a Colonial Revival style to serve the nearby Fore River Shipyard. The development was laid out to maximize views, green space and access to the waterfront, while maintaining density through compact street and lot design.
At Mare Island, California, developers located the housing site on a steep hillside near a naval base. Rather than flatten the land, designers worked with the slope, creating winding roads and terraced lots that preserved views and minimized erosion. The result was a 52-acre community with over 200 homes, many of which were designed in the Craftsman style. There was also a school, stores, parks and community centers.
Infrastructure and innovation
Alongside housing construction, the Housing Corporation invested in critical infrastructure. Engineers installed over 649,000 feet of modern sewer and water systems, ensuring that these new communities set a high standard for sanitation and public health.
Attention to detail extended inside the homes. Architects experimented with efficient interior layouts and space-saving furnishings, including foldaway beds and built-in kitchenettes. Some of these innovations came from private companies that saw the program as a platform to demonstrate new housing technologies.
To manage the large scale of this effort, the agency developed and published a set of planning and design standards − the first of their kind in the United States. These manuals covered everything from block configurations and road widths to lighting fixtures and tree-planting guidelines.
A single-family home in Bremerton, Wash., built by the U.S. Housing Corporation. National Archives
The standards emphasized functionality, aesthetics and long-term livability.
Architects and planners who worked for the Housing Corporation carried these ideas into private practice, academia and housing initiatives. Many of the planning norms still used today, such as street hierarchies, lot setbacks and mixed-use zoning, were first tested in these wartime communities.
And many of the planners involved in experimental New Deal community projects, such as Greenbelt, Maryland, had worked for or alongside Housing Corporation designers and planners. Their influence is apparent in the layout and design of these communities.
A brief but lasting legacy
With the end of World War I, the political support for federal housing initiatives quickly waned. The Housing Corporation was dissolved by Congress, and many planned projects were never completed. Others were incorporated into existing towns and cities.
Yet, many of the neighborhoods built during this period still exist today, integrated in the fabric of the country’s cities and suburbs. Residents in places such as Aberdeen, Maryland; Bremerton, Washington; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Watertown, New York; and New Orleans may not even realize that many of the homes in their communities originated from a bold federal housing experiment.
These homes on Lawn Avenue in Quincy, Mass., in 2019 were built by the U.S. Housing Corporation. Google Street View
The Housing Corporation’s efforts, though brief, showed that large-scale public housing could be thoughtfully designed, community oriented and quickly executed. For a short time, in response to extraordinary circumstances, the U.S. government succeeded in building more than just houses. It constructed entire communities, demonstrating that government has a major role and can lead in finding appropriate, innovative solutions to complex challenges.
At a moment when the U.S. once again faces a housing crisis, the legacy of the U.S. Housing Corporation serves as a reminder that bold public action can meet urgent needs.
Eran Ben-Joseph 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: The Conversation – USA – By Andrew Muhammad, Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics, University of Tennessee
The country of origin – Mexico – is noted on the label of a package of Campari tomatoes for sale in the produce section of a Safeway grocery store on March 4, 2025, in Denver.AP Photo/David Zalubowski
As economists who study global trade issues affecting agricultural commodities and processed food products, we have assessed the benefits of imported tomatoes and other products on consumers and businesses. Fresh tomato imports ensure year-round availability for consumers, contribute significantly to the U.S. economy by generating billions in sales and supporting thousands of jobs, and promote competitive pricing that benefits both consumers and businesses.
New import restrictions could put all that at risk because domestic production cannot satisfy national demand. For tomatoes, like steel and other products, efforts to reverse trade imbalances can decrease consumer satisfaction and potentially destroy more jobs and economic activity than they create.
Initiating a dumping investigation
This tussle over tomatoes began in the 1990s.
At that time, unprecedented growth in tomato imports from Mexico prompted U.S. producers to ask the Clinton administration to investigate whether they were being sold at unfairly low prices. If that were the case, it would violate both World Trade Organization rules and U.S. trade policy.
The U.S. responded with an antidumping investigation, conducted by the Department of Commerce and U.S. International Trade Commission. The agencies were tasked with seeing if imports are being sold in the U.S. at less than fair market value – the definition of dumping.
