STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, February 18 2025. Karolinska Development AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: KDEV) today announces that its portfolio company Promimic has published positive results showing a reduction of bacterial growth on the company’s implant surface HAnano Surface. The results are published in the Journal of Functional Biomaterials.
Promimic has previously seen an effect on reduced adhesion of bacteria on HAnano Surface, but the recent results also show a reduction of bacterial growth. The results indicate that the effect is bacteriostatic (hinders growth) and not bactericide (germicidal), which can decrease the risk of bacterial resistance.
The results are based on in vitro tests on gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria on HAnano Surface, showing a reduction between 33-46 percent on the bacterial strains S. epidermidis and P. aeruginosa, which are common in implant infections.
”Bacterial infections associated with dental and orthopedic implants are a serious problem and there is a great need for implants that promote healing and reduce the risk of bacterial growth. Our portfolio company Promimic clearly demonstrates the benefits that surface modification can bring to implant treatment in healthcare and for the individual patient,” says Viktor Drvota, CEO of Karolinska Development.
Promimic develops and markets HAnano Surface, a unique, nanometer-thin surface treatment that aims to improve the anchorage and healing of orthopedic and dental implants into bone tissue. The technology is well established and has so far been applied to over 1,8 million implants in clinical use around the world.
Karolinska Development’s shareholding in Promimic, including indirect ownership by KDev Investments, amounts to 14% (2% and 12%, respectively).
Karolinska Development AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: KDEV) is a Nordic life sciences investment company. The company focuses on identifying breakthrough medical innovations in the Nordic region that are developed by entrepreneurs and leadership teams. The Company invests in the creation and growth of companies that advance these assets into commercial products that are designed to make a difference to patients’ lives while providing an attractive return on investment to shareholders.
Karolinska Development has access to world-class medical innovations at the Karolinska Institutet and other leading universities and research institutes in the Nordic region. The Company aims to build companies around scientists who are leaders in their fields, supported by experienced management teams and advisers, and co-funded by specialist international investors, to provide the greatest chance of success.
Karolinska Development has a portfolio of eleven companies targeting opportunities in innovative treatment for life-threatening or serious debilitating diseases.
The Company is led by an entrepreneurial team of investment professionals with a proven track record as company builders and with access to a strong global network.
Understanding the relationship between humans and the ocean is crucial for making informed and effective decisions that will shape the future of our ocean. With this in mind, achieving lasting global progress in ocean protection requires prioritising ocean literacy.
Right now, there is a disconnect between young peoples’ recognition of the ocean’s vital role in climate change, and the measures required to protect and restore it.
My work as a marine social scientist focuses on ocean literacy. For me, knowledge is one of the most powerful tools to incite the action needed to save ocean health. The development of ocean literacy, through a range of education and engagement initiatives worldwide that embrace different types of knowledge, must be better prioritised.
Only then can we equip young people with what they need to protect our ocean and to know who to hold accountable for its health.
The ocean — stretching past the horizon, beneath the surface, and into the depths — remains largely out of sight, out of mind. But what happens within it affects us. Fostering stronger ocean literacy across society can help us mend this disconnect.
Ocean literacy is defined as “having an understanding of the ocean’s influence on you and your influence on the ocean”. While not a new concept, ocean literacy has gained increasing popularity in recent years, partly due to its inclusion as a potential mechanism for change within the UN Ocean Decade, launched in January 2021.
Young people must be central in efforts to restore ocean literacy across society. It is essential for them to understand the challenges facing the ocean, recognise who is responsible for addressing them, and advocate for more action. Enhancing ocean literacy among this generation encourages a greater appreciation of the ocean’s critical role in our daily lives, now and in the future.
According to a recent global study engaging 3,500 young people from across 35 countries, a large percentage of young people express concern about the ocean’s health.
It highlights that 53% of young people believe that the ocean can protect us from climate change, yet 61% place a higher priority on protecting forests, tackling air pollution and freshwater scarcity. This shows that young people around the world have low ocean literacy.
This echoes a growing number of national ocean literacy assessments. In 2022, a study of ocean literacy in Wales found that although 84% of people indicated that protecting the marine environment was important to them, 40% felt that their lifestyle had no impact on the sea at all. This highlights a concerning level of disconnect and lack of ocean literacy that could undermine our ability to tackle urgent challenges, including biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution.
Swimming, sailing, even just building a sandcastle – the ocean benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Curious about how a strong coastal connection helps drive marine conservation, scientists are diving in to investigate the power of blue health. This article is part of a series, Vitamin Sea, exploring how the ocean can be enhanced by our interaction with it.
It’s all about accountability
This is not a blame game. However, accountability ensures that governments, industries and people take responsibility for their role in ocean health, driving the transparency and action needed for meaningful education and engagement.
The Back to Blue study found that while half (50%) of young people surveyed were concerned about ocean pollution, very few (17%) wanted increased responsibility from corporations and businesses.
That study, which I advised on, also reveals that young people have high expectations of governments, conservation charities and local communities. Almost half (46%) said that governments should take stronger action to protect ocean health. Yet, expectations of the private sector – some of the biggest ocean polluters – were very low. Young people are misunderstanding where accountability for ocean pollution and the decline in ocean health lies.
The lack of accountability slows progress and perpetuates a cycle of ocean neglect. But, engaging young people in ocean issues will empower them to demand more action and help develop effective solutions.
In some places, ocean literacy is more embedded into students’ learning. More than 500 certified European blue schools are part of the Network of European Blue Schools. And the All-Atlantic Blue Schools Network has established ocean literacy projects and blue school ambassadors in schools in 16 countries, from Angola to the US.
Education can help to engage young people. But only if education systems worldwide integrate ocean literacy from a young age and across all subject areas.
By prioritising ocean literacy, we can empower young people to become informed stewards of the ocean, ensuring that they are not only aware of its vital role in our daily lives but also actively involved in changing the tide.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Emma McKinley 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.
Thirteen million people across the UK sat down to watch a brand new soap opera that burst onto their screens on February 19 1985. The first character to speak on EastEnders was Dirty Den, as he came to be known, played by Leslie Grantham. Breaking into a dingy flat with fellow characters Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) and Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih), Den uttered the words “Stinks in ‘ere, dunnit?”, before discovering the elderly Reg Cox (Johnnie Clayton) close to death.
Up until this point, the BBC had not had much luck with the continuing serial drama, or soap opera, format. Its first serial, The Grove Family, ran for only three years between 1954 and 1957, for instance. Although The Archers had been running since 1951 on Radio 4, and the Welsh-language soap opera, Pobol y Cwm, began in 1974 (and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary), the BBC lacked anything comparable to ITV’s Coronation Street.
Launched in 1960, Coronation Street demonstrated that there was a public appetite for drama which focused on the everyday lives of ordinary people. ITV’s second soap success, Crossroads which ran between 1964 and 1988, and later between 2001 and 2003, underlined that point, as did Emmerdale Farm, which was launched in 1972, becoming just Emmerdale in 1989.
When Channel 4 launched with a gritty, realist soap opera, Brookside, in November 1982, the BBC had to respond. With that channel’s extra competition, and cable and satellite television being discussed as the next big thing, the BBC’s audience share was in danger of decreasing to the point where people may have questioned the justification for the licence fee.
And so EastEnders was born and became an immediate success. Over the years it’s had its ups and downs in terms of viewing figures, but has still endured. So, in a broadcasting landscape where there is now so much competition from streaming services and a variety of platforms from which we can now engage with “content” (“programme” can feel like an old-fashioned word now), how has the serial retained it popularity?
Realism meets melodrama
Part of the answer lies in the ways in which soap operas are constructed. They focus on people and peoples’ relationships with each other. This gives us the audience an immediate connection. We can all relate to one or more characters. We are given an insight into their family lives, their work, their feelings and emotions.
Drama can entertain and provide escapism. At the same time, it can prick the conscience and stir the soul. It can deal with complex ideas and flights of fancy, gritty social issues and controversial topics. It has the ability to both engage and alienate audiences and provoke wider public debate. EastEnders has done all of these things.
Soap operas can also run multiple storylines that overlap. This means that if one story ends – such as a character leaving, or a conflict being resolved – there are other stories to carry the audience along, while new storylines are developed.
Another characteristic of soap operas is that they aim to balance realism with just the right amount of melodrama. Those of us who remember the early years of EastEnders will recall Christmas day 1986 when more than 30 million viewers tuned in to see Dirty Den hand divorce papers to wife Angie (Anita Dobson) after discovering she had been faking a terminal illness.
Dirty Den hands Angie divorce papers on Christmas Day 1986.
And, of course, any successful soap opera like EastEnders requires a team of skilled writers and believable characters. Such was the popularity of characters like Dirty Den that the BBC brought him back from the dead in 2003 after an absence of 14 years in a bid to halt declining viewing figures. Den did eventually die “properly” to mark the 20th anniversary on February 18 2005. And 13 million people watched as his wife, Chrissie (Tracy-Ann Oberman), dealt the fatal blow.
Grit, grime and real life
EastEnders has not shied away from gritty or social-realist storylines.
Communications scholar Anthony McNicholas has described EastEnders as a “public service soap opera”, by which he means that the stories featured often reflect values and issues in contemporary society.
Some of the early storylines revolved around teenage pregnancy, rape and drug-taking. There were characters who had HIV/Aids at the time the subject was being widely discussed in the UK.
Baddie Janine pushes husband Barry off a cliff in a famous scene from New Year’s Day 2004.
The soap has also dealt with domestic abuse. It worked closely with the charity Women’s Aid on a domestic abuse story in 2020. This prompted the domestic abuse charity, Refuge, to praise the soap for drawing the issue to peoples’ attention. It noted that EastEnders had done a great job reflecting on screen what is a horrific reality for so many families.
Dealing with controversial yet realistic storylines has sometimes led to the programme coming into conflict with the regulator, Ofcom, for broadcasting certain harrowing scenes before the 9.00pm watershed.
As EastEnders reaches middle age, there’s no sign of it slowing down. The anniversary promises to be eventful and engaging, featuring a live episode. And there will always be a place for relatable storylines, drama, passion and characters that we can love and hate. Happy Birthday EastEnders and here’s to the next 40 years.
Jamie Medhurst has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), British Academy, and The Leverhulme Trust.
Absolute pitch has long been viewed as a kind of musical superpower. It refers to the ability to identify or produce a tone, like an A or a C-sharp, without any provided reference point.
With only 12 possible answers, naming the pitch of a tone may seem easy. However, it is somehow incredibly difficult for most musicians, including the professionally trained ones.
Adding to this mystery, for gifted musicians and composers such as Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven, absolute pitch can feel as intuitive as recognising the colour red, reinforcing the widespread belief that absolute pitch – also referred to by many people as perfect pitch – is a rare, exceptional talent.
For decades, many scientists and musicians believed that you either had absolute pitch – or you didn’t. If you are not the lucky ones who carry special genes and have started musical training during early childhood, you were thought to have missed the opportunity entirely. Our new research, however, suggests this isn’t actually true.
Our research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that absolute pitch remains a learnable skill in adulthood – many adults can train their way to levels of performance comparable to individuals who naturally possess this skill in everyday life.
Intense training
To help adults progressively learn to identify tones, our research team designed an eight-week online training programme. On average, 12 musicians dedicated 21 hours and completed over 15,000 pitch naming exercises. These involved hearing a piano or guitar note (within three octaves) for 800 milliseconds and having to name it within a certain amount of time. The participants had to complete 25 hours of training online over eight weeks. The training included a total of 288 training levels, with 24 levels for each additional pitch.
The training required really hard work – participants did not only learn to name the tones accurately, but also very quickly. Over time, the difficulty ramped up as more tones were introduced, and the time allowed for response was further tightened.
We carefully avoided common pitfalls in previous studies. By including a wide range of tones, we ensured that they learned to identify the pitch class – the fundamental quality that makes a note sound like a C, D or E, regardless of whether the tone sounds high or low.
