Earth’s cycles of light and dark profoundly affect billions of organisms. Events such as solar eclipses are known to bring about marked shifts in animals, but do they have the same effect on plants?
During a solar eclipse in a forest in Italy’s Dolomites region, scientists seized the chance to explore that fascinating question.
The researchers were monitoring the bioelectrical impulses of spruce trees, when a solar eclipse passed over. They left their sensors running to record the trees’ response to the eclipse – and what they observed was astonishing.
The spruce trees not only responded to the solar eclipse – they actively anticipated it, by synchronising their bioelectrical signals hours in advance.
This forest-wide phenomenon, detailed today in the journal Royal Society Open Science, reveals a new layer of complexity in plant behaviour. It adds to emerging evidence that plants actively participate in their ecosystems.
Lead author Monica Gagliano discusses the research findings.
Do trees respond collectively?
The research was led by Professor Alessandro Chiolerio of the Italian Institute of Technology, and Professor Monica Gagliano from Australia’s Southern Cross University, who is the lead author on this article. It also involved a team of international scientists.
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, fully or partially blocking the Sun’s light.
An eclipse can inspire awe and even social cohesion in humans. Other animals have been shown to gather and synchronise their movements during such an event.
But scientists know very little about how plants respond to solar eclipses. Some research suggests the rapid transitions from darkness to light during an eclipse can change plant behaviour. But this research focuses on the responses of individual plants.
The latest study set out to discover if trees respond to a solar eclipse together, as a living collective.
Alessandro Chiolerio and Monica Gagliano at the site of the study. Simone Cargnoni
The electrical activity is primarily driven by the movement of ions across cell membranes. It creates tiny currents that allow organisms, including humans, to coordinate their body and communicate.
The researchers wanted to investigated the electrical signals of spruce trees (Picea abies) during a partial solar eclipse on October 25, 2022. It took place in the Costa Bocche forest near Paneveggio in the Dolomites area, Italy.
The study took place in the Dolomites in northeast Italy. Monica Gagliano
The scientists set out to understand the trees’ electrical activity during the hour-long eclipse. They used custom-built sensors and wired them to three trees. Two were healthy trees about 70 years old, one in full sun and one in full shade. The third was a healthy tree about 20 years old, in full shade.
They also attached the sensors to five tree stumps – the remnants old trees, originally part of a pristine forest, but which were devastated by a storm several years earlier.
For each tree and stump, the researchers used five pairs of electrodes, placed in both the inner and outer layers of the tree, including on exposed roots, branches and trunks. The electrodes were connected to the sensors.
This set-up allowed the scientists to monitor the bioelectrical activity from multiple trees and stumps across four sites during the solar eclipse. They examined both individual tree responses, and bioelectrical signals between trees.
In particular, the scientists measured changes in the trees’ “bioelectrical potentials”. This term refers to the differences in voltage across cell membranes.
The scientists attached electrodes and sensors to the trees to monitor their electrical activity. Zenit Arti Audiovisive
What did they find?
The electrical activity of all three trees became significantly more synchronised around the eclipse – both before and during the one-hour event. These changes occur at a microscopic level, such as inside water and lymph molecules in the tree.
The two older trees in the study had a much more pronounced early response to the impending eclipse than the young tree. This suggests older trees may have developed mechanisms to anticipate and respond to such events, similar to their responses to seasonal changes.
Solar eclipses may seem rare from a human perspective, but they follow cycles which can occur well within the lifespan of long-lived trees. The scientists also detected bioelectrical waves travelling between the trees. This suggests older trees may transmit their ecological knowledge to younger trees.
Such a dynamic is consistent with studies showing long-distance signalling between plants can help them coordinate various physiological functions in response to environmental changes.
The two older spruce trees in the study had a much more pronounced early response to the impending eclipse than the young tree. Zenith Audiovisual Arts
The researchers also detected changes in the bioelectrical responses of the stumps during the eclipse, albeit less pronounced than in the standing trees. This suggests the stumps were still alive.
The research team then used computer modelling, and advanced analytical methods including quantum field theory, to test the findings of the physical experiment.
The results reinforced the experimental results. That is, not only did the eclipse influence the bioelectrical responses of individual trees, the activity was correlated. This suggests a cohesive, organism-like reaction at the forest scale.
The researchers also detected changes in the bioelectrical responses of the stumps during the eclipse. Zenit Arti Audiovisive
Understanding forest connections
These findings align with extensive priorresearch by others, highlighting the extent to which trees in forest ecosystems are connected.
These behaviours may ultimately influence the forest ecosystem’s resilience, biodiversity and overall function, by helping it cope with rapid and unpredictable changes.
The findings also underscore the importance of protecting older forests, which serve as pillars of ecosystem resilience – potentially preserving and transmitting invaluable ecological knowledge.
This research is featured in a documentary, Il Codice del Bosco (The Forest Code), premiering in Italy on May 1, 2025.
The findings underscore the importance of protecting older forests. Pictured: the Dolomites region. Zenith Audiovisual Arts
Monica Gagliano received funding for this research from the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
Prudence Gibson 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 Logan S. James, Research Associate in Animal Behavior, The University of Texas at Austin
A frog-eating bat approaches a túngara frog, one of its preferred foods.Grant Maslowski
It is late at night, and we are silently watching a bat in a roost through a night-vision camera. From a nearby speaker comes a long, rattling trill.
Cane toad’s rattling trill call.
The bat briefly perks up and wiggles its ears as it listens to the sound before dropping its head back down, uninterested.
Next from the speaker comes a higher-pitched “whine” followed by a “chuck.”
Túngara frog’s ‘whine chuck’ call.
The bat vigorously shakes its ears and then spreads its wings as it launches from the roost and dives down to attack the speaker.
Bats show tremendous variation in the foods they eat to survive. Some species specialize on fruits, others on insects, others on flower nectar. There are even species that catch fish with their feet.
The calls male frogs use to attract mates also attract eavesdropping predators. Here, a frog-eating bat consumes an unlucky male túngara frog. Marcos Guerra, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
At the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, we’ve been studying one species, the fringe-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus), for decades. This bat is a carnivore that specializes in feeding on frogs.
Male frogs from many species call to attract female frogs. Frog-eating bats eavesdrop on those calls to find their next meal. But how do the bats come to associate sounds and prey?
There are nearly 8,000 frog and toad species in the world, and each one has a unique call. For instance, the first rattling call that we played from our speaker came from a large and toxic cane toad. The second “whine chuck” came from the túngara frog, a preferred prey species for these bats. Just as herpetologists can tell a frog species by its call, frog-eating bats can use these calls to identify the best meal.
Over the years, our research team has learned a great deal from frog-eating bats about how sound and echolocation are used to find prey, as well as the role of learning and memory in foraging success. In our newly published study, we focused on how associations between the sounds a bat hears and the prey quality it expects arise within the lifespan of an individual bat.
Adult bats like the one pictured have extensive acoustic repertoires and remember specific frog calls year after year. Young bats must learn which calls to respond to – and, critically, which to ignore – over time through experience. Grant Maslowski
We considered whether the associations between sound and a delicious meal are an evolved specialty that bats are born with. But this possibility seemed unlikely because the bat species we study has a large geographic distribution across Central and South America, and the species of frogs found across this range vary tremendously.
Instead, we hypothesized that bats learn to associate different sounds with food as they grow up. But we had to test this idea.
First, we and our collaborators spent time in the forest and at ponds to record the mating calls from 15 of the most common frog and toad species in our study area in Panama.
Rachel Page, one of the lead authors on the study, takes a bat out of a mist net in Panama. Jorge Alemán, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Then, we set up mist nets along streams in Soberanía National Park to capture wild bats for the study.
Frog call, bat response
For the testing, each bat was housed individually in a large, outdoor flight chamber. From a speaker on the ground in the center, we played calls from one frog species on loop for 30 seconds and measured the behavior of the bat, which was hanging from a cloth roost. As we expected, adult bats were generally uninterested in the sounds of species that were unpalatable, such as those with toxins or those that are too large for the bat to carry.
But it was a different story for young bats. Juveniles responded with significantly more predatory behaviors in response to the calls of toxic toads compared with the adults. They also responded more weakly than adults to the sounds of túngara frogs, a palatable, abundant prey that adult bats prefer.
Thus it seems that juvenile bats must learn the associations between sounds and food over the course of their lives. As they grow up, we believe they learn to ignore the calls of frogs that aren’t worth the trouble and zero in on the calls of frogs that will be a good meal.
To better understand how sounds drive prey associations, we measured the acoustic properties of the different calls. We found that some of the most noticeable features of the calls correlated with body size: Larger frogs produce lower-frequency calls – that is, their voices are deeper. Both the adult and juvenile bats responded more strongly to larger species, which would provide larger meals.
However, there was a clear exception in the responses of adults, where the toxic toads and very large frogs elicited much weaker responses than expected for their body size. This finding led us to hypothesize that bats have early biases to pay attention to sounds associated with larger body size. Then they must learn through experience that meal quality is not only about size. Some large meals are toxic or impossible to carry, making them unpalatable.
Once the researchers have studied each frog-eating bat for a few days, they safely release it where it was originally captured. Footage courtesy of Léna de Framond-Bénard and Eric de Framond-Bénard, compiled by Caroline Rogan.
After the bats spent a few days with us, we released each one back at its original site of capture. The bats departed, taking with them a small RFID tag, just like the ones pet owners use to identify their dogs and cats, in case we meet again as part of a future study.
As the bats go on with their lives in the wild, we continue our quest to deepen our understanding of the subtleties of information discrimination. How do individuals weed through information overload to make choices that make sense and benefit them? That’s the same challenge we all face each day.
Logan S. James receives funding from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, McGill University, and the Earth Species Project.
Rachel Page receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Ximena Bernal receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Greenpeace has condemned an announcement by The Metals Company to submit the first application to commercially mine the seabed.
“The first application to commercially mine the seabed will be remembered as an act of total disregard for international law and scientific consensus,” said Greenpeace International senior campaigner Louisa Casson.
“This unilateral US effort to carve up the Pacific Ocean already faces fierce international opposition. Governments around the world must now step up to defend international rules and cooperation against rogue deep sea mining.
“Leaders will be meeting at the UN Oceans Conference in Nice in June where they must speak with one voice in support of a moratorium on this reckless industry.”
Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Juressa Lee said: “The disastrous effects of deep sea mining recognise no international borders in the ocean.
“This will be another case of short-term profits for a very few, from the Global North, with the Pacific bearing the destructive impacts for generations to come.”
Bypassed ISA rules Trump’s action bypasses the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the regulatory body which protects the deep sea and decides whether deep sea mining can take place in international waters.
“The Metals Company and Donald Trump are wilfully ignoring the rules-based international order and the science that deep sea mining will wreak havoc on the oceans,”said Lee.
“Pacific Peoples have deep cultural ties to the ocean, and we regard ‘home’ as more ocean than land. Our ancestors were wayfarers and ocean custodians who have traversed the Pacific and protected our livelihoods for future generations.
“This is the Indigenous knowledge we should be led by, to safeguard our planet and our environment. Deep sea mining is not the answer to the green transition away from carbon-based fossil fuels — it’s another false solution.”
President Trump’s order follows negotiations in March at the ISA, at which governments refused to give wannabe miners The Metals Company a clear pathway to an approved mining application via the ISA.
Thirty two countries around the world publicly support a moratorium on deep sea mining.
Millions of people have spoken out against this dangerous emerging industry.
Source: United States Senator for Maine Angus King
To watch the floor speech, click here
WASHINGTON, D.C.— U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) today spoke on the Senate floor to commemorate the 75th anniversary of former U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s (R-ME) ‘Declaration of Conscience’ speech. The speech, delivered on June 1, 1950, would be the defining moment in which a Republican stood up to her own party in defense of American democracy.
More specifically, King called on his colleagues in both parties to remember her legacy and “…stop thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and start thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques-techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”
More on former U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith can be found here. The original Declaration of Conscience speech transcript can be found here.
The full transcript of Senator King’s floor speech from this afternoon is below.
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Mr. President,
Almost 75 years ago, the junior Senator from Maine rose in this chamber to deliver a speech from her heart about a crisis then facing our country, a crisis not arising from a foreign adversary but from within.
A crisis that threatened the values and ideals at the base of the American experiment. Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s ‘Declaration of Conscience’ turned out to be one of the most important speeches of the Twentieth Century and defined her for the ages as a person of extraordinary courage and principle. Here she is with her famous red rose which always wore on her lapel.
Now, I should admit up front that I worked for the candidate Bill Hathaway who defeated Smith in 1972, but Smith and I made it up years later when I was producing a documentary on her life for Maine PBS. In fact, as we began the project, I was so worried that she might resent my having worked for her opponent, so I sent her a letter confessing my role in her last campaign.
Her response was pure Margaret Smith:
“Dear Angus King, it is perfectly alright with me that you once worked for Mr. Hathaway. Yours sincerely, Margaret Chase Smith.”
Simple as that. In working together on the documentary, she shared some fascinating background on the famous speech, including that she drafted it by hand at her kitchen table in her hometown of Skowhegan, Maine over Memorial Day weekend of 1950.
After returning to Washington a couple of days later, she steeled her resolve and headed to the Senate floor. As luck would have it, when she got in the trolly from the Russell building, there next to her sat Senator Joe McCarthy who was the subject of the speech.
“Why are you looking so serious, Margaret?” he asked. “Because I’m on my way to make a speech, Joe, and you’re not going to like it.”
Smith told me that she was so nervous about the speech and the breach it would make in her relationship with Senator McCarthy—this was the height of the Red Scare of the early fifties, remember—that she told her chief aide, Bill Lewis, who was up in the press gallery, not to hand out the copies of the speech to the press until she started speaking on the floor, because she was afraid she might lose her nerve.
But she went through with it, and the rest is, quite literally, history.
Here is how Margaret Chase Smith began that speech—
“Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership either in the legislative branch or the executive branch of our government.”
Remember these are Margaret Chase Smith’s words 75 years ago. She continued,
“I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges.”
Later in the speech, here is one of her conclusions,
“It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom.”
I think that’s very important Mr. President. She said,
“It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques – techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”
Senator Smith’s speech had plenty of criticism of the Democratic Administration of that time, but the real focus of her urgent plea to her colleagues was the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy (whom she never mentioned by name) who had embarked upon an anti-communist crusade in a manner that threatened the principles of free speech and the rule of law embedded in our values as a nation—and in our Constitution. In other words it wasn’t McCarthy’s anti-communism she objected to, it was the manner in which he carried it out.
Mr. President, I fear that we are at a similar moment in history. And while today’s ‘serious national condition’ is not involving the actions of one of our colleagues, it is involving those of the President of the United States.
Echoing Senator Smith, today’s crisis should not be viewed as a partisan issue; this is not about Democrats or Republicans, or immigration or tax policy, or even the next set of elections; today’s crisis threatens the idea of America and the system of government that has sustained us for more than two centuries.
Again, this is not about the President’s agenda (although yes, I disagree with most of it), it’s about the manner in which he is pursuing it—which includes ignoring the Constitution and the rule of law—and it’s this roughshod non-process that endangers all of us, his detractors and supporters alike.
What’s at stake is simple and, in fact, was the driving force behind the basic design of our Constitution—the grave danger to any society is the concentration of power in one set of hands.
The paradox at the heart of the structure of any democratic government is that power is given to the government to protect and serve the people, but at the same time the people must be protected from that same power being used against them. Madison put it clearly in the 51st Federalist:
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”
Precautions that go beyond regular elections. And the most important of those “auxiliary precautions” is the explicit separation of powers between the executive and the legislature, at the heart of our Constitution better known as checks and balances. My fear is this phrase has become such a cliche that we don’t recognize it as the fundamental premise of our Constitutional system.
There’s nothing new about the recognition of the danger of concentrated power; the ancient Romans summed it up with a question: “Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes?” or “Who will guard the guardians?”
Another way to put this is a universal principle of human nature, “All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
It’s important to emphasize that the danger I am describing isn’t based upon institutional jealousy, a loss of the prerogatives of the Senate, or the politics of Democrats and Republicans; it’s about the violation of the very deliberate division of power between the legislature and the executive which as I said is the heart of the Constitution. It’s there for a reason to see that power is not concentrated in one set of hands. It is the most important bulwark between our citizens and—let’s call it what it is—tyranny.
Again, Madison warned us in no uncertain terms, this time in the 47th Federalist:
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Madison’s word, “Tyranny.” And later in the same essay, “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.”
“There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.”
And yet, this “accumulation of all powers” is exactly what is happening today, before our very eyes. Although many in this body unfortunately seem determined to ignore it, deliberately ignore it, the evidence is everywhere: from the elimination of Congressionally-established agencies to the withholding of appropriated funds (an appropriations bill is a law, by the way. It is not a suggestion to the executive about where he or she should spend money, but a law) to issuing executive orders purporting to be law in place of legislation to sidestepping if not ignoring court orders:
This President is engaged in the most direct assault on the Constitution in our history, and we in this body, at least thus far, are inert—and therefore complicit.
It’s worth pausing for a moment to look at the terms of Article II which outlines the powers and responsibilities of the President. At the outset, it must be remembered that the Declaration of Independence was directed specifically at the depredations of the British King, and later, that the Framers had recently come through a brutal eight-year war against that same king. It is clear that a monarchy was exactly what the Framers were trying to avoid in the structure of the new government and it explains the limited powers granted to the President in Article II.
So, let’s look at Article II. In light of this anti-monarchical intent, Article II only gives the President one-and-half unilateral powers—the power to issue pardons and the role of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in wartime, but even this latter is constrained by the reservation to the Congress of the power to declare war.
With these two exceptions, all the other powers granted to the President—appointment of judges and federal officials, making treaties with other countries, vetoing legislation—are all bounded in some respect by the requirement of Congressional assent. I want to repeat, Article II is not a broad grant of authority to the president, it is anything but. It’s a restriction on the powers of the president.
And here is the most important phrase in Article II. The principal responsibility of the President, however, is spelled out explicitly in Article II—the chief executive “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
It doesn’t say that only the laws he agrees with, or that he has any power whatsoever to make laws; his job is simply to execute the laws passed by Congress, without exception—a responsibility this President is spectacularly failing to meet. To take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
And while this is the most serious breach of our Constitutional order, the Administration has also taken a series of apparently unconnected actions, which, taken together, spell out our rapid path toward one-man rule, or tyranny as Madison would say.