Dumping can harm domestic producers by depressing local prices to compete with imports, causing financial distress. An antidumping duty is essentially a tariff.
The Commerce Department ruled against Mexican producers, finding that they had engaged in dumping, but reached an agreement with them. Mexican tomato exporters agreed to set minimum prices, leading the U.S. to call off its investigation. The U.S. and Mexico have subsequently entered into a string of suspension agreements over the years.
It is not obvious at this stage if American importers and consumers will bear the full burden of this tariff, or if Mexican tomato exporters will absorb this cost.
This move is supposed to benefit fresh tomato producers in the U.S. – most of which are in Florida, with a significantly smaller number located in California. The tariffs could, however, hurt produce distributors, wholesalers and retailers, as well as American consumers.
People in the U.S. have become accustomed to buying fresh tomatoes to toss into their salads and stuff into their sandwiches year-round, even though in most of the country you can only harvest field-grown tomatoes in the warmest months of the year.
Focusing only on fresh tomatoes
This dispute doesn’t involve all the tomatoes and tomato products Americans eat.
U.S. tomato production is split into two main categories. Fresh tomatoes are usually purchased in a supermarket’s fresh produce section, to be consumed whole, chopped or sliced. This dispute is about those tomatoes.
The other kind is processing tomatoes, which companies use for making tomato paste, canned or stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce. California leads the nation in processing tomato production. Unlike fresh tomatoes, where the U.S. imports far more than it produces or exports, the U.S. is actually running a trade surplus in processed tomato products.
When the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented in January 1994, U.S. fresh tomato production was more than four times the quantity of imported fresh tomatoes: 3.7 billion pounds (1.7 million metric tons) produced versus only 870 million pounds (400,000 metric tons) imported.
Domestic production has steadily declined since then, while imports have increased. Imported fresh tomatoes are now twice as plentiful: 2.2 billion pounds (1 million metric tons) were grown in the U.S. in 2023, compared with 4.4 billion pounds (2 million metric tons)“ imported .
In 2024, fresh tomato imports totaled US$3.6 billion, with $3.1 billion coming from Mexico. This was a 367% increase since NAFTA took effect, adjusted for inflation.
Given that costs of production are lower in Mexico for many products, especially in the fresh produce sector where labor costs are less than half U.S. levels, you might figure that this arrangement has kept prices for fresh tomatoes in the U.S. low. But there’s little evidence to support that. Instead, the opposite seems true.
In 1995, the price that U.S. importers paid of Mexican tomatoes was 31 cents per pound. Since then, import prices have steadily increased to 74 cents per pound in 2024. They have often exceeded prices paid to American farmers and kept pace with the overall rise in food prices the past three decades.
While restricting imported Mexican tomatoes might benefit U.S. tomato producers by making it easier for them to raise their prices, there are other factors to consider. Imports play a crucial role in boosting economic activity and creating jobs. According to a recent study, these imports generated a total economic impact of more than $8 billion.
The extra $5 billion comes from all the value-added activities associated with getting that produce from the border to consumers. That total economic impact supports approximately 47,000 U.S. jobs tied to tomato storage, distribution, wholesaling and retailing.
We would expect antidumping duties on imported fresh tomatoes to increase prices, and reduce the amount of fresh tomatoes Americans can buy. That would also shrink some of the economic impact and eliminate some of the jobs spurred by the imported tomato boom.
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.
Americans largely agree that women have made significant gains in the workplace over the past two decades. But what about men? While many Americans believe women are thriving, over half believe men’s progress has stalled or even reversed.
To make matters more complex, recent research has revealed a massive divide along gender and partisan lines. The majority of Republican men think full gender equity in America has been achieved, while the majority of Democratic women think there’s still work to be done.
Asresearchers at the Rutgers Center for Women in Business, we think this divide matters a lot. And for business leaders, this gap isn’t just a social or political issue. It’s a leadership challenge with direct implications for team cohesion and morale. If gender equity efforts are seen by some employees as a loss rather than a collective gain, leaders risk inadvertently entrenching division.
Yet workers’ perceptions of gender equity efforts tell another story.
