PORTLAND, Ore.— A Portland drug trafficker was sentenced to federal prison Friday for possessing fentanyl on multiple occasions.
Yesmin Miseal Medina Vargas, 20, a Honduran national unlawfully residing in Oregon, was sentenced to 121 months in federal prison and four years’ supervised release.
According to court documents, in February 2023, Medina Vargas was identified as a leader of a dispatcher-based drug trafficking organization in the Portland area. Medina Vargas was responsible for taking orders from customers and coordinating drug deliveries.
In February 2023, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents executed a search warrant on Medina Vargas’ residence and seized more than 20 pounds of fentanyl, body armor, ammunition, and cellular phones.
Medina Vargas resumed drug trafficking and several months later, in August 2023, Medina Vargas arrived at a controlled buy in Tigard, Oregon, with a minor in his vehicle. Medina-Vargas and the minor were arrested, and agents seized approximately 2,000 fentanyl pills.
On September 12, 2023, a federal grand jury in Portland returned a two-count indictment charging Medina Vargas with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.
On November 5, 2024, Medina Vargas pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. As part of his plea agreement, Medina Vargas admitted that he was part of a drug trafficking organization that caused an overdose death.
This case was investigated by HSI with assistance from the FBI, Westside Interagency Narcotics Team, and Lake Oswego Police Department. It was prosecuted by Cassady A. Adams, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon.
This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin. A 2-milligram dose of fentanyl—a few grains of the substance—is enough to kill an average adult male. The wide availability of illicit fentanyl in Oregon has caused a dramatic increase in overdose deaths throughout the state.
If you are in immediate danger, please call 911.
If you or someone you know suffers from addiction, please call the Lines for Life substance abuse helpline at 1-800-923-4357 or visit www.linesforlife.org. Phone support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also text “RecoveryNow” to 839863 between 2pm and 6pm Pacific Time daily.
DETROIT – Mubasher Riaz, 41, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, was sentenced today to 188 months in prison after having pleaded guilty to charges of coercion and enticement of a minor, announced United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr.
Gorgon was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Division.
According to court records, in July 2023, local police in Maumee, Ohio, learned that Riaz was messaging a 13-year-old girl, Minor Victim 1 (MV-1) on Snapchat. Communications between Riaz and MV-1 showed that Riaz had requested and received nude images of the minor and that he attempted to gather information about her home with the intent to meet with her to engage in sexual activity. FBI agents reviewed Riaz’s Snapchat communications and found that Riaz messaged numerous other individuals on Snapchat who identified themselves as minors, some as young as 11 years old. For example, Riaz communicated with Minor Victim 2 (MV-2), who was 13 years old when Riaz contacted her. Riaz drove to MV-2’s foster home and engaged in sexual activity with her in his parked car. Riaz offered MV-1 and MV-2 tobacco and other items in exchange for sex acts. As part of his sentence, Riaz will be required to pay $150,000 in restitution to his minor victims.
“This defendant preyed in the most disgusting ways on vulnerable girls as young as 11 years old. Those are the actions of an evil man. And we will do everything in our power to prosecute fiends who prowl around pursuing our children,” U.S. Attorney Gorgon said.
“The sentencing of Mubasher Riaz sends a powerful and unequivocal message: those who exploit children will be investigated aggressively and held fully accountable under federal law,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office. “I commend the exceptional efforts of our Ann Arbor Resident Agency and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan. Their unwavering dedication to justice was instrumental in securing this conviction. The FBI in Michigan is resolute in its mission to protect children and ensure that anyone who seeks to harm them will face justice.”
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Zachary Zurek.
Source: People’s Republic of China – Ministry of National Defense
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers an important speech at a meeting held to mark the 120th birth anniversary of veteran leader Chen Yun at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, June 13, 2025. (Photo by Wang Zhuangfei/Xinhua)
BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday called for learning from veteran leader Chen Yun and carrying forward his legacy with an enterprising spirit and hard work to build China into a strong country.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a meeting held in the Great Hall of the People to mark the 120th anniversary of Chen’s birth.
Chen was recognized as a great proletarian revolutionary and statesman, and as one of the founding figures of the country’s socialist economy. He was a key member of both the Party’s first generation of central collective leadership with Mao Zedong at the core and the second generation of central collective leadership with Deng Xiaoping at the core, according to Xi.
At the meeting, Xi recalled Chen’s glorious life, hailing him as “a tested, distinguished Party and state leader,” who had made significant contributions to the cause of the Party and the people.
Xi encouraged Party members to learn from Chen’s lofty spirit and qualities, urging them to remain steadfast in their ideals and convictions, bolster their confidence in success, and maintain political resolve in a complex environment full of turbulence and change.
Xi further underlined the significance of learning from Chen’s wealth of leadership expertise and striving to enhance the Party’s capacity for leading economic and social development as well as its self-building competence.
He emphasized the importance of enhancing the Party’s leadership over economic work and deepening the understanding of the laws governing socialist economic development.
“It is important to comprehensively deepen reform at a swift and steady pace, and to remain steadfast in pursuing higher-standard opening up,” he said.
Xi also praised Chen for his adherence to the principle of seeking truth from facts and for viewing research and studies as a vital prerequisite for decision-making.
He urged CPC members to adopt this scientific methodology in thinking and working, make sound assessments of situations, plan effectively for the future, and improve their research and studies, so they can make decisions that better reflect reality and meet the people’s expectations.
Chen was born in 1905 and joined the Party in 1925. He died of illness in 1995 at the age of 90.
Li Qiang, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi, who are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attended the meeting.
Zhao Leji, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting.
A meeting is held to mark the 120th birth anniversary of veteran leader Chen Yun at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, June 13, 2025. Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi attended the meeting. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)
PCL Construction Management Inc. has been selected through a two-stage procurement process as the successful team to deliver the new 33-bed Grenfell Long-Term Care (LTC) Home.
“The Grenfell Long-Term Care Home is a vital investment in the infrastructure that supports our residents,” SaskBuilds and Procurement Minister David Marit said. “Selecting a general contractor is the first step in providing a modern, accessible long-term care home for Saskatchewan residents in Grenfell and surrounding areas.”
“We are very pleased to have a team in place for the Grenfell Long-Term Care project and construction can soon begin,” Rural and Remote Health Minister Lori Carr said. “Thank you to the foundation and the community for your continued support and commitment to bringing this important facility to life.”