In the style of the Declaration of Independence, here’s a partial list, only where the Declaration says “he” it’s referring to the King as the King of England; “he” as used in my list, however, refers to the President:
He has enabled the random firing of personnel throughout the government without regard to the importance of the job or the qualifications of the individual, which has severely compromised the ability of the affected agencies to carry out the purposes Congress intended, the very antithesis of faithfully executing the laws; the very antithesis of faithfully executing the laws.
He has enabled the dismemberment of agencies providing essential services to the American people, most particularly in the Social Security and Veterans Administrations, by people who literally don’t know what they are doing, again in violation of his responsibility to faithfully execute the laws creating those agencies and programs;
He has systematically, early in the Administration, fired independent Inspectors General throughout the government—whose job it is to find fraud, corruption and malfeasance in agency programs—in clear violation of federal law and apparent intent to govern without constraints;
He has used the power of the government to threaten, intimidate, and extort private law firms for the supposed offense of representing clients he doesn’t like, an exercise of governmental power nowhere found in the Constitution, and a clear violation of the very structure of our legal system;
He has used the power of the government to threaten and intimidate former government officials based upon actions and statements with which he disagrees, thereby sending the message throughout the government that pleasing the President is more important than telling the truth. Again, he has no such power under the Constitution, and the result of this abuse of his office is the opposite of faithfully executing the laws;
He has openly threatened media platforms—particularly television networks—with license revocation or other punishment for airing content he doesn’t like, in clear violation of the First Amendment, one of the fundamental bulwarks of our freedoms. For a president of the United States to threaten a media firm with revocation of their license or other forms of punishment for content he doesn’t like, that’s the antithesis of the First Amendment. The compromise of the free press has been a sign of incipient despotism throughout history—right up to the present day;
He has used the power of the government (including the impoundment of Congressionally appropriated funds and threatening tax-exempt status) to threaten and intimidate private universities in order to force them to adopt policies to his liking, again, a power found nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in Article II;
He has enabled a national program of arrest and deportation of individuals in this country with no due process whatsoever, and even when it is admitted that at least one such individual was sent to a foreign prison by mistake, he has refused to make any effort to return that person to his home despite court orders—including an unanimous order of the United States Supreme Court—that he do so; this entire process is a violation of the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments and certainly isn’t consistent with his obligation to faithfully execute the laws.
He has openly suggested the possibility of sending U.S. citizens to a foreign prison for undefined crimes, thereby placing them outside the reach of our criminal justice system, including the Constitutionally guaranteed right to counsel;
He has abused the limited powers delegated to him by Congress in connection with tariffs and trade by declaring emergencies where none exist and single-handedly plunging our economy into chaos and risk of inflation, unemployment, and possible recession—a perfect example of the dangers of one-man rule. The Constitution specifically delegates to the congress in Article I, Section VII, Clause III, the power over trade and commerce among Nations. Congress delegated that power to the president under certain limited circumstances, that of an emergency, not that a president can define an emergency however he wants. I live in Maine. We are on the border of Canada. There is no emergency that justifies the imposition of tariffs with Canada. If he wants to propose a tariff against Canada, Britain, or any other country, he should come here because that’s our responsibility. We should debate it and chances are we would come up with a more rational solution than the one the made several weeks ago;
He has attempted to cut off funds to a single state—my own—because he took personal umbrage at our Governor’s refusal to bend to his policy preference which was inconsistent with the law of our state. Our Governor’s position was not on the issue of trans-athletes, it was on the issue of state and local control. The basic bedrock of our representative form of government.
Tellingly, during that exchange, he said, “We are the law,” a statement more suitable to a king and one which is wholly inconsistent with our form of government. By the way, Mr. President, an Executive Order is not law despite what the President seems to think. This “We are the Law” comment is a clear statement of an intent to govern as a sovereign without regard to the Constitution or the rule of law;
In a field that I have some special knowledge of, he has compromised national security by dismantling those agencies charged with defending our nation against the clear and present danger of cyber-attacks and firing many of those individuals—with no stated cause—who are best suited to mount such a defense;
He has further compromised national security by alienating our allies with his unlawful and indiscriminate imposition of tariffs which has severely undermined confidence in our country, again acting far in excess of the limited power over trade delegated by Congress. Mr. President, I have served for the past 12 years on Intelligence and Armed Services, and I have come to realize that our asymmetric advantage in the world is allies. China has customers, we have allies. To alienate our allies, without good reason, with no emergency, with no consultation with congress, with no consultation with the Foreign Affairs committee, with no consultation with anybody as far as I can tell, is a serious compromise of our national security, both in terms of our intelligence capabilities, but also who will come our aid in a time of trouble
Mr. President, this is not a complete list, but it does present a disturbing and dangerous pattern—that this President is attempting to govern as a monarch, unbound by law or Constitutional restraint, not as a President subject to the constraints of the Constitution and the rule of law.
Again, this not about his policies—whether they be mass deportations or trans athletes, trade and tariffs, or the appropriate levels of staffing in the federal government—no, the issue before us—and we can no longer avoid it—is the manner in which he is pursuing those policies which violates both the spirit and the express terms of our founding document.
And again, this is not about observing the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution just to check the appropriate boxes; this is about observing those boundaries to protect ourselves and our people from the abuse that inevitably—inevitably—flows from the unbridled concentration of power.
To those who like the policies of the President and are therefore willing to ignore the unconstitutional means of effectuating them, I (and history) can only say, watch out:
Today, the target may be the undocumented or federal workers, but tomorrow (perhaps under a different King-President), it could be you.
Once this power is concentrated into one set of hands, it’s going to be very difficult to get it back and it can turn that power against anybody who displeases the monarch. So what can we do? What are the guardrails and how can we buttress and support them?
The first guardrail is the Congress itself, the part of our government actually empowered to define policy, appropriate funds, and oversee the actions of the executive. But unfortunately, the majority in Congress has thus far wholly abdicated these fundamental responsibilities and, thus far, has shown little inclination to even recognize the danger, let alone take action to confront it.
We could reclaim our power, however, by pulling back the trade authority (there’s a bill to do that), instituting vigorous oversight of the activities of DOGE to determine to what extent their actions compromise congressional intent, or holding the President’s nominees and his prized tax bill until he ceases his attempts to make policy unilaterally, including impounding congressionally authorized and appropriated funds.
You know, do our job.
The second guardrail is the courts which are generally holding up their end of the Constitutional bargain, but they read the press just as we do and need to know that we are ready to reassume our powers and responsibilities. As easy as it may be for us to rely entirely on the courts to save us, that’s a cop-out; reclaiming power must be a joint project.
The final guardrail is the people, who more and more are speaking up—in rallies, in correspondence with us, in town meetings, and in conversations at the grocery store.
But their only real power, the midterm elections, don’t happen for 19 months, and in the meantime, the burden falls back to us.
I don’t think we have 19 months; given what’s happened in the first 100 days, we need to act now, before the awesome power of the United States’ government is consolidated into one set of hands. When that happens, there may be no going back.
No, we can’t escape the responsibility of our oath. Each of us swore, swore mind you, to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;” [and that we would] “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” The same being the Constitution.
Clearly, the Framers knew there might someday be “domestic” enemies of the Constitution and made it our sacred obligation to defend the Constitution from them.
(I should mention that Joe McCarthy primaried Senator Smith a few years after her speech as punishment to standing up to him, but to no avail, she cruched her opposition and won going away).
So, with thanks to Margaret Chase Smith for her example and inspiration, this is my ‘Declaration of Conscience.’ I don’t relish this moment, but feel I have no choice but call out the clear implications—and dangers—of what is happening.
What is happening day by day before our eyes; to do otherwise, to keep silent, would be to compromise what I have believed about our country since my first civics class in high school and, at about the same time, when I watched my dad risk his career to fight for justice and the rule of law.
And so, here I stand.
Abraham Lincoln came to the Congress in the midst of the Civil War—at a time when our forebears—like us—were reluctant to face the responsibilities that had been thrust upon them. At that critical moment, this is what Abraham Lincoln said:
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”
Mr. President, I deeply hope that in the midst of our fiery trial, we will choose honor—and the Constitution.
Source: United States Senator for Maine Angus King
To watch the floor speech, click here
The full transcript of the speech can be found here
WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Senator Angus King today spoke on the Senate floor to commemorate the 75th anniversary of former U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s (R-ME) ‘Declaration of Conscience’ speech. The speech, delivered on June 1, 1950, would be the defining moment in which a Republican stood up to her own party in defense of American democracy.
More specifically, King called on his colleagues in both parties to remember her legacy and “…stop thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and start thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques – techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”
Early in the speech, King highlighted the importance of Constitutional boundaries.
King began, “And again, this is not about observing the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution just to check the appropriate boxes; this is about observing those boundaries to protect ourselves from the abuse that inevitably—inevitably—flows from the unbridled concentration of power. To those who like the policies of the President and are therefore willing to ignore the unconstitutional means of effectuating them, I (and history) can only say, watch out: Today, the target may be the undocumented or federal workers, but tomorrow (perhaps under a different King-President), it could be you.”
King then reminded his colleagues and the American people that the President’s unorthodox maneuvers are against the law.
“Echoing Senator Smith, today’s crisis should not be viewed as a partisan issue; this is not about Democrats or Republicans, or immigration or tax policy, or even the next set of elections; today’s crisis threatens the idea of America and the system of government that has sustained us for more than two centuries,” King said later in the speech. “Again, this is not about the President’s agenda (and yes, I disagree with most of it), it’s about the manner in which he is pursuing it—which includes ignoring the Constitution and the rule of law—and it’s this roughshod non-process that endangers all of us, his detractors and supporters alike.”
King concluded the speech by alluding to Smith as his inspiration for standing up to power, even when the moment may be difficult to face.
“So, with thanks to Margaret Chase Smith for her example and inspiration, this is my ‘Declaration of Conscience.’ I don’t relish this moment, but feel I have no choice but call out the clear implications—and dangers—of what is happening; to do otherwise, to keep silent, would be to compromise what I have believed about our country since my first civics class in high school and, at about the same time, when I watched my dad risk his career to fight for justice and the rule of law. And so, here I stand,” King concluded.
Senator King has been consistently sounding the alarm on President Donald Trump’s existential threat to the Constitution. He previously gave a speech on the Senate floor sharing that this administration is doing ‘exactly what the Framers [of the Constitution] most feared” and a speech where he shared his growing concerns over the Trump Administration’s usurpation of Congressional authority. Senator King also previously declared that the proposal to halt all federal grant and loan disbursement was illegal and a direct assault on the Constitution. More recently, he joined 36 Senators in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sharing the detrimental effects of the Trump Administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He also joined fellow Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) colleagues in writing a letter to the White House about the risks to national security by allowing unvetted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff and representatives to access classified and sensitive government materials.
Financial education will be embedded as a core element of the refreshed social sciences curriculum for Year 1-10 students, set to be available for use from 2026, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced today.
“Embedding essential skills into the curriculum will ensure our young people are better prepared to make informed financial decisions in a complex financial world. This will positively impact their lives and the broader economy,” says Minister Stanford.
For younger students the curriculum will cover key financial skills, such as identifying needs versus wants, having a bank account, earning, spending and saving. Older students will gain the knowledge needed to understand more complex concepts, such as budgeting, investment, interest, taxes, and insurance to help to build lifelong financial skills. We have already included financial maths in the new maths curriculum, which is being delivered this year.
To support the implementation of financial education in the new curriculum, a variety of tools and resources, developed in collaboration with financial organisations, banks, and charitable trusts, will be available to schools, ensuring they can effectively deliver the curriculum.
A new partnership between the Ministry of Education and the Retirement Commission will map the offerings from financial education providers against the updated curriculum. The Retirement Commission’s work with providers will ensure consistent curriculum-aligned supports and resources, giving schools confidence in their delivery.
This resource map will be extended into senior secondary years with guidance and resources for Year 11-13 students, supporting schools to flexibly deliver ongoing financial education to their students.
“As the Minister responsible for the Retirement Commission, I absolutely believe that strengthening financial education is crucial to our Government’s focus on economic growth. We are all consumers, and financial literacy can set young Kiwis up to be savvy consumers – whether it’s knowing how to invest wisely, choose the best loan at a bank, or even identify a scam,” Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Scott Simpson says.
“We know that New Zealand parents have long called for financial education to be a priority. This curriculum update answers those calls, ensuring students are equipped with the knowledge to thrive in both personal and financial aspects of their lives,” says Minister Stanford.
This initiative marks a significant step forward in New Zealand’s education system, placing a strong emphasis on real-world skills that will empower students to take control of their financial futures.
Notes to Editor:
Providers working with the Retirement Commission include:
Sorted in Schools (Retirement Commission)
Banqer
MoneyTime
Life Education
Young Enterprise Trust
Savvy
Westpac
ASB
Kiwi bank
BNZ
A draft of the updated social sciences learning area will be available in Term 4, 2025 for feedback. An updated version will be available for schools to use in 2026, and is planned to be required from 2027.
Source: United States Senator for Colorado John Hickenlooper
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, along with Representative Joe Neguse, urged Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to preserve funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its Cooperative Institutes (CIs) following recent reports that the Trump administration plans to cut funding for NOAA in its upcoming budget proposal.
“Cooperative Institutes are integral to solving some of our biggest problems and making all of us safer and better prepared for short-term and long-term hazards. Any plan to terminate funding for NOAA CIs would be detrimental not just to the people of Colorado, but to people across the entire country,” wrote the lawmakers.
Colorado is the only state in the nation to house two CIs, which are academic and nonprofit research centers that provide invaluable support to NOAA’s mission.
The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), located at the University of Colorado Boulder, is the oldest and largest CI. It employs nearly 800 researchers, support staff, and students focused on research related to drought, wildfire, and space weather.
The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), located at Colorado State University, employs nearly 200 individuals who are working to improve weather and fire forecasting.
“We strongly condemn any such plan and believe terminating this funding would be extremely short-sighted and costly to the American people and economy in the long run,” continued the lawmakers.
Source: United States Senator for Nebraska Deb Fischer
Today, U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, questioned the nominees for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, Michael Cadenazzi, Jr., and Principal Deputy Administrator National Nuclear Security Administration, Vice Admiral Scott Pappano, USN, at their confirmation hearing.
During the hearing, Fischer asked VADM Pappano about ensuring that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) weapons production remains on schedule. She emphasized the importance of modernized facilities capable of processing the materials necessary for nuclear weapons production.
Fischer asked Mr. Cadenazzi about working with NNSA and the Department of Energy to grow our skilled manufacturing workforce and address broader industrial base concerns. She also asked about increasing munitions production and the Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Strategy.
Click the image above to watch a video of Fischer’s questioning
Click here to download audio
Click here to download video
Fischer Questions Nominees:Fischer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Ranking Member Reed. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today and for your willingness to continue to serve this country. Admiral, thank you for coming in to visit. I appreciated you taking time in the conversation that we had. If confirmed, can you tell me how you will work to ensure that NNSA weapons production remains on schedule?
VADM Pappano: Thank you, Senator. Yes, if confirmed, obviously, the production—shifting to production—is a key element for us to modernize the nuclear weapons stockpile right now. We’ve done a very good job of stockpile management in a science-based manner and kept up over the years. However, now, we have to transition that from the science-based stockpile management to actual production facilities and make sure we modernize the facilities, making sure that we don’t lose the science in the process and continue that going forward. I’ll look to do that by looking across at how we are modernizing our facilities right now and try to bring as much advanced manufacturing capabilities we can. As we look at the Manhattan Project era buildings that we’re dealing with: a lot of these facilities, how do we—as we modernize those—bring in modern technology so that we can be much more effective going forward in our production of nuclear weapons stockpile.
Fischer: Thank you. We talked a little bit about NNSA’s 25-year Enterprise Blueprint, a roadmap to modernize the infrastructure there, and some of which, as you brought up in our discussion, dates back to the Manhattan Project. We won’t be able to produce the weapons that we need without the facilities needed to process materials like uranium, lithium, high explosives that go in those nuclear weapons. So, anything we can do as you look at that modernization process, please let us know.Fischer: Mr. Cadenazzi, both the Department of Defense and the NNSA have similar challenges with their industrial bases, and I believe that we have an opportunity now to address underlying issues in a way that strengthens both the nuclear industrial base and the defense industrial base. If confirmed, do you commit to working closely with NNSA and the Department of Energy on policies – like increasing our skilled manufacturing workforce – that would impact both of those industrial bases?
Mr. Cadenazzi: Senator, appreciate the question and the significance of it, particularly in light of the workforce issues and access to materials that we’re facing across the industrial base. These are major challenges that both the NNSA and the broader defense industry face and are dealing with. And if confirmed, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to speak to you about how and where the Industrial Base Policy office and I might be able to focus.
Fischer: Great. What we’ve seen happen in the Ukraine war has shown us that militaries in modern conflicts, they expend munitions at a much faster pace than we ever expected before. And our stockpiles must be adjusted to account for this, and we must expend our munitions production capacity. We have to expand that. We’ve taken some steps to address it in recent years, and we have the opportunity to make those generational investments through the reconciliation process. In your opening statement, Sir, you said that production must be scaled now before conflict starts. I agree with that. If confirmed, what steps would you take to accomplish that goal?
Mr. Cadenazzi: Appreciate the question again, Senator, the issue of munitions production is the top of the priority list, and something I’ve discussed with multiple Senators on this committee. I’m excited to work with the committee, if confirmed, on this topic. There are a couple of major things that I think will drive this. One is predictable and stable defense budget and program spend. So, the more we can stabilize that, the more industry will be able to align around it. A better understanding in industry of what the expectations for surge capacity are will make it clear what the potential opportunities are for them, and the level of capital required to increase facilities and workforce. That’s a major opportunity for the Department to articulate what would be a big, hairy, audacious goal in business school terms. And to go ahead and say, “we need a lot more capability from you, and we need to agree then on the investment required to meet that point.” We need to scale the workforce as well. There are many initiatives underway to improve workforce capabilities across the country. We need to grow those and take advantage of small businesses as well. If confirmed, these are all exciting opportunities for us to help address what is an obvious and well reported gap on this issue.
Fischer: Are you familiar with the Department’s National Defense Industrial Strategy?
Mr. Cadenazzi: I am, Senator, yes.
Fischer: Do you have any concerns with that strategy or think that there are gaps there that still need to be addressed?