This approach truly captures the essence of absolute pitch. We eliminated feedback during testing, so participants could not rely on their working memory as a crutch. To rule out “lucky guessing,” we required participants to repeatedly demonstrate their abilities with strict criteria for success.
Effort vs talent
By the end of the training, participants had made remarkable progress. On average, they could correctly identify more than seven musical notes almost every time, taking as little as one or two seconds to respond. Their ability to identify the correct notes more than doubled.
Even when they made mistakes, their responses got 43% closer to the correct answer. These impressive gains were also found for notes they hadn’t been specifically trained to recognise, suggesting they were learning something deeper about pitch perception.
Notably, two participants mastered all 12 pitches with performance comparable to that of possessors of absolute pitch in the real world.
What made learning absolute pitch in adulthood possible now, given a century of unconvincing findings? The human brain and perceptual systems are highly adaptable, and this holds well into adulthood. Through practice and feedback, adults can improve their ability to recognise and distinguish sensory inputs, such as visual patterns and speech sounds.
Our training takes advantage of this amazing potential of the human perceptual system to learn. What we have done differently from previous efforts was ultimately that we designed an effective learning experience, including the right learning materials, effective feedback and changes in difficulty for each learner – all while making it fun.
Together with motivated learners, learning absolute pitch in adulthood was made possible.
Music training and beyond
The fact that absolute pitch was previously thought to be locked behind a genetic lottery or early musical exposure has sadly discouraged countless musicians and music educators from learning or teaching it.
Our findings offer an encouraging counter-narrative – absolute pitch is not just for the lucky few. With a well-designed learning tool, it is a skill that many adults can cultivate.
More broadly, our findings demonstrate how science can challenge deep-rooted assumptions about human abilities. Instead of being fixed by biology or early experiences, many skills can still be developed and improved well into adulthood.
This shift in understanding could inspire us to adopt a growth mindset, showing that it is never too late to learn and improve, no matter what you think might hold you back.
So, if you have ever dreamed of identifying musical notes like a virtuoso, it is not too late to work on it now.
Yetta Kwailing Wong 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.
Editors deployed AI to make the Hungarian dialogue in ‘The Brutalist’ sound more authentic.A24/TNS
The 2025 slate of Oscar nominees recognizes many writers, directors and actors whose scripts and performances don’t necessarily reflect their own cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley, both white, co-wrote “Sing Sing,” a story about rehabilitation through art in a maximum security prison where the characters are almost entirely people of color.
Meg LeFauve has now earned her second nomination for penning a script that gives voice the gamut of emotions surging through a young girl in “Inside Out 2.” She’s in her 50s.
The director of “Conclave,” Edward Berger, its writer, Peter Straughan, and its lead actor, Ralph Fiennes, are all self-proclaimedlapsed Catholics. Yet they brought to life a political thriller set in the Vatican.
“The Brutalist” was written entirely in English, but much of the film’s dialogue is in Hungarian, with two leads who are not native Hungarian speakers.
Most screenwriters endeavor to craft characters outside their own backgrounds and experiences. But concerns about authentic language representation and cultural accuracy persist, and accusations of cultural appropriation and lazy research are commonplace.
“Emilia Pérez,” for example, has been heavily criticized not only for unrealistic portrayals of gender transition but also for inauthentic depictions of Mexican culture and accents.
The film’s director, Jacques Audiard, has even claimed his lack of knowledge of Spanish has been an artistic benefit. He says it gives him “a quality of detachment” to emphasize “emotion” rather than “focus too strongly on the accent, the punctuation.”
His lack of interest in precise depictions of language and culture contrasts sharply with our recent research, which shows ample interest from practicing screenwriters in accurately representing dialects and accents in scripts.
Wanting to get it right
We surveyed over 50 current members of the Writers Guild of America, and they broadly told us that sensitivity to linguistic representation has increased since the 2010s.
Several commented that there’s been more commitment to hiring writers who represent the characters’ voices and backgrounds. There’s also more “freedom to include diverse characters and worlds… but a commensurate emphasis on authenticity and a higher bar for what that means,” as one writer explained.
“Authenticity” was consistently cited in our survey as a principal consideration when writing dialogue. Other concerns included scripts’ intelligibility, historical accuracy and believability.
In most cases, screenwriters aspire to write dialogue that sounds authentic. But it’s not easy – and often requires collaboration to get it right. Writers noted how they’ll adjust their dialogue based on production needs, such as budgetary concerns, input from actors and directors, and feedback from dialect coaches and historical consultants.
For example, spec scripts – or noncommissioned film scripts – are written before any casting or production decisions are made. The dialogue in these scripts will likely change once actors and other creatives are attached to the project.
Recipes for capturing linguistic nuance
In our study, we also reviewed screenwriting manuals published as far back as 1946.
Manuals didn’t begin to raise explicit ethical concerns, such as the use of inaccurate linguistic stereotypes in dialogue, until the 1980s. For example, many older films, such as “Gone with the Wind,” often used phonetic spelling in their scripts, with features such as g-dropping – “quittin’” for “quitting” – to mark only the speech of lower-class or racially marginalized characters, despite the fact that all people, regardless of background, have accents.
Writing in heavy phonetics is generally discouraged in modern screenwriting.
There are practical reasons for this. Scripts are read before they’re seen and therefore must first appeal to the not so general audience of executives who buy them. As one writer explained, “My script is targeted towards them.”
Take “Trainspotting.” Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh was written with heavy phonetics to capture the characters’ Scottish dialect: “ah wouldnae git tae watch it.” But the screenplay uses lines without phonetics, such as, “I wouldn’t have bothered.”
In this respect, there’s a notable difference in novels and their respective adaptations. One surveyed writer avoids dialectal markers and will “default to standard American English unless there is a reason not to.”
That doesn’t mean the actors in “Trainspotting” should speak in an American English accent. Instead, screenwriters might simply indicate the use of language and dialect when describing the scene in a script or, as one surveyed screenwriter explained, “make a note in the parenthetical that ‘Brynn speaks with a heavy West Virginia accent’” to flag the work that “the actor, dialogue coach, and writer will need to do together.”
This method is employed in “The Brutalist.” The film is partly in Hungarian, but writer and director Brady Corbet and his Norwegian co-writer, Mona Fastvold, wrote the Hungarian dialogue in standard English. They then used parentheticals to indicate any non-English delivery of dialogue. The film’s stars, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, worked with a dialect coach to hone their accents.
“Anora,” which tells the story of an exotic dancer in a whirlwind romance, features characters who speak Russian, Armenian and English with varying degrees of fluency. Even though the characters frequently switch between these languages, the entire script is in unbroken English. Code-switching is simply marked with “Russian,” “Armenian” or “English” in the script before a piece of dialogue.
‘Anora’ featured characters who switched between Russian, Armenian and English.
But limiting oneself to standard U.S. English restricts diversity in the written dialogue itself. Some writers may want to use dialect or language to convey character authenticity on the page.
Our survey respondents described this as “flavor” – the strategic use of dialectal words or phrases to create distinct voices, with limited phonetics. Jesse Eisenberg, in his Oscar-nominated script “A Real Pain,” lightly blends American English with occasional Yiddish words to great effect: “… landed in Galveston for some fakakta reason,” or “crazy” reason.
AI chimes in
Attempts at authenticity can become muddied when AI gets involved.
But the film’s creators, including editor and native Hungarian speaker Dávid Jancsó, defended this choice. They argued the technology actually enhanced the language’s authenticity, particularly since Hungarian’s system of vowels and consonants is especially hard for nonnative speakers to capture accurately.
Whether writers use phonetics or standard language, and whether producers use AI or dialect coaches, questions of ethics and linguistic authenticity will remain. It’s important to research language choices and dialogue, and to consult the diverse speakers portrayed in scripts.
These are among the many essential checks and balances that are becoming bigger parts of the filmmaking process.
Mitchell Olson is affiliated with Carter Stanton, Creative Executive at Brookstreet Pictures, which was a co-producer of “The Brutalist.” He’s also an acquaintance of Meg LeFauve. He has no stake in the performance of their work outside of having professional relationships.
Chris C. Palmer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
One of President Donald Trump’s major promises during the 2024 presidential campaign was to launch mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. without legal authorization.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has said that, since January 2025, it is detaining and planning to deport 600 to 1,100 immigrantsa day. That marks an increase from the average 282 immigration arrests that happened each day in September 2024 under the Biden administration.
The current trend would place the Trump administration on track to apprehend 25,000 immigrants in Trump’s first month in office. On an annual basis, this is about 300,000 – far from the “millions and millions” of immigrants Trump promised to deport.
A lack of funding, immigration officers, immigration detention centers and other resources has reportedly impeded the administration’s deportation work.
The Trump administration is seeking US$175 billion from Congress to use for the next four years on immigration enforcement, Axios reported on Feb. 11, 2025.
One important factor is that mass deportations would weaken key industries in the U.S. that rely on immigrant workers, including those living in the U.S. illegally.
Overall, immigrants without legal authorization make up about 5% of the total U.S. workforce.
Some of these immigrant farmworkers are skilled supervisors who make decisions about planting and harvesting. Others know how to use and maintain tractors, loaders, diggers, rakers, fertilizer sprayers, irrigation systems, and other machines crucial to farm operations.
With fewer available workers to pick fruits and vegetables and prepare the food for shipment and distribution, the domestic production of food could decrease, leading to higher costs and more imports.
Past state-level immigration enforcement policies offer an idea of what could happen at the national level if Trump were to carry out widespread deportations.
For example, a 2011 Alabama law called HB-56 directed local police officers to investigate the immigration status of drivers stopped for speeding. It also prohibited landlords from renting properties to immigrants who do not have legal authorization to work or live in the country. That law and its resulting effects prompted some Alabama-based immigrant workers to leave the state following workplace raids.
Their departure wound up costing the state an estimated $2.3 billion to $10.8 billion loss in Alabama’s annual gross domestic product due to the loss of workers and economic output.
Other industries that rely on immigrants
Part of the challenge of mass deportations for industries like construction, nearly a quarter of whose workers are living without legal authorization, is that their workforce is highly skilled and not easily replaced. Immigrant workers are particularly involved in home construction and specialize in such tasks as ceiling and flooring installation as well as roofing and drywall work.
Shocks from deportations would also slow commercial and public infrastructure construction. Six construction workers, for example, died in April 2024 in the sudden collapse of the Baltimore Key Bridge in Maryland. All of them were Latino immigrants living in the U.S. without legal documentation.
Examining the arguments
Trump administration officials and other politicians have argued that deporting large numbers of immigrants would help the country save money, since fewer people will use federal and state funds by attending public schools or receiving temporary shelter.
Trump said in November 2024 that there is “no price tag” for large-scale deportations.
“It’s not a question of price tag,” Trump said. “We have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here,” Trump told NBC News.
Trump and his supporters also argue that deporting immigrants would mean more jobs for American workers.
Second, for employers, having fewer workers in the country translates into higher wages, which in turn means less capital to adapt and grow. For businesses based on consumer debt – think mortgages, car loans and credit cards – deportations would disrupt the financial sector by removing responsible borrowers who make consistent payments.
In other words, people who are living and working in the U.S. without legal authorization are helping to pay, through taxes, the costs of caring for Americans as they age and begin to draw on the nation’s retirement and health care programs.
The burden from recent inflation notwithstanding, an economy supported by immigrants living illegally in the U.S. protects Americans.
The U.S. would be unable to dodge the economic shocks and high costs that mass deportations would bring about.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Astrainedpharmacists who advocate for and take care of patients in community settings, we’ve witnessed this decline firsthand. The loss of local pharmacies threatens individual and community access to medications, pharmacist expertise and essential public health resources.
The changing role of pharmacies
Community pharmacies – which include independently owned, corporate-chain and other retail pharmacies in neighborhood settings – have changed a lot over the past decades. What once were simple medication pickup points have evolved into hubs for health and wellness. Beyond dispensing prescriptions, pharmacists today provide vaccinations, testing and treatment for infectious diseases, access to hormonal birth control and other clinical services they’re empowered to provide by federal and state laws.
Given their importance, then, why have so many community pharmacies been closing?