For example, 61% of Americans believe changing gender norms have made it easier for women to be successful at work, but only 36% say the same for men. What’s more, 61% of men think women have equal job opportunities, but only 33% of women believe the same thing.
These differences reveal an important truth: Perception, not policy alone, shapes how equity efforts are received.
Involving men in the equity conversation
Research suggests men and women associate power with different psychological outcomes. Men are more likely to associate power with control, while for women, power is more often linked to a feeling of freedom. As a result, efforts to share power may feel more liberating to women but destabilizing to men – particularly to those already in power.
But this doesn’t mean one’s gain needs to come at another’s expense – just that people make sense of change through the lens of their own identities and experiences.
When men perceive progress for women as a threat to their status or opportunity, resistance grows, even in the face of data suggesting otherwise. This cycle becomes especially difficult to break because it requires challenging one’s own beliefs, which isn’t always easy.
This is why learning about others’ experiences is so useful. For example, a man and a woman might be equally ambitious and capable, but perhaps only one of them experiences being routinely interrupted in meetings. These differences in personal history and lived experience shape how work environments are interpreted and therefore navigated.
Understanding this diversity of perspectives and discussing lived experiences can help gender equity efforts become more effective. Building a truly equitable future requires acknowledging that feelings about efforts required to reach that future may differ widely.
With that in mind, here are some best practices for leaders to consider as they navigate the changing landscape.
Preparing for differences in perspective
Avoid zero-sum thinking. If men think gender equity efforts will erode their opportunities or diminish their own power, they’ll disengage. Leaders should instead frame equity as essential to team and business success – and ground conversations in metrics that show how inclusion drives outcomes.
Know that the stakes may vary. Women may see gender equity as a matter of justice or even survival, and when stakes are existential, compromise can be difficult. At the same time, they may experience organizational progress toward gender equity as a personal win. Publicizing these changes and their mutually beneficial gains can help to create a more cohesive team where everyone can thrive.
Be aware that different clocks are ticking. Some men may view change as happening too quickly, destabilizing established norms. Women, on the other hand, may feel progress is too slow, given centuries of systemic inequity. Holding both views as worthy of respect requires teamwork. Encourage dialogue where the goal is mutual understanding rather than unity.
Building coalitions around shared experiences
Promote policies that benefit everyone. By promoting policies such as hybrid work and parental leave that benefit everyone, workplaces will attract and retain a more diverse workforce, which leads to greater innovation. Encourage men to take advantage of these policies and ensure your company culture makes it acceptable to do so. This enables men to actually experience the benefit of these initiatives. Align efforts around shared values – such as the desire for healthier families, better education or stronger economies.
Use both/and thinking. Supporting men who express fears about status loss can open space for dialogue. Provide that space. At the same time, acknowledge the ongoing struggles women continue to face and their fears about workplaces returning to “the way they used to be.” One viewpoint does not need to negate the other.
Prioritize lived experience. Rather than insisting that everyone see gender equity the same way, find ways for men to experience mutually beneficial initiatives. Then, encourage dialogue about experiences rather than ideas.
Bridge divides with dialogue
Mixed mentorship matters. Pairing employees with mentors of different backgrounds – across gender, race, age, department or seniority level – can help them cultivate curiosity and learn from one another.
Activate resource groups. Groups focused on cross-cultural engagement provide employees with a platform to discuss challenges, share experiences and collaborate on inclusion initiatives. Additionally, encouraging allies to participate in employee resource groups and business resource groups fosters increased openness and understanding. Leaders can support groups by providing resources, visibility and executive sponsorship.
Embrace discomfort. In general, people work to avoid feeling uncomfortable. However, discomfort is often necessary for growth. Starting with this premise and encouraging thoughtful, open and honest discussions about sensitive topics and potential fears can help foster transparency and build trust. Leaders can facilitate these conversations through town halls, roundtable discussions or dedicated dialogue sessions.
Progress depends not just on metrics and policies but on trust, communication and humility. When people feel seen and heard – whether they’re feeling empowered or uncertain – they’re more likely to engage.
In other words, the real opportunity isn’t to win an argument about whether gender equity is “done,” but to build organizations where everyone can see a future for themselves in the workplace – and feel as if they have a role in shaping it.
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.