Mr. Cadenazzi: Senator, I think the strategy is solid given the expectations of the previous administration and the goals they were looking to achieve. I’ve reviewed the external, open-source material for that and the associated implementation plan. If confirmed, I’m eager to work with the Industrial Base Policy office, the administration, and the committees to understand what changes we believe are necessary. I’m happy to work with you on that and to make sure that we tune that to meet the current needs of the moment, particularly in light of the changing requirements of the new administration.
Initially expected to result in a decisive Conservative victory, the Canadian federal election took a dramatic turn as Mark Carney led the Liberals to victory. It also offered an important lesson in the power of strategic voting — driven not just by domestic politics but by external pressures from the United States and a re-energized Liberal campaign.
The pushback against the Conservatives, and in particular their leader, Pierre Poilievre, led to him losing in his own riding, although the Conservatives gained more seats overall.
The Liberals benefited from strategic voting, but it was the NDP that appeared to lose the most from this strategy.
My first book, Voting Radical Right in Western Europe (2009), focused on the impact of strategic voting. At the time, I observed that political parties would often try to induce voters to vote strategically for a party or candidate that might not otherwise be their first choice.
This type of strategic voting was clearly on display in the second round of the French presidential election in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far right National Front faced Jacques Chirac in the second round.
This strategy worked again in the July 2024 legislative elections in France, where the left and mainstream right-leaning parties came together to make sure that they didn’t split the vote in districts where it could lead to a win by the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally). In both cases, voters chose more moderate candidates, reducing the influence of the far right.
Electoral systems are often designed to encourage voters to choose a more moderate candidate. This approach includes putting electoral hurdles in place. For example, parties in Germany have to win at least five per cent of the vote or win three district seats to enter the legislature.
The ability of that party to gain votes in the former East Germany has been the main reason for its success.
Winners and losers in Canada
Canada presents an interesting case for strategic voting. In the lead-up to the federal election, many voters were posting suggestions for strategic voting in districts where the vote was being split between parties, particularly on the left.
For example, there was a close race in a riding in British Columbia between the Green and Conservative candidates. I noticed social media posts in which voters were encouraged to shift their vote from the NDP or Liberal candidates to give the Green candidate a better chance of winning the riding.
Given the fact that the Canadian electoral system is winner-take-all in each riding, it’s important that voters understand the broader impact of their vote on the national outcome.
It’s likely that many voters switched their votes from their smaller, preferred party — particularly the NPD — to one of the main parties, depending on the kind of poll projections they might have been seeing in their ridings.
This situation exemplifies the importance of parties providing clear information on potential outcomes to encourage voters to use their vote strategically to get a desired outcome at the national level.
Terri Givens 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: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
“We pay special attention to new regions. President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin emphasizes that a comprehensive program for their socio-economic development is one of our nationwide, most important priorities. This applies to all areas, including education and science. In the Kherson region, with the support of the Government, new educational and sports infrastructure is being restored and created. More than 17 thousand students study at regional universities. About 4.5 thousand budget places have been allocated for the upcoming academic year. Vladimir Vasilievich, a new admissions campaign will start soon, I ask you to personally monitor its progress,” said Dmitry Chernyshenko.
Students of the region are actively involved in scientific and educational activities and implement various projects. Youth laboratories operate in the region. Colleges of the Kherson region participate in the championship movement “Abilympics” and the championship “Professionals”.
During the meeting, the topic of youth policy in the region was also discussed.
“A new youth center will be opened this year under the “Region for the Young” program. The volunteer movement is actively developing in the Kherson region, with more than 7,000 people involved. The guys are great, they work in the regional center of the 80th anniversary of Victory, actively helping the participants of the SVO and their families,” the vice-premier said.
Special attention in the Kherson region is currently paid to the development of sports infrastructure. This year, five open physical culture and health complexes for practicing various sports will be created in the subject, a martial arts center and a modular hall for table tennis are also being built, and sports facilities are being equipped with equipment.
Dmitry Chernyshenko said that the Government, together with the region, will continue to restore and create infrastructure, and noted the important role of Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin in this process.
The Kherson region will also receive support within the framework of the national project “Tourism and Hospitality”. Funds have been allocated for this from the federal budget.
“The support provided by the Government of the Russian Federation, personally by President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Dmitry Nikolaevich Chernyshenko, is of great importance for the Kherson region. Thanks to our joint work, we are restoring educational institutions, creating new opportunities for young people, developing sports and tourism. This is a serious contribution to the future of the region and strengthening its socio-economic potential. I am confident that together we will achieve all the goals set,” said the governor of the Kherson region.
In the village of Schastlivtsevo, Dmitry Chernyshenko and Vladimir Saldo assessed the progress of construction of the branch of the Tavrida art cluster, which should become a center of attraction for creative youth. The work is planned to be completed by the summer of 2025.
“This facility will become a year-round educational center for the youth of Russia’s historical regions. More than 50 buildings will accommodate over 300 participants – future creators, leaders, and professionals,” Vladimir Saldo emphasized.
The national project “Youth and Children” and the Rosmolodezh programs implemented in the Kherson region were discussed at the site of the branch of the art cluster “Tavrida”.
In addition, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Governor took part in the opening of the renovated acrobatics hall of the children’s and youth sports center. The facility was renovated on the instructions of the head of state and with the support of the Government.
Dmitry Chernyshenko assessed the renovated premises, presented the Center with a certificate for equipment, watched the performances of the students, and also talked with young athletes and coaches. The Deputy Prime Minister, among other things, spoke about the preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the sports facilities in Sirius and recalled the goal set by President Vladimir Putin – to increase the share of Russians systematically involved in physical education and sports to 70% by 2030.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Since President Donald J. Trump took office 100 days ago, it has been a nonstop deluge of hoaxes and lies from Democrats and their allies in the Fake News suffering from terminal cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
In no particular order, here are some of the most egregious hoaxes peddled by the usual suspects so far in President Trump’s second term:
HOAX: Fake News CNN attempted to “fact check” President Trump’s claim that the Biden Administration spent millions on “making mice transgender.”
HOAX: The Fake News claimed the Department of Defense removed Gen. Colin Powell’s name from a list of notable Americans buried at Arlington Cemetery.
FACT: No service members’ names were removed from that section — and Gen. Powell’s name remains among those listed.
HOAX: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) claimed “no president” presided over more plane crashes during their first month in office as President Trump.
FACT: “There were 55 aviation accidents in the U.S. between Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 21, 2021, and Feb. 17, 2021, compared to 35 during the same period for Trump,” Fox News reported.
FACT: It was actually the U.S. Secret Service investigating a threat unrelated to immigration.
HOAX: Far-left influencers and other leftist hacks falsely claimed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk were out to “cut Social Security.”
FACT: They were referencing an interview in which Musk was clearly referring to the tremendous amount of waste, fraud, and abuse within entitlement programs.
HOAX: The media smeared DOGE as “young, inexperienced engineers” engineering a “government takeover.”
FACT: In reality, DOGE is led by seasoned industry professionals, including successful CEOs who paused their lives to aid in the effort of streamlining government and holding the bureaucracy accountable.
HOAX: NBC’s Peter Alexander peddled the lie that “constituents in some traditionally red districts” were unhappy with President Trump’s effort to cut waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
FACT: The same “protests” cited by the Fake News were funded and organized by far-left special interest groups.
HOAX: NPR claimed NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore — who were stuck on the International Space Station for more than nine months following problems with their spacecraft — were “not stranded.”
FACT: NPR itself had described the astronauts as stranded in prior reporting, and only seemed to take issue with the description once President Trump and Elon Musk made it a priority to bring them home.
HOAX: A foreign Fake News outlet reported that President Trump “shut down” the British prime minister during a news conference.
FACT: In reality, President Trump was simply moving on from a reporter who was trying to goad the two leaders into division.
HOAX: NPR falsely claimed the White House was actively searching for a new secretary of defense.
HOAX: The Fake News attempted to paint illegal immigrant gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an innocent “Maryland father” who was unjustly deported by the Trump Administration — and actively censored the truth about him.
FACT: Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador and was deported to his home country amid overwhelming evidence of his gang affiliation.
HOAX: Deranged “filmmaker” Michael Moore questioned whether deported illegal immigrants would go on to cure cancer or stop “that asteroid (sic) that’s gonna hit us.”
FACT: Moore’s statement was a strong early contender for the dumbest, most ridiculous statement of the year considering those deported illegal immigrants were violent criminals.
HOAX: The Fake News portrayed Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Hamas radical who led violent protests at Columbia, as an innocent graduate student with an absolute right to remain in the U.S.
FACT: An immigration judge ruled Khalil — who is not a U.S. citizen — can be deported.
HOAX: The Financial Timesreported that Senior White House Counselor Peter Navarro wanted to remove Canada from the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing network.
FACT: Mr. Navarro immediately shut down this fake story.
HOAX: A foreign Fake News reporter claimed President Trump referred to European nations as “parasites.”
FACT: President Trump immediately pushed back on this ridiculous claim — as did the Italian prime minister.
HOAX: Fake News CNN’s Brianna Keilar implied the Trump Administration was somehow wrong for stopping illegal immigrants from stealing taxpayer dollars in the form of welfare benefits.
FACT: Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller summarily embarrassed her with the facts: “The federal government will find EVERY illegal alien who is stealing American taxpayer dollars — and that’s what Americans expect to happen. I don’t even fathom the premise of your question.”
HOAX: A favorite refrain of the Fake News is that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is “anti-vaccine.”
FACT: Kennedy debunked the lie in his confirmation hearings: “This has been repeatedly debunked … Bringing this up right now is dishonest.”
HOAX: WIRED falsely claimed the Social Security Administration is “shifting its public communication exclusively to X” under President Trump.
HOAX: Reuters falsely reported that the Trump Administration “stalled a United Nations program in Mexico aimed at stopping imported fentanyl chemicals from reaching the country’s drug cartels.”
FACT: The Department of State is actually trying to expand the initiative.
FACT: The Fake News frequently pushed the lie that as part of the Trump administration, Secretary Kennedy would implement a national abortion ban and “restrict or even ban medication abortion without a single act of Congress.”
FACT: Secretary Kennedy consistently pledged to implement President Trump’s policies — which include leaving abortion to the states, ending barbaric late-term abortions, protecting conscientious objections, and ending federal funding for abortions.
HOAX: Fake News savant Tara Palmeri falsely reported that President Trump’s proposal for Gaza was conceived by Jared Kushner.
FACT: This lie was immediately and summarily debunked by the Trump Administration: “The worst reporter in America makes up fake news for clout because she has no real sources. Sit down, dummy.”
HOAX: Sen. Chris Murphy, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and media outlets claimed President Trump’s directive to pause radical, wasteful government spending meant an end to Medicaid, food assistance, and other individual assistance programs.
FACT: Individual assistance programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, etc. — were explicitly excluded, as was made clear by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and the Office of Management and Budget. Only unnecessary spending — DEI, Green New Scam, NGOs that undermine the national interest — were included in the directive.
HOAX: A “physicians advocacy group” was widely cited as opposing President Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
FACT: The “advocacy group” was really an astroturfed partisan organization funded by prominent left-wing donors — and accepted fake signatures.
HOAX: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and other Democrats pushed the lie that DOGE posted “classified information” on their website.
FACT: That alleged “classified information” was really just an employment headcount — which has been publicly available for years.
HOAX: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) claimed Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem called all Venezuelan immigrants “dirtbags.”
FACT: Secretary Noem actually called illegal immigrant members of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang “dirtbags,” which is true.
HOAX:The New York Timeswrote that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wanted to “ban fluoride in drinking water” and “reverse … one of the most important public health practices in the country’s history.”
FACT: New York Times made no mention of their own reporting that fluoride may be “linked to lower IQ scores in children.”
HOAX: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) repeatedly lied about President Trump “going after” Social Security.
FACT: President Trump has repeatedly pledged to protect Social Security and make it more robust for American citizens.
HOAX: Sen. Mark Kelley (D-AZ) attempted to scare veterans by shamelessly claiming their care was in jeopardy due to “layoffs” at VA hospitals.
FACT: The lie was debunked by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins: “What changes are you talking about? We’ve not had those layoffs… I put $360 million back into community care… It’s concerning to me that a veteran would actually tell stories to veterans that are not true.”
HOAX: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) exploited the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport plane crash tragedy by claiming President Trump “froze the hiring” of air traffic controllers.
FACT: Air traffic controllers were exempt from the federal hiring freeze.
HOAX: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) implied that “cutting” members of an aviation advisory committee was somehow a cause of the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport plane crash tragedy.
FACT: The advisory group hadn’t met since 2023 and was comprised of business and union leaders who gave “advice” to the TSA and had nothing to do with actual air travel.
HOAX: A far-left writer claimed Elon Musk and DOGE staffers “illegally installed a commercial server to control federal HR databases that contain sensitive personal information, including SSNs, home addresses, and medical histories.”
FACT: A top official confirmed “there’s nothing illegal and no server, just more made up tall tales from uninformed career bureaucrats.”
HOAX:The Washington Postalleged the Trump Administration was setting “quotas” for immigration authorities — and gave the administration just four minutes to comment before publishing.
FACT: The illegal immigrant was a confirmed member of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang. An immigration judge ordered his removal, and he was deported along with other threats to national security.
HOAX:The Wall Street Journalalleged that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was receiving sensitive information on a personal phone while in Moscow and that Russian Intelligence must’ve had access to the information.
FACT: This was a total fabrication. Special Envoy Witkoff did not even have a personal phone with him in Russia. He had only a government phone; a secure line of communication.
HOAX:The Wall Street Journalclaimed the Trump Administration “sought to portray” deported criminal illegal immigrant gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia as “violent.”
FACT: Abrego Garcia’s own wife filed an order of protection against him and testified that he brutally beat her.
HOAX: An AP reporter claimed that FAA staff who worked on “radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, among others” were “harassed on Facebook” by DOGE.
FACT: That was a total lie. DOGE doesn’t have a Facebook page and no professionals who perform critical safety functions were fired.
HOAX: The Daily Beast claimed Vice President JD Vance “broke one of the most notorious Vatican rules during his Easter weekend visit” by being photographed in the Sistine Chapel.
FACT: Buried all the way down in the 14th paragraph, The Daily Beast admitted the vice president was given special permission by the Vatican to have photographs taken inside the Sistine Chapel.
HOAX: Left-wing social media accounts promoted fake, AI-generated audio of Vice President Vance “disparaging Elon Musk in private.”
HOAX:The New York Timesreported that funding for the Women’s Health Initiative was being slashed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
FACT: Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., himself declared this Fake News and recognized the project is “mission critical.”
HOAX: Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin gave legitimacy to a hoax from delusional Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requested nearly $140,000 in “upgrades” to his government residence.
FACT: This lie was debunked by Secretary Hegseth — and it was so outrageous, even the AP was forced to admit it was completely fake.
HOAX: Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) and many others claimed the Supreme Court ordered the return of illegal immigrant gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States.
FACT: Even CNN admitted that’s not what happened: “They did not order the administration to return him to the United States … they could’ve said ‘we order him returned,’ but they didn’t do that.”
HOAX: Joe Biden accused the Trump Administration of “taking aim at Social Security.”
FACT: As usual, he was lying — President Trump has repeatedly pledged to protect Social Security.
HOAX: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) claimed the arrest of a Milwaukee judge who helped an illegal immigrant evade arrest was “unprecedented.”
HOAX: Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) called the arrest of a Milwaukee judge who helped an illegal immigrant evade arrest a “gravely serious and drastic move.”
FACT: The judge violated the law by obstructing an ICE arrest of an illegal immigrant.
HOAX: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) claimed the arrest of the Milwaukee judge who obstructed an apprehension of a criminal illegal immigrant “threatens the rule of law.”
FACT: It literally does the opposite because no one is above the law.
HOAX: Politico claimed the Trump Administration “wipe[d] out firefighter health and safety programs.”
FACT: The programs remain a top priority for the administration — and will remain intact.
HOAX: Sen. Elizabeth Warren claimed that President Trump’s policies make it so “no one wants to make investments in the United States.”
FACT: President Trump has secured more than $5 trillion in investments since taking office, which is expected to create more than 451,000 new jobs — and the list is only expected to grow.
HOAX: NBC’s Kristen Welker peddled a Fake News hoax that the Trump Administration was deporting children.
FACT: Secretary of State Marco Rubio shut down her desperate attempt at a hoax by highlighting how the mother, who was in the country illegally, made that choice all on her own.
HOAX:The New York Timesimplied President Trump was alone in wearing a blue suit to the funeral of Pope Francis.
FACT: Photos show dozens of world leaders and other attendees — many situated near President Trump — alsowearingblue clothing.
HOAX: Teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten accused President Trump of taking teachers’ salaries and giving them to “billionaires” by cutting the Department of Education.
FACT: President Trump has repeatedly called teachers “the most important people in this country” who should be paid more, not less. The federal government does not pay the salaries of teachers; state and local governments do.
HOAX: The Fake News and their predictable allies ran with a story that claimed an American citizen was detained by authorities after he informed them he was, in fact, a citizen.
FACT: That’s not what happened. The individual “approached Border Patrol in Tucson and stated he had entered the U.S. illegally through Nogales. He said he wanted to turn himself in and completed a sworn statement identifying as a Mexican citizen who had entered unlawfully … A few days later, his family presented documents showing U.S. citizenship. The charges were dismissed, and he was released to his family.”
HOAX: PBS News claimed “DOGE operatives attempted to gain access to secure spaces,” implying they attempted to access classified information without approval.
HOAX: The AP falsely claimed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said President Trump is “very good friends” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
FACT: The AP was humiliatingly forced to retract its story, admitting they were wrong. Stephanie Ruhle also had to issue a correction. DNI Gabbard was referencing President Trump’s relationship with Indian PM Narendra Modi.
FACT: Wrong. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “When you apply to enter the United States and you get a visa, you are a guest… If you tell us when you apply for a visa ‘I’m coming to the U.S. to participate in pro-Hamas events,’ that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States… If you had told us you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa.”
Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 2
News Release Tuesday, April 29, 2025
New initiative aims to reduce use of animals in NIH-funded research.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is adopting a new initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research. Developing and using cutting-edge alternative nonanimal research models aligns with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent initiative to reduce testing in animals. While traditional animal models continue to be vital to advancing scientific knowledge, using new and emerging technologies can offer unique strengths that, when utilized correctly or in combination, can expand the toolbox for researchers to answer previously difficult or unanswerable biomedical research questions. “For decades, our biomedical research system has relied heavily on animal models. With this initiative, NIH is ushering in a new era of innovation,” said NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. “By integrating advances in data science and technology with our growing understanding of human biology, we can fundamentally reimagine the way research is conducted—from clinical development to real-world application. This human-based approach will accelerate innovation, improve healthcare outcomes, and deliver life-changing treatments. It marks a critical leap forward for science, public trust, and patient care.” Some bodies of research have been inconclusive on the efficacy of translating the results of animal models to human diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. These translational challenges to humans may be due to differences in anatomy, physiology, lifespan, and disease characteristics. While humans and animals may share genes, some studies have shown there could be functional differences between organ and body systems that may result in some translational limitations. New and emerging technologies have begun to allow researchers to study health and disease using human information, making them an alternative avenue to yield replicable, translatable, and efficient results either alone or in combination with animal models. These technologies include:
Organoids, tissue chips, and other in vitro systems that allow scientists to model human disease and capture human variability and patient-specific characteristics. Computational models which simulate complex biological human systems, disease pathways, and drug interactions. Real-world data that allow scientists to study health outcomes in humans at community and population levels.
To integrate innovative human-based science, the NIH intends to establish the Office of Research Innovation, Validation, and Application (ORIVA) within NIH’s Office of the Director. The new office will coordinate NIH-wide efforts to develop, validate, and scale the use of non-animal approaches across the agency’s biomedical research portfolio and serve as a hub for interagency coordination and regulatory translation for public health protection. ORIVA will expand funding and training in non-animal approaches and awareness of their value in translational success. New funding opportunities will include evaluation criteria that assess methods based on their suitability for the research question, context of use, translatability, and human relevance. Infrastructure for non-animal approaches will also be expanded to make these methods more accessible to researchers. In addition, grant review staff will participate in mitigation training to address any possible bias towards animal studies and integrate experts on alternative methods into study sections. NIH will also publicly report on research spending annually to measure progress toward reduction of funding for animal studies and an increase in funding for human-based approaches. About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov. NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health® ###
OAKLAND –California Attorney General Rob Bonta today joined a coalition of 14 attorneys general in sending a letter to Congress, urging members to oppose two Congressional bills (H.R. 1415 and S. 623, collectively, the No IRIS Act) that would prohibit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from relying on scientific assessments from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, which are critical to protect against exposure to harmful toxic chemicals. The coalition also urges Congress to oppose the Trump Administration’s plan to dismantle the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD), which is the research arm of the EPA that provides the scientific basis for EPA’s work.
“Undermining EPA’s independent science arm and the IRIS program jeopardizes vital research and health protections for Americans across this country,” said Attorney General Bonta. “The environmental challenges we are facing demand action rooted in continued research and facts. That’s why my fellow attorneys general and I are urging Congress to swiftly oppose the No IRIS Act and the proposed destruction of ORD.”
ORD and IRIS provide integral scientific and technical resources to states that help them protect residents from environmental pollutants that can cause significant health risks. States, including California, rely on tools, information, and data from ORD and IRIS, and these actions would significantly hamper the ability of both the EPA and the states to protect our residents from environmental harm. For example, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control uses data from IRIS assessments in determining cleanup standards for hazardous waste sites.
In the letter, the attorneys general explain IRIS assessments are the result of unbiased scientific review that determines at what level the many chemicals that enter the environment through industry and other sources are harmful to human health. The assessments are used by EPA to set regulatory levels for toxic contaminants and for permitting, cleanups, and emergency responses. Without knowing the level at which these chemicals can cause a risk to human health, such as cancer and birth defects, it would be difficult for EPA to adequately protect the public from exposure, which will jeopardize the health and safety of the entire country.
The attorneys general also highlight the importance of ORD and its critical scientific research that is used for a wide range of purposes, including protecting drinking water sources from natural disasters and terrorist attacks, studying air pollution caused by wildfire smoke, and researching PFAS and other emerging contaminants. The reported plan to dissolve ORD and fire more than 1,000 scientists would have immediate consequences and make it difficult for EPA to meet its statutory requirements to use the best available science to inform its work.
Attorney General Bonta joins the attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin in sending this letter.
US President Donald Trump declared earlier this year he would forge a “colour blind and merit-based society”.
His executive order was part of a broader policy directing the US military, federal agencies and other public institutions to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Framing this as restoring fairness, neutrality and strength to American institutions, Trump argued DEI programs “discourage merit and leadership” and amounted to “race-based and sex-based discrimination”.
In Australia too, debates over gender quotas and “the war on woke” have repeatedly invoked meritocracy as a rallying cry against affirmative action.
The narrative of rewards going to the most qualified people is compelling. Yet decades of research show this is flawed. Far from being the great equaliser, an uncritical reliance on “merit” can perpetuate bias and inequality.
The myths of meritocracy
The merit rhetoric invokes the ideal of a neutral, objective system rewarding talent and effort, regardless of identity.
In theory, merit-based evaluations such as exams, performance reviews, employee recruitment processes and competitive bids, should be impartial.
In practice however, there are several myths associated with the notion of merit.
1. Merit is purely objective or unbiased. In the employment context for example, studies show that even so-called objective and standardised cognitive or aptitude tests can systematically favour men due to the type of questions asked.
Decision-makers may unknowingly redefine merit to fit whoever already belongs to a favoured group. A study of elite law firms, for example, found male applicants were rated as more qualified than identical resumes from women.
This is known as “plasticity of merit”, meaning the criteria of excellence can bend to preference, all while appearing objective.
Supposedly merit-based judgments can reflect unconscious bias, or comfort with candidates who fit a traditional mould. Over time, preference may be given to a particular type of candidate irrespective of their actual contribution. Privilege and prejudice can be baked into merit-based evaluations.
In reality however, past inequalities shape present opportunities. What counts as merit is dynamic and socially shaped, not an eternal universal standard.
For example, during the second world war there was a shortage of male workers. Qualities women brought to jobs previously held by men such as capacity for teamwork were suddenly deemed meritorious. But these same qualities were downgraded when the men returned.
Merit is often defined in masculine terms. For example, physicality or hyper-competitive traits have long been seen as prerequisites for military service and policing.
Merit is often defined in masculine terms commonly associated with military, policing and firefighting services. Charnsitr/Shutterstock
This alignment of masculine norms with standards of merit has been termed “benchmark man”.
Science careers too were built in an era when women were largely excluded. They were predicated on long-hours work and total availability – requirements that clash with caregiving responsibilities. The result is women in STEM careers leave or are pushed out.
3. Outcomes are the result of personal choice or deficiencies, not structural barriers. Meritocracy carries a moral narrative: those at the top earned their place while those left behind didn’t measure up or chose not to compete.
Research shows, for example, that when women don’t advance, it’s explained as lifestyle choices, or they lack ambition, or have opted out to prioritise caregiving.
This narrative wilfully overlooks the structural constraints impacting choices. When a woman “chooses” a lower-paying, flexible job, it may be less about preference than inadequate social supports.
By accepting unequal outcomes as the natural result of individual choices, institutions can conveniently obscure disadvantage and discrimination and erase responsibility to correct inequities.
How the merit mandate undermines equality
Trump’s vision is to remove equity initiatives and programs that monitor or encourage fair hiring and promotion, cease training that alerts employees to hidden biases, and fire or reassign DEI staff.
This is conceptually flawed and will actually entrench the very biases and barriers that have kept institutions unequal.
In the military, for example – an area highlighted by Trump – leaders have recognised they need to foster more inclusive cultures.
For years, defence forces have grappled with sexual harassment, recruitment shortfalls and retention of skilled personnel. In Australia, the Australian Defence Force undertook major reviews to identify violent and sexist subcultures, understanding a more inclusive force is a more effective force.
Yet Trump’s order bars the Pentagon from even acknowledging historical sexism in the ranks.
Favouring the in-group
Removing equity measures under a banner of neutrality means hiring and promotion will increasingly rely on informal networks and subjective judgements. These can tilt in favour of the in-group – usually white, male and affluent.
DEI initiatives can increase representation of women, or people from diverse racial or cultural backgrounds, in an organisation or occupational group.
However, without challenging the norms of merit, or without broadening the definitions of talent and leadership, people in those groups may continue to feel like outsiders.
Australian experts and business leaders increasingly acknowledge objective merit is mythical.
Redefining merit
Fair rewards for effort can improve performance. However, we need to stop pitting merit against diversity. True fairness requires acknowledgement structural inequality exists and bias affects evaluations.
Organisations need to re-imagine merit in ways that work with inclusion, rather than against it. This includes refining hiring and promotion criteria to focus on competencies that are measurable and relevant.
Paula McDonald currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magnus Söderberg, Professor & Director, Centre for Applied Energy Economics and Policy Research, Griffith University
In an otherwise unremarkable election campaign, the major parties are promising sharply different energy blueprints for Australia. Labor is pitching a high-renewables future powered largely by wind, solar, hydroelectricity and batteries. The Coalition wants more gas and coal now, and would build nuclear power later.
So how might these two competing visions play out as Australia goes to the polls this Saturday?
Research shows clear generational preferences when it comes to producing electricity. Younger Australians prefer renewables while older people favour coal and gas. The one exception is nuclear power, which is split much more on gender lines than age – 51% of Australian men support it, but just 26% of women.
While many voters are focused squarely on the cost of living, energy prices feed directly into how much everything costs. Research has shown that as power prices rise, the more likely it is an incumbent government will be turfed out.
Coal, renewables or nuclear?
About half of young Australians (18–34) want the country powered by renewables by 2030, according to a 2023 survey of energy consumers. Only 13% of the youngest (18–24) group think there’s no need to change or that it’s impossible. But resistance increases directly with age. From retirement age and up, 29% favour a renewable grid by 2030 while 44% think there’s no need or that it’s impossible.
On nuclear, the divide is less clear. The Coalition has promised to build Australia’s first nuclear reactors if elected, and Coalition leader Peter Dutton has claimed young people back nuclear. That’s based on a Newspoll survey showing almost two-thirds (65%) of Australians aged 18–34 supported nuclear power.
But other polls give a quite different story: 46% support for nuclear by younger Australians in an Essential poll compared to 56% support by older Australians. A Savanta poll put young support at just 36%.
There’s a gender component too. The demographic most opposed to nuclear are women over 55.
Younger voters remain strongly committed to environmental goals – but they’re also wary of cost blowouts and electricity price rises. Some see nuclear as a zero emissions technology able to help with the clean energy transition.
Older Australians are more likely to be sceptical of nuclear power. This is likely due to nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl as well as the prospect of nuclear war during the Cold War.
It’s an open question how robust support for nuclear would be if the Coalition was elected and began the long, expensive process of construction. New findings by the National Climate Action Survey shows almost 40% of Australians would be “extremely concerned” if a nuclear power plant was built within 50 kilometres of their homes and another 16% “very concerned”.
These energy preferences aren’t just found in Australia. In recent research my co-authors and I found a clear divide in Sweden: younger favour renewables and nuclear, older favour fossil fuels. Why the difference? Sweden already gets about 40% of its power from nuclear, while renewables now provide about 40% of Australia’s power.
We found younger Swedes strongly favoured renewables – but also supported nuclear power, especially when electricity prices rose. That is because nuclear is perceived to stabilise the supply of electricity. They wanted clean energy, as long as it was reliable and affordable. Our study found older people were not necessarily pro-fossil fuels, but were more focused on keeping energy affordable – especially for businesses and industry.
When electricity prices rose in Sweden, our survey respondents broadly became less concerned about climate change and more likely to be favourable to nuclear energy.
In Australia, the cost of the clean energy transition has crept up. While solar and wind offer cheap power once built, there are hidden costs.
If electricity prices keep rising, we should expect to see declining support for the clean energy transition.
Overcoming the energy divide
During Australia’s decade-long climate wars from roughly 2012 to 2022, climate change was heavily politicised and energy became a political football. Under a Coalition government in 2014, Australia became the first nation to abolish a carbon tax.
Labor took office in 2022 pledging to end the climate wars and fast-track the clean energy transition. But the Coalition has opened up a new divide on energy by proposing nuclear power by the 2040s and more gas and coal in the meantime.
This election, the cost of living is the single biggest issue for 25% of voters in the ABC’s Vote Compass poll. But climate change is still the main concern for about 8% of voters, energy for 4% and the environment 3.5%. Here, Coalition backing for fossil fuels and nuclear may attract some older and younger voters but repel others. Labor’s renewable transition may attract younger voters but lose older energy traditionalists.
Energy preferences could play out through a cost of living lens. Parties pushing too hard on green policies this election risk alienating older voters concerned about rising costs. But going nuclear would be very expensive, and keeping old coal plants going isn’t cheap. Downplaying climate action or dismissing nuclear outright could alienate some younger Australians, who are climate-conscious and energy-savvy.
Policymakers should resist framing energy as a zero-sum game. There is a path forward which can unite generations: coupling ambitious climate targets with pragmatic policies to protect consumers. Transitional supports such as energy rebates, time-of-use pricing or community-scale renewables and batteries can soften any economic impact while building public trust.
Our research suggests electricity price rises can quickly erode support even for well-designed energy policies.
As Australia navigates a complex and costly transition, keeping both younger and older generations on board may be the greatest political – and moral – challenge of all.
Magnus Söderberg 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.
According to a study from the United States, women experience weight stigma in maternity care at almost every visit. We expect this experience to be similar in Australia, where more than 50% of women of reproductive age live in larger bodies.
Weight stigma can present as stereotyping, negative attitudes and discriminatory actions towards larger-bodied people.
It occurs in other areas of health care and in society at large. But our research is focused on weight stigma in maternity care, which can cause significant harm for larger-bodied women and their babies.
What does weight stigma look like in maternity care?
Sometimes weight stigma is explicit, or on purpose. Explicit weight stigma includes health-care professionals having negative attitudes towards caring for larger-bodied pregnant women. This might present, for instance, when health professionals make negative comments about weight or accuse women of dishonesty when they discuss their dietary intake.
Sometimes weight stigma is implicit, or unintentional. Implicit weight stigma includes maternity care providers avoiding physical touch or eye contact during consultations with larger-bodied women.
Policies, guidelines and environments also contribute to weight stigma. Women in larger bodies frequently report feeling stigmatised and unable to access the type of maternity care they would prefer. Lack of availability of adequately fitting hospital clothing or delivery beds are other notable examples.
In a review published last year, we looked at weight stigma from preconception to after birth. Our results showed larger-bodied women are sometimes automatically treated as high-risk and undergo extra monitoring of their pregnancy even when they have no other risk factors that require monitoring.
This approach is problematic because it focuses on body size rather than health, placing responsibility on the woman and disregarding other complex determinants of health.
One doctor told me I was terrible for getting pregnant at my weight, that I was setting up my baby to fail […] I was in tears, and he told me I was being too sensitive.
A 2023 Australian paper written by women who had experienced weight stigma in maternity care recounted their care as hyper-focused on weight and dehumanising, robbing them of the joy of pregnancy.
According to one woman, “there was no compassion or conversation, just blame”.
Beyond making women feel humiliated and disrespected, weight stigma in maternity care can affect mental health. For example, weight stigma is linked to increased risk of depressive symptoms and stress, disordered eating behaviours and emotional eating.
One of the key reasons why weight stigma is so damaging to pregnant women’s health is because it’s closely linked to body image concerns.
Society unfairly holds larger-bodied women up to unrealistic ideals around their body shape and size, their suitability to be a mother, and the control they have over their weight gain.
Self stigma occurs when women apply society’s stigmatising narrative – from people in the community, the media, peers, family members and health-care providers – to themselves.
Larger-bodied pregnant women can face stigma from health-care professionals and society at large. antoniodiaz/Shutterstock
While we know these things can also be linked to higher body weight, emerging evidence shows weight stigma may have a stronger link with some outcomes than body mass index.
There are a variety of possible reasons for these links. For example, weight stigma may result in delayed access to and engagement with health-care services, and, as shown above, poorer mental health and reduced confidence. This may mean a woman is less likely to initiate and seek help with breastfeeding, for example.
In turn, the adverse effects of weight stigma can also affect the baby’s health. For example, gestational diabetes has a range of potential negative outcomes including a higher likelihood of premature birth, difficulties during birth, and an increased risk of the child developing type 2 diabetes.
But the burden and blame should not fall on women. Pregnant and postpartum women should not have to accept experiences of weight stigma in health care.
Weight stigma in maternity care has been linked to a higher likelihood of caesarean birth. photosoria/Shutterstock
What can we do about it?
While it’s essential to address weight stigma as a societal issue, health services can play a key role in undoing the narrative of blame and shame and making maternity care more equitable for larger-bodied women.
Addressing weight stigma in maternity care can start with teaching midwives and obstetricians about weight stigma – what it is, where it happens, and how it can be minimised in practice.
We worked with women who had experienced weight stigma in maternity care and midwives to co-design resources to meet this need. Both women and midwives wanted resources that could be easily integrated into practice, acted as consistent reminders to be size-friendly, and met midwives’ knowledge gaps.
The resources included a short podcast about weight stigma in maternity care and images of healthy, larger-bodied pregnant women to demonstrate the most likely outcome is a healthy pregnancy. Midwives evaluated the resources positively and they are ready to be implemented into practice.
There is a long road to ending weight stigma in maternity care, but working towards this goal will benefit countless mothers and their babies.
Briony Hill receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Some research reported in this article was funded by the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre. The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre was supported through the NHMRC partnership centre grant scheme with the Australian Government Department of Health, ACT Health, Cancer Council Australia, NSW Ministry of Health, Wellbeing SA, Tasmanian Department of Health, and VicHealth. It is administered by the Sax Institute.
Haimanot Hailu 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.
While many Australians have already voted at pre-poll stations and by post, the politicking continues right up until May 3.
So what’s happened across the country over the past five weeks?
Here, six experts analyse how the campaign has looked in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.
New South Wales
David Clune, honorary associate, government and international relations, University of Sydney
The campaign in NSW is concluding much as it began, largely mirroring the Australia-wide trend with little evidence of localism.
The main themes of both sides remain similar: cost-of-living alleviation, improved health care and housing affordability. Both leaders quickly matched each other’s promises: it could be described as the “Albanutton” campaign.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s campaign continued to be hampered by slip-ups and a lack of focus, detail and discipline. Although the government’s record had given him plenty of scope, Dutton struggled to land a blow.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had his share of gaffes, but appeared more coherent and convincing. Labor’s negative campaign to portray Dutton as a local Trump clone seems to have been effective.