PCL Construction was chosen to lead the construction project following a two-stage procurement process. The new LTC home will include two spa tub rooms, a commercial kitchen, common living and dining spaces, administrative areas, a maintenance garage and parking stalls.
“I am so pleased to see the new 33-bed Grenfell Long-Term Care Home move forward,” MLA for Moosomin-Montmartre and Legislative Secretary to the Ministers of Health Kevin Weedmark said. “I am happy to see this investment in health care in Southeast Saskatchewan. This new facility will change lives by providing long-term care in Grenfell, so more people can receive this care close to home. I thank the people of Grenfell and area, and the local health care foundation, for the work they have done to move this project forward. I am excited to see the difference this facility will make in people’s lives when it opens in 2027.”
“We are incredibly proud to have been awarded the Grenfell Long-Term Care project,” PCL Construction District Manager Mike Zurowski said. “This facility will be a cornerstone for the community, providing essential care and comfort for years to come. It is an honour to work alongside SaskBuilds and Procurement on such a meaningful initiative, and our team is excited to bring this vision to life with the quality and dedication we are known for.”
“It is very exciting that this long awaited and much needed project is going ahead to benefit the community and surrounding area,” Grenfell and District Health Foundation Chair Trevor Burnham said. “We are looking forward to learning more about the final details about the project.”
Owned and operated by the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), the new long-term care home will be built on a vacant parcel of land at the corner of Alberta Avenue and Qu’Appelle Street in the northeast corner of Grenfell.
“This new long-term care home reflects Saskatchewan Health Authority’s strong commitment to supporting seniors in living healthy, fulfilling lives and receiving care as close to home as possible,” SHA CEO Andrew Will said. “With 33 new beds, this home will provide a welcoming environment for seniors in Grenfell and surrounding area, helping them stay connected to family, friends and community while receiving high-quality care.”
Construction is scheduled to begin July 2025 with substantial completion by Spring 2027. Residents of the Grenfell Pioneer Home, which closed in 2018, were relocated to nearby facilities.
[. He was so impressed by what he saw that his government created Kananaskis Country to preserve the breathtaking landscape and ecosystem of the region.
Today, Kananaskis Country spans 4,000 square kilometres and includes five provincial parks. Premier Lougheed contributed so much to conserve and promote Alberta’s natural beauty, so it is fitting to honour his legacy by naming the new wildlife overpass on the Trans-Canada Highway the Honourable Peter Lougheed Wildlife Overpass. Construction of the $17.5-million overpass began in 2022, and the project was completed last year. It’s the first wildlife overpass to be constructed outside of a national park in Alberta.
“Naming this structure in honour of former premier Lougheed provides a long-lasting reminder of his work to preserve Kananaskis Country for our enjoyment and the safety of the wildlife that roam through the region”
“Our job at Forestry and Parks is to take care of the land, the wildlife and the places Albertans love to explore. This overpass is a great example of how we’re working to protect both animals and people. Naming it after Premier Lougheed is a great way to honour the man whose vision helped create Kananaskis Country in the first place. His legacy lives on every time a hiker hits the trail, a family sets up camp or a bear crosses the highway safely.”
The Honourable Peter Lougheed Wildlife Overpass, on the northern tip of Kananaskis Country, provides a gateway for wildlife to cross safely into and out of the area. It is one of the busiest wildlife corridors in the region, as bears, elk, deer, lynx and other animals travel between the mountains, the foothills and valleys below. Organizations like the Yellowhead to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) and the Miistakis Institute have studied wildlife movements in the region, and with their input this site was selected.
“This overpass is a major milestone in advancing wildlife crossings in one of the most important landscapes for wildlife movement in the entire Yellowstone to Yukon region. We applaud the Alberta Government’s leadership in hugely advancing these projects, as they’ve created a conservation success story that benefits both wildlife and people.”
The wildlife crossing structure demonstrates Alberta’s commitment to improving safety for both drivers and wildlife. The new crossing is expected to reduce collisions in the area by an estimated 80 per cent. The crossing supports the Alberta Wildlife Watch Program, a leading-edge driver safety program, to prevent animal-vehicle collisions. The program identifies collision prone locations along the highway network and works to mitigate those risks through projects such as wildlife crossings and fencing. In fact, wildlife such as deer, elk, coyote and lynx were using the crossing structure before it was even completed.
“This is a really exciting moment for so many people who have been involved in this project for over a decade. The new overpass is a huge step forward in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions, connecting natural landscapes, and improving the ability for wildlife to find food, mates, water and safety. This crossing will help elk, deer, bears and other animals across the Trans-Canada Highway in a way that is safe for them and the tens of thousands of people driving this highway every day.”
Key Facts
Peter Lougheed became Premier of Alberta in 1971 and served Albertans until his retirement in 1985.
Peter Lougheed passed away in September of 2012.
Construction of the wildlife overpass began in 2022 and was completed in fall 2024.
Animal-vehicle collisions are a significant safety concern and account for about 60 per cent of reported collisions on rural highways.
These animal-vehicle collisions cost Albertans nearly $300,000 per day in direct and indirect costs, including property damage, health care and highway cleanup.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Jimmy Gomez (CA-34)
GOMEZ: “If it can happen to Alex, it can happen to any of those senators on the other side, or any member of Congress, or anybody.”
You can watch the press conference HERE.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Representatives Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), Zoe Lofgren (CA-18), and members of the California congressional delegation held an emergency press conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to condemn the Trump administration’s forcible removal of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla during a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press conference.
Senator Padilla was thrown to the ground and handcuffed while attempting to ask Secretary Kristi Noem questions regarding DHS’s military-style deployments in LA and ongoing reports of human rights abuses at detention facilities. The senator identified himself repeatedly, yet was removed from a federal building where his own office is located.
You can read Rep. Gomez’s full remarks as delivered below:
“I think everyone is definitely shaken up—but extremely angry about what just occurred. Because we’ve seen this situation before. This administration — Donald Trump — is outside the bounds of the law, outside the bounds of the courts, outside the bounds of custom and practice. And he will not stop in just Los Angeles.
“He’s not gonna stop in California. He’s gonna go to every state in the union to show that he is not controlled by the Constitution. And if people think it’s only in California, they are mistaken.