A little over two decades ago, addressing Nigeria’s HIV crisis topped U.S. President George W. Bush’s priorities. Africa’s most populous nation had 3.5 million HIV cases, and the disease threatened to destabilize the region and ultimately compromise U.S. interests. These interests included securing access to Nigeria’s substantial oil reserves, maintaining regional military stability and protecting trade partnerships worth billions.
While living in Nigeria for my work as a medical anthropologist, I witnessed PEPFAR’s rollout and saw firsthand how the powerful therapies it provided transformed Nigerian lives. The women I worked with told me they could finally put aside the fears of death or abandonment that had consumed their days. Instead, they could focus on a newly expanded horizon of possibilities: building careers, finding love, having healthy children.
Now, however, a serious threat to preventing and treating HIV worldwide looms. The Trump administration’s decision to substantially restrict access to a vital HIV prevention tool – PEPFAR-funded preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP – would cut off ongoing treatment for millions of people and block future access for countless others who need this protection.
The Trump administration aims to cut HIV prevention funding.
The timing is devastating: Scientists recently made a major advance in HIV prevention. Named the 2024 Breakthrough of the Year by the journal Science, the drug lenacapavir offers six months of HIV protection with one injection. Unlike previous PrEP options that required daily pills, which created significant barriers to consistent access and adherence, this twice-yearly injection dramatically simplifies prevention.
By undermining access to a treatment that has been essential to reducing HIV rates, the Trump administration’s new restrictions threaten to derail two decades of bipartisan investment in eliminating HIV globally. The consequences extend well beyond individual lives.
Afterlife of aid
“Some people that have it, they choose to be wicked and just spread it all around,” confided Elizabeth, a woman I interviewed during my time in Nigeria. I am using a pseudonym to protect her privacy. “They say, ‘Somebody gave it to me, so I am going to spread it too.’ But if they know that they can live positively with the virus, it would reduce their evil thoughts.”
Elizabeth’s words reveal a concerning dynamic: When hope for treatment disappears, a dangerous desperation can take its place. Patients who feel abandoned by health care systems might lose motivation to protect others from HIV. They may also stop seeking medical care, abandon prevention measures and turn away from future aid.
Cultural anthropologists use the phrase “the afterlife of aid” to describe what happens after global aid programs are withdrawn or drastically reduced. Communities are left not just without resources but with a lasting sense of betrayal that undermines their willingness to seek help, creating cycles of skepticism that can persist for generations.
Treatment as hope
In my fieldwork, I’ve witnessed how managing life with the virus involves far more than taking medications. It requires carefully navigating personal relationships, family obligations, cultural expectations and hopes for the future.
Many of the women I worked with had contracted HIV from their husbands or boyfriends. Some even suspected their partners’ positive status but were unable to protect themselves. Before these medications, women – both HIV positive and HIV negative – had to choose between risking rejection or risking transmission.
The welfare of entire families depends on access to HIV medication. Here, a woman who is the sole provider of several children takes antiretroviral treatment. Saurabh Das/AP Photo
Elizabeth and David’s story illustrates these challenges. They had been together for more than a year when David proposed. “When I sensed he was serious about marriage, I knew I had to tell him my status,” Elizabeth told me during one of our many conversations. Though initially shocked, he remained committed to their relationship.
Elizabeth had maintained a decade of careful adherence to her HIV treatment, but the couple still struggled with consistent condom use. David described using condoms as akin to “eating candy with the wrapper still on it.” He also was eager to have a baby. While PrEP had greatly reduced transmission risk, it placed the full burden of protecting her husband on Elizabeth.
The path Elizabeth navigated highlights how Nigerian cultural expectations complicated their situation. When proving one’s fertility is often considered essential to establishing gender identity, the pressure to have sex without protection created additional tension. Moreover, Elizabeth’s need to balance her own health needs with her husband’s desires reflected the delicate negotiation many Nigerian women face between personal well-being and marriage.
As Elizabeth prepared for the birth of their child, she expressed both joy and anxiety: “I have to stay healthy for both of them now.”
Politicizing global health
Previous interruptions in aid foreshadow what’s at stake when shifts in U.S. political priorities compromise global health funding.