Some in the Liberal Party argue there’s pent-up resentment against the government in Western Sydney that hasn’t been picked up by opinion polls. Whether this hypothetical backlash turns into seats on polling day remains to be seen.
Bennelong (notionally Liberal after the redistribution) and Gilmore, seem the most likely Liberal gains. Parramatta, Reid, Paterson, Robertson and Werriwa are also in play. There is speculation about an independent threat in the safe Labor seat of McMahon.
The Coalition has a fight on its hands to retain Cowper and Bradfield, with strong independent challenges in both seats. There is a tight three-way contest in Calare between former National turned independent, Andrew Gee, a National and a Teal.
As there is little real policy differentiation between the major parties; it seems to come down to which side the voters find more credible and trustworthy in uncertain times.
According to a Newspoll published on April 27, Albanese led Dutton as preferred prime minister by 51% to 35%. Only 39% of those surveyed believed the government deserved to be re-elected. However, 62% believed the Coalition was not ready to govern.
An aggregate of polling data showed in NSW, as at April 28, Labor’s two-party preferred vote was 53.0%, an increase since the March Budget of 2.8% and of 1.6% since the 2022 election.
Queensland
Paul Williams, associate professor of politics and journalism, Griffith University
In the campaign’s closing week, Queensland remains largely inconsequential as to whether Albanese or Dutton will call The Lodge home.
But that doesn’t mean the Liberal National Party (LNP) isn’t concerned about its prospects north of the Tweed.
While the LNP still leads Labor in the two party-preferred vote, 54 to 46, across Queensland – roughly the 2022 result – last week’s YouGov poll found that result to be a three-point fall for the LNP from the previous week.
While Labor is hardly going to blitz Queensland, some LNP seats are nonetheless more vulnerable than at any time over the past decade. These include the regional seats of Leichhardt (3.4 %) and Flynn (3.8%), the outer suburban seats of Dickson (held by Dutton by just 1.7%), Longman (3.1%), Forde (4.2%) and Petrie (4.4%), and the middle-suburb mortgage-belt seat of Bonner (3.4%).
Independent Suzie Holt might also worry the LNP in the usually safe seat of Groom, around Toowoomba.
But the last-minute “rescue” of the LNP by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) – Hanson (reciprocating the LNP’s preferencing of PHON) pulped existing how to vote cards and printed new ones placing the LNP second in most seats – might just save the opposition.
However, the campaign has offered little clarity on the prospects in other key Queensland contests: the battles for three Greens-held inner-urban seats of Brisbane, Ryan and Griffith.
But a mid-April DemosAU poll found the Greens’ primary vote falling by 1.7 points to 29%, a figure exactly tied with Labor’s, which has risen 2.7% since 2022.
Problematically for Dutton, the LNP, whose primary vote remains locked at 36%, appears not to have capitalised on cost-of-living angst in inner Brisbane.
Despite 58% of inner Brisbane leaning centre-left, these figures suggest the LNP may fail to win any Greens seats, with the contest a close one between the Greens and Labor only. The result rests on who runs third: Labor or the Greens. There could be a mere 100 votes in these must-watch seats.
In the Northern Territory, the seat of Lingiari, which takes in Alice Springs and Katherine, is held by Labor’s Marion Scrymgour by 1.7%. In 2022, just one in three enrolled voters cast a ballot in the electorate, prompting the Australian Electoral Commission to try to increase voter turnout. In the wash-up, it will be interesting to see if this improves.
South Australia
Rob Manwaring, associate professor of politics and public policy, Flinders University
Given SA is home to only a handful of marginal seats, it’s not a well-trodden part of the campaign trail. That’s typical of most federal elections.
What’s not so typical is the overall feel of the campaign. The rhythms of Australian elections are changing. On one level, there are the familiar tropes and activities; TV debates, campaign launches and letter box blitzes in key marginal seats.
Yet, on the other hand, voters behave differently than they used to. Data from the Australian Election Study(AES) tells us far fewer voters have made their decision “a long time ago” (55% in 2007, down to 36% in 2022).
This means the number of “soft” voters is probably much higher as major parties have fewer “lifetime voters”. Voters are much more transactional.
Voters are more distanced from parties, too. The study shows fewer voters use how to vote cards (51% used them in 2007, 31% in 2022). We can’t rely on traditional metrics in the same way, such as the national two-party preferred vote given the number of “non-traditional seats”.
In short, it’s now harder to more know how the campaigns are tracking. So while the Coalition campaign has been beset by a number of mis-steps, how this is playing out is far less clear.
Further, a strange paradox of the emergence of the Teals and other independents is there is a stronger local focus on representation, rather than broader policy debates. Again, AES data suggests most voters tend to vote for policy reasons (like the economy or health) but the current media focus on the major parties, especially through the TV debates, actually seems to narrow the broader policy discussions.
So while the proof will be in the pudding when the votes are counted, it may be high time to reflect on what campaign strategies work best for politics in 2025.
Tasmania
Robert Hortle, deputy director of the Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of Tasmania
In Lyons, Tassie’s most marginal electorate (ALP by 0.9%), the latest polls have swung behind the ALP’s Rebecca White. Her popularity as a state MP for the electorate has been bolstered by some crucial slip ups from Liberal candidate Susie Bower.
One potentially vote-winning policy announcement that has gone under the radar nationally is Labor’s commitment of $24 million to guarantee the continued operation of the Boyer Paper Mill in Lyons, an important employer and regional symbol of economic activity.
Franklin has been full of drama. 19-year-old Greens candidate Owen Fitzgerald had to withdraw his candidacy after it emerged that he is likely to still be a New Zealand citizen. It seemed like the Greens would encourage their voters to preference independent anti-salmon candidate Peter George.
However, when the party’s how to vote cards were published, they said “Vote 1 – Owen Fitzgerald”.
According to the Greens, this was to make sure that voters completed their ballot correctly. The Liberal Party argued the Greens were just trying to secure public funding.
The result is likely to rest on how Liberal voters feel about salmon farming and how this influences their preferences. Are they so anti-Labor that they will preference Peter George ahead of Julie Collins despite his anti-salmon stance? Or will they put Collins ahead of George based on Labor’s support for the industry?
In Braddon, where salmon farming is again a key issue, Labor’s Anne Urquhart has been more visible on the campaign trail than Liberal Mal Hingston. Although the margin at the last election was 8% in favour of the Liberals, last-minute polling (albeit with a small sample size) has offered Labor hope of winning the crucial seat.
Bridget Archer, Liberal MP for Bass, has had a solid if unspectacular campaign. She was helped by Labor selecting a low-profile first-time candidate, Jess Teesdale, who the party sees as “one for the future”. Teesdale revealed her “greenness” – in both senses of the word – by accidentally contradicting the ALP’s position on native forest logging, which is always a flashpoint in Tassie.
Victoria
Zareh Ghazarian, senior lecturer in politics, school of social sciences, Monash University
With just days to go in this campaign, Victoria still looks like a key state that will determine who governs for the next three years. Many seats across the state have new boundaries following the AEC redistribution.
Victoria is also home to the most marginal seat in the country. Deakin, which covers the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, is held by Liberal Michael Sukkar with a margin of just 0.02%, according to ABC Election Analyst Antony Green.
Deakin will be the seat to watch on election night. If the Liberal Party can’t hold on to Deakin, it would be unlikely to be able to win government.
There are also other seats that will provide a fascinating contest on Saturday night. Labor will face its own test in trying to retain Chisholm and Aston, both in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
Chisholm is a swinging seat. It has been won by both Labor and Liberal parties over the past 40 years and is currently held by Labor with a margin of 3.3%. It has had a significant redistribution, losing strong Labor booths in the north and south parts of the electorate.
Aston is also on a similarly slim margin of 3.6% and was famously won by Labor at the by-election in 2023. Holding onto Aston will be a crucial test for Labor. Losing this seat may threaten Labor’s chances of forming a majority government after the election.
There are also the two seats held by the independents which promise to be tight contests. The previously safe Liberal seats of Kooyong and Goldstein, which were won by Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel respectively, have been targeted by the Liberal Party. The independents will face a significant battle and, if successful, will demonstrate a significant shift in voting behaviour has occurred in these electorates.
Western Australia
Narelle Miragliotta, associate professor in politics, Murdoch University
The idea that WA would determine the outcome of government has been a persistent theme throughout the campaign, reinforced by four visits from Albanese and three from Dutton. The amount of attention WA has received from the major party leaders was more than any state or territory other than the three big population states: NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Even then, Albanese made one more visit to WA than he did Queensland at the time of writing.
Both major parties brought their big guns on the campaign trail. Former Liberal PM John Howard visited Curtin, Tangney and Bullwinkel. The newly re-elected WA Labor Premier Roger Cook campaigned heavily with Albanese during his visits. And in the final days of the campaign, Mark McGowan, the popular former premier, was seen on the hustings with Labor candidates in four marginal seats.
Neither major party leader ventured to places where they might receive an unwelcome reception. Dutton’s intention to steer clear of the Shire of Collie, particularly the town of Muja, the proposed site of the one of the seven nuclear power plants, was signalled early in the campaign. Albanese avoided electorates in the state’s southwest opposed to coastal wind farms.
There were no significant candidate blunders. However, questions were raised about the whereabouts of Andrew Hastie, shadow defence minister and (putative) future Liberal leader. Hastie was also questioned about the missing party logo (as against party authorisations) on his campaign materials.
The competition between the Nationals and Liberals in the seat of Bullwinkel was without major media incident. This includes when the Nationals’ candidate, Mia Davies, broke with the federal coalition over support for Labor’s production tax credits plan.
The contest for Curtin attracted outsized local media attention. In the final days of the campaign, there were renewed efforts to link the independent incumbent, Kate Chaney, to the Greens. All the proof the West Australian newspaper required was Chaney’s connection to a senior Greens party official, evidenced by a 2024 donation totalling $104, a photo and an author’s credit.
To what extent has the leader visits and the campaign moved the needle? A recent study found party leader visits make only a modest impact on the vote. Polling for Labor and the Liberals in WA has remained very steady. This doesn’t mean some seats won’t change, but to which party or candidate remains unclear.
Paul Williams is a research associate with the T.J. Ryan Foundation.
David Clune, Narelle Miragliotta, Rob Manwaring, Robert Hortle, and Zareh Ghazarian do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Peter Gammon, Professor of Power Electronic Devices, School of Engineering, University of Warwick
A silicon carbide wafer, from which microchips are manufactured.Peter Gammon
Silicon microchips underpin our modern lives. They are at the heart of our smartphones and laptops. They also play critical roles in electric vehicles and renewable energy technology.
Today, more than three-quarters of microchips, also known as semiconductors, are produced in Asia. But in the 1990s, chip production was more widely distributed across the globe – and the UK punched above its weight.
Scotland’s central belt – the area of highest population density, including Glasgow, Edinburgh and the towns surrounding them – became known as “Silicon Glen”, employing 50,000 people in the electronics industry at its peak.
The region exported everything from PCs to Playstation chips. Multinational companies like NEC, Motorola and Texas Instruments operated major facilities there. In the 2000s, the dotcom crash triggered industry-wide consolidation and a shift to lower-cost manufacturing facilities in east Asia. The UK’s domestic capability was almost wiped out.
But the UK semiconductor industry is quietly bouncing back. A new wave of companies is focusing on microchips designed for clean energy technology. These chips power electric vehicles and are vital for integrating renewable energy into the grid. They’re also widely used in data centres.
Whereas most microchips are based on the element silicon, these new chips are made from “compound” semiconductors: silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN).
The chemical compounds SiC and GaN offer a range of attractive properties, including the ability to conduct an electrical current efficiently at high temperatures and to withstand electric fields more than nine times stronger than those silicon on its own can tolerate before breaking down.
This allows SiC chips to be nine times thinner than equivalent silicon chips. This in turn results in lower resistance to electrical current in the devices they’re used in – translating to greater efficiency.
If you know how hot a phone or laptop charger can get, you’ve experienced inefficient power conversion. This heat is the result of silicon chips switching thousands of times per second to transform one type of electrical current, known as AC, to another, called DC.
In the case of chargers, 230 volts (V) in AC from the wall socket is transformed into the 19V in DC that a laptop battery needs – with some energy lost as heat. SiC and GaN devices switch faster than their silicon counterparts and dissipate less energy as waste heat.
This makes them ideal for high-performance, compact and energy-efficient charging systems. GaN-based wall chargers are now becoming common and they’re smaller, lighter and more efficient.
Chips used in electric car charging need to withstand high voltages. 4045 / Shutterstock
This efficiency boost is vital for electric vehicles too, in which a large power converter changes DC electricity coming from the batteries to AC electricity, as required by the electric motor. SiC-based power converters can reduce the energy lost by this converter by over 60%, a saving that means the car’s range can be extended by up to 5%.
Producing SiC and GaN requires complex, expensive and energy-intensive manufacturing processes. It wasn’t until the 2010s that materials like these could be produced at the scale and cost needed for mass market adoption. Silicon carbide, for instance, must be grown under extreme temperatures and pressures over the course of a week, forming a small cylindrical crystal – or boule – often less than 5cm long.
In contrast, to source silicon for chips, metre-long silicon ingots are pulled continuously from a vat of molten silicon, known as the melt. This fundamental difference drives the cost gap: SiC chips remain around three times more expensive than their silicon counterparts, posing a challenge for widespread adoption. Nevertheless, SiC chips remain vital for specific applications.
New industry hubs
In March 2024, US-based Vishay Intertechnology acquired Newport Wafer Fab – one of the UK’s last major semiconductor plants – for US$177 million (£132 million). In March 2025, it announced a further £250 million investment to expand production, modernise equipment and grow the workforce at the Welsh facility. Around 400 jobs were safeguarded.
The focus in Newport will be on compound semiconductors, beginning with SiC chips destined for electric vehicles, data centres and industrial applications. At capacity, thousands of silicon carbide wafers, or discs, will be processed every month. It is from these wafers that the chips are cut. Measuring 200mm in diameter, each wafer will yield enough SiC chips to supply more than 15 electric vehicle power converters.
Chip manufacturing has also returned to Silicon Glen. In Lochgelly, Fife, Clas-SiC Wafer Fab was founded in 2017 and it too produces SiC chips. The processing carried out at Lochgelly is similar to that at Vishay, except that Clas-SiC operates what’s known as a foundry model, producing devices to the designs of international customers. This model separates out the design and manufacturing aspects of the chip industry.
Compound semiconductors also play a crucial role in national security. The UK Ministry of Defence recently made keyinvestments in UK semiconductors. One of these aims to secure the domestic supply of gallium arsenide and gallium nitride chips, which are critical for radar systems and fighter jets.
World-class research in UK universities is fundamental to success stories like these. More than a decade of coordinated public investment – particularly through the 2010s – helped build globally recognised academic expertise.
As the UK government looks to drive growth through clean energy and advanced
manufacturing, its recent support for this sector via the UK semiconductor strategy has been significant. The forthcoming industrial strategy presents a clear opportunity to build on this momentum.
The challenge ahead is to ensure that the next generation of compound microchip technologies – developed in UK universities and labs – can grow and scale up here in the UK, rather than abroad.
Peter Gammon works as a Professor of Power Electronic Devices at the University of Warwick, and as the Founder of PGC Consultancy Ltd. At Warwick, he receives funding from UKRI, Horizon Europe and industrial partners. This work is supported via the Rewire Innovation and Knowledge Centre.
NEW YORK, April 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXLS), a global data and AI company, today announced its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2025.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rohit Kapoor said, “We are pleased with our first quarter results and strong start to the year, as we delivered revenue and adjusted diluted EPS growth of 15% and 27% respectively. Our strong business momentum underscores the successful execution of our differentiated data and AI-led strategy and demonstrates the enduring resilience and adaptability of EXL’s business model.”
Chief Financial Officer Maurizio Nicolelli said, “While we remain prudent in our outlook given the increasing level of macro-economic uncertainty, we are increasing our revenue guidance for the year, based on our business momentum and more favorable currency exchange rates. We now expect revenue to be in the range of $2.035 billion to $2.065 billion, up from our prior guidance of $2.025 billion to $2.060 billion. This represents 11% to 12% year-over-year growth on a reported basis, or 11% to 13% on a constant currency basis. We continue to expect our adjusted diluted earnings per share for 2025 to be in the range of $1.83 to $1.89, representing an 11% to 14% increase over 2024, as we continue to accelerate our data and AI investments to generate future growth.”
Reconciliations of adjusted (non-GAAP) financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, where applicable, are included at the end of this release under “Reconciliation of Adjusted Financial Measures to GAAP Measures.” These non-GAAP measures, including adjusted diluted EPS and constant currency measures, are not measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Financial Highlights: First Quarter2025
Revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, increased to $501.0 million compared to $436.5 million for the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 14.8% on a reported basis and 15.1% on a constant currency basis. Revenue increased by 4.1% sequentially on a reported basis and 4.3% on a constant currency basis, from the fourth quarter of 2024.
Revenue
Gross Margin
Three months ended
Three months ended
Reportable Segments (1)
March 31, 2025
March 31, 2024
March 31, 2025
March 31, 2024
(dollars in millions)
Insurance
$
172.0
$
158.3
36.6
%
33.8
%
Healthcare and Life Sciences
125.6
100.7
43.9
%
45.3
%
Banking, Capital Markets and Diversified Industries
117.7
103.2
37.3
%
36.1
%
International Growth Markets
85.7
74.3
36.6
%
35.9
%
Total Revenue, net
$
501.0
$
436.5
38.6
%
37.4
%
(1) In the first quarter of 2025, the Company implemented operational and structural changes to accelerate the execution of its data and AI-led strategy. Under the new structure, the Company reports its financial performance based on new segments presented in the table above, and as described in more detail in its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2025, that is being filed with the SEC. In conjunction with the new reporting structure, the Company has recast prior period amounts, wherever applicable, to conform to the way the Company internally manages and monitors segment performance.
Operating income margin for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 was 15.7%, compared to 14.1% for the first quarter of 2024 and 14.8% for the fourth quarter of 2024. Adjusted operating income margin for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 was 20.1%, compared to 18.9% for the first quarter of 2024 and 18.8% for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Diluted earnings per share for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 was $0.40, compared to $0.29 for the first quarter of 2024 and $0.31 for the fourth quarter of 2024. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 was $0.48, compared to $0.38 for the first quarter of 2024 and $0.44 for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Business Highlights: First Quarter2025
Won 10 new clients in the first quarter of 2025.