“What we’ve seen is that this administration—with their ICE raids—is not going after criminals. I don’t know any MS-13 gang members that work at a car wash during the day, or at a day laborer site, or at a restaurant during the day. That’s who he said he would go after. But who is he going after?
“He’s going after a mom doing her yearly check-in—with her kids—and then deporting them to Texas and separating them. A little girl who’s getting cancer treatment—and the only place she can get it is here.
“People should be pissed off. Not just because of them—but because of what it means about our country, where we’re heading. And we’re heading down a dark, dark path. Something that, in my imagination, I never thought we’d reach. But this is where we are.
“And if they can do that to a member of Congress from New Jersey [and California’s] senior senator, who was shouting at the top of his lungs, ‘I am Senator Alex Padilla,’ and whose office is in that federal building—he had a right to be there—then they’re gonna make something up to justify, probably, an indictment of that senator.
“And what we want to know—what we’re going to demand—is that Kristi Noem come before Congress and testify about what occurred today.
“Because if it can happen to Alex, it can happen to any of those senators on the other side. It can happen to any member of Congress. It can happen to anybody.
“So I want to just stress: we’re not going to give up. We’re not going to be intimidated. We’re not going to be cowed. We’re going to keep fighting for our communities. And I know the Trump administration says using the word ‘fight’ is some kind of declaration. And it is a declaration.
“It’s a declaration that we’re not going to give up. That we’re going to stand up for one another. Because too much is at stake. And I want everybody to know—we’re calling on all Americans to stand up. Because when is it going to be enough?
“When somebody gets shot in the streets of Los Angeles? When a member gets shot?”
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Don Beyer (D-VA)
Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, Connecticut’s U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy, and U.S. Representatives Jimmy Gomez (D-CA-34) and Donald Beyer (D-VA-08) today reintroduced the Choose Medicare Act. This revolutionary proposal opens Medicare to all Americans with a new ‘Part E’ and builds on the system we have today by allowing Medicare to compete with private health insurance.
“In the richest country in the world, no person should have to worry about whether they’ll be able to afford care if they become sick or get into an accident. At a time when proposed cuts from Republicans threaten the health and financial security of millions, it’s more important than ever to expand access to high-quality, affordable health care,” said Merkley. “The Choose Medicare Act does just that by allowing every American to buy into Medicare, protecting and expanding this effective, popular system, and putting consumers and businesses in the driver’s seat on the road to universal health care.”
“Instead of shielding big insurance companies from competition, we should give Americans the option to choose Medicare’s high-quality, low-cost coverage if it’s right for them and their families,” said Murphy. “While Republicans spike the cost of living and cut health care for millions of Americans, we’ll keep fighting to expand access and affordability.”
“I got pneumonia when I was seven years old, and my family almost went bankrupt because we were uninsured. Today too many families are still one medical emergency away from financial crisis,” said Gomez. “Our bicameral legislation lets every American opt into Medicare — which is affordable, effective, and trusted — and we’re going to keep fighting until everyone has access to the care they need.”
“Our bill would give all Americans access to Medicare, one of the most popular and successful health care delivery programs in history,” said Beyer. “Allowing employers and the general public the option to choose Medicare would fill many of the gaps in our health care system, get more people covered, and make the nation healthier. Every American should be able to access affordable, quality health care, and this bill represents the kind of bold action required to make that a reality for all.”
The Choose Medicare Act is co-sponsored by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Jack Reed (D-RI), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Representatives Jared Huffman (D-CA-02), LaMonica McIver (D-NJ-10), and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC-AL). The bill is supported by Families USA, MoveOn, American Federation of Teachers, the Center for Medicare Advocacy, and the Center for Health and Democracy.
“Now, more than ever, millions of people are grappling with skyrocketing health care costs and rising concerns that they won’t be able to access affordable health insurance and the care they need to keep their families healthy. Lawmakers should be doing all they can to ensure people across the country have more options for affordable health care, not less. The Choose Medicare Act is an important effort that creates a new pathway to make Medicare accessible to more consumers and employers, and makes important improvements to the current program like coverage of all reproductive health and essential health benefits,” said Jane Sheehan, Deputy Senior Director of Government Relations for Families USA.
“The Choose Medicare Act would improve the existing Medicare program by creating a critically needed out-of-pocket cap in traditional Medicare,” said David Lipschutz, Co-Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “The bill would also enable people currently not yet eligible for Medicare to enjoy the benefits of traditional Medicare, without the restrictions of limited provider networks found in many Medicare Advantage plans.”
“Big Insurance’s monopoly control over health care in this country has led to higher health care costs and a growing medical debt crisis, all while making health care unaffordable and inaccessible to a majority of Americans. It is a system designed to put profits over patients. This bill is a vital step towards breaking Big Insurance’s strangle hold over health care in this country and will open up the most successful health care program in our country’s history, Medicare, to even more people. I applaud Senator Merkley for introducing it,” said Wendell Potter, President, Center for Health and Democracy.
Medicare ‘Part E’ aims to be self-sustaining and fully paid for by premiums. Plans would be offered on all state and federal exchanges, giving people the ability to use existing Affordable Care Act subsidies to help cover their premiums. Additionally, employers could choose to select Medicare ‘Part E’ rather than private insurance to provide affordable and reliable health care to their employees.
The Choose Medicare Act:
Increases Access, Competition, and Choice
Opens Medicare to employers of all sizes and allows them to purchase high-quality, affordable health care for their employees without requiring replacement of employment-based health insurance.
Addresses the discrepancy between consumer protections in the individual and group markets by extending the ACA’s rating requirements to all markets, to end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions once and for all.
Provides Comprehensive Coverage
Includes the ACA’s 10 essential health benefits and all items and services covered by Medicare.
Provides high-quality, gold-level coverage and cost-sharing.
Ensures coverage for a wide range of reproductive services, including abortion.
Improves Affordability
Establishes an out-of-pocket maximum in traditional Medicare.
Increases the generosity of premium tax credits and extends eligibility to all earners.
Directs Medicare to negotiate fair prices for prescription drugs by incorporating in the program the drug price negotiation section of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Drives down private insurance premiums through competition from Medicare by allowing the HHS Secretary to block excessive private insurance rates.
Extends traditional Medicare protections on balance billing or surprise bills to ‘Part E’ plans.