There are many reasons, but the most important is reduced reimbursement for prescription drugs. Most community pharmacies operate under a business model centered on dispensing medications that relies on insurer reimbursements and cash payments from patients. Minor revenue comes from front-end sales of over-the-counter products and other items.
And it’s not just mom-and-pop operations feeling the pinch. Over the past four years, the three largest pharmacy chains have announced plans to close hundreds of stores nationwide. CVS kicked off the trend in 2021 by announcing plans to close 900 pharmacy locations. In late 2023, Rite Aid said that thousands of its stores would be at risk for closure due to bankruptcy. And late in 2024, Walgreens announced its plans to close 1,200 stores over the next three years.
So if your neighborhood pharmacy closes, what should you do?
While convenience and location matter, you might want to consider other factors that can help you meet your health care needs. For example, some pharmacies have staff who speak your native language, independent pharmacy business owners may be active in your community, and many locations offer over-the-counter products like hormonal contraception, the overdose-reversal drug naloxone and hearing aids.
You may also consider locations – especially corporate-owned pharmacies – that also offer urgent care or primary care services. In addition, most pharmacies offer vaccinations, and some offer test-and-treat services for infectious diseases, diabetes education and help with quitting smoking.
What to ask if your pharmacy closes
If your preferred pharmacy closes and you need to find another one, keep the following questions in mind:
• What will happen to your old prescriptions? When a pharmacy closes, another pharmacy may buy its prescriptions. Ask your pharmacist if your prescriptions will be automatically transferred to a nearby pharmacy, and when this will occur.
• What’s the staffing situation like at other pharmacies? This is an important factor in choosing a new pharmacy. What are the wait times? Can the team accommodate special situations like emergency refills or early refills before vacations? Does the pharmacist have a relationship with your primary care physician and your other prescribers?
• Which pharmacies accept your insurance? A simple call to your insurer can help you understand where your prescriptions are covered at the lowest cost. And if you take a medication that’s not covered by insurance, or if you’re uninsured, you should ask if the pharmacy can help you by offering member pricing or manufacturer coupons and discounts.
• What are your accessibility needs? Pharmacies often offer services to make your care more accessible and convenient. These may include medication packaging services, drive-thru windows and home delivery. And if you’re considering switching to a mail-order pharmacy, you should ask if it has a pharmacist to answer questions by phone or during telehealth visits.
Remember that it’s best to have all your prescriptions filled at the same pharmacy chain or location so that your pharmacist can perform a safety check with your complete medication list. Drug interactions can be dangerous.
Community pharmacies have been staples of neighborhoods for more than a century. Unfortunately, current trends in pharmacy closures pose real threats to public health. We hope lawmakers address the underlying systemic issues so more Americans don’t lose access to their medications, health services and pharmacists.
Lucas A. Berenbrok is part owner of the consulting company, Embarx, LLC. He receives funding from the American Pharmacists Association.
Michael Murphy consults to the American Pharmacists Association.
Sophia Herbert has received funding from the Community Pharmacy Foundation.
The dramatic images of wealthy neighborhoods burning during the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires captured global attention, but the damage was much more widespread. Many working-class families lost their homes, businesses and jobs. In all, more than 16,000 structures – most of them homes – were destroyed, leaving thousands of people displaced.
The shock of this catastrophic loss has been reverberating across Southern California, driving up demand for rental homes and prices in an already unaffordable and competitive housing market. Many residents now face rebuilding costs that are expected to skyrocket.
Climate-related disasters like this often have deep roots in policies and practices that overlook growing risks. In the Los Angeles area, those risks are now impossible to ignore.
As the region starts to recover, communities have an opportunity to rebuild in better ways that can protect neighborhoods against a riskier future – but at the same time don’t price out low-income residents.
Sisters Emilee and Natalee De Santiago sit on the front porch of what remains of their home after the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., in January 2025. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
My research at the University of San Diego focuses on managing risk in the face of climate change. I see several ways to design solutions that help low- and moderate-income residents recover while building a safer community for the future.
Better building policies that recognize future risk
Before a disaster, communities trying to adapt to climate change often prioritize protecting high-risk, high-value property, such as a beachfront or hillside neighborhood with wealthy homes. My own research also shows a trend toward incremental climate adaptations that don’t disturb the status quo too much and, as a result, leave many risks unaddressed.
Climate risks are often underestimated, in part because of policy limitations and a political reluctance to consider unpopular solutions, such as restricting where people can build. Yet, disasters once considered unimaginable, such as the Los Angeles wildfires, are occurring with increasing frequency.
An aerial view shows the devastation left by the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles in January 2025. Homes in the hills can be at the highest fire risk during dry weather and strong winds. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Making communities safer from these risks requires communitywide efforts. And that can mean making difficult decisions.
California already has some of the strictest wildfire-prevention codes in the country, but the same rules for new homes don’t apply to older homes. Communities can invest in programs to help these property owners retrofit their homes by offering grants or incentives to remove highly flammable landscaping or to “harden” existing homes to make them less vulnerable to burning.
Research shows that resilience efforts can spur “climate gentrification,” or displacement due to increases in property values. So, focusing on affordability in resilience efforts is important. For long-term affordability and resilience, governments can collaborate with communities to develop strategies such as supporting Community Land Trusts through grants, low-interest loans or land transfers; implementing zoning reforms to enable higher-density, climate-resilient affordable housing; and incentivizing green infrastructure to strengthen community resilience.
In some cases, communities may have to considered managed retreat – moving people out of high-risk areas – but with adequate compensation and support for displaced residents to ensure that they can rebuild their lives elsewhere.
Making the risks clear through insurance
Insurance rates can also encourage residents and communities to lower their risks. Yet in many places, insurance policies have instead obscured the risks, leaving homeowners less aware of how vulnerable their property may be.
For years, insurers underpriced wildfire risk, driven by market competition. California policies also capped the premiums they could charge. As fire damage and rebuilding costs soared in recent years, insurers unwilling to shoulder more of the risk themselves pulled out of the state. That left countless Californians uninsured and hundreds of thousands reliant on the state-run insurance known as the FAIR Plan. The plan imposes caps on payouts and is now struggling to stay solvent, resulting in higher costs that insurers are expected to pass on to consumers.
When disasters strike, local groups and neighbors play critical roles in stabilizing neighborhoods. But residents also need more specialized help to find housing and apply for disaster aid.
Building resilience hubs in communities could help support residents before, during and after disasters.
The resilience hub in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles provides one model for what these spaces can achieve. It’s anchored in a community arts center with solar power and backup energy storage. Residents can drop in to cool down during heat waves or charge their phones during power outages. It also hosts community classes, including in disaster preparedness.
Boyle Heights, a largely Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles, has a resilience hub that provides disaster preparedness training, as well as support with food, housing and applying for assistance after disasters strike. Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
During and after a disaster, resilience hubs can serve as central organizing points. They can provide crucial information, resources and assistance with completing paperwork to access aid. Having access to skilled help in navigating what can be a complicated, time-consuming process is often critical, particularly for people who aren’t native English speakers.
Getting assistance is also often critical for displaced renters, who may have little certainty about when or if they will be able to return to their homes. Understanding their legal rights can be confusing, and rising costs as rental housing is rebuilt can price them out of the market.
The catastrophic LA wildfires were a powerful reminder that governments and communities need to think carefully about the risks they face and the role policies may play as they learn to live with greater fire risk.
Building a resilient future in a warming world will require bold, innovative and collective strategies that support communities while advancing equitable solutions.
Nichole Wissman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Six decades after Nat King Cole’s death in 1965, his music is still some of the most played in the world, and his celebrity transcends generational and racial divides. His smooth voice, captivating piano skills and enduring charisma earned him international acclaim.
One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Cole was not only a groundbreaking musician but also a quiet, yet resolute, advocate for social justice.
As an African American sacred music scholar, I have been immersed in the inseparable link between music, culture and social change for over 40 years. Examining Cole through the lens of his activism uncovers the nuanced ways in which he challenged the status quo and contributed to the Civil Rights Movement.
Beneath the polished veneer of his public image lay a deeply personal commitment to confronting racism and advocating for equality that is often overlooked.
Formative years
Nathaniel Adams Coles was born on March 17, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama, to Perlina Adams Coles and Edward James Coles. Perlina served as the organist at the True Light Baptist Church and later the First Baptist Church of North Chicago, both pastored by Nathaniel’s father. She passed her love for music to her children, teaching them to play the piano and organ. Cole’s formative years were spent in church; gospel songs, hymns and spirituals formed the foundation of his musical education.
Though Cole is primarily remembered for his jazz and pop hits, the emotive power, communal emphasis and uplifting nature of Black sacred music profoundly shaped his artistry throughout his career, despite his single sacred album, “Every Time I Feel The Spirit,” released in 1959. The influence of gospel music, in particular, can be heard in his soulful phrasing and heartfelt delivery, contributing to his remarkable ability to connect with audiences.
Growing up in Chicago, he was also exposed to a rich tapestry of musical genres, including blues, classical and jazz. This eclectic upbringing laid the foundation for his versatile musical style and commercial success.
While Cole’s music was not overtly political, his very presence in the mainstream was a statement. In an era of racial segregation, he was a Black man achieving unprecedented success in a predominantly white music industry. His impeccable diction, tailored suits and sophisticated performances countered the prevailing stereotypes of African Americans as uncouth or subservient.
By embodying a poised and dignified persona, Cole communicated a powerful message: Black excellence and humanity could not be denied. As race scholar George Lipsitz writes in “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness,” “The cultural field … is a site of struggle where meanings are contested and power relations are negotiated.”
Cole’s success challenged the structural racism that sought to confine Black artists to the margins and opened doors for future generations. He acknowledged the significance of his presence on national television, recognizing it as a potential turning point for Black representation. While hesitant to explicitly label himself an activist, he contemplated the impact of his success on breaking down barriers, believing that “when you’ve got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.”
Confronting racism
In response to critics who dismiss Cole’s legacy as apolitical, I argue that they overlook the complexity of his resistance. Several scholars have stated that in a society where overt defiance often resulted in violence or economic ruin, Cole’s ability to navigate the entertainment industry while maintaining his dignity was itself a form of activism.
Though Cole never referred to himself as an activist, he confronted racism in both overt and quiet ways. Scholars such as cultural theorist Stuart Hall and researcher Laura Pottinger define “quiet activism” as modest, everyday acts of resistance – either implicitly or explicitly political – that challenge dominant ideologies and power structures. These acts often entail processes of production or creativity.
Despite his commercial success, Cole faced relentless systemic and personal racism. In 1948, he purchased a home in the affluent Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, a move met with hostility; the local homeowners association attempted to expel him, and he endured threats and acts of vandalism.
Yet Cole refused to be intimidated. His resolve was a courageous act of resistance that highlighted the pervasive inequalities of the time.
Cole faced blatant discrimination in Las Vegas. He was often denied access to the same hotels and restaurants where he performed, forced to stay in segregated accommodations. One particularly notable incident occurred at the Sands Hotel. in Las Vegas. When the maitre d’ tried to deny service to Cole’s Black bandmates in the dining room, Cole threatened to cancel his performance and leave. This forced the hotel management to back down, setting a precedent for other Black entertainers and patrons.
Cole quietly sued hotels and negotiated contracts that guaranteed his right to stay in the hotels where he performed, a significant step toward desegregation. He also made it a point to bring his entire entourage, including Black musicians and friends, to these establishments, challenging their “whites only” policies.
Cole’s impact extended beyond the realm of music. In 1956, he became the first African American to host a national network television show, “The Nat King Cole Show.” This was a groundbreaking moment, as it brought a Black man into the living rooms of millions of white Americans every week.
Though the show faced challenges with sponsorship due to racial prejudice, it marked a significant step toward greater representation and acceptance. As historian Donald Bogle notes in his 2001 book “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks,” “Television … became a new battleground for the image of the black performer.” Cole’s show, despite its short run, was a crucial battle in this war.
When Cole was attacked onstage by white supremacists during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1956, it underscored the physical danger Black public figures faced and galvanized Cole’s commitment to the Civil Rights Movement.