Named a Leader in four categories in the ISG Provider Lens™ Insurance Services 2024 report. Earning top honors in the North American Life & Retirement, Property & Casualty, Life & Retirement TPA Insurance Services, and Insurance IT Services.
Named a Leader and a Star Performer in Everest Group’s Life and Annuities Insurance Business Process Services and Third-Party Administrator (TPA) PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2025.
Recognized as part of Newsweek’s America’s Most Responsible Companies 2025, Forbes’ Most Trusted Companies in America 2025, USA Today’s America’s Climate Leaders 2025, and The Financial Times’ Best Employers Asia-Pacific 2025.
2025Guidance Based on current visibility, and a U.S. dollar to Indian rupee exchange rate of 85.5, U.K. pound sterling to U.S. dollar exchange rate of 1.30, U.S. dollar to the Philippine peso exchange rate of 57.0 and all other currencies at current exchange rates, we are providing the following guidance for the full year 2025:
Revenue of $2.035 billion to $2.065 billion, representing an increase of 11% to 12% on a reported basis, and 11% to 13% on a constant currency basis from 2024; and
Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.83 to $1.89, representing an increase of 11% to 14% from 2024.
Conference Call
ExlService Holdings, Inc. will host a conference call on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 at 10:00 A.M. ET to discuss the Company’s quarterly operating and financial results. The conference call will be available live via the internet by accessing the investor relations section of EXL’s website at ir.exlservice.com, where an accompanying investor-friendly spreadsheet of historical operating and financial data can also be accessed. Please access the website at least fifteen minutes prior to the call to register, download and install any necessary audio software.
Please note that there is a new system to access the live call-in order to ask questions. To join the live call, please register here. A dial-in and unique PIN will be provided to join the call. For those who cannot access the live broadcast, a replay will be available on the EXL website ir.exlservice.com for a period of twelve months.
About ExlService Holdings, Inc. EXL (NASDAQ: EXLS) is a global data and artificial intelligence (“AI”) company that offers services and solutions to reinvent client business models, drive better outcomes and unlock growth with speed. EXL harnesses the power of data, AI, and deep industry knowledge to transform businesses, including the world’s leading corporations in industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, media and retail, among others. EXL was founded in 1999 with the core values of innovation, collaboration, excellence, integrity and respect. We are headquartered in New York and have more than 60,000 employees spanning six continents. For more information, visit www.exlservice.com.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You should not place undue reliance on those statements because they are subject to numerous uncertainties and factors relating to EXL’s operations and business environment, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond EXL’s control. Forward-looking statements include information concerning EXL’s possible or assumed future results of operations, including descriptions of its business strategy. These statements may include words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “estimate” or similar expressions. These statements are based on assumptions that we have made in light of management’s experience in the industry as well as its perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate under the circumstances. You should understand that these statements are not guarantees of performance or results. They involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Although EXL believes that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, you should be aware that many factors could affect EXL’s actual financial results or results of operations and could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors, which include our ability to maintain and grow client demand, our ability to hire and retain sufficiently trained employees, and our ability to accurately estimate and/or manage costs, rising interest rates, rising inflation and recessionary economic trends, are discussed in more detail in EXL’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including EXL’s Annual Report on Form 10-K. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statement made herein, or elsewhere, speaks only as of the date on which it is made. New risks and uncertainties come up from time to time, and it is impossible to predict these events or how they may affect EXL. EXL has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date hereof, except as required by applicable law.
EXLSERVICE HOLDINGS, INC.
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME (UNAUDITED)
(In thousands, except per share amount and share count)
Three months ended March 31,
2025
2024
Revenues, net
$
501,019
$
436,507
Cost of revenues (1)
307,705
273,424
Gross profit (1)
193,314
163,083
Operating expenses:
General and administrative expenses
59,417
53,243
Selling and marketing expenses
41,925
35,970
Depreciation and amortization expense
13,557
12,346
Total operating expenses
114,899
101,559
Income from operations
78,415
61,524
Foreign exchange gain, net
1,192
359
Interest expense
(4,144
)
(3,291
)
Other income, net
4,703
3,952
Income before income tax expense and earnings from equity affiliates
80,166
62,544
Income tax expense
13,496
13,753
Income before earnings from equity affiliates
66,670
48,791
Loss from equity-method investment
(109
)
(28
)
Net income
$
66,561
$
48,763
Earnings per share:
Basic
$
0.41
$
0.30
Diluted
$
0.40
$
0.29
Weighted-average number of shares used in computing earnings per share:
Basic
162,490,179
165,082,387
Diluted
164,557,333
166,726,853
(1) Exclusive of depreciation and amortization expense.
EXLSERVICE HOLDINGS, INC.
CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (UNAUDITED)
(In thousands, except per share amount and share count)
As of
March 31, 2025
December 31, 2024
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents
$
140,442
$
153,355
Short-term investments
190,978
187,223
Restricted cash
9,826
9,972
Accounts receivable, net
339,856
304,322
Other current assets
150,203
140,317
Total current assets
831,305
795,189
Property and equipment, net
107,148
101,837
Operating lease right-of-use assets
71,150
68,784
Restricted cash
8,210
8,071
Deferred tax assets, net
109,953
104,747
Goodwill
420,494
420,387
Other intangible assets, net
46,092
49,331
Long-term investments
20,134
13,972
Other assets
61,925
56,085
Total assets
$
1,676,411
$
1,618,403
Liabilities and stockholders’ equity
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable
$
5,648
$
5,884
Current portion of long-term borrowings
4,886
4,886
Deferred revenue
20,138
19,264
Accrued employee costs
63,575
129,994
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities
131,980
113,597
Current portion of operating lease liabilities
17,426
16,491
Total current liabilities
243,653
290,116
Long-term borrowings, less current portion
302,377
283,598
Operating lease liabilities, less current portion
61,408
59,851
Deferred tax liabilities, net
1,625
1,403
Other non-current liabilities
55,471
53,573
Total liabilities
664,534
688,541
Commitments and contingencies
Stockholders’ equity:
Preferred stock, $0.001 par value; 15,000,000 shares authorized, none issued
—
—
Common stock, $0.001 par value; 400,000,000 shares authorized, 207,758,497 shares issued and 162,683,343 shares outstanding as of March 31, 2025 and 206,510,587 shares issued and 161,801,212 shares outstanding as of December 31, 2024
207
206
Additional paid-in capital
609,592
588,583
Retained earnings
1,348,521
1,281,960
Accumulated other comprehensive loss
(142,787
)
(154,722
)
Total including shares held in treasury
1,815,533
1,716,027
Less: 45,075,154 shares as of March 31, 2025 and 44,709,375 shares as of December 31, 2024, held in treasury, at cost
(803,656
)
(786,165
)
Total Stockholders’ equity
1,011,877
929,862
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity
$
1,676,411
$
1,618,403
EXLSERVICE HOLDINGS, INC.
Reconciliation of Adjusted Financial Measures to GAAP Measures
In addition to its reported operating results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), EXL has included in this release certain financial measures that are considered non-GAAP financial measures, including the following:
(i) Adjusted operating income and adjusted operating income margin; (ii) Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin; (iii) Adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share; and (iv) Revenue growth on constant currency basis.
These non-GAAP financial measures are not based on any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles, should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP, and may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Accordingly, the financial results calculated in accordance with GAAP and reconciliations from those financial statements should be carefully evaluated. EXL believes that providing these non-GAAP financial measures may help investors better understand EXL’s underlying financial performance. Management also believes that these non-GAAP financial measures, when read in conjunction with EXL’s reported results, can provide useful supplemental information for investors analyzing period-to-period comparisons of the Company’s results and comparisons of the Company’s results with the results of other companies. Additionally, management considers some of these non-GAAP financial measures to determine variable compensation of its employees. The Company believes that it is unreasonably difficult to provide its earnings per share financial guidance in accordance with GAAP, or a qualitative reconciliation thereof, for a number of reasons, including, without limitation, the Company’s inability to predict its future stock-based compensation expense under ASC Topic 718, the amortization of intangibles associated with future acquisitions and the currency fluctuations and associated tax effects. As such, the Company presents guidance with respect to adjusted diluted earnings per share. The Company also incurs significant non-cash charges for depreciation that may not be indicative of the Company’s ability to generate cash flow.
EXL non-GAAP financial measures exclude, where applicable, stock-based compensation expense, amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, provision for litigation matters, effects of termination of leases, certain defined social security contributions, allowance for certain material expected credit losses, other acquisition-related expenses or benefits and effect of any non-recurring tax adjustments. Acquisition-related expenses or benefits include, changes in the fair value of contingent consideration, external deal costs, integration expenses, direct and incremental travel costs and non-recurring benefits or losses. Our adjusted net income and adjusted diluted EPS also excludes the effects of income tax on the above pre-tax items, as applicable. The effects of income tax of each item is calculated by applying the statutory rate of the local tax regulations in the jurisdiction in which the item was incurred.
A limitation of using non-GAAP financial measures versus financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP is that non-GAAP financial measures do not reflect all of the amounts associated with our operating results as determined in accordance with GAAP and exclude costs that are recurring, namely stock-based compensation and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets. EXL compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from non-GAAP financial measures to allow investors to evaluate such non-GAAP financial measures.
EXL’s primary exchange rate exposure is with the Indian rupee, the Philippine peso, the U.K. pound sterling and the South African rand. The average exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the Indian rupee increased from 83.12 during the quarter ended March 31, 2024 to 86.52 during the quarter ended March 31, 2025, representing a depreciation of 4.1% against the U.S. dollar. The average exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the Philippine peso increased from 56.24 during the quarter ended March 31, 2024 to 57.86 during the quarter ended March 31, 2025, representing a depreciation of 2.9% against the U.S. dollar. The average exchange rate of the U.K. pound sterling against the U.S. dollar decreased from 1.27 during the quarter ended March 31, 2024 to 1.26 during the quarter ended March 31, 2025, representing a depreciation of 0.1% against the U.S. dollar. The average exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the South African rand decreased from 18.96 during the quarter ended March 31, 2024 to 18.49 during the quarter ended March 31, 2025, representing an appreciation of 2.5% against the U.S. dollar.
The following table shows the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures for the three months ended March 31, 2025 and March 31, 2024, and the three months ended December 31, 2024:
Reconciliation of Adjusted Operating Income and Adjusted EBITDA
(Amounts in thousands)
Three months ended
March 31,
December 31,
2025
2024
2024
Net Income (GAAP)
$
66,561
$
48,763
$
50,672
add: Income tax expense
13,496
13,753
19,850
add/(subtract): Foreign exchange gain, net, interest expense, gain/(loss) from equity-method investment and other income/(loss), net
(1,642
)
(992
)
720
Income from operations (GAAP)
$
78,415
$
61,524
$
71,242
add: Stock-based compensation expense
19,187
17,852
15,479
add: Amortization of acquisition-related intangibles
3,246
3,080
4,024
Adjusted operating income (Non-GAAP)
$
100,848
$
82,456
$
90,745
Adjusted operating income margin as a % of Revenue (Non-GAAP)
20.1
%
18.9
%
18.8
%
add: Depreciation on long-lived assets
10,311
9,266
12,140
Adjusted EBITDA (Non-GAAP)
$
111,159
$
91,722
$
102,885
Adjusted EBITDA margin as a % of revenue (Non-GAAP)
22.2
%
21.0
%
21.4
%
Reconciliation of Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share
(Amounts in thousands, except per share data)
Three months ended
March 31,
December 31,
2025
2024
2024
Net income (GAAP)
$
66,561
$
48,763
$
50,672
add: Stock-based compensation expense
19,187
17,852
15,479
add: Amortization of acquisition-related intangibles
3,246
3,080
4,024
add/(subtract): Changes in fair value of contingent consideration
—
(589
)
—
add/(subtract): Other tax expense/(benefits) (a)
—
151
3,860
subtract: Tax impact on stock-based compensation expense (b)
(9,105
)
(5,358
)
(1,769
)
subtract: Tax impact on amortization of acquisition-related intangibles
(799
)
(766
)
(921
)
Adjusted net income (Non-GAAP)
$
79,090
$
63,133
$
71,345
Adjusted diluted earnings per share (Non-GAAP)
$
0.48
$
0.38
$
0.44
(a) To exclude other tax expenses/(benefits), primarily related to certain deferred tax assets and liabilities.
(b) Tax impact includes $14,526 and $7,523 during the three months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024 respectively, and $500 during the three months ended December 31, 2024, related to discrete benefit recognized in income tax expense in accordance with ASU No. 2016-09, Compensation – Stock Compensation.
Wood is often hailed as a low-carbon hero, a natural alternative to steel, concrete and plastic. It’s a vital tool in the UK’s strategy for reaching net zero. But there’s a catch – the country don’t grow nearly enough of it.
The UK has one of the lowest levels of forest cover in Europe, with just 14% of land forested. It is also the second-largest importer of wood in the world, meeting only 20% of its wood demand from domestic sources.
That leaves the UK not only exposed to volatile global markets, but also facing a serious challenge of “wood security”. And our new research shows the problem goes well beyond economics.
Relying heavily on imported timber, especially from boreal forests in Scandanavia and the Baltic States, could actually undermine the carbon-cutting benefits of using wood in place of high-emissions materials.
Boreal forests occurring in colder northerly environments grow slowly. The carbon stored in them takes decades, sometimes centuries, to recover after harvesting through the growth of the next generation of trees.
In contrast, conifer forests in the UK’s warmer temperate climate restock carbon through regrowth more quickly after harvesting. This makes them much better suited for higher yields of sustainable wood production.
So, how can countries such as the UK increase wood use without making the climate crisis worse? To address this, we created a new model that tracks carbon at every stage of a tree’s journey, from how it grows in the forest to how it’s harvested, transported, processed and used. This includes temporary storage of carbon in wood products, and the avoidance of having to use high-emitting materials and energy sources that would be needed in the absence of wood.
We combined this with models of how carbon storage changes in forests under different harvesting intensities. Our analysis showed that it is possible for rising wood demand to make a positive contribution to national and global net zero targets. But that’s only if the domestic production of wood is dramatically increased in temperate countries such as the UK.
Even a modest annual increase in demand (1.1%) would require a 50% expansion in the area of productive forest over the next 50 years. A more ambitious approach, such as doubling productive forest area and increasing tree growth rates by 33%, could boost the overall contribution of wood use to slowing global warming by 175%. But that would require huge changes in forestry practice and land use policy.
In contrast, under a scenario of higher demand growth (2.3% per year), we found that the climate benefit of wood use is reduced. And only a doubling of forest area and a 33% increase in growth rates would be enough to deliver a meaningful contribution to slowing global warming over the next century.
These benefits would be at risk if forest productivity is undermined by increasing incidence of pests, disease or drought as climate change progresses.
Challenges ahead
Our findings point to three major challenges the UK must address if wood is to play a meaningful role in its net zero strategy.
First, the expansion of productive conifer forest in the UK has slowed to a standstill over the past 30 years. The amount of wood available for harvest is projected to fall after 2039. This trend will have to be reversed very soon to rapidly increase the area of conifer forests. This will need a rethink of how the UK balances land for forestry, farming and nature recovery.
Second, forest management must be improved to sustain productivity under increasing stress from pests, pathogens and drought.
Third, wood must be used more efficiently. That includes reducing waste during processing, designing products for longevity and reusing wood products as many times as possible.
So, the UK’s net zero policy must connect the push for using more wood with a clear plan for how it will grow and manage the forests needed to supply it. At the same time, when policymakers assess the climate effects of cutting down trees, they need to look at the whole picture. That means considering not just what’s lost from the forest, but how the wood is used, how long it stores carbon and how much it replaces more polluting materials.
This kind of joined-up, forward-looking analysis – like the one we developed in our study – is essential if wood is to play a truly sustainable role in fighting climate change.
John Healey receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, the Centre for Forest Protection, and the Wildlife Trusts. He is affiliated with Woodknowledge Wales, Rainforest Builder and the Institute of Chartered Foresters.
David Styles received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) and from the Department of Environment, Climate & Communications (Ireland) for research related to this article.
Eilidh Forster received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) for research related to this article.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Cheryl Thompson, Canada Research Chair, Professor in Performance, Toronto Metropolitan University
In her groundbreaking book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict and Freedom, 1812-1897, Cheryl Thompson, professor of performance at Toronto Metropolitan University, maps the transnational flow of minstrel culture and racial ideologies, revealing how blackface performance — and the racism it reflects — was not strictly an American phenomenon.
In this interview with The Conversation Canada, Thompson shares some of her ideas on performance, politics and race, including this year’s Met Gala.
Your book uses the term ‘Blackface Atlantic.’ Can you explain what that means, and how Canada fits into that history?
Traditionally, when we talk about Atlantic world studies, we’re usually focused on the United States, the Caribbean, maybe parts of Europe. Canada is not often considered to be part of conversation. But blackface performance/minstrelsy was actually one of the first forms of entertainment that travelled across the Atlantic. It started in the U.S., moved to Britain and then landed in Canada. That means many of the same cultural and political issues we associate with the United States — racism, segregation, white supremacy — have been part of Canada’s narrative too, from the beginning.
Book cover of ‘Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict and Freedom, 1812-1897’ Wilfrid Laurier University Press
The book draws on Paul Gilroy’s concept of the “Black Atlantic.” He defined this not just as a geographic space shaped by European colonization and Black servitude and resistance, but as an ideological space, too. Gilroy articulated how Black people disidentified with western ideas of nationhood, citizenship and freedom to forge new ways of imagining their identities and futures.
Canada and the Blackface Atlantic asks us to stop seeing Canada as a self-contained nation-state. It places Canada within an Atlantic world context where race was traded as a currency in terms of slavery but also on the theatrical stage where it was performed. On stage, “Blackness” became a way for white audiences to make sense of Black people as performing subjects without having to contend with Black people as real political agents.
Why do you think Canada’s role in the history of blackface performance has been so overlooked?
I think it’s partly because writing about blackface requires such a multidisciplinary understanding of different disciplines, multiple points of view, historically and geographically disparate people and places. While as an academic, I have sometimes been discouraged from positioning myself in “too many” disciplines, my training across disciplines helped me to see the throughline in the story.
And that throughline is about race, but also the building of cities and towns, migration and immigration, visual culture and print culture, theatre and performance.