Full text of the Choose Medicare Act can be found by clicking here.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA-12)
Congressman Allen Testifies Before the International Trade Commission in Support of the American LSPTV Industry
Washington, June 13, 2025
Yesterday, Congressman Rick W. Allen (GA-12) testified before the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) to urge the Commissioners to take immediate action and hold China accountable for unfair trade practices that are harming U.S. producers in the Low Speed Personal Transportation Vehicles (LSPTV) industry.
Congressman Allen Testifies Before the ITCA transcript of Congressman Allen’s full testimony can be read below:“Chair Karpel and fellow Commissioners—thank you for allowing me to appear before you today for this important hearing. I’m grateful to be here to support the U.S. low speed personal transportation vehicle industry. The Central Savannah River Area (CSRA), encompassing Georgia and South Carolina, and much of my district, has long been the epicenter of U.S. golf cart manufacturing. We are home to two large producers that deliver electric vehicle models for personal and recreational transportation: Club Car and E-Z-GO.“For as long as I can remember, Club Car and E-Z-GO have been pillars of the Georgia economy, providing thousands of jobs in the state. Furthermore, they were—and still are—the standard bearers in the golf cart industry. “Unfortunately, the futures of these two great American companies are at risk due to the massive influx of dumped and subsidized low speed personal transportation vehicles from China. If the U.S. industry is not provided with the trade relief it so desperately needs, hundreds of U.S. manufacturing jobs could be lost.“As you’ll hear in detail from members of the domestic industry today, Chinese imports have severely injured the domestic industry and threaten to put it out of business. The U.S. Department of Commerce recently determined that Chinese-manufactured vehicles are being dumped and subsidized to the tune of between 478% and 515%, respectively. These substantial rates demonstrate the degree to which Chinese imports have undersold U.S.-manufactured vehicles, making it all but impossible to compete. This has led to reduced shifts, reductions in workforce, decreases in production, and a sharp decline in profitability for the domestic industry.“And not only do these unfairly traded Chinese imports harm manufacturers of new vehicles—they also have decimated the market for refurbished U.S.-manufactured vehicles. Refurbished used vehicles were an important part of the U.S. industry, but low-priced imports have wiped out this market segment. U.S. processors of used vehicles have found it all but impossible to sell refurbished used vehicles when new Chinese vehicles are being sold at the same or lower prices.“Over the last year, I have led a bipartisan and bicameral effort to bring more attention to this issue. We have reached out the U.S. Trade Representative and Department of Commerce, highlighting the vast amounts of subsidies provided to Chinese producers and the degree to which subject imports are being dumped. Today, I would like to present a letter to the ITC Chair that is signed by 25 Senators and Representatives advocating for positive outcomes of these cases, which is absolutely critical to the health of the domestic LSPTV industry, a historic and uniquely American manufacturing industry. “On a level playing field, U.S. companies like Club Car and E-Z-GO can out-innovate and out-compete anyone in the world. However, when foreign companies—with government backing—violate international trade rules and flood the U.S. market with dumped and subsidized products, the playing field is far from even. Here, dumped and illegally subsidized low speed personal transportation vehicles have undermined the U.S. industry. “It has taken the Chinese industry less than four years to completely upend the U.S. low speed personal transportation vehicle market. They have infiltrated the market at every level, and if left unchecked, these illegally dumped and subsidized imports will decimate the domestic industry and take away hundreds of U.S. manufacturing jobs.“The domestic industry is not looking for special treatment—just the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. I respectfully urge you to carefully consider this matter and take appropriate action to enforce U.S. trade remedy laws. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before you today.”
BACKGROUND: Last week, Congressman Allen led a bipartisan, bicameral group of his colleagues in sending letters to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) Chair Amy Karpel in support of the American low-speed personal transportation vehicle (LSPTV) industry.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Levin (CA-49)
June 13, 2025
Washington, D.C.—Today, Rep. Mike Levin (CA-49) released the following statement on Israel’s strikes in Iran:
“I am closely monitoring the unfolding events in the Middle East after Israel launched preemptive, unilateral strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets.
“The Iranian regime, which sponsors terrorism and represses its own people, must never obtain a nuclear weapon. In recent days, international nuclear regulators declared Iran in violation of its nonproliferation obligations after finding the country dangerously close to making several nuclear weapons.
“Iran’s decades-long pursuit of a nuclear weapon poses a grave threat to the United States and our allies. No nation can be expected to stand by while another openly threatens its existence and races to gain the capabilities to carry it out. The Iranian regime must renounce its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program once and for all.
“I urge the Trump Administration to take every step to protect U.S. personnel and diplomatic facilities in the region, and to make clear that any attack on American interests will not be tolerated. I support Israel’s right to defend itself from imminent threats and believe the United States should provide appropriate diplomatic and material support to help prevent further escalation.
“I will continue supporting measures that prevent military miscalculation, save lives, and chart a path forward that brings us closer to ending Iran’s nuclear threat in order to create a more secure and peaceful world.”
arlier today, Governor Hochul delivered remarks at a memorial service for Representative Charles B. Rangel. He passed away at the age of 94 on May 26th. Born in Harlem, Representative Rangel dedicated his life to public service beginning in 1970 — when he was first elected to Congress — and retiring in 2016. His 46 years in Congress led him to become the ninth-longest serving in the House, where he backed the Affordable Care Act, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and sponsored more than 40 pieces of legislation that became law.
VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).
AUDIO: The Governor’s remarks are available in audio form here.
PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
I want to acknowledge the presence of so many who traveled to be here — not to mourn Charlie — but to celebrate an extraordinary life. Thank you. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. President Bill Clinton has joined us as well, and countless members of the Rangel family and members of Congress. Past and present elected officials.
Charlie was a giant in American life. He was a warrior from back in his days on the battlefield, hence the military designation here today. But he was a warrior for justice and such a proud, proud son of Harlem. I feel the presence of Harlem in this room today? Anyone from Harlem out there? Yeah, I thought so. I could feel it. I could feel the spirit of Harlem that lives through all of us.
When I was a young Attorney on the staff of a congressman and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan — already Charlie Rangel had made a name for himself. He was that cool congressman from Harlem that everybody knew his name and revered him. And I watched him as he had a title with great power, but that wasn’t who Charlie was.