It is important to note that Cole’s support for the Civil Rights Movement was often quiet and behind the scenes. He faced criticism from some who felt he should have been more outspoken. However, his actions demonstrate his commitment to the cause of racial equality. Cole, who died in 1965 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, was a member of his local NAACP branch. He also performed at benefit concerts for the organization, raising money to support their efforts in fighting racial discrimination.
Shortly after the attack in Birmingham, Cole recorded his only song that is specifically political, “We Are Americans Too.” Recorded in 1956, the song was a powerful statement of belonging and a challenge to racial exclusion. Though it would not come close to reaching commercial success, it did serve as a powerful reminder that African Americans were, in fact, Americans. Over a half-century later, this song still resonates and speaks to the ongoing struggle for full inclusion and recognition for marginalized groups.
The juxtaposition of the refrain “We are Americans too” against the backdrop of the treatment of Black people during the Civil Rights Movement gives this song emotional weight. The very act of having to assert “We are Americans too” highlights the injustice of the situation.
It underscores the disconnect between the ideals of American democracy and the reality of racial inequality. In this context, the refrain “We are Americans too” is an act of resistance, a challenge to the prevailing social order. It highlights the hypocrisy of a nation founded on principles of liberty while denying those same liberties to a significant portion of its population. It’s a call for America to finally recognize the full humanity and citizenship of its Black citizens.
‘We Are Americans Too.’
Great art, and great artists, are powerful witnesses of the times in which they live, love, work and play. Their commentary, both artistically and humanly, leaves an important record for generations. This is clearly evident in Nat King Cole.
Donna M. Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
U.S. consumers often pay more for gluten-free products, yet these items typically provide less protein and more sugar and calories compared with gluten-containing alternatives. That is the key finding of my new study, published in the journal Plant Foods for Human Nutrition.
Gluten-free products – defined in the U.S. as those that contain less than or equal to 20 parts per million of gluten – largely lack wheat, rye, barley and sometimes oats, all rich sources of arabinoxylan, a crucial nonstarch polysaccharide. Arabinoxylan provides several health benefits, including promoting beneficial gut bacteria, enhancing digestion, regulating blood sugar levels and supporting a balanced gut microbiota.
Our study also pointed out that it is difficult to find a gluten-free product that excels in all nutritional areas, such as high protein and fiber content with low carbohydrates and sugar.
On the other hand, gluten-free seeded bread contains significantly more fiber – 38.24 grams per 100 grams – than its gluten-containing counterparts. This is likely due to efforts by manufacturers to address fiber deficiencies by using ingredients such as pseudo-cereals, such as amaranth and quinoa hydrocolloids – meaning water-soluble macromolecules used in gluten-free baked goods made with quinoa flour.
These improvements, however, vary by manufacturer and region. For example, gluten-free products in Spain tend to have lower fiber content than their gluten-containing counterparts.
Why it matters
The term “gluten-free diet” has become a buzzword, much like “organic,” and is now a part of everyday life for many people, often without a full understanding of its actual benefits. While a gluten-free diet is a medical necessity for people who are sensitive to gluten, a condition called celiac disease, or for those with wheat allergies, others adopt a gluten-free diet due to perceived health benefits or because it’s a trend.
This suggests that many people adopt gluten-free diets for reasons other than medical necessity, which may not offer health or financial benefits.
Symptoms of celiac disease and gluten intolerance include stomach pain and bloating.
What’s next
Investment in research and development is essential to create more nutritionally balanced gluten-free products using locally available ingredients. This will require human feeding trials with different formulations of gluten-free products to ensure that these products meet nutritional needs without adverse effects.
Collaborations between governments could help secure subsidies, which would reduce production costs and make these products more affordable. Although the initial costs of research and maintaining a gluten-free production line are high, using local ingredients and financial incentives can make these products more cost-competitive compared with their gluten-containing counterparts.
Public education is also important to keep people informed about the pros and cons associated with a gluten-free diet.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Sachin Rustgi receives funding from the US Department of Agriculture and the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research.
China’s railways handled 369 million passenger trips in January, representing an increase of 12.1% year on year, according to official data on Tuesday. High-speed railways handled 275 million passenger trips during the period, marking an increase of 10.6% year on year and accounting for 74.6% of the total national railway passenger volume, according to data released by the National Railway Administration. In January, China’s railways handled 423 million tonnes of cargo with a freight turnover of 288.47 billion tonne-kilometers, according to the data. The fixed-asset investment in railways totaled 43.9 billion yuan (6.12 billion U.S. dollars) in January, up 3.7%, said the administration.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Monthly Note: Renewable diesel consumption, which is defined as renewable diesel product supplied plus refinery and blender net inputs, is inflated because we do not collect renewable diesel export data. The difference between consumption and the sum of production, imports, and receipts reflects inventory changes.
Renewable diesel is increasingly replacing petroleum diesel on the U.S. West Coast, where state-level policies are attracting new production capacity and shipments to the region. The fuel continues to mostly be consumed in California but is also making up a substantial share of Oregon’s and Washington’s smaller distillate pools, according to quarterly data published by California, Oregon, and Washington.
Renewable diesel is a transportation and heating fuel that is chemically equivalent to petroleum-based distillate and is produced using fats, oils, or greases rather than petroleum. Although some renewable diesel is consumed in other regions, such as the U.S. East Coast, the fuel is primarily consumed on the West Coast because California, Oregon, and Washington have active clean fuel programs that incentivize its consumption.
West Coast renewable diesel consumption has approximately doubled since the first quarter of 2023 (1Q23), with increased domestic production supplying most of the growth. Much of that production growth has come from California, where Marathon’s Martinez plant and Phillips 66’s Rodeo plant have added new capacity. Most of the remaining growth has come from increasing production in other parts of the United States, where renewable diesel plants are commonly producing fuel to ship to the West Coast via rail, tanker, or barge.
In November, the most recent month for which we have historical data, renewable diesel production on the West Coast totaled more than 90,000 barrels per day (b/d)—almost four times the volume from 1Q23 and making up about 45% of the region’s consumption of renewable diesel. Interregional rail shipments supplied about 20% of West Coast consumption, tanker or barge shipments contributed almost 25%, and the remaining demand was met through imports and inventory draws.
Our analysis of data published by California, Oregon, and Washington suggests most renewable diesel is consumed in California, although consumption is generally increasing in all three states.
Data source: California Air Resources Board, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and Washington Department of Ecology Note: Washington publishes its quarterly data later than California and Oregon. 1Q23=first quarter of 2023
More renewable diesel is also consumed in California as a share of all distillate used for transportation. In 3Q24, renewable diesel made up nearly 65% of distillate fuel consumed in California for transportation, a decrease from nearly 70% in 2Q24, and biodiesel made up more than 5%.
Data source: California Air Resources Board, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and Washington Department of Ecology Note: Washington publishes its quarterly data later than California and Oregon. 1Q23=first quarter of 2023
In Oregon, biofuels made up about one-quarter of the transportation distillate fuel consumed in 3Q24, with renewable diesel making up about twice the share of biodiesel. Like in California, the share of biofuels in Oregon was down from 2Q24, when biofuels made up one-third of the state’s transportation distillate fuel supply. In Washington, during 2Q24, about 20% of the transportation distillate fuel consumed in the state was biofuels, with more than 15% coming from renewable diesel.
Up until the 1950s, scientists were scratching their heads trying to figure out why their experiments using perfectly healthy eggs and sperm to develop in-vitro fertilization (IVF) were unsuccessful.
Then, they made a critical discovery — sperm capacitation.
Maria Gracia Gervasi, assistant professor of animal science in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, is an expert on sperm capacitation and the application of assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF in rodent and bovine species. She is part of a team that recently developed a new method for sperm capacitation that makes bovine IVF more effective.
Sperm capacitation is a set of processes mammalian sperm need to undergo while they are inside the female reproductive system before they can fertilize an egg.
During capacitation, a series of molecular pathways are activated that cause the sperm to move differently, known as “hyperactive motility.” The sperm needs to be moving this way to successfully penetrate an egg to fertilize it. There are also changes to the sperm head that expose the part of the sperm that fuses with the egg during fertilization.
The discovery of capacitation enabled the development of IVF technology, revolutionizing human and animal reproduction.
Gervasi is part of a group of collaborators that published their findings in Theriogenology. Claudia E. Osycka-Salut, a researcher from the Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnologicas (IIBio-UNSAM-CONICET), Buenos Aires is the first author on the paper.
In Gervasi’s previous lab, they worked on a study showing that using a calcium ionophore – a kind of chemical that binds to and help transport ions – improved sperm capacitation in mice. This led her to wonder if it would work in bovine species as well.
When bovine sperm are capacitated in the laboratory, scientists put them in a medium containing calcium, bicarbonate, a protein called bovine serum albumin, and heparin.
“All of these components are required for sperm capacitation in bovine species and IVF,” Gervasi says.
When Gervasi and her team introduced the calcium ionophore, it increased calcium levels in the medium. This caused the sperm to stop moving. Then, when the researchers washed the calcium out of the medium, the sperm started moving again with hyperactive motility – indicating they had induced capacitation.
In this study, they found that the ionophore achieved similar results as traditional IVF procedures without heparin.
However, when they then tested the ionophore with heparin, there were significant improvements in fertilization rates and embryo development.
The fertilization rate for sperm treated with the ionophore was 83%, compared to 70% in the untreated group. The rate of fertilized eggs that developed into embryos increased from 11% to 27%.
“The difference is just adding this little sperm treatment before using it for IVF,” Gervasi says.
This approach could have a significant impact on the bovine industry in the U.S. and globally as IVF is an increasingly popular method for breeding cattle. This is because it is much easier to take semen from a bull with characteristics a farmer wants to introduce into a herd and ship that semen or embryos rather than having to move the bull around.
“The application of our treatment for in-vitro production to improve the capacitation and fertilization could have a huge impact on the industry because we could double the number of embryos,” Gervasi says. “It’s a big improvement.”
This treatment could also improve fertilization and embryo development rates for cryogenically preserved semen that has already been sexed. The process of sexing the semen damages the sperm, leading to reduced fertilization rates.
“Being able to test our treatment with those sperm would also be very applicable to what industry is using nowadays,” Gervasi says.
Gervasi will follow up this work by seeing if embryos produced from sperm treated with the ionophore remain more successful than those produced without the ionophore once implanted in an animal.
Gervasi is currently working on a separate sperm treatment that could be combined with the ionophore treatment to bolster the improvements demonstrated in this study. She is also interested in analyzing the genetic quality of the embryos produced using these treatments.
“My lab here at UConn is focused on understanding how sperm and sperm treatments during capacitation can influence not only fertilization, but post-fertilization events like embryo development,” Gervasi says. “So, I will definitely be focusing a lot on embryo quality and what is the sperm bringing to it.”
This work was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive #2022-67016-36302 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused on Ensuring a Vibrant and Sustainable Agricultural Industry and Food Supply.
The lens of Richard Termine’s camera frames the performers before him like the decorative proscenium around a stage, in a view the award-winning photographer says is both wonderful and challenging to capture.
Termine says he considers himself a partner to the performers, moving in a dance around them, anticipating their next move, as he clicks his way to capturing the moments of life and emotion they convey.
A Middletown native and double UConn alum, he started studying the dramatic arts as an elementary student who went to the library to learn more after seeing a marionette performance of “Rigoletto,” he says.
“It just blew me away. It was transformative,” Termine ’75 (SFA), ’78 MFA says of that school assembly. “When I go to the theater … I want to go to worlds and places I haven’t been, and puppetry is No. 1 on the list that does that for me.”
Jim Henson, left, and Brian Henson taught a three-week International Workshop in Puppetry for Film and Television during the summer of 1987 at the Institut International de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezières, France. Termine went along as Jim Henson’s teaching assistant and also photo documented the event. (Photo courtesy of Richard Termine)
A one-time puppet designer, puppet builder, and puppet director, Termine lists name-brand shows on his resume including “Sesame Street” and readily talks about knowing the famed duo Jim Henson and Frank Oz. He discovered photography in the late 1970s at the suggestion of a friend.