Consider the global spike in maternal and child mortality when President Ronald Reagan instituted the Mexico City Policy, often referred to as the “global gag rule.” It blocked U.S. funding to all international nongovernmental organizations that provided or even referred abortion services.
This policy has been repeatedly implemented by Republican administrations – including those of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump during his first term – and subsequently rescinded by Democratic presidents, creating a disruptive cycle of funding uncertainty. Among these affected organizations are recipients of PEPFAR funds.
The human cost of this policy pendulum is measurable and significant. Researchers have found that when this law is enacted, nations across the globe suffer increased death rates for newborns and mothers as well as jumps in HIV cases. In countries heavily dependent on U.S. aid, the Mexico City Policy has resulted in approximately 80 additional child deaths and nine additional maternal deaths per 100,000 live births annually and about one additional HIV infection per 10,000 uninfected people.
My research in Nigeria also reveals the fragile progress that now hangs in the balance. Before treatments arrived, HIV ravaged Nigerian communities. In 2001, nearly 6% of the population had HIV, totaling around 3.5 million people. The Hausa language reflected this trauma: Terms for AIDS also meant “lifeless body” and “nearby grave.”
Following the rollout of HIV treatments, Nigeria’s cases dropped dramatically – by 2010, prevalence had fallen to 4.1%. Declines continued steadily as treatment access expanded from 360,000 people in 2010 to over 1 million by 2018. This progress was heavily dependent on international support, with PEPFAR and other global donors providing over 80% of the US$6.2 billion spent fighting HIV in Nigeria between 2005 to 2018.
What’s at stake isn’t just increasing HIV rates. The Trump administration’s reductions in foreign aid threaten to unravel over two decades of U.S. investment in global security and economic growth.
Public health crises rarely stay contained within national boundaries. When health systems fail in West Africa, diseases can quickly spread overseas and require costly emergency responses. The 2014 Ebola outbreak demonstrated this reality, when cases reached America and prompted a $5.4 billion emergency response. Similarly, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, which infected around 60 million Americans, showed how quickly infectious diseases circle the globe when surveillance and containment systems are inadequate.
Inconsistent aid, in turn, undermines American global leadership and creates openings for competing powers to establish their influence. China has actively exploited these gaps, establishing bilateral trade with Africa reaching $295 billion in 2024. While the U.S. reduced its global health engagement during previous administrations, China expanded its global health diplomacy, partnering on issues ranging from infectious disease prevention and control to health emergency response and health technology innovation.
Meanwhile, restrictions in PrEP access risk recreating the same impossible choices women faced at the advent of the epidemic: choosing between disclosing their status and risking abandonment; accepting unprotected sex and risking transmission, or refusing unprotected sex and risking violence or loss of economic support.
I believe the result is a far less safe world where preventable suffering continues, hard-won progress unravels and the promise of an AIDS-free generation remains unfulfilled.
Kathryn Rhine has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the West African Research Association, the American Council of Learned Societies, Fulbright programs, the National Science Foundation, and the National Security Education Program. These views are her own and not those of her institution.
Are planets in the solar system that are closer to the Sun older than the ones further away? – Gavriel, age 10, Paducah, Kentucky
A cloud of collapsing gas created our Sun, the first thing to form in our solar system. This happened about 4½ billion years ago.
Then the planets began to emerge, as the billions of particles of gas and dust left over from the Sun’s formation became a flattened disk.
Known as a protoplanetary disk, it was enormous and surrounded the Sun for billions of miles. Within the disk, the gas and dust particles started to collide, solidify and stick together, like snowflakes clumping together to form snowballs.
As the particles clung together, the microscopic grains became pebble-size objects and then grew and grew. Some became rocks the size of baseballs, others the size of a house, and a few as big as a planet.
This process, called accretion, is how everything in the solar system – planets, moons, comets and asteroids – came into being.
When the Sun was still forming and the protoplanetary disk was making planets, there was a distance from the Sun where it was cold enough for ice to gather. That place, the ice line – sometimes called the snow line – was in what’s now the asteroid belt, which is between Mars and Jupiter.