He wanted to use the power of his position to do good for others, and he put a glaring spotlight on the needs of his beloved Harlem and other communities that needed help. So when I arrived as a member of Congress — his 40th year. He was the dean of our delegation. He said, “You’re now part of our family, sister. And I’m going to take care of you.” And he did.
When I later ran for state office, he made sure I met everybody. He gave me that Charlie Rangel seal of approval — whether it’s biscuits as Sylvia’s, or walking the streets of Lenox Avenue. He was there for me and he stood up for me time and time again.
And I thought of him yesterday, as I went through a grueling eight hours of testimony before the political theater that has now become our Congress. I thought of Charlie because I knew I’d be here today and I said, “What would Charlie do?” And I just harnessed his cool, right? “Just keep your cool. Don’t let them get to you. Don’t get under your skin.” And I thought of what he’d want me to do, and he’d want me to stand up and be a loud voice of the people he spoke for, and I’d do it despite the hatred that was spewed against people who came to our country looking for a better life. I stood up and showed them what New York values were, what Harlem values were, what Charlie Rangel values were.
Charlie once said, “Leadership is not about the next election. It’s about the next generation.” And that’s why knowing his love of CUNY and every time I saw him, my pockets were a little lighter and the money went to CUNY. So I know how passionate he was.
I said, “Let’s keep his name alive at his beloved institution and have 20 CUNY graduate students each year.” Named in scholarships, the Charlie Rangel Public Service Scholarship. Let’s get it going next fall. So the next generation knows his story, his influence, and how he used the power of his position. I think that’ll be a lasting tribute to Charlie and Alma Rangel’s shared commitment between quality and justice for all.
I also think it’s important that we immortalize his name and that’s why I’m working with Mayor Adams and Speaker Adams and my team to ensure that there is a street — a prominent street — in Harlem that bears the name “Charlie Rangel Way,” reminding people of the Charlie Rangel way and how he conducted himself and how he was undeterred against the forces of evil and he stood up time and time again. That is the legacy that has been bestowed on all of us.
We must leave here today deciding, are we going to pick up that mantle of leadership? Are we going to cower in the face of what is happening to our country as we speak. Not just in Washington, but in cities like New York and Los Angeles? Charlie wants us to fight back, and we will.
Thank you everyone. Let’s do it in Charlie’s name. God bless all of you.
Highways Minister David Marit is going on a province-wide tour to drive the Saskatchewan road network and meet with communities to hear their highways priorities.
Marit has already visited the communities and surrounding areas of Norquay, Tisdale, Davidson, Cudworth, Elfros, Prince Albert and multiple rural municipalities.
“Discussions with the communities so far have been great for hearing about what the people in the area are seeing and what their priorities are,” Marit said.
“I look forward to continuing this tour throughout the summer months, driving on the highways I am hearing about and meeting with as many people as I can on how we can best deliver the road infrastructure they need and deserve.”
The road tour will continue through the summer months with plans to head to all areas of the province including the northern and the western regions.
The Ministry of Highways 2025-26 Budget of $777 million is a road map to enhance driver safety and invest in strategic infrastructure to sustain Saskatchewan’s export-based economy.
With this year’s budget, the Government of Saskatchewan has invested more than $13.8 billion in transportation infrastructure since 2008, improving more than 21,800 km of highways across the province.
The Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health, made a statement on the release of the External Expert Review report on the modernization of preventive health care guideline development in Canada.
June 13, 2025 | Ottawa, Ontario | Public Health Agency of Canada
Today, the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health, made the following statement:
“Preventive health care helps improve long-term health outcomes by detecting, delaying and preventing disease before symptoms appear. To modernize the development of preventive health care guidelines, such as breast cancer screening guidelines, and ensure they meet the evolving needs of Canada’s health care system, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) commissioned an External Expert Review (EER) to examine the governance, mandate, and scientific processes of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (Task Force).
The EER Panel’s report, Modernizing Preventive Health Care Guideline Development in Canada: A Way Forward, outlines key recommendations and system-wide actions to strengthen preventive health guidance in Canada. I’d like to thank the members of the EER Panel for their dedication and expertise in producing a thoughtful and comprehensive report. PHAC will immediately begin working with experts and stakeholders on the review and the implementation of the recommendations. I have asked PHAC that the modernized Task Force be fully operational by April 2026.
We remain committed to promoting the overall health and well-being of Canadians and look forward to working with partners across the country to strengthen how we develop and maintain preventive health care guidelines in Canada, including as it relates to women’s health. ”
Contacts
Guillaume Bertrand Director of Communications Office of the Honourable Marjorie Michel Minister of Health guillaume.bertrand@hc-sc.gc.ca
Media Relations Public Health Agency of Canada 613-957-2983 media@hc-sc.gc.ca
ATLANTA – Armando Carrillo-Diaz, 45, an illegal alien from Rioverde, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, has been sentenced for assaulting a federal officer, arson, and illegally reentering the United States.
“When illegal aliens resort to extreme and dangerous measures to avoid removal, they not only violate our immigration laws but also put law enforcement officers and the public at risk,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “Our Office is committed to taking decisive action to hold accountable those who attack law enforcement officers and endanger the community.”
“This conviction sends a strong message to those who think they can evade justice by resorting to dangerous and reckless actions,” said Steven N. Schrank, the Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Georgia and Alabama. “Thanks to the dedicated collaboration between HSI and our law enforcement partners at the federal, state, and local levels, we were able to catch Armando Carrillo-Diaz, an illegal alien, and hold him accountable for his reckless and fiery attempts to evade justice.”
“Carrillo-Diaz posed a serious threat to law enforcement and the community,” said Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent in Charge Benjamin Gibbons. “Our top priority is working with our law enforcement partners to keep our communities safe.”
According to U.S. Attorney Hertzberg, the charges and other information presented in court: On April 26, 2023, deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) attempted to arrest Armando Carrillo-Diaz in the parking lot of his apartment complex. Carrillo-Diaz nearly struck one of the officers as he fled from the scene in a pickup truck.
When ERO officers later returned to his residence to locate him, Carrillo-Diaz attempted to evade capture by setting his apartment on fire. The fire spread, prompting the Gwinnett County, Georgia, Fire Department to evacuate residents from the building. Carrillo-Diaz then sliced his own throat with a box cutter when the officers tried to apprehend him. The officers immediately rendered medical aid and arranged for Carrillo-Diaz’s transport to a local hospital.