Today, he lists the New York Times and Village Voice, along with Time, Newsweek, and People among his credits. Yet, even after decades in the business, Termine says he still marvels at the power of puppets and their performers.
“I’m standing on their shoulders in terms of my art form, and I’m the interpreter of what’s in front of me,” he says. “What I love about this is I’m transformed when I’m working. … When I’m in the moment, it’s exhilarating.”
Visitors to the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will have a chance to see just what Termine sees when he puts his eye to the camera. Its latest exhibition, “American Puppet Theater Today: The Photography of Richard Termine,” includes 151 of his images.
The show, courtesy of The Jim Henson Foundation, was created in 2019 for display in France and since has seen five iterations including at exhibitions in Chicago, New York City, Montreal, and College Park, Maryland. Its Connecticut show in Storrs is on display until May 11.
From Marionette and Shadow to Rod and Hand
Foundation President Cheryl Henson, curator of the exhibition and daughter of renowned puppeteer Jim Henson, uses words like “play, magic, imagination, and creativity” when talking about the importance of puppetry and its value in the world today.
“Puppetry brings out all of these really essential parts of being human,” she says.
While the Muppet style her father made famous on shows like “Sesame Street” might have the broadest reach of any style – the show featuring Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and Elmo has aired in 124 countries – she says the accessibility of the myriad puppet styles is what gives puppetry “infinite potential.”
Much of that variety can be seen in “American Puppet Theater,” with Henson describing the show as “a celebration of what puppetry can do.”
During a recent tour of the exhibition, Termine points out a 2011 photograph of Jim Rose, a marionette fabrication teaching artist, and says it’s among his favorites. The image is simple: a puppeteer fiddling with the cross brace of a marionette, tugging at a string that lifts the puppet’s head in a loving gaze toward its handler.
Henson notes that thanks to UConn’s John Bell, director of the Ballard, and Emily Wicks, the museum’s operations and collections manager, the exhibition has 15 puppets on display alongside Termine’s photographs.
She walks toward the first, which greets those entering the exhibition, a direct-manipulation puppet named Disfarmer – a small bald man with glasses – adjusting the back of a Depression-era camera draped in a dark cloth. It’s one of six versions made for a 2009 production about photographer Mike Disfarmer.
Another puppet, this one with a political message, is poised in the back corner of the Ballard. It’s a toy theater with a black proscenium adorned with four ornate butterflies from the performing company Great Small Works. Next to it, Termine notes, is a 2010 photograph depicting a performing John Bell; his wife, Trudi Cohen; and Jenny Romaine.
The Blue Fairy from the opera “La Bella Dormente Nel Bosco” swoops through the air in the opposite corner, while a couple of Punch and Judy-style hand puppets get some laughs long after their 2009 adult-only performance of “The Punch and Jimmy Show.”
While the exhibition features mostly puppets outside the Muppet style, Termine says the show reflects the impact Jim Henson, who died in 1990, and his Foundation have had on the puppetry world.
Puppet Arts Program: A Diamond Year
The Jim Henson Foundation, founded by its namesake in 1982, is devoted to cultivating the work of American puppeteers and has provided support for more than 1,300 projects from more than 350 artists in that time.
“When we look at [this exhibition], these are artists that have been supported by the Foundation, creating their own work, finding their own voices in this rich art form,” Termine, Foundation vice president, says. “It’s right here, and that’s what makes this special.”
Puppeteer Basil Twist performs with Stickman at a reception in June 2021 at Upper Penthouse, Central Park South, New York City. (Photo courtesy of Richard Termine)
“One of the things my dad really loved about puppetry is how much the different puppeteers loved watching each other’s work and how they’d get so excited about somebody else’s brilliance,” Henson adds.
Say a name related to the puppet community and Termine and Henson can explain the loop of how that person is connected to this person and the next. It’s a community, they say, and many in it have UConn ties.
Termine’s mother once met Carol Thompson ’68 (SFA), ’78 MA, a student of renowned UConn professor Frank Ballard, who introduced Termine to the famed puppeteer in 1970 when he was doing a production of “The Love for Three Oranges” at UConn.
The friend who nudged Termine in the late 1970s to take up photography was the late Manchester-native-turned-Emmy-nominated puppet designer Jan (Rosenthal) Stefura ’77 (SFA), who built Mokey Fraggle on “Fraggle Rock,” among others.
Termine’s MFA class included Bart Roccoberton Jr. ’90 MFA, who heads UConn’s Puppet Arts Program, and his teachers included the late Jerry Rojo, the former dramatic arts professor who designed the black box Mobius Theater in the Drama/Music building.
With deep connections in the puppet world, UConn’s Puppet Arts Program celebrates its 60th anniversary this year with a special section of the exhibition dedicated to that achievement.
It’s “a leader” in the industry, Termine says, so much so that several years ago, when a couple of UConn women’s basketball players visited the set of “Sesame Street,” most of crew sported their UConn garb to share their school pride.
The same sense of delight swelled in Termine when he visited the Ballard Museum in Downtown Storrs recently for the exhibition’s opening: “To come back here and to share what I started,” he said, trailing off in thought. “Thanks to the Henson family and to my training here at UConn.”
PHOENIX, Ariz. – The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona announced that United States Attorney Gary M. Restaino has completed his service to the Department, effective yesterday.
Mr. Restaino was informed of his termination in a communication from the White House. As a Presidential appointee, Mr. Restaino is subject to removal from office in the discretion of the sitting President. The White House thanked him for his service to the United States.
“Getting the opportunity to lead an Office in which I have worked for many years has been energizing,” said U.S. Attorney Restaino. “I am grateful to President Biden for the appointment, to Senators Kelly and Sinema for their support of my nomination, and to Attorney General Garland for his stewardship of the Department of Justice. And most of all I am thankful for our people here in Arizona – the dedicated prosecutors, victim advocates and administrative professionals at the United States Attorney’s Office, as well as the agents, analysts, and accountants at our federal law enforcement agencies – who work collaboratively and collegially with state and local partners and leaders of underserved communities to make Arizona a better and safer place.”
Since 2021 the Office has continued its strong efforts at border security, enhanced violent crime prosecutions and increased civil rights prosecutions and interventions.
Border Security
Violent Crime Prosecutions
Civil Rights
Mr. Restaino became United States Attorney in November 2021 after 20 years of service as a federal employee, including two years in the Peace Corps in Paraguay and 18 years as an Assistant United States Attorney here in Arizona. During his tenure, Mr. Restaino served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, advising Attorney General Garland on matters of policy, procedure, and management, and also elevating the voices of the U.S. Attorney community in Washington. In addition, for nearly 90 days in the spring and summer of 2022, and at the direction of President Biden, Mr. Restaino served the women and men of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as their Acting Director, pending the confirmation of the agency’s nominee.
Pursuant to the Vacancy Reform Act, career prosecutor and First Assistant United States Attorney Rachel C. Hernandez currently serves as the Acting United States Attorney for the District.
The United States Attorney’s Office represents the interests of the United States in criminal and civil cases in federal court in Arizona, coordinates the efforts of its federal law enforcement partners, advocates for the rights of victims, and enhances and strengthens communities through dialogue, outreach, and engagement. The Office currently has approximately 180 Assistant United States Attorneys and approximately 160 additional administrative professionals spread between two large offices in Phoenix and Tucson, and two smaller branch offices in Yuma and Flagstaff.
RELEASE NUMBER: 2025-018_Departure of United States Attorney Gary M. Restaino
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For more information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/ Follow the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, on X @USAO_AZfor the latest news.
2025-018_Departure of United States Attorney Gary M. Restaino
Change is underway at Ofsted, England’s schools inspectorate. Headline judgments that summed up a whole school in one or two words have been discarded in favour of a proposed report card system that promises to offer a more rounded assessment of school quality.
According to education secretary Bridget Phillipson, the changes are supposed to make the system less high stakes for schools while giving parents more information. The proposed report cards give a score on a five point scale for a range of areas, including wellbeing and inclusion, among others.
The evidence that Ofsted’s previous approach was problematic had been stacking up for some years. My four-year study with colleague Rob Higham showed how inspections were driving a culture of compliance and standardisation in schools. They were incentivising leaders to prioritise the interests of the school over the interests of particular groups of, usually more vulnerable, children.
So far, responses from the teaching profession to the new report card proposals have not been positive. The Association of School and College Leaders’ says they will be “bewildering for teachers and leaders, never mind the parents whose choices these reports are supposedly intended to guide”, and retain the high-stakes aspects of the previous system.
A poll of more than 3000 school leaders by headteachers’ union the NAHT indicates that nine in ten disagree with the plans.
My recent research suggests the need for a different approach which prioritises local accountability, in particular to parents. Over the past three years, my colleague Susan Cousin and I have been working on a project evaluating how professionals in different local areas can work together to address placed based challenges in education.
One of these challenges was how to strengthen professional accountability. The aim was for school staff to take greater collective ownership of what school “quality” looks like and how it could be improved, rather than waiting for Ofsted to tell them.
In two areas, Sheffield and Milton Keynes, school-led partnerships – membership organisations which support collaboration between schools – decided to develop their own local school “report cards”. These were intended to offer a broad and balanced set of information for parents, governors and others.
In both areas a core design group was brought together. This involved leaders from a diverse range of local primary and secondary schools and academy trusts who agreed a draft format for the report cards.
These prototypes were then taken out to consultation with wider schools as well as parents and carers. Based on their feedback, the report cards were adjusted before final versions were agreed. Each area developed different versions for primary, secondary and special schools.
What parents want
The most transformative aspect of the process arguably came from the consultations with parents and carers. For example, in the development of the Sheffield report card, it became clear that as well as information on the school from external sources – including Ofsted reports – parents wanted to learn more about what the school was really like. This led to the inclusion of a “get to know this school” section of the report card. The project lead in Sheffield explained to us:
What came through really clearly … [from parents and carers] was, “I want a feel of the school” … They want the quality assured stuff. But they also want a feel of the place. And that’s why in the second iteration, what we’ve got is a whole section, which is an ability for the school to show itself – photos, videos, talk about particular aspects of education, and what’s unique about their school in relation to curriculum.
Another feature that parents wanted included was a way of understanding what other parents and students themselves think about each school. In response, both Sheffield and Milton Keynes have included sections that show the “top five positives” according to parents and carers, and “five words from children about this school”.
Strengthening local accountability
England’s school system has become increasingly centralised in recent decades. The role and capacity of local authorities has been reduced and national requirements and oversight, including from Ofsted, have increased.
In the process, school leaders and staff have become disempowered, while parents and local communities have largely lost their ability to influence the quality and direction of local schools. Locally developed school reports offer a way to redress the balance.
This approach would not remove national accountability. In both Sheffield and Milton Keynes the plan is to incorporate national data, including from Ofsted inspections, into the local reports.
But encouraging local ownership and strengthening the voice of parents and children in terms of how school quality is assessed and reported, could help schools become more accountable to the people most invested in them, rather than the national government.
Toby Greany receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the Association of Education Committees and the Nuffield Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lacey Wallace, Senior Lecturer in Roman History & Material Culture, University of Lincoln
Archaeologists from the Museum of London have discovered a well-preserved part of the ancient city of London’s first Roman basilica underneath the basement of an office block. The basilica was constructed for use as a public building in the 70s or early 80s AD.
In a Roman town, a basilica was a multi-functional civic building. Often paid for by leading local inhabitants, it provided a large indoor space for public gatherings. These ranged from political speeches to judicial proceedings.
Along with the connected forum – an arrangement of buildings that surrounded an open courtyard space – the building formed the centre of administrative and civic life in the ancient Roman city of Londinium.
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Other walls of London’s basilica and forum have been known by archaeologists since the early 1880s. But they were only recognised as remains of the social and civic centre of Londinium in 1923.
The story until now
Peter Marsden, the author of The Roman Forum Site in London (1987), compiled disconnected evidence for the different phases of London’s forum basilica complex.