I also believe it has been overlooked because many white Canadian academics simply do not talk about or examine issues related to race. It’s not something they are comfortable with in the context of Canada, and to research blackface requires that you confront race and white supremacy head-on.
And because discussions of race in Canada are still taboo in some circles, blackface remains a topic that is largely ignored or minimized.
I think my work is changing this pattern, and my book will help to open people’s minds to a topic that has long been avoided in Canadian cultural conversations. These conversations have already been happening for decades in the U.S. and the U.K. and elsewhere.
The Met’s big show and gala this year focuses on Black Style and dandyism as powerful forms of self expression and resistance. How do you think fashion can help challenge racist narratives?
I love that the Met is thinking about questions of race and style, because Black dandyism is so intertwined with the question of Black freedom. What shows like this do is remind the public of how Black communities have historically used expression as a means to exercise their own agency. In the absence of political agency, Black men, in particular, used style to assert their autonomy. Clothing, hair, etc., were the few sartorial elements that could not be sanctioned or denied to Black people even if other aspects of life were restricted or denied. I think at this moment these conversations are so timely given the renewed restrictions being placed on Black, racialized, LGBTQIA+ people under the Trump administration. The Black dandy says unequivocally that we’re here, and we’re showing up to be seen. It’s a powerful statement that contradicts the deficit model that is often placed onto Black bodies as being in states of lack, and disempowerment.
What are some of the most surprising or revealing sources you uncovered in your research?
I was truly surprised about how much of the book required me to understand American history as it intersected with Canadian history.
For example: the songs that came out of the War of 1812 became some of the first popular songs in America. Communities in Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick were conflicted in their allegiance to the North and South during the American Civil War. There were a lot of Confederate sympathizers in Montréal and New Brunswick. All that really surprised me because that’s not history that we learn about in school.
I was also surprised by the number of Canadians who became stars on the American minstrel stage. There was Toronto-born Colin “Cool” Burgess (1840–1905) who performed in blackface on stages across Canada, the U.S. and Britain. There was Québec-born Calixa Lavallée (1842–91), who would become best known as the composer of “Chant national” (“O Canada”), a song he wrote after performing across the U.S., and as a blackface minstrel musician for the Union Army during the Civil War. These two figures have been written about before, but authors often excused or tried to minimize their participation in minstrel shows. It’s likely because there are no pictures.
What I’ve been surprised about most is how so much of this history has been hidden in plain sight. The book reflects my ability to make connections, explain complex narratives across time and space, and to intertwine narratives that have, before now, been kept separate. It was quite a feat!
Cheryl Thompson receives funding from Social Science Humanities Research Council and the Canada Research Chair Program.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA)
WASHINGTON, DC– Today, Congressman Brad Sherman (CA-32) and Congressional Democrats reintroduced theEquality Actthat enshrines federal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The legislation would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to explicitly ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, education, public accommodations, jury service, and federally funded programs.
“As a Member of the Equality Caucus who helped introduce theEquality Act, I know that the majority of Americans support nondiscrimination protections for the LGBTQI+ community. It’s time for Congress to listen,” said Congressman Sherman. ” I’m proud to stand with my Equality Caucus and House Democratic colleagues today to reintroduce theEquality Actand help protect our LGBTQI+ community.”
The renewed push for the Equality Act comes amid an unprecedented assault on LGBTQ+ rights by the Trump administration.
Just hours after his second inauguration in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the federal government would no longer recognize transgender and nonbinary people. The sweeping directive, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” redefined sex as strictly male or female based on birth characteristics — ignoring decades of medical science and legal precedent.
The order mandates that federal agencies erase references to gender identity, restricts passports and social security records to assigned sex at birth, and strips Title IX protections for transgender students. It also rescinds funding for gender-affirming health care and directs prisons to house transgender women with men, regardless of their safety.
In addition to targeting transgender Americans, Trump’s administration has moved to reinstate the ban on transgender military service, cut funding for LGBTQ+ suicide prevention efforts, and censor LGBTQ+ content in schools and government communications.
Under theEquality Act, LGBTQ+ Americans would gain comprehensive protections currently missing in much of the country. While theU.S. Supreme Court’s2020Bostock v. Clayton Countydecision confirmed that workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it left gaps in areas like housing,education, and public spaces that theEquality Actwould finally close.
An international team of solar physicists have traced giant tides of plasma beneath the Sun’s surface at a region called near-surface shear layer (NSSL). The plasma currents shift with the Sun’s magnetic heartbeat and could have far-reaching influence on space weather and Earth.
The near-surface shear layer (NSSL) extending to about 35,000 km in depth is a critical region beneath the Sun’s surface. It is marked by distinct rotational behaviours that vary with depth and by changes, over space and time, that relate to active region magnetic fields and the solar cycle.
A study led by astronomers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) have probed the dynamic “inner weather” of the Sun – plasma currents just beneath its surface at the NSSL, that pulse in step with its 11-year sunspot cycle.
In the research published last week, in ‘The Astrophysical Journal Letters’, researchers from the IIA, Stanford University (USA), and the National Solar Observatory (NSO, USA) have traced how these hidden flows shift over time, potentially reshaping our understanding of solar dynamics in general and how the Sun’s interior connects to its outer magnetic behaviour in particular.
Employing helioseismology—an advanced technique that tracks sound waves as they travel through the Sun—the team observed changes in the movement of solar material using more than a decade of data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory/ Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (SDO/HMI) and the ground-based Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG) of National Solar Observatory (NSO), USA.
Peering Beneath the Surface
The analysis led by Professor S.P. Rajaguru and PhD student Anisha Sen from IIA revealed fascinating patterns — surface plasma flows converge toward active sunspot latitudes, but reverse direction midway through the NSSL, flowing outward to form circulation cells. These flows are strongly influenced by the Sun’s rotation and the Coriolis force—the same force responsible for the spin of hurricanes on Earth.
The Coriolis effect swirls and shifts those inflows and outflows into a subtle but powerful sculptor of how the Sun spins at different depths, modifying the rotational shear (the gradient of rotation with depth). Yet intriguingly, these local currents do not power the Sun’s larger-scale zonal flows—known as torsional oscillations—suggesting that these global flows, which ripple through the Sun’s vast interior, must be powered by something deeper and more mysterious.
Fig 1: Depictions of how flow structures near the surface (0.99 solar radii) and at a deeper layer near (0.95 solar radii) develop as sunspots appear and evolve over time (over the 11-year solar cycle). The directions of swirly motions in the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun are determined by the Coriolis force, just the same way it shapes the storm systems on the Earth.
Fig 2. Sketch showing the Coriolis force mediated average flow structures around active regions in the northern hemisphere of the Sun. The labels depict the signs of residuals in meridional flows, δUθ , and that in resulting residual rotational shear, δ(∂Ω/∂r), for the two depths, 0.99 and 0.95 Rsun which mark the radial boundaries of the NSSL. Figure Artwork Credit: Amrita Rajaguru}
Zooming In and Looking Ahead
“To validate our findings, we zoomed in on a massive sunspot region using 3D velocity maps. The localized flow patterns we observed matched the global trends—confirming both surface inflows and deeper outflows,” said lead author Anisha Sen.
“This is a stunning look into how the Sun’s inner weather patterns form and evolve,” says Professor S.P. Rajaguru one of the authors of the paper. “Understanding these hidden patterns is not just academic—solar activity influences space weather that can disrupt satellites, power grids, and communications on Earth. This work brings us closer to understanding and building realistic models to predict the Sun’s behaviour.” The study group also included Abhinav Govindan Iyer and other international collaborators.
These findings give us a better understanding of how the Sun’s magnetic activity is linked to its internal flows and hint that we might still be missing something lurking in deeper layers that truly drives its global dynamics.
The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India today launched the (Round 2) study report on “Evaluation of Innovation Excellence Indicators of Public Funded R&D Organizations”, aimed at benchmarking and enhancing innovation performance across India’s publicly funded research ecosystem. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Economic Research (CTIER) served as knowledge partners for this study, contributing their expertise to strengthen the assessment framework.
The report was unveiled by Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, during the 15th CII Global Innovation and IP Summit 2025 held in New Delhi today. The launch event was also joined by Dr. Parvinder Maini, Scientific Secretary, Office of PSA, Shri B.N. Satpathy, PSA Fellow; Dr. Rakesh Kaur, Adviser/Scientist ’G’; Ms. Remya Haridassan, Scientist ‘D’ and Hafsa Ahmad, Scientist ‘D’ from Office of PSA and senior industry leaders, researchers, and representatives from academia and industry were also present during the launch.
The study presents a pioneering framework to evaluate innovation capacity and impact, developed through extensive engagement with stakeholders and supported by rigorous data analysis.
Speaking at the launch, Prof. Sood emphasised the importance of robust evaluation mechanisms in aligning national R&D efforts with socio-economic priorities. “This report serves as a strategic tool for institutional improvement and policy formulation. It reflects our collective aspiration to make Indian science and research globally competitive and socially impactful,” he said. He further said that the report is more than a diagnostic tool and is a roadmap for strengthening India’s innovation capabilities through data-driven insights and strategic benchmarking.
In her special address, Dr. Maini emphasised on the crucial role played by the publicly funded R&D institutions in translating national priorities into transformative solutions. She stated that these innovation excellence indicators offer a valuable metric for evaluating and benchmarking R&D institutes, ultimately fostering a stronger and more empowered innovation ecosystem.
In his welcome remarks, Dr. Udayant Malhoutra, Chairman, CII National Committee on Design Innovation and CEO & Managing Director, Dynamatic Technologies Limited stated that India’s R&D ecosystem is increasingly driven by design-led innovation, fostering global competitiveness through collaboration and creativity.
Mr Masood Mallick, Chairman, CII National Committee on Waste to Worth Technologies and Managing Director & Group CEO of Re Sustainability Limited stated that R&D in waste-to-worth technologies is unlocking sustainable solutions and circular economy models for a cleaner future.
In his vote of thanks, Mr Shaheen Majeed, Vice-Chairman, CII National Committee on Intellectual Property and Global CEO & Managing Director, Sami-Sabinsa Group mentioned that a strong IP framework is vital to India’s R&D growth, empowering innovation across science and industry.
This exercise reflects the Government of India’s continued commitment to fostering excellence, accountability, and innovation within publicly funded research and development institutions. The study saw participation from over 240 R&D organisations across 21 Ministries.
The evaluation framework focused on six key dimensions—research output and quality, technology transfer and commercialization, collaborations and industry engagement, intellectual property generation, societal and policy impact, and human resource development and capacity building. These indicators were designed to provide a holistic view of innovation performance across institutions.
Following the report launch, the Summit featured a session that explored the crucial role of fostering R&D partnerships in creating effective co-innovation ecosystems for technological progress. A panel of experts, including Prof. Kamal Kishore Pant (Director, IIT Roorkee), Dr. Vibha Malhotra Sawhney (Scientist H, CSIR Headquarters), Dr. Nagahanumaiah (Director, Central Manufacturing Technology Institute), Mr. P S Jayan (Corporate Technology Officer, Carborundum Universal), and Dr. Umish Srivastva (Executive Director, Technology Promotion & Forecasting, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd), discussed strategies and models for successful collaboration among research organisations, academia, government, and industry. The panel was moderated by Dr. Hafsa Ahmad (Scientist D, Office of PSA).
First-of-its-kind collaboration between a government-backed apex research institution and a philanthropic private foundation “Anusandhan National Research Foundation”, “Wadhwani Foundation” Forge Landmark Pact to Translate Research into Real-World Solutions
The collaboration also marks a turning point in how research will be funded and delivered in India in the times to come
In the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top ministers, a pivotal public-private research partnership is unveiled at Innovation Conclave
Posted On: 29 APR 2025 5:02PM by PIB Delhi
In a significant move to accelerate the transformation of India’s research ecosystem, the “Anusandhan National Research Foundation” (ANRF) and the “Wadhwani Foundation” exchanged a landmark “Letter of Intent” at the “Innovation Conclave” “YUGM” held at Bharat Mandapam here in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Science and Technology Minister, Dr. Jitendra Singh and Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
The partnership signals a first-of-its-kind collaboration between a government-backed apex research institution and a philanthropic private foundation, aimed at co-funding and scaling up research that can drive tangible societal impact. The agreement is also the inaugural step in ANRF’s strategy to foster expansive public-private partnerships across critical sectors of national relevance.
Dr. Jitendra Singh, who has been at the forefront of India’s science and innovation transformation, said the initiative reflects the government’s resolve to create an enabling environment where research transcends academic silos and reaches the ground. “This is a step towards institutionalizing synergy between government, industry, and philanthropy,” he said, underlining the need for collaborative models that amplify both funding and outcomes.
The ANRF, established under the National Education Policy 2020, was envisioned as a transformative body to democratize research, catalyze innovation, and bridge the long-standing gaps between academia, policy, and industry. With this new partnership, ANRF aims not only to fund cutting-edge science, but also to translate research into scalable, impactful solutions by aligning with national priorities and global challenges alike.
Wadhwani Foundation’s involvement adds a crucial layer of experience in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation-driven development, especially among youth and start-ups. Together, the two entities will work to raise the scale and impact of late-stage translational research—projects that are often closest to delivering real-world outcomes but remain underfunded.
The collaboration also marks a turning point in how research will be funded and delivered in India in the times to come—emphasizing inclusivity, interdisciplinary, and grassroots reach. In line with ANRF’s broader vision, this partnership aims to promote equitable access to resources and opportunities across the country, including tier-2 and tier-3 institutions, thereby fostering a more distributed and resilient research culture.
The announcement at Conclave, a platform designed to bring together thought leaders across government, academia, and industry, set the tone for a new era in Indian innovation policy. As India strives to become a global research hub, this partnership is expected to play a pivotal role in shifting the focus from fragmented efforts to outcome-oriented, collaborative science.
The move reinforces India’s march toward becoming a knowledge-based economy, with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of “Atmanirbhar Bharat” rooted not only in self-reliance but also in scientific excellence and societal good.
Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
Entries invited for State Technological Invention Award and State Scientific and Technological Progress Award The STIA and SSTPA are two award categories under the State Science and Technology Awards. The Commission has been entrusted by the National Office for Science and Technology Awards to co-ordinate nominations from Hong Kong for the two awards since 2002.
“The State Science and Technology Awards are highly prestigious in the national science and technology sector. They aim to recognise outstanding contributions to the advancement of science and technology by individuals and organisations, as well as to stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of persons working in the fields of science and technology, and to build an innovative and world-leading scientific and technological country. We encourage eligible local scientists and technologists to submit entries for the Awards,” a spokesman for the Commission said.
Canada’s Liberals have, once again, risen from the dead. Their re-election with Mark Carney at the helm is a remarkable development in Canadian federal politics — the party not only managed to reverse the dire predictions of its demise but also, despite voters expressing a desire for change, retained its control of government for a rare fourth consecutive term.
This is a crushing disappointment for the Conservative Party of Canada. Although they have so far held the Liberals to a minority government — votes are still being counted in some ridings — their continuing role as the lead opposition, albeit a bigger one, pales in comparison to the large majority government they’d been projected to form.
But for all this dejection, Conservatives still had a solid and promising performance. Rather than constituting a total failure, their standing is better regarded as an inability to fully close the deal.
The narrow margins of many Liberal gains also suggests that a Conservative minority was within the realm of possibility. For all his success, a politically inexperienced Carney so far appears to have failed to win a majority government, and may have inherited yet another fractious and unstable minority that will probably not last long.
While it’s still too early to get a full grasp of how voters made their decisions, it appears that the nearly 25-point swing in the polls was largely due to United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canada.
From the moment he came to office for a second term, Trump’s constant threats transformed the election from a fairly routine matter of anti-incumbent backlash to one focused on leadership, national unity and crisis management. Overnight, Canadian sovereignty became the top issue, and the NDP vote collapsed as most voters decided that their choice was really been two leaders.
Divided electorate
Carney was able to leverage his background as governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and his short initial tenure as prime minister, to not only depict a steady hand, but to generate a rally-around-the-flag effect.
Poilievre, in contrast, was unable to continue with the disruptive, anti-establishment tone of much of his previous rhetoric.
But even while Carney, from the moment campaign started, performed better on the Trump issue than Poilievre, it was far from the only issue that mattered to voters.
Rather than providing Carney with a clear mandate, the results suggest Canada continues to grow increasingly divided along the lines of age, class and region. The Liberals have been able to hold onto power with the support of Canadians wanting to defend what they have, but Conservatives are gaining ground among voters who feel increasingly disenchanted with and locked out of the Canadian project they’re now being told to embrace.
Poilievre’s future
Poilievre has signalled his intention to stay on as Conservative leader. In the months ahead, he’ll not only need to find a way to return to Parliament via a byelection — he’ll also need to convince his party and caucus he should remain leader.
While the party doesn’t have an automatic leadership review following elections, there are several mechanisms to challenge Poilievre’s leadership.
Ultimately, however, a sustained movement to push out Poilievre seems unlikely. For all his drawbacks, Poilievre has not only brought the party its greatest electoral performance in decades, but he’s generated a unique degree of energy and enthusiasm among supporters that no obvious successor seems capable of maintaining.
The challenge now is about determining what the Conservative party, having received just above 41 per cent of the vote, needs to do in order to gain a few more percentage points.
Sam Routley 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: US House of Representatives – Democratic Caucus
The following text contains opinion that is not, or not necessarily, that of MIL-OSI – April 29, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu were joined by Representatives John Mannion and April McClain Delaney for a press conference on the disastrous first 100 days of the Trump Administration that has made America less safe and more expensive.
CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Good morning. So thankful to be joined by two members in addition to our Vice Chair. Appreciate John Mannion and April McClain Delaney joining us.
America is less safe and more expensive than it was 100 days ago. Trump’s reckless tariffs are going to make the high price of groceries, gas, housing, utilities, clothing, electronics and other essential goods even worse. Companies are laying off hard-working Americans, and we are staring down an impending supply chain crisis in a few weeks. Our national security is threatened by amateur individuals sharing classified war plans in group chats. Our communities are threatened because Trump released hundreds of criminals back onto the street. Our freedoms are threatened because the Trump Administration abandons the rule of law and due process by deporting an innocent man and even American children.