Today, of course, ice is found on almost every planet, even on Mercury. But back then, only the young protoplanets beyond the ice line were cold enough to have it. The ice, gas and dust, slamming into each other for millions of years, accumulated into enormous bodies that ultimately became giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
While all this was happening, the smaller planets inside the ice line were forming too. But with less raw material to work with, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars took much longer.
Today, it’s believed that Jupiter and Saturn, the largest planets, were the first to fully form, both within a few million years. Uranus and Neptune were next, within 10 million years. The inner planets, including Earth, took at least 100 million years, maybe more.
To put it another way, the four planets closest to the Sun are the youngest; the two planets farthest out, the next youngest; and the two in between, the oldest. The difference in age between the youngest and oldest planets is perhaps 90 million years.
That sounds like an enormous age difference, but in space, 90 million years isn’t really that long – less than 1% of the total time the universe has been around. One way to consider it: Think of Earth as a little sister with a big brother, Jupiter, who’s 2 or 3 years older.
Soon after formation the giant worlds began to migrate, moving inward toward the Sun or outward away from the Sun, before finally settling into their final orbits.
For instance, Neptune migrated outward, switching places with Uranus, and pushed a lot of the small, icy bodies into the Kuiper Belt, a place in the outer solar system that’s home to dwarf planets Pluto, Eris and Makemake and millions of comets.
Meanwhile, Jupiter moved inward, and its massive gravity forced some forming planets into the Sun, where they disintegrated. Along the way, Jupiter flung some smaller rocks out of the solar system altogether; the rest went to the asteroid belt.
But most critically, as Jupiter settled into its own orbit, it moved all of the forming objects and likely finalized the location of the remaining inner planets, including Earth.
All of Jupiter’s tugging helped put our planet in the so-called “Goldilocks zone,” a place just the right distance from the Sun, where Earth could have liquid water on its surface and the right temperature for life to evolve. If Jupiter hadn’t formed the way it did, it’s entirely possible life would not have ignited on Earth – and we would not be here today.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Lucas Brefka receives funding from a NASA Exoplanet Research Program grant.
Christopher Palma 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.
On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin launched six women – Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn and Lauren Sánchez – on a suborbital journey to the edge of space.
The headlines called it a historic moment for women in space. But as a tourism educator, I paused – not because I questioned their experience, but because I questioned the language. Were they astronauts or space tourists? The distinction matters – not just for accuracy, but for understanding how experience, symbolism and motivation shape travel today.
In tourism studies, my colleagues and I often ask what motivates travel and makes it a meaningful experience. These women crossed a boundary by leaving Earth’s surface. But they also stepped into a controversy about a symbolic one: the blurred line between astronaut and tourist, between scientific achievement and curated experience.
This flight wasn’t just about the altitude they flew to – it was about what it meant. As commercial space travel becomes more accessible to civilians, more people are joining spaceflights not as scientists or mission specialists, but as invited guests or paying participants. The line between astronaut and space tourist is becoming increasingly blurred.
Blue Origin’s NS-31 flight brought six women to the edge of space.
In my own work, I explore how travelers find meaning in the way their journeys are framed. A tourism studies perspective can help unpack how experiences like the Blue Origin flight are designed, marketed and ultimately understood by travelers and the tourism industry.
So, were these passengers astronauts? Not in the traditional sense. They weren’t selected through NASA’s rigorous training protocols, nor were they conducting research or exploration in orbit.
Instead, they belong to a new category: space tourists. These are participants in a crafted, symbolic journey that reflects how commercial spaceflight is redefining what it means to go to space.
Space tourism as a niche market
Space tourism has its origins in 1986 with the launch of the Mir space station, which later became the first orbital platform to host nonprofessional astronauts. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Mir and its successor, the International Space Station, welcomed a handful of privately funded civilian guests – most notably U.S. businessman Dennis Tito in 2001, often cited as the first space tourist.
Space tourism has since evolved into a niche market selling brief encounters to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. While passengers on the NS-31 flight did not purchase their seats, the experience mirrors those sold by commercial space tourism providers such as Virgin Galactic.
Like other forms of niche tourism – wellness retreats, heritage trails or extreme adventures – space travel appeals to those drawn to novelty, exclusivity and status, regardless of whether they purchased the ticket.