Referring to the current area of excavations (on Gracechurch Street), he noted that: “More than half of the archaeological deposits still remain, and should be carefully excavated when the opportunity arises, since only then will the history of the site be elucidated.”
Occasional opportunities have arisen to reveal small parts of the forum basilica. For example, during construction of a shaft to install a lift at 85 Gracechurch Street, some important remains from the first century were found. But the excavated area was too small to contribute greatly to our knowledge.
In contrast, the recent work is part of a major redevelopment. It has opened targeted excavation areas where walls of the basilica were expected to be found, exposing substantial parts of the building.
Archaeologists have found one-metre-wide foundations and walls of the interior, some of which probably extend for more than 10 metres in length. The walls are constructed of flint, tile and Kentish ragstone (a type of limestone quarried in Kent), and some stand at four metres high.
Archaeologists discussing the find.
What was the basilica for?
Londinium was constructed on an unoccupied site beginning in about AD47 or 48. It began to gain the trappings of a Roman-style town, including a basilica building, in the lead-up to its destruction in the Boudican Revolt in AD60 or 61.
The city did not have a monumental forum and basilica complex until later, however, when a major programme of public and private construction was undertaken in the Flavian period (AD69–96).
London’s Flavian basilica took the plan of a long rectangle (44m x 22.7m) divided into three aisles. There is good evidence from the deeper central aisle (nave) wall foundations that the nave roof was raised to two storeys, to allow for windows to provide internal light.
Shallow foundations crossing the nave are evidence of a raised dais or platform at the eastern end. The speaker or judge would sit there, elevated above the crowds, increasing both his visibility and status. This platform, or “tribunal”, is the area that has recently been revealed.
The basilica would have risen above the north side of the buildings that formed the forum courtyard. It would have dominated the high ground of this monumental space at the highly visible crossroads leading straight up from the Roman Thames bridge.
It would have been the largest building in the area and firmly announced that the people of Londinium were constructing a high-status Roman city.
Rebuilding following the British queen Boudica’s revolt had been swift. The post-Revolt fort that was built only 100 metres or so down the street had likely been decommissioned and the people were ready to embark on a new phase and a major expansion of the urban centre.
The designs of late first century forum basilica complexes varied across the provinces. But generally they combined religious, civic, judicial and mercantile space.
In places like Pompeii, the forum had developed over time. But, when the town was buried by the ash of Vesuvius in AD79 (approximately the same time the forum basilica of London was built), the focus of the elongated monumental space was the Temple of Jupiter, symbol of the Roman state.
Although a classical temple was constructed to the west of the exterior of Londinium’s Flavian forum, it was clearly separate. No forum in Britannia was dominated by a temple, setting the core of urban space in this province apart from most examples in the rest of the empire.
The Flavian forum basilica at Londinium is one of the earliest examples to demonstrate this characteristic, along with that at Verulamium (St Albans). There, an inscription links the circa AD79–81 construction to the governor Agricola, who is well known among historians from the celebratory biography written by his son-in-law, Tacitus.
The Flavian basilica and forum only stood for about 20 or 30 years, however. With increased prosperity in the early second century, they were demolished and replaced by a new structure which was five times larger, leaving the remains of the first basilica underneath the surface of the later courtyard space.
The Museum of London will now analyse and publish the results of its find, applying modern methods to advance our understanding of the development of the first forum basilica. We can expect refined dating evidence and an improved understanding of the architecture from the post-excavation analyses. An exhibition space to make the remains visible for the public is also planned.
Lacey Wallace does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joshua Forstenzer, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Co-Director of the Centre for Engaged Philosophy, University of Sheffield
In many ways, I feel like we shouldn’t be happy with what we have. We live in a world of tremendous inequality and cruelty, running towards an environmental wall. Not just that, but some of the best people I know are chronic persistors: they know how not to accept the unacceptable.
But we also live in an economy that profits from and purposefully generates private feelings of lack, want, comparison and envy. Somewhat counter-intuitively, this envy often spurs on the feelings of lack and want, rather than the other way around. This is the genius of advertising: to generate “perceived” (aka fake) needs. I see someone living a “good” life – exciting, sexy, creative – and now I want what they have: the shoes, watch, holiday, you name it.
Envy requires comparison. And comparison requires a scale by which to rank ourselves. Popular culture offers quite a few. Being the object of sexual desire (think of “matches” on dating apps) for example, or digital social connectivity (think of “followers” or “likes”). These can all play a role in shaping your sense of personal success or failure.
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Sometimes, these are presented in a unified pseudo-metric of success. Take for example the idea of a “high-value man”. The parts of the internet that use the concept tend to celebrate having money, a wide social network and being useful to others. This often veers into celebrating material wealth and superficial self improvement as the path to success and sexual attractiveness. The viral TikTok song I’m Looking for a Man in Finance is an only mildly exaggerated spoof of this ideal.
The implicit assumption is that having more “good things” than others means being more valuable as a person. But behind this there are a host of hidden assumptions – not least that you can “own” the genuinely valuable things in life (as opposed to being them).
These hidden assumptions usually reveal deep seated shame – the feeling that you are not enough as you are. And that you are not entitled to set the parameters that define the success or failure of your own life.
Feeling bad about yourself is not always unhealthy. A healthy negative feeling lets you know if you have done something wrong, or acted in a manner that does not meet your own moral standards. This feeling calls for you to change your ways.
The unhealthy feeling, that I am calling “shame”, is not merely the feeling of embarrassment or moral doubt. Rather, it is (to follow vulnerability researcher Brené Brown’s definition) “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging”.
This feeling is so psychologically painful that you may reflexively do all you can to remain unaware of it. This denial means that you can start to see your own critical inner voice (itself shaped by past negative experiences) as animated by an “objective” social reality, telling you not just that you’re failing, but that you are a failure. This is often called “projection”.
Other times, when you can bear to consciously feel this emotion, you may seek to negotiate with it and offer remedial actions to the universe to make up for recurrent feelings of worthlessness. In darker times still, shame can overtake your whole life, paralysing you and creeping into the quietest parts of your private self.
How to combat shame and be happy with what you have
Shame can be a remarkably sticky emotion. Identifying and interrogating it can be helpful. Working on revising how you understand your self and your relationship to others can also help. The options are many, but for the sake of illustration here are three that speak to me.
1. Stoicism
Stoics believed that your essential nature is stable and the project of life is to fulfil this nature and flourish. When making judgments, people ascribe value to an imagined state of affairs (“it would be really great if I were thinner”) and a belief that a specific course of action will make it a reality (“going without chocolate will return the figure I had in my teens”).
Both of these can be false, because the things you desire can actually be bad for you, and you have less control over the future than you tend to think. Stoics thought people should try to get the relationship between their emotional state and the goods they pursue into harmony, seeking self-mastery in order to flourish.
To this end, stoic ethics demand that you recognise and cultivate habits that put you in touch with your own nature within the wider world – starting from the self, expanding to the family, the community, the state, humanity and ultimately the cosmos.
2. Existentialism
In contrast, existentialism requires paying attention to the lack of any ultimate purpose in human life. No one thing can ever fully define who you are. Your capacity to reinvent yourself, to value something new, to start a fresh project, is yours alone.
The empty feeling of meaninglessness you sometimes encounter when you have finally achieved a long sought after goal (like getting that big promotion) can be dizzying. But this feeling is a reminder of the fact that nothing in your nature demands that you achieve any one thing. It’s up to you.
You must face authentically the fact that you are free and therefore responsible for your projects and the meaning you give to them.
3. Humanistic psychotherapy
A humanistic psychotherapeutic perspective offers a middle way. It invites you to look upon yourself with compassion, seeing yourself as complex, responsible and yet also imperfect and vulnerable, always involved in a richly evolving tapestry of relationships that ultimately gives meaning and purpose to your life.
This means that relationships and the recognition you give and derive from them provide the only solid basis for confronting that most important question – “who am I?” – ultimately seeing you through your darkest times. But this means that you need these relationships to be genuine, kind and honest so that you can see yourself and others for the frail, evolving and unique individuals that we all are.
Joshua Forstenzer’s work receives funding from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture as part of its Templeton-funded Life Worth Living project (https://lifeworthliving.yale.edu/). He is also a consultant to North Consulting as part of the LIFE Erasmus+ project (https://www.kmop.gr/projects-vf/news-life-worth-living/) which uses text-based pedagogic methods to facilitate wellbeing conversations about meaning and purpose with teachers and school leaders in five European countries.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Public drop-in on Saturday 22 February, 12pm to 5pm at the Electric Theatre, Guildford with an online presentation on Wednesday 26 February, 7.30pm to 8.30pm.
The Environment Agency and its project partners are inviting local people to share their views and feedback on plans to reduce flood-risk in Guildford town centre.
Long history of flooding
Guildford has a long history of flooding from the River Wey, and the Environment Agency continues working in partnership with Guildford Borough Council and Surrey County Council on a long-term sustainable strategy to reduce the high level of flood-risk to the town centre.
The partners are now in the appraisal stage of the project, where further detailed assessments, surveys and engagement will be carried out to help develop the preferred option for the scheme. This stage is expected to last until 2026.
To showcase the scheme’s progress, the Environment Agency is hosting an information afternoon on Saturday 22 February, 12pm to 5pm at the Electric Theatre, Guildford.
Jon Mansbridge, Guildford flood alleviation scheme project director at the Environment Agency, said:
We encourage local communities and interested groups to have their say, as their feedback is invaluable in shaping our long-term strategy to manage flood risk to Guildford.
To hear all views, we will be holding a drop-in event where you can find out more and discuss the scheme with our project team, who will be there to answer questions.
For those that cannot attend, we will also be hosting an online presentation following the public exhibition. It will be another great opportunity to find out about our progress finding a sustainable flood-risk management scheme and talk face-to-face with our experts.
The project partners shared early updated scheme proposals with the public in April 2024. Since then, they have further developed the scheme alignment in consultation with landowners and identified areas that will be lowered to create more space for water and habitat creation.
The flood defences will be visually integrated into existing and regenerated areas of the river corridor, reducing flood-risk to the town centre. The scheme will also enhance the riverside environment, and build better connections between Guildford town centre and the River Wey.
Check flood-risk and sign up for flood warnings by calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188 or visiting gov.uk/flood.
Well-tested flood-protection plans remain in place for Guildford, and the Environment Agency continues to work closely with other professional partners, including Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and Surrey County Council, to help those at greatest risk.
The Environment Agency regularly maintains the River Wey to help reduce flooding, including cutting back vegetation and removing blockages.
There is also a temporary defence management plan for Guildford, covering Mary Road and William Road, which sets out how the Environment Agency can deploy temporary flood barriers in these areas if a flood warning is issued.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
DASA, MOD and the Home Office are seeking proposals that will address the problem of providing dermal protection against liquid chemical contamination.
DASA has launched a new Themed Competition: Innovations in dermal protection against liquid chemicals
This competition is funded by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Home Office
The total possible funding available for this competition is £2.6 million (excluding VAT)
Competition closes midday on Tuesday 15th April 2025 (GMT)
The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is pleased to launch a new Themed Competition called ‘Innovations in dermal protection against liquid chemicals’. Run on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Home Office, this competition is seeking proposals that will address the challenge of developing a solution to the problem of providing dermal protection against liquid chemical contamination. We are interested in treatments, fabric design, novel constructions or any other approach that prevents the penetration of low surface tension liquids.
Although being run on behalf of the UK government there is significant potential for solutions developed to be exploited internationally.
This competition has two challenges. The total possible funding available for this competition for both challenges is £2.6 million (excluding VAT) across the total two year duration. We anticipate funding up to 10 proposals for each challenge.
The deadline to submit a proposal is midday (GMT) on Tuesday 15 April 2025. Submit via the DASA Online Submission Service.
Traditionally, dermal liquid protection has been provided by an air permeable, two-layer system, comprising an outer fabric – which controls the initial liquid interaction with the surface – and a carbon layer to absorb any vapours which penetrate the outer layer. It is the combination of these two layers which enables the wearer to operate in a CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) environment without incurring the associated physiological burden of an air impermeable garment.