By every metric, Donald Trump has failed. But instead of trying to put out the fire that he’s caused, he’s pouring gasoline on by cutting $880 billion from Medicaid, that will make healthcare more expensive and less affordable. He wants to take food off of the tables of American families, children and veterans. And he’s doing this all for one simple purpose: to put into place massive tax breaks for his billionaire donor friends. The Speaker went to the White House yesterday to get his marching orders, but if House Republicans want to avoid tying themselves to this sinking ship, they need to vote against the Republican Budget Bill. You’ll see House Democrats fighting back every step of the way this week and next week as Republicans try to pass through a dangerous and extreme budget.
It’s my privilege to introduce Vice Chair of the Democratic Caucus, Ted Lieu.
VICE CHAIR LIEU: Thank you, Chairman Aguilar, and honored to be here with Representatives Mannion and Delaney. Donald Trump’s first 100 days and one of the worst first 100 days of any U.S. President in history. That’s because his policies are harming America, and the American people have noticed. Multiple polls show Trump’s approval ratings plummeting. An Associated Press poll showed him at only 39% approval, 59% disapproval. And a recent Washington Post poll also shows him at only 39% approval, the lowest of any U.S. President in 80 years. One reason is because of tariffs. His indiscriminate tariffs have increased prices. I urge all of you to look at a statement from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. They put out a statement saying that the tariffs are crushing the working class with higher prices. And what’s even worse is we don’t even understand the rationale for these tariffs, because the White House has put out two completely different rationales. One of them is, we’re imposing these indiscriminate tariffs to try to strike deals, to go to a zero-tariff situation with other countries and have more free trade, reduce trade barriers. And then you have Donald Trump saying over the weekend, I’m doing these tariffs to create an external revenue service, to use this as a permanent revenue source to take the money that consumers are paying and inject that into the federal government. Those are completely opposite rationales and the White House can’t even figure out why it’s doing these tariffs.
And then let me just conclude now about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. I note that he has recently spent taxpayer funds for a makeup studio. I hope it’s going well and makes him look better on TV. But in terms of his policies, they are completely awful. Especially his operational ability to handle sensitive information. You may have seen recent reporting showing that his phone number has now been all over the internet, and if hackers have your phone number, there are a number of ways to surveil your phone. I asked reporters to look into whether he used his personal phone overseas. There is a hack called the SS7 Attack, stands for Signaling System No. 7. I was part of an investigation a few years ago. It doesn’t matter how great your phone is, it’s because of the telecommunications providers you use, there’s a flaw in there that they can surveil your phone, and they can do that in the U.S., it’s even worse overseas. So, you all should check out whether Secretary Hegseth compromised his phone if you use it overseas. With that, it is my honor now to invite Representative Mannion to come speak to you. Before being in Congress, he was a public school teacher and a State Senator from the great state of New York.
REP. MANNION: Thank you, Vice Chair. Good morning, everybody. I’m John Manion from Syracuse, New York. I’m a member of the Agriculture and Education and Workforce committees, and I represent NY-22, central New York, in the Mohawk Valley. We’re at 100 days into this second Trump Administration, and what we’ve seen is chaos, confusion, confrontation and fear. We’re witnessing an extraordinary assault on our Constitution, on our norms and our values, on our democracy, unlike what we’ve ever seen before, as we’re watching in real time, the dismantling of governmental guardrails.
One place where the damage is particularly clear is as it relates to our trade policy. Tariffs should be used with precision and purpose, but not as blunt political instruments. I believe now is the time for Congress to reassert the constitutional authority it continues to cede to the executive branch, and tariff policy is a good place for that to start. NY-22 has a long history of manufacturing, of innovation. We have a vibrant agricultural sector and world-class research institutions. We’re home to the largest private investment in the history of this country, with Micron’s historic $100 billion project to onshore semiconductor chip manufacturing in my district in Clay, New York. It’s a transformative project that will create thousands of jobs and solidify our region’s role in the global economy and the global tech economy.
But just as importantly, it is about making sure that our national security and the resources that we use to preserve our national security is happening right here in our country. My district is a down-the-middle district. We have representatives at the state legislature and the counties that are both Republicans and Democrats. CHIPS and Science was a piece of legislation that required all levels of government, from both parties, and stakeholders and experts in the field, to negotiate it, get it right, so that we can make sure that we put our national security at a premium and the emerging threats as it relates to supply chains, we had to address that. We did address it. It was done in the last Congress, and as a result, that project is moving forward.
When it comes to tariffs, you know, I looked at maps with arrows that show the negative impact, and no arrow is bigger than the state of New York. I live less than 100 miles from the Canadian border. My mother grew up in a town called Chateaugay, New York, which is five miles from the Canadian border. But you don’t have to be five miles from the border to see the impact that already exists. Tariffs are necessary tools that can be used for national security, for protecting hardworking Americans and their jobs and to grow that, but the current Administration’s approach lacks strategy and nuance, fails to recognize beneficial relationships between our friends, our allies and our business partners, like Canada.
In Central New York and the Mohawk Valley, we rely heavily on trade with Canada for both imports and exports. Sometimes a product’s production crosses the border multiple times, sometimes within the same company, and still, tariffs would be imposed on those pre-manufactured products. Materials come from Canada, and our products go to Canada. We have multiple industries that are being impacted in agriculture, lumber, metal production, as I mentioned, our building materials for an important plant that is coming into my district. There are double and triple tariffs that are hurting the bottom line. They’re hurting jobs. Contracts are being canceled. Contracts are not moving forward in the negotiation process. Costs are being driven up. It makes absolutely zero sense. So, we have to get this right. The relationship between my district and Canada is so intricate, and it goes beyond just commerce. Canadians are our friends. They are often our family members. As I said, they’re our business partners. And what newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Carney made remarks last night, and he called this “the American betrayal”. To hear stories of Canadians taking American products and turning them over so as to easily identify that product as American-made is unbelievable. Something that I would not imagine in our lifetime, and it is an unnecessary act because of the unnecessary acts that have come out of this Administration. The Prime Minister pledged to find new relationships and new agreements with reliable trade partners outside of the United States of America. And I do agree that describing this situation as a tragedy is accurate.
My conversations with New York farmers, including dairy producers, owners of apple orchards, maple syrup producers and other industries like lumber, the interconnectedness between New York State’s economy and Canada is vital to our collective success. Items like fertilizer, potash, these come from Canada. 90% of our potassium, not just in Central New York, but all across this country, comes from Canada. So, we must use precision when it comes to our trade policy. Tariffs are basically a tax on American consumers and businesses, continues to drive up costs for essential items like groceries, fuel, agricultural supplies. Where I’m from, in Central New York, we want policies that reflect the realities of our interconnected economy with our friend and ally, Canada.
America, the people of NY-22, our farmers—we all need policies that make sense, not a whipsaw on again, off again, tariff game that this current Administration is playing. It’s reckless. The impact will be massive. There will be waves of negative impact on multiple sectors of our economy, and that means it’s going to hurt hardworking Americans. It’s going to hurt small businesses. We must restore our standing as a reliable trade partner, not just with Canada, but with our other allies and trade partners around the world.
Simply, we are hurting consumers. We’re hurting Americans. We’re hurting businesses because of a lack of a cohesive strategy. We need to be more thoughtful. We need to be more targeted. We need to strengthen our economy without placing undue burdens on hardworking Americans. So, I ask that we have sanity to our trade policy, and that we restore our country’s standing around the world, not just as a reliable trade partner, but as the beacon of democracy around the world. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and with that, I will pass along the microphone to my colleague, Representative April McClain Delaney.
REP. MCCLAIN DELANEY: Good morning. I represent the Sixth District of Maryland, and when elected, I made a commitment to my constituents to seek common-sense, common-ground solutions. Sadly, the past 100 days, I’ve desperately been trying to find either common sense or common ground, and in fact, the chaos that has ensued has hurt everyone within my district. My district is as economically diverse as any district in the country. It starts not far from here in Montgomery County, where NIH researchers are curing cancer and NIST employees are establishing parameters for AI innovation. And it goes all the way to beautiful Mountain and Western Maryland, where family farms are providing their bounty to our community, and it borders West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
In my district, no one has escaped the harmful impact of Trump tariffs and isolation policy or his indiscriminate cuts to federal workers. I represent over 35,000 federal workers at agencies such as NIH, the National Institute of Cancer, NIST, our Fire Academy and Fort Detrick. Farmers are very concerned about selling their crops because of tariff impacts, but also because of markets drying up, markets they normally sold into, like through USAID or through SNAP programs. And cancer and innovation researchers and the surrounding biotech and tech private markets have been dealt a devastating blow from government cuts to both agencies and research and innovation engines. Small businesses and consultants are cratering because of lack of business, and this, in turn, is hurting every day, smaller businesses, markets, salons, sole proprietorships, who depend on spending in their community. And this includes tourism and business linked to our seven national parks in this district. We are home to the C&O Canal, which gets as many visitors per year as Yellowstone.
With respect to specific examples, last week, I toured the Volvo factory in Hagerstown, Maryland, where they make Mack Trucks. I was privileged to even get to drive one. They produce the engines and the axles for these vehicles and are pioneering some EV technology. But in the short term, they told me they have 1,700 workers. But instead of reshoring and bringing innovation and investment into the United States, Volvo is projected to cut 50 to 100 workers due to tariffs and economic insecurity. They do not know how the market will react, and more cuts might come later. Moreover, I have met with each of my five County Farm Bureaus, Montgomery County, Frederick, Allegheny, Washington County, Garrett, and they’re all concerned about crop market prices, SNAP and reimbursement for investments they made into their farms which have not been reimbursed by government programs for which they were promised. It is a tsunami hitting them from every angle and toppled with that, are threatened cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. And, of course, rural health clinics are really at risk in my district because of their dependence on Medicaid.
These self-inflicted, nonsensical, penny-foolish and pound-foolish policies are impacting our economic security, our U.S. competitiveness and our national security. Much more to say innovation and our trust internationally in the U.S. and the U.S. economy and our U.S. dollar. Having said the above, I stand ready to work on common-sense, common-ground solutions and across the aisle to make a reality the things we all care about, including focusing on inflation, innovation, affordability and fortifying our U.S. resilience, our U.S. competitiveness and our national security.
Video of the full press conference and Q&A can be viewed here.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Alexandre Pace, PhD Candidate in Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies, Concordia University
Natural archives — like tree rings in old-growth forests — can provide information on climate change over time.(A. Pace), CC BY
The effects of climate change are complex, especially on the water cycle. As we seek to better understand human-driven climate changes, long-term baselines for environmental data are essential.
However, records of past environmental conditions are too short to give us a robust understanding of how these systems have changed over time. One solution is to look at natural archives.
There are many natural processes that leave behind records of past environmental conditions, including tree rings.
Trees form a ring of wood every year, and the width of that ring can have a significant relationship with climate. We can then create a model based on the time period for which there is both recorded climate data and tree-ring widths. That model can be applied to the rings that formed before climate records began to reconstruct past conditions.
The challenge is to find forests with both strong climate-growth relationships and trees over a century old — substantially older than the length of climate data. This is especially difficult in southeastern Canada, where the vast majority of forests have been clear-cut.
Two canoes ready for salmon fishing on the Sainte-Anne River in Gaspésie National park. (A. Pace), CC BY
Sensitive old growth forests
In the Appalachian Mountains of the Gaspé Peninsula, Québec, we studied a rare old-growth cedar grove tucked into the valley between the base of Mont-Albert and the Sainte-Anne River, known for its Atlantic salmon fisheries.
The average hiker passing this eastern white cedar grove would probably not guess that some of these relatively small diameter cedars are more than 500 years old, an age that is still relatively young for the oldest species in eastern Canada.
The strong competition for light in this closed-canopy forest causes trees here to grow very slowly. We found they grow especially slow during years where the winter snow remained on the ground late into the spring. This late snow pack effectively shortens the trees’ growing season and leads to a thinner tree ring that same year.
We went on to sample hundreds of trees in the valley and on the slopes at sites that had never been logged. We repeatedly found a strong relationship with snow pack and a related relationship with spring river flow. With these two closely related connections, we were able to reconstruct 195 years of climate history in the region.
Modern climate change records
Rings measured on a cedar tree that was over 330 years old. (A. Pace), CC BY
Our recent study reconstructed spring and early summer river flow from 1822 for the Sainte-Anne River, a major river in Gaspésie National Park, the second-largest provincial park in southern Québec.
Analysis of this tree ring/snow pack/river relationship — which was previously undocumented in eastern North America — suggests that the region was affected quite early by modern climate change. A significant shift occurred in 1937, after which individual years of extremely high river flows and high snow packs declined. Newspaper reports of floods in the greater region matched the years of high flow in our reconstruction as far back as the year 1872, further validating the results.
The reconstruction also reveals that the short river flow records for the Gaspésie mountains under-represent the region’s susceptibility to prolonged periods of drought-like conditions. Local river flow records kept since 1968 show that the region experienced an equal amount of decade-long dry springs and wet springs. However, our reconstruction suggests that during the 1822-1968 period, long bouts of dry spring climate were substantially more frequent and prolonged than wet ones.
Second, alpine snow pack serves as a refuge for the threatened woodland caribou populations, which used to be spread across Atlantic Canada and northern New England. Today, the caribou are in sharp decline, with less than 40 remaining south of the St. Lawrence River, all within the Gaspé Peninsula.
A female caribou with a GPS tracking monitor around her neck. (A. Pace), CC BY
The primary threat to these caribou is the extensive clear-cutting of old-growth forest habitat. Younger forests provide less food for caribou and lead to an increased abundance of moose and deer, along with their predators — mainly coyotes and black bears — which also prey on caribou.
Our study improves our understanding of past moisture patterns across the east coast of North America. It fills a large gap in climate research based on tree rings between New York and northern Québec.
When comparing the past 200 years of these East Coast reconstructions, important climate connections arise. The comparison suggests that the complex Atlantic climate system can synchronize, leading large portions of the coast to collectively lock into periods of very wet or very dry conditions.
This is important for water resource managers, who often rely on help from other managers in neighbouring basins, which may not be available given this common synchrony.
The insights from the tree rings of these forests are another reminder of the value of old growth and the many services they provide. As we try to better understand the context of human-induced environmental change, our search continues for old forests with a story to tell.
Our ongoing research includes analyzing dead cedars preserved for almost 800 years at the bottom of lakes. The resulting tree ring chronology will extend our work with trees in the region so far, helping us further examine the environmental history of our rapidly changing planet.
Alexandre Pace receives funding from Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Nature et Technologies and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
Still celebrating her win for her poster titled “Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Treatment Burden”, Anita Oppong MSN, RN, a second year PhD student, said the Eastern Nursing Research Society (ENRS) conference was more than just a competition, but also a place to expand her research.
ENRS is comprised of nurses and other individuals interested in nursing research. Established in 1988, the society has continued to advance and promote health through “innovative nursing science,” according to the ENRS website.
This was their 37th annual conference held in Philadelphia, PA from April 3-4. The theme of this year’s session was “Freedom to Advance Health and Well-Being Through Revolutionary Nursing Research Partnerships.”
The conference features research symposiums, poster sessions, exhibitors, a member luncheon, and an award ceremony, giving attendees an action-packed experience.
Anita Oppong MSN, RN with her first-place poster “Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Treatment Burden.” (Contributed photo)
At the conference “we learn every day,” Oppong said. “It helps to build your thinking capacity in terms of research.”
By attending presentations and seeing the work of her peers, she said it helped develop her own program of research.
“It gives me questions to ask myself. Questions to search for,” Oppong said.
Louise Reagan, PhD, APRN, ANP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, is an associate professor and director for the PhD program at UConn as well as an ENRS board member.
She said this year’s conference had the largest number of attendees with about 780 people.
“The ENRS conference really brings people together and shows what good work we’re doing and the research that can be life changing for our patients and improve healthcare,” Reagan said.
Deborah Chyun, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN, said ENRS is “a gathering place for all of us in the eastern corridor.” She shared similar remarks as Reagan, saying it’s a great opportunity to show off the work UConn School of Nursing students and faculty have done.
Chyun said it’s a good forum to catch up with people throughout the region and it serves as an important recruitment opportunity for both faculty and students, whether it’s a masters, DNP, PhD, or post-doctoral student.
“The thing about ENRS is it’s very broad, it covers all,” Chyun says. “So, you have a lot of different topics, but that’s good because it allows you to see what else is going on outside the tunnel of your own specialty area.”
With the conference encompassing a wide range of nursing research and professionals, Oppong’s win was an important moment for UConn.
Being handed the certificate was a joyful experience for her and one that she will never forget. “It was an honor,” she said.
Connecting and Networking
ENRS provides attendees with a space to connect with like-minded individuals creating an environment for networking. This was a major highlight for third year PhD student Hannah Scheibner, MSN, RN who said it was a great opportunity to meet people with similar interests.
Like Oppong, Scheibner specifically recounted the poster sessions and how much insight she gained within her own work and others.
Hannah Scheibner, MSN, RN with her poster “Remote Sensing and Applications for Studying Environmental Health Inequities in Nursing Science.” (Contributed photo)
“The poster sessions are great to just see the wide scope and breadth of work that’s being done all across the Northeast,” she said. “It’s great getting feedback and engaging in discussions with people, especially when I have my poster presentation.”
Scheibner’s poster – “Remote Sensing and Applications for Studying Environmental Health Inequities in Nursing Science” – showed how nurses can use sensors to measure health related environmental characteristics without coming in direct contact with said environment.
“You can measure so many various factors that are related to environmental health that impact the patients that we care for,” said Scheibner. “It’s very accessible for nurses to harness in their research. They don’t need to go out in the field and learn how to use all this equipment.”
Scheibner said the poster session was really encouraging with enthusiasm and support coming from other attendees.
Christina Ross, PhD, RN, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing also emphasized the networking opportunities she received from the conference. She was able to connect with others who had similar research as hers, ultimately expanding her own work.
“I really enjoyed the conference because there were a lot of nurse scientists who presented work on adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health on both a local and global scale,” she said. “I was able to connect and discuss my research which was similar to theirs but in the US context.”
Tyler Driscoll, another third year PhD student at UConn said “The ENRS Conference is a great place to learn, contribute, gain experience, and network with the top nursing scientists in the region.”
Driscoll’s poster was on psychological pathogen avoidance mechanisms and how they work in modern ecologies.
“Whether you are presenting a poster and getting feedback and insights from a more senior researcher or participating as a peer audience member during a scientific presentation, the opportunity to learn something new about anything—from genetics, to school nursing, to post-partum depression, to breast cancer—or even about yourself and your own journey—is always there,” he said.