These suborbital flights may last just minutes, but they offer something far more lasting: prestige, personal storytelling and the feeling of participating in something rare. Space tourism sells the experience of being somewhere few have visited, not the destination itself. For many, even a 10-minute flight can fulfill a deeply personal milestone.
Tourist motivation and space tourism’s evolution
The push-and-pull theory in tourism studies helps explain why people might want to pursue space travel. Push factors – internal desires such as curiosity, an urge to escape or an eagerness to gain fame – spark interest. Pull factors – external elements such as wishing to see the view of Earth from above or experience the sensation of weightlessness – enhance the appeal.
Space tourism taps into both. It’s fueled by the internal drive to do something extraordinary and the external attraction of a highly choreographed, emotional experience.
Participants in space tourism wear branded jumpsuits with the company’s logo, pose for photos and talk to the media about their experience. AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez
These flights are often branded – not necessarily with flashy logos, but through storytelling and design choices that make the experience feel iconic. For example, while the New Shepard rocket the women traveled in doesn’t carry a separate emblem, it features the company’s name, Blue Origin, in bold letters along the side. Passengers wear personalized flight suits, pose for preflight photos and receive mission patches or certificates, all designed to echo the rituals of professional space missions.
What’s being sold is an “astronaut-for-a-day” experience: emotionally powerful, visually compelling and rich with symbolism. But under tourism classifications, these travelers are space tourists – participants in a curated, short-duration excursion.
Representation and marketing experience
The image from the Blue Origin flight of six women boarding a rocket was framed as a symbolic victory – a girl-power moment designed for visibility and celebration – but it was also carefully curated.
This wasn’t the first time women entered space. Since its inception, NASA has selected 61 women as astronaut candidates, many of them making groundbreaking contributions to space science and exploration. Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir not only entered space – they trained as astronauts and contributed significantly to science, engineering and long-duration missions. Their journeys marked historic achievements in space exploration rather than curated moments in tourism.
Recognizing their legacy is important as commercial spaceflight creates new kinds of unique, tailored experiences, ones shaped more by media performance than by scientific milestones.
The Blue Origin flight was not a scientific mission but rather was framed as a symbolic event. In tourism, companies, marketers and media outlets often create these performances to maximize their visibility. SpaceX has taken a similar approach with its Inspiration4 mission, turning a private orbital flight into a global media event complete with a Netflix documentary and emotional storytelling.
The Blue Origin flight sold a feeling of progress while blending the roles between astronaut and guest. For Blue Origin, the symbolic value was significant. By launching the first all-female crew into suborbital space, the company was able to claim a historic milestone – one that aligned them with inclusion – without the cost, complexity or risk associated with a scientific mission. In doing so, they generated enormous media attention.
Tourism education and media literacy
In today’s world, space travel is all about the story that gets told about the flight. From curated visuals to social media posts and press coverage, much of the experience’s meaning is shaped by marketing and media.
Understanding that process matters – not just for scholars or industry insiders, but for members of the public, who follow these trips through the narratives produced by the companies’ marketing teams and media outlets.
Another theory in tourism studies describes how destinations evolve over time – from exploration, to development, to mass adoption. Many forms of tourism begin in an exploration phase, accessible only to the wealthy or well connected. For example, the Grand Tour of Europe was once a rite of passage for aristocrats. Its legacy helped shape and develop modern travel.
As more people travel to a destination over time, it moves through the tourism area life cycle. During the early exploration phase, the destination has only a few tourists. Coba56/Wikimedia Commons
Right now, space tourism is in the exploration stage. It’s expensive, exclusive and available only to a few. There’s limited infrastructure to support it, and companies are still experimenting with what the experience should look like. This isn’t mass tourism yet, it’s more like a high-profile playground for early adopters, drawing media attention and curiosity with every launch.
Advances in technology, economic shifts and changing cultural norms can increase access to unique destinations that start as out of bounds to a majority of tourists. Space tourism could be the next to evolve this way in the tourism industry. How it’s framed now – who gets to go, how the participants are labeled and how their stories are told – will set the tone moving forward. Understanding these trips helps people see how society packages and sells an inspirational experience long before most people can afford to join the journey.
Betsy Pudliner is affiliated with International Council of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Educators.