Changes in legislation (e.g. REACH) over recent years are constraining the methods available to defence and security for providing dermal protection against low surface tension liquids (such as chemical warfare agents (CWAs). Due to these changes we are seeking innovative methods for future dermal protection.
Scope:
The scope of this competition is technologies that provide wearable dermal protection against liquid chemical contamination. There are various means by which this could be achieved and we are interested in any scientific and technological approaches that have the potential to deliver dermal protection against low surface tension liquids without the use of chemistries which are currently the subject of restriction proposals (e.g. under REACH, ECHA etc.).
Thursday 6 March 2025 – a dial-in session providing further detail on the problem space and a chance to ask questions in an open forum. If you would like to participate, please register on the Eventbrite page.
One-to-one teleconference sessions
Wednesday 12 March 2025 – a series of 15 minute one-to-one teleconference sessions, giving you the opportunity to ask specific technical questions to the competition team in a closed forum. Registration details for these sessions will be available the day after the launch webinar which is taking place on 6 March 2025. Please attend the webinar or reach out to your local Innovation Partner if you have more general questions on the DASA application process.
Submit a proposal
We’re looking for novel ideas that can help to develop the protective fabrics of the future – if you think you have an innovation to share, why not submit a proposal?
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Tuesday sounded the alarm over escalating rights abuses in Sudan, warning that impunity is driving violations as fighting spreads and more armed groups become involved.
In a new report, UN investigators detailed multiple attacks on civilians, healthcare facilities, markets, and schools, as well as ethnically motivated summary executions.
“The continued and deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, as well as summary executions, sexual violence and other violations and abuses, underscore the utter failure by both parties to respect the rules and principles of international humanitarian and human rights law,” said Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Some of these acts may amount to war crimes. They must be investigated promptly and independently, with a view to bringing those responsible to justice,” he added.
Among its key recommendations, the report called for expanding the arms embargo and the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to cover the whole of Sudan – not just the region of Darfur, where atrocities raged unchecked 20 years ago.
Twenty-two months of brutal war
More than 22 months of brutal fighting between Government forces and their former allied militia, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has left more than 30 million people across Sudan in need of assistance and protection.
The fighting has precipitated the world’s worst displacement crisis, with over 12 million displaced from their homes, of whom 3.3 million have fled across the border.
Food security and healthcare are also in freefall, with less than a quarter of Sudan’s health facilities functioning in areas worst hit by fighting. Nearly 25 million people are suffering from “acute” levels of hunger.
Workers offload sacks of food aid from a barge in Sudan.
Sexual violence a weapon of war
The report highlighted the widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, with 120 documented incidents affecting at least 203 victims. Cases are likely vastly underreported due to fear, stigma, and the collapse of medical and judicial institutions.
All sides involved in the fighting have been responsible for violations, according to report, including widespread sexual violence.
“The persistent use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in Sudan is deeply shocking,” High Commissioner Türk said.
“Urgent steps must be taken by the parties to put an end to it, to hold those responsible to account and provide redress for survivors,” he stressed.
Crackdown on civic space
The report also detailed widespread disappearances and a generalised crackdown on civic space, including killings of journalists and attacks on human rights defenders.
At least 12 journalists were killed, two of them while in detention, and 31 were arbitrarily detained, including four women.
In all, throughout 2024, OHCHR documented more than 4,200 civilian killings in the context of hostilities though the real number is likely much higher.
Reamins of a health clinic that was attacked and looted, leaving thousands of women and girls without access to critical care.
A dangerous tipping point
Li Fung, the head of the OHCHR office in Sudan, described the dire situation in Sudan as a “dangerous tipping point”.
Speaking to journalists at the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG) via video link from Port Sudan, she underscored the need for the international community to renew the focus on human rights.
“[The international community] must take all necessary measures to protect civilians and prevent further violations and abuses. It remains urgent to ensure critical humanitarian assistance can reach those in need,” she said.
“Together, we must stand with the people of Sudan.”
CAMDEN, N.J. – A Mexican national admitted to trafficking cocaine and illegally reentering the United States after previously sustaining an aggravated felony conviction, following an investigation by ICE Homeland Security Investigations Newark.
Anastacio Santiago Chaparro, aka Arnoldo Urquidez, 41, pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with possession with intent to distribute cocaine and illegal reentry by a convicted felon, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey announced on Feb. 7.
“Our collaboration with the DEA in this investigation thwarted this criminal alien’s plan to introduce a harmful amount of cocaine into New Jersey’s neighborhoods,” said ICE HSI Newark Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel. “We are committed to keeping our communities safe by bringing drug traffickers to justice and holding them accountable for the violent crimes that often come with their illicit business.”
According to the investigation, on Nov. 6, 2023, Santiago Chaparro was caught by law enforcement transporting a backpack that contained over 10 kilograms of cocaine. Santiago Chaparro admitted that the cocaine was intended for distribution. Additionally, Santiago Chaparro had been deported from the United States to Mexico three times and previously sustained a conviction for being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm, an aggravated felony.
Millbrook RCMP has charged a man with Attempt to Commit Murder and Assault with a Weapon after a stabbing in Millbrook.
On February 16 at approximately 1:45 am, RCMP and EHS responded to a 911 call from a residence on Birch Bark Rd. Responding officers located a 31-year-old man with multiple injuries inside the home, and learned that he had been stabbed by another man, who was known to him. The injured man was transported to hospital.
Officers safely arrested the suspect who was located in another room in the home.
A search warrant was executed at this residence to locate and seize further evidence. RCMP Forensic Identification Section is supporting the ongoing investigation.
Brenton Joseph Arsenault, 29, of Brookfield, has been charged with:
Attempt to Commit Murder
Assault with a Weapon
Arsenault was held in custody and will have a first court appearance at Truro Provincial Court on February 18, 2025.
PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the “Code”)
(b)Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a): The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named.
N/A
(c)Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates: Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree
LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES GROUP PLC
(d)If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree:
N/A
(e)Date position held/dealing undertaken: For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure
17 FEBRUARY 2025
(f)In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer? If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state “N/A”
N/A
2.POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.
(a)Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)
Class of relevant security:
0.375p ORDINARY
Interests
Short positions
Number
%
Number
%
(1)Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:
9,324,006
1.1765
(2)Cash-settled derivatives:
(3)Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:
9,324,006
1.1765
All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.
Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).
(b)Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors’ and other employee options)
Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists:
Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:
3.DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.
The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.
(a)Purchases and sales
Class of relevant security
Purchase/sale
Number of securities
Price per unit
0.375p ORDINARY
SALE
85,700
99.152p
0.375p ORDINARY
SALE
45,000
99.153p
(b)Cash-settled derivative transactions
Class of relevant security
Product description e.g. CFD
Nature of dealing e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position
(d)Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)
Class of relevant security
Nature of dealing e.g. subscription, conversion
Details
Price per unit (if applicable)
NONE
4.OTHER INFORMATION
(a)Indemnity and other dealing arrangements
Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer: Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(b)Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives
Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to: (i)the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or (ii)the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced: If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(c)Attachments
Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?
NO
Date of disclosure:
18 FEBRUARY 2025
Contact name:
MARK ELLIOTT
Telephone number:
01253 376539
Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.
The Panel’s Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code’s disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.
PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the “Code”)
(b)Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a): The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named.
N/A
(c)Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates: Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree
THRUVISION GROUP PLC
(d)If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree:
N/A
(e)Date position held/dealing undertaken: For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure
17 FEBRUARY 2025
(f)In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer? If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state “N/A”
N/A
2.POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.
(a)Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)
Class of relevant security:
1p ORDINARY
Interests
Short positions
Number
%
Number
%
(1)Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:
23,230,000
13.3845
(2)Cash-settled derivatives:
(3)Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:
23,230,000
13.3845
All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.
Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).
(b)Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors’ and other employee options)
Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists:
Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:
3.DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.
The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.
(a)Purchases and sales
Class of relevant security
Purchase/sale
Number of securities
Price per unit
ORDINARY 1p
SALE
20,000
2.82p
(b)Cash-settled derivative transactions
Class of relevant security
Product description e.g. CFD
Nature of dealing e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position
(d)Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)
Class of relevant security
Nature of dealing e.g. subscription, conversion
Details
Price per unit (if applicable)
NONE
4.OTHER INFORMATION
(a)Indemnity and other dealing arrangements
Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer: Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(b)Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives
Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to: (i)the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or (ii)the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced: If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(c)Attachments
Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?
NO
Date of disclosure:
18 FEBRUARY 2025
Contact name:
MARK ELLIOTT
Telephone number:
01253 376539
Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.
The Panel’s Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code’s disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Voltus, Inc. (Voltus), the leading distributed energy resource (DER) platform and virtual power plant (VPP) operator, and Vurge, the premier utility cost optimization service provider, today announced a partnership that allows customers to maximize the value of their DERs by ensuring that their utility bills for electricity, water, and gas are accurate and that they are informed of any opportunities to save on these costs.
The partnership combines Voltus’s expertise in monetizing DERs with Vurge’s proven record of optimizing energy costs through utility bill analysis, enabling both companies to deliver enhanced value to their customers.
“Our strategic partnership with Vurge presents a unique opportunity for our customers to significantly enhance their profitability,” noted Dan Svejnar, SVP of Growth at Voltus. “By leveraging Vurge’s expertise and advanced technology, we can identify untapped areas for energy savings for our customers within their operations.”
The Voltus and Vurge collaboration is already delivering results for customers, including energy savings that directly translate into reduced operational costs and increased profit margins for Voltus customers, particularly in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region. Additionally, the partnership allows Voltus to explore innovative ways to optimize energy usage and potentially generate additional revenue streams for customers, further bolstering their overall financial performance. Vurge’s service offering uncovers DER operational flexibility, which Voltus can then monetize on behalf of those customers.
“While our core expertise lies in finding utility cost savings, we often discover that our customers have untapped potential for DER monetization,” said Vlad Kaufman, CEO at Vurge. “Now, with Voltus, we’re able to offer customers a reliable means of activating that idle flexibility — a process that opens up new revenue streams for customers without compromising site reliability.”
About Vurge Vurge is a national leader in utility cost savings, helping businesses optimize electric, gas, water, and wastewater expenses through expert analysis and innovative solutions. By identifying billing errors, applicable credits and exemptions and negotiating better rates, Vurge delivers significant savings without altering operations or requiring capital spend. With a results-driven approach and a commitment to client success, Vurge empowers companies to take control of their utility costs and boost their bottom line.
About Voltus Voltus is a leading DER technology platform and virtual power plant operator connecting distributed energy resources to electricity markets, delivering less expensive, more reliable, and more sustainable electricity. Our commercial and industrial customers and DER partners generate cash by allowing Voltus to maximize the value of their flexible load, distributed generation, energy storage, energy efficiency, and electric vehicle resources in these markets. To learn more, visit www.voltus.co.
LONDON, Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Crown LNG Holdings Limited (Nasdaq: CGBS) (“Crown” or “Crown LNG”), a leading provider of LNG liquefaction and regasification terminal technologies for harsh weather locations, announced today the execution of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the India Gas Exchange Ltd. (“IGX”), India’s first automated national level trading platform. The MOU outlines how Crown and IGX plan to cooperate on liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) sales to pipeline customers downstream from Crown’s planned LNG import terminal in Kakinada, India.
The signing ceremony on the sidelines of India Energy Week 2025 in New Delhi included Swapan Kataria, CEO of Crown LNG, and Rajesh Kumar Mediratta, Managing Director & CEO of IGX, and was witnessed by The Honorable Member of Parliament from Kakinada Shri Tangella Uday Srinivas, an advocate for building infrastructure to empower millions of households and to improve the development of new industries in Andhra Pradesh, including data centers requiring uninterrupted 24/7 power supply.