On June 26, 2024, a federal grand jury seated in the Northern District of Georgia returned a superseding indictment charging Carrillo-Diaz with the offenses of Assaulting a Federal Officer, Arson, and Illegally Reentering the United States.
On June 11, 2025, U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen sentenced Carrillo-Diaz to five years in prison followed by one year of supervised release. Carrillo-Diaz was convicted of these charges on January 29, 2025, after he pleaded guilty.
This case was investigated by ERO, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Gwinnett County Fire Department.
Assistant United States Attorney Dash A. Cooper prosecuted the case.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.
For further information please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6280. The Internet address for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga.
Bowling Green and Paducah, KY – Federal grand juries in Bowling Green and Paducah, Kentucky, returned indictments on June 10 and 11, 2025, charging three individuals with illegal reentry after deportation or removal and one individual with use of a false passport.
U.S. Attorney Kyle G. Bumgarner of the Western District of Kentucky, Special Agent in Charge Rana Saoud of Homeland Security Investigations, Nashville, and Sam Olson, Field Office Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Chicago, U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement made the announcement.
According to the indictments:
Santiago Tehandon-Paneda, age 45, a citizen of Mexico, was charged in Owensboro, Kentucky, with reentry after deportation or removal and false claim to United States citizenship. On or about May 12, 2025, Tehandon-Paneda was an alien found in United States after having been denied admission, excluded, deported, and removed from the United States on or about May 4, 2007, and August 13, 2012. On or about May 15, 2025, Tehandon-Paneda willfully represented himself to be a citizen of the United States. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 13 years in prison. This case is being investigated by HSI, ICE-ERO.
Feliz Morales-Rangel, age 38, a citizen of Mexico, was charged in Bowling Green with reentry after deportation or removal. On or about March 26, 2025, Morales-Rangel was an alien found in United States after having been denied admission, excluded, deported, and removed from the United States on or about March 20, 2008, and May 1, 2010. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. This case is being investigated by HSI, ICE-ERO.
Francisco Campos-Guardian, age 32, a citizen of Mexico, was charged in Paducah with reentry after deportation or removal. On or about May 8, 2025, Campos-Guardian was an alien found in the United States after having been denied admission, excluded, deported, and removed from the United States on or about January 7, 2020. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 2 years in prison. This case is being investigated by HSI, ICE-ERO.
Bogdan Drapac, age 41, a citizen of Romania, was charged in Paducah with use of a false passport. On or about May 14, 2025, Drapac willfully and knowingly used and attempted to use a false, forged, and counterfeited Spanish passport; that is, he presented the passport to law enforcement during a traffic stop to conceal his identity. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. This case is being investigated by HSI, ICE-ERO.
A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.
There is no parole in the federal system.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark J. Yurchisin II, of the U.S. Attorney’s Bowling Green Branch Office, and Raymond McGee, of the U.S. Attorney’s Paducah Branch Office, are prosecuting the cases.
These cases are part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Orlando, Florida – United States Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announces that a federal jury has found Jose David Figueroa Pacheco (33, Davenport) guilty of fentanyl trafficking. Figueroa Pacheco faces a minimum sentence of 5 years, up to 40 years, in federal prison. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 27, 2025.
Figueroa Pacheco was indicted on August 7, 2024, along with co-defendant Alberto Ismael Salinas Valencia. Salinas Valencia pleaded guilty on January 23, 2025, and has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, between August 2023 and August 2024, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office conducted a joint investigation to identify firearms and narcotics traffickers in the Orlando area. As part of that investigation, on December 13, 2023, an undercover officer arranged to buy a firearm and fentanyl pills from Salinas Valencia. Salinas Valencia arrived with the firearm at the buy location as a passenger in Figueroa Pacheco’s truck. Figueroa Pacheco then made phone calls to coordinate the delivery of the fentanyl pills, inspected the pills, and facilitated the transaction.
(firearm and fentanyl pills sold during the December 13, 2023 drug transaction)
This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Richard Varadan and Risha Asokan.
The model works to mitigate developing threats or concerns before they escalate to the level of involving law enforcement. Specifically, Mr. Moore trains schools on how to create threat assessment teams, how to identify and help students of concern, and how to off-ramp them from continuing down a potential path towards violence.
SAC Crocker said, “We cannot prove a negative after a concern has been resolved. However, we are aware many schools successfully identified students of concern and helped meet the students’ needs.”
In addition, the Missouri State Highway Patrol has attributed a jump in anonymous tips to its Courage2Report tipline as a result of the School Safety Initiative conferences.
Topics during today’s conference included: A Student’s Pathway to Violence, Building School Threat Assessment Teams, Trends in Youth Crisis Intervention, Hoax Threats, Swatting and Sextortion, and Online Threats and the Joint School-Law Enforcement Response.
To date, FBI St. Louis has held 10 School Safety Initiative conferences for school administrators and law enforcement since 2021 in St. Louis metro, Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Rolla, and Sullivan. We thank Ladue High School for hosting today’s conference once again.
Source: US Congressman Gabe Amo (Rhode Island 1st District)
The horrific passenger jet crash on January 29, 2025, involved a flight originating in Kansas and killed Rhode Island Mother and Son
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Gabe Amo (D-RI) and Congressman Ron ESTES (R-KS) are calling on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Acting Inspector General Mitch Behm to audit the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) oversight of airspace operations at Washington National Airport (DCA) following the horrific mid-air crash of a passenger jet and U.S. Army helicopter on January 29, 2025.
Congressmen Amo and Estes write:
“The FAA plays a critical role in regulating and managing the U.S. National Airspace System. We have one of the busiest and most complex aviation networks with over 45,000 flights operating in our country daily. That is why this crash raises serious questions about the effectiveness of FAA airspace management, communication processes, and deconfliction procedures in one of our nation’s most sensitive and congested aviation corridors.”
“We respectfully request your office audit the FAA’s oversight of airspace operations at and around DCA, and the FAA’s procedures for managing military aircraft operating within civilian-controlled airspace.”
Read Bi-partisan Amo, Estes LetterHere.
BACKGROUND
On January 29, 2025, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter as the passenger jet approached DCA.
3 servicemembers operating the helicopter, and all 64 passengers and crew on the American Airlines flight were killed in the collision,including Rhode Island residents Christine and Spencer Lane. The mother and son were traveling with the Boston Skating Club group returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships where Spencer had competed.