The non-binding MOU provides a framework for LNG cargoes traveling through Crown’s regasification terminal to be listed, marketed, and sold on the IGX. Under the agreement, IGX will drive market awareness through workshops and industry engagement initiatives, encouraging wider participation in gas trading. Crown LNG will collaborate closely with IGX on LNG cargo arrivals and sales, ensuring a stable and efficient supply chain. Together, they aim to unlock new opportunities in India’s energy sector and reinforce the role of natural gas as a key driver of sustainable economic growth. Both organizations will explore further areas of cooperation to accelerate India’s 15% gas-based economy target by 2030, as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“This collaboration will offer Crown a unique position to sell gas to a large base of producers, traders, and offtakers throughout India,” said Swapan Kataria, Crown LNG CEO. “We believe this agreement is the first of several that will address the lack of supply for the eastern coast of the fourth largest LNG importer in the world. Together with IGX and our growing network of trusted local partners, we are excited to strengthen India’s energy security and to help make natural gas more accessible to industries and micro-enterprises across India.”
The Kakinada terminal has received an approved total import capacity of 7.2 MMTPA. Crown expects to achieve final investment decision for the project in 2026 and to deliver first gas in 2029.
About Crown LNG Holdings Limited Crown LNG is a leading provider of offshore LNG liquefaction and regasification terminal infrastructure solutions for harsh weather locations, which represent a significant addressable market for bottom-fixed, gravity based (“GBS”) liquefaction and floating storage regasification units, as well as associated green and blue hydrogen, ammonia and power projects. Through this approach, Crown aims to provide lower carbon sources of energy securely to under-served markets across the globe. Visit www.crownlng.com/investors for more information.
Forward-Looking Information and Statements
Certain statements in this announcement are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “believe,” “may,” “could,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “plan,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “future,” “outlook,” “potential,” “project” and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding estimates and forecasts of other performance metrics and projections of market opportunity. They involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release and on current expectations of Crown’s management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as and must not be relied on by any investor as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of Crown. Some important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements could include changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political and legal conditions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results and encourages investors to review other factors that may affect its future results in the Company’s registration statement and other filings with the SEC.
TORONTO, Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ECN Capital Corp. (TSX: ECN) (“ECN Capital” or “the Company”) announced today that it intends to file its financial statements and management discussion and analysis for the three-month period and full year ended December 31, 2024, after markets close on Thursday, February 27, 2025.
The Company will host an analyst briefing to discuss these results commencing at 5:30 PM (ET) on Thursday, February 27, 2025. The call can be accessed as follows:
A telephone replay of the conference call may also be accessed until March 27, 2025, by dialing 1-800-645-7964 and entering the passcode 5036#.
About ECN Capital Corp.
With managed assets of US$6.7 billion, ECN Capital Corp. (TSX: ECN) is a leading provider of business services to North American based banks, credit unions, life insurance companies, pension funds and institutional investors (collectively our “Partners”). ECN Capital originates, manages and advises on credit assets on behalf of its Partners, specifically consumer (manufactured housing and recreational vehicle and marine) loans and commercial (inventory finance and rental) loans. Our Partners are seeking high quality assets to match with their deposits, term insurance or other liabilities. These services are offered through two operating segments: (i) Manufactured Housing Finance, and (ii) Recreational Vehicles and Marine Finance.
SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Infinera Corporation (NASDAQ: INFN) (“Infinera”) today announced that its pending acquisition (the “Transaction”) by Nokia Corporation (“Nokia”) is anticipated to be completed on or about February 28, 2025, which date remains subject to receipt of remaining outstanding regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other remaining customary closing conditions.
Based on the anticipated February 28, 2025 completion date, Infinera today also announced that the deadline to revoke a previously made election with respect to the form of merger consideration to be received in the Transaction is 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on February 21, 2025 (the “Election Revocation Deadline”). In the event that the anticipated completion date is delayed, Infinera will communicate an updated Election Revocation Deadline.
Holders of shares of Infinera’s common stock who have made a valid election with respect to the form of merger consideration to be received in the Transaction and who wish to sell or otherwise transfer such shares may revoke their election prior to and in connection with selling or transferring such shares. No revocations will be accepted or effected after the Election Revocation Deadline.
A holder of shares of Infinera’s common stock that are the subject of an election that has not been properly and timely revoked will no longer be able to sell or transfer such shares following the Election Revocation Deadline, and the holder will be entitled to receive the applicable merger consideration with respect to such shares upon completion of the Transaction.
Infinera stockholders of record may, at any time prior to the Election Revocation Deadline, revoke a previously made election prior to and in connection with selling or transferring their shares by delivery of a notice of withdrawal (a “Notice of Withdrawal”) to Computershare Trust Company, N.A. (the “Exchange Agent”) at the applicable address set forth below:
Computershare Trust Company, N.A. c/o Voluntary Corporate Actions 150 Royall Street, Suite 101 Canton, MA 02021
A revocation will be valid only if a properly completed and signed Notice of Withdrawal is received by the Exchange Agent by the Election Revocation Deadline.
Infinera stockholders who hold shares through a bank, broker or other nominee may be subject to an earlier deadline for revoking elections, and should contact their bank, broker or other nominee for assistance revoking an election in connection with selling or transferring such shares.
If an Infinera stockholder validly revokes a previously made election prior to the Election Revocation Deadline (or any earlier deadline applicable to the stockholder), that stockholder will be deemed to have elected to have those shares converted into the right to receive $6.65 per share in cash, without interest.
The aggregate merger consideration payable by Nokia is subject to proration as described in the Proxy Statement/Prospectus (the “Proxy Statement/Prospectus”) filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by Infinera and Nokia in connection with the Transaction. Infinera and Nokia intend only to announce the results of stockholder elections and required proration, if any, in connection with the closing of the Transaction.
Infinera stockholders of record who wish to request election revocation materials, including a Notice of Withdrawal, should contact Sodali & Co at (800) 662-5200 (for registered holders of Infinera common stock) or (203) 658-9400 (for banks and brokers), or by email at INFN@investor.sodali.com. Infinera stockholders who hold shares through a bank, broker or other nominee should contact their bank, broker or other nominee for assistance revoking an election.
Infinera stockholders should carefully read the Proxy Statement/Prospectus and all election and election revocation materials provided to them or filed by Infinera or Nokia in connection with the Transaction before revoking an election.
About Infinera
Infinera is a global supplier of innovative open optical networking solutions and advanced optical semiconductors that enable carriers, cloud operators, governments, and enterprises to scale network bandwidth, accelerate service innovation, and automate network operations. Infinera solutions deliver industry-leading economics and performance in long-haul, submarine, data center interconnect, and metro transport applications. To learn more about Infinera, visit www.infinera.com, follow us on X and LinkedIn, and subscribe for updates.
No Offer or Solicitation
This communication is not a proxy statement or solicitation of a proxy, consent or authorization with respect to any securities or in respect of the Transaction and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote of approval, and there will not be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities will be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933.
Certain statements contained in this communication may be characterized as forward-looking under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially.
Statements in this communication that are forward-looking may include statements regarding the anticipated closing of the Transaction and related matters.
Risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, in addition to those identified above, include: (1) the possibility that the conditions to the closing of the Transaction are not satisfied, including the risk that required regulatory approvals to consummate the Transaction are not obtained, on a timely basis or at all; (2) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstance that could give rise to a right to terminate the Transaction; (3) possible disruption related to the Transaction to the current plans, operations and business relationships of Nokia and Infinera, including through the loss of customers and employees; (4) the amount of the costs, fees, expenses and other charges incurred by Nokia and Infinera related to the Transaction; (5) the possibility that the stock prices of Nokia or Infinera could fluctuate during the pendency of the Transaction and may decline if the Transaction is not completed; (6) for both Nokia and Infinera, the possible diversion of management’s time and attention from ongoing business operations and opportunities; (7) the response of competitors and other market participants to the Transaction; (8) potential litigation relating to the Transaction; (9) uncertainty as to the timing of completion of the Transaction and the ability of each party to consummate the Transaction; and (10) the other risks and uncertainties detailed in the periodic reports that Nokia and Infinera file with the SEC. All forward-looking statements in this communication are based on information available to Infinera as of the date of this communication, and, except as required by law, Infinera does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.
DENVER and SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zayo and Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) announced today the successful completion of a live network trial using Infinera’s ICE7, a seventh-generation embedded optical engine, to deliver 1 Tb/s single 150GHz wavelength transmission over 1,391 kilometers (km) on a major North American route between Sacramento, CA and Salt Lake City. This achievement will enable Zayo to deliver a record-setting 32 terabits of C-Band capacity across this link, with the ability to double bandwidth to 64 terabits with L-Band. Powered by Infinera’s innovative ICE7 optical engine, this trial signals a major industry milestone, demonstrating the power and ability of Infinera’s ICE7 and Zayo’s state-of-the-art network to rapidly and cost-effectively address the increasing capacity demands of AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise needs.
Zayo operates the largest independent network, spanning 132,000 route miles in North America alone, and one of the largest and most modern 400G networks in North America. The success of the trial demonstrates Zayo’s ability to seamlessly integrate innovative new solutions like Infinera’s ICE7 optical engine into its industry-leading network to deliver the highest capacity, speed, and efficiency to meet the growing demands of its customers.
Infinera’s ICE7 optical engine features a 5-nm CMOS DSP and leverages the latest generation of advanced high-speed optics to deliver high-baud-rate (140+ Gbaud) and single-wavelength transmission of up to 1.2 Tb/s, highlighting the improved capacity-reach and significantly reduced cost per bit, power consumption, and footprint of coherent optical transport.
“With the rapid growth in capacity needs due to high-bandwidth applications like AI, Zayo actively seeks innovative solutions to deliver superior performance of our network by increasing capacity, capability, and reach. This successful test highlights how Zayo’s network is, and will continue to be, well positioned to easily meet increasing customer demands,” said Aaron Werley, SVP of Engineering at Zayo. “We are pleased with the performance of Infinera’s ICE7 optical engine. Technology like this that can easily integrate into our existing infrastructure is critical to Zayo’s mission to expand and create capacity across North America in support of our customers’ critical connectivity needs.”
“The success of this trial marks a major accomplishment for Infinera as it underscores the power of ICE7’s ability to transmit 1 Tb/s high-baud-rate signals across a significant distance, which will be instrumental in driving down network operator costs while meeting the rapidly growing bandwidth demands of their customers,” said Paul Crann, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Optical Systems, at Infinera.
Infinera Media Contact: Anna Vue Tel. +1 (916) 595-8157 avue@infinera.com
Infinera Investors Contact: Amitabh Passi, Head of Investor Relations Tel. +1 (669) 295-1489 apassi@infinera.com
About Zayo For more than 17 years, Zayo has empowered some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies to connect what’s next for their business. The Zayo group of companies connects 400 global markets with future-ready networks that span over 18.7 million fiber miles and 146,000 route miles. Zayo’s tailored connectivity solutions and managed services enable carriers, cloud providers, data centers, schools, and enterprises to deliver exceptional experiences, from core to cloud to edge. Discover how Zayo connects what’s next at www.zayo.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
About Infinera Infinera is a global supplier of innovative open optical networking solutions and advanced optical semiconductors that enable carriers, cloud operators, governments, and enterprises to scale network bandwidth, accelerate service innovation, and automate network operations. Infinera solutions deliver industry-leading economics and performance in long-haul, submarine, data center interconnect, and metro transport applications. To learn more about Infinera, visit www.infinera.com, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and subscribe for updates.
Infinera and the Infinera logo are registered trademarks of Infinera Corporation.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including but not limited to the operational, performance and financial benefits of Infinera’s ICE7 optical engine. These statements are not guarantees of results and should not be considered as an indication of future activity or future performance. Actual results may vary materially from these expectations as a result of various risks and uncertainties. Information about these risks and uncertainties, and other risks and uncertainties that affect Infinera’s business, is contained in the risk factors section and other sections of Infinera’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the Fiscal Quarter ended September 28, 2024 as filed with the SEC on November 5, 2024, as well as any subsequent reports filed with or furnished to the SEC. These reports are available on Infinera’s website at www.infinera.com and the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding our expectations, beliefs, intentions, or strategies and can be identified by words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “should,” “will,” and “would” or similar words. Infinera assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements.