On May 23, 2025, Congressmen Amo, Subramanyam, and Beyer led 16 of their colleagues in requesting that the Department of Transportation facilitate an independent review of Washington, DC airspace as part of the Appropriations Committee’s Fiscal Year 2026 transportation funding bill.
On March 3, 2025, Congressman Amo supported the House passage of a resolution to commemorate the victims.
With the severe cholera outbreak in Angola, residents are understandably alarmed. “What can we do to avoid getting sick?” asked Maesso Damião, a resident of Zaire Province, to World Health Organization (WHO) public health experts who recently visited the province. The team responded with simple advice on food hygiene, water treatment, and seeking early medical treatment. “This information can save our lives,” said Damião.
In Angola, more than 25,000 cases and almost 800 deaths have been reported since the beginning of 2025 when the outbreak was declared. In Zaire Province, nearly 174 cases have been reported, with a very high case fatality rate of 5.7% as of 13 June 2025. Considering that 1% is the benchmark to indicate early and adequate treatment, the urgency to control the cholera outbreak is clear.
During its week-long visit to Zaire, the multidisciplinary WHO team visited the municipalities of Soyo, Nzeto, and M’banza Kongo, where cholera has affected vulnerable communities, including fisherfolk and informal traders. The team’s assessment revealed the challenges facing the response: treatment centres without adequate beds, shortages of materials, underreporting of cases, lack of sanitation, and difficulties in preparing chlorine solutions.
The WHO team supported the improvement of the quality of care and biosafety (safe working practices when handling infectious agents) in four cholera treatment centres, the improvement of water safety, and distributed essential supplies and safe drinking water. They also trained 140 health professionals in epidemiological surveillance, clinical management, and infection prevention and control.
“WHO’s support has enabled us to ensure crucial conditions to contain the outbreak, highlighting the importance of community involvement in disease prevention. This will allow us to adopt crucial measures for the future, prevent diseases and save lives,” said Zaire’s Provincial Health Director, Dr João Bernardo.
Collaboration with community leaders is essential to strengthen the response at the local level. More than 700 people took part in awareness-raising sessions at churches, beaches, and town squares.
“Cholera is not only a medical emergency, but also an emergency of sanitation, treated water, information, dignity, and social justice. We must continue to work together to eliminate cholera and protect the population,” says Dr Raquel Medialdea-Carrera, WHO epidemiologist from WHO’s Pandemic hub in Berlin and a member of the WHO team currently working on the ground in Angola.
Dr Indrajit Hazarika, WHO Representative in Angola, reinforced the importance of this integrated approach: “While the cholera outbreak is a cause for great concern, it also represents a critical opportunity for us to strengthen cooperation and the health systems and build more robust emergency preparedness. Our common goal is a healthier and more resilient Angola, and to that end, we hope we can count on everyone’s support.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Health Organization (WHO) – Angola.
The National Conference on Agri Stack: Turning Data into Delivery, organized by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) at Sushma Swaraj Bhawan, New Delhi, highlighted groundbreaking AI-driven innovations and state-led achievements in transforming India’s agricultural ecosystem through the Agri Stack initiative.
A standout feature was the unveiling of an AI-powered chatbot, built using Google Gemini and trained on Agri Stack data, capable of answering farmers’ queries in multiple languages. Additional AI tools are being piloted for crop identification, facial authentication of surveyors, and optimizing backend systems, showcasing the Ministry’s push toward cutting-edge technology. The Chief Knowledge Officer and Advisor (CKO&A) introduced the Digitally Verifiable Credential (DVC), or Kisan Pehchan Patra, which allows farmers to generate authenticated credentials for specific land parcels and crops, integrated with DigiLocker and dynamically updated upon land mutation.
The conference also launched a unified grievance redressal portal with OTP-based login, multilingual support, and audio upload features, enabling farmers to resolve land-related disputes efficiently. Farmers can now authorize representatives to access services or lodge grievances, enhancing accessibility.
A dedicated session, “Insights from States on Agri Stack Usage,” featured presentations from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. Maharashtra highlighted its progress in enrolling farmers in the Farmer Registry and sought central support for a Data Provisioning Engine (DPE) and an AI-driven advisory sandbox, Mahavistaar AI. Uttar Pradesh shared its success in integrating Agri Stack with MSP e-procurement for 2024, while addressing challenges in Digital Crop Survey (DCS) implementation. Karnataka showcased multi-layered innovations, including linking its FRUITS platform with banking systems, using Agri Stack for disaster relief, and integrating soil health cards for personalized advisories.
Families heading to this year’s Isle of Wight Armed Forces Day are in for a treat, with a packed programme of activities and displays designed to thrill visitors of all ages — especially the younger ones.
While the skies will be alive with the roar of the Red Arrows, daring parachute display teams, and the unmistakable sights and sounds of the Spitfire and Hurricane, there’s just as much excitement to be found on the ground.
Children and families can explore a range of interactive exhibits, including a hands-on stand from the Army Medical Corps and a close-up look at the Air Corps’ Gazelle helicopter. The 165 Port and Maritime Regiment will also be showcasing the Army’s vital maritime operations.
Back by popular demand, the Fort Cumberland Guard and Vectis Guards will be performing historical displays on the beach during the afternoon.
For those with a sense of adventure, the Army Cadets are bringing something extra special this year.
Event organiser Ian Dore explained: “It’s been tricky to fit this in because frankly, it’s a whopper. But Chris, our site manager, has done a sterling job of getting it in place.
“The Army Cadets will be unveiling a 30-metre inflatable assault course! You won’t miss it — it’s big, green, and set up in the Rose Gardens near the stage.”
Also returning is John Cattle’s Skate Club, offering free skateboarding lessons in the Skate Park — a great opportunity for kids to try something new.
Add to that a wide array of military vehicles, live music from military bands, and plenty of space to relax, and it’s shaping up to be a bumper day out for everyone.
The event on Sunday, 29 June, at Eastern Gardens in Ryde, officially opens at 10am with a spectacular parachute display from the Royal Navy team.
If all goes to plan, Red 10 from the Red Arrows will make a dramatic entrance by helicopter, landing right on the beach. Shortly after, the marching parade will get underway, marking the start of a full day of festivities.
Organisers are encouraging visitors to arrive early, bring a picnic, and set up on the beach to make the most of the day.
PROVIDENCE – A Johnston-based real estate investment firm, the company’s owner, and an employee of the real estate investment firm were sentenced in U.S. District Court today for conspiring to defraud and for defrauding homeowners, many of whom spoke little or no English, and financial institutions, criminal conduct that caused some homeowners to move out of their property, announced Acting United States Attorney Sara Miron Bloom.
In April 2023, after a three week trial, a jury convicted Gregory F. Aloisio, 63, of Johnston, his real estate investment company, Aloisio Group, LLC, and Aloisio Group employee John DiFruscio, Jr., 72, of North Providence, for their roles in a scheme to fraudulently obtain properties from financially distressed homeowners; to fraudulently obtain fees, commissions, and other income associated with the rental, use and short sale of homeowners’ properties; to fraudulently purchase properties in short sales and illegally “flip” them for significant personal gain; and defraud several financial institutions.
Aloisio Group, LLC and DiFruscio, Jr., were each convicted of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud; Gregory Aloisio and John DiFruscio were each convicted on three counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud; and Gregory Aloisio was also convicted on a charge of money laundering.
U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy today sentenced Gregory Aloisio to a term of incarceration of 12 months and one day to be followed by three years of supervised release and John DiFruscio, Jr. to three years supervised release, the first three months in home confinement. District Court Judge McElroy imposed a term of one year of probation against the Aloisio Group. Restitution orders in this matter will be entered by the court within 30 days.
The government presented evidence during the trial that, as part of the conspiracy and to further their scheme, the defendants lied to homeowners, financial institutions, and others, including evidence of the following:
Through misrepresentations and concealment, the defendants represented that they were working at “arm’s length” from the homeowners, meaning that there were no relationships or connections between themselves and the homeowners that could create incentive for suppressions of house purchase prices. In fact, the defendants were controlling both sides of the purchase transactions.
The defendants filed affidavits and documents that falsely represented 1) that no commercial relationship existed between the parties to induce lenders to approve short sales; 2) that there was no agreement to “flip” or rent the targeted properties after the short sale; and 3) the identity of the seller, the identity of the buyer, and/or cash to the parties at closing.
In fact, defendants lined-up buyers prior to short sale so as to guarantee a flip and profit after the short sale. Prior to short sale, the defendants entered into agreements with lined-up buyers to sell properties at prices more than the short sale prices.
The defendants deceived homeowners into believing that they offered a legitimate solution to the homeowners’ financial distress. In reality, the defendants were using homeowners to perpetuate their fraud. Some financially distressed homeowners were convinced to move out of their residences and lost their homes. Others remained in their properties and paid rent to the co-conspirators.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Sandra R. Hebert and Milind M. Shah. The matter was investigated by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – Office of Inspector General and the FBI.
BOSTON – A New York-based director of operations and sales for the Northeast region of a mobile medical diagnostics company pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Boston to conspiring to offer and pay kickbacks to doctors in exchange for ordering medically unnecessary brain scans.
James Rausch, 57, of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-kickback statute. U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton scheduled sentencing for July 10, 2025. Rausch was charged in May 2025.
From approximately March 2015 through approximately September 2020, Rausch conspired with others, including two managers for a mobile medical diagnostics company that performed transcranial doppler (TCD) scans, to enter into kickback agreements with various doctors. TCD scans are brain scans that measure blood flow in parts of the brain. Rausch and his alleged co-conspirators agreed to offer and pay doctors kickbacks, some in cash and others by check, based on the number of TCD ultrasounds the doctors ordered. Rausch and his alleged co-conspirators created purported rental and administrative service agreements, which on paper made it appear as if doctors were compensated for the TCD company’s use of space and administrative resources of the ordering doctor’s practice based on fair market value and not based on the volume or value of referrals. These agreements were shams that hid the true nature of the arrangement of paying per test.
The scheme as a whole resulted in fraudulent bills of approximately $70.6 million to Medicare. Medicare paid approximately $27.2 million to the TCD company for the fraudulent claims.
The charge of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Roberto Coviello, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General; Kimberly Milka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Thomas Demeo, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division, Boston Field Office; Kelly M. Lawson, Acting Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration, Boston Regional Office; Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division; and Christopher Algieri, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, Northeast Field Office made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Howard Locker and Mackenzie A. Queenin of the Health Care Fraud Unit are prosecuting the case.
Cegedim : Implementation of the plan to transfer the listing of the Group’s shares on Euronext Growth
Boulogne-Billancourt, June 13 2025 – The Combined General Meeting of shareholders of CEGEDIM S.A. held today, approved, in accordance with the provisions of Article L. 421-14 of the French Commercial Code, the proposed transfer of listing of its shares from the Euronext Paris regulated market (compartment B) to the Euronext Growth Paris multilateral trading facility, and granted full power to the Board of Directors to implement this transfer of listing.
The Board of Directors, which also met today following the General Meeting, decided to implement this transfer.
In the next few days, the Company will file an application with Euronext Paris for the delisting of its shares from Euronext Paris and their concomitant listing on Euronext Growth.
Reasons for the transfer
Such a transfer will enable CEGEDIM S.A to improve the share’s visibility and attractiveness, placing it among the top 30 market capitalizations on Euronext Growth. As part of this change, the Company will move to a less-regulated market, which entails some regulatory relief, but will continue to maintain the best practices described hereafter.
Main consequences of the transfer
In accordance with current regulations, CEGEDIM S.A. informs its shareholders of the main possible consequences of such a transfer (non-exhaustive list):
Periodic information
The Company will publish, within four months of the end of the financial year, an annual report including its annual and consolidated financial statements, a management report and the reports of the statutory auditors.
The Company will also publish, within four months of the end of the first half of the year, a half-yearly report including its consolidated half-yearly financial statements and a business report relating to these statements. The half-yearly financial statements no longer have to be audited by the statutory auditors.
The Company will continue to publish the four quarterly revenue figures, to apply IFRS standards for the consolidated financial statements and to comply with CSRD requirements for sustainability information, the change in market having no impact on this subject.
Lastly, the following information in the management report (including the corporate governance report) will no longer be required: – information relating to the remuneration of corporate officers, – information having an impact in the event of a public offer; – and the content of the corporate governance report will be streamlined.
Permanent information
The Company will continue to inform the public of any information likely to have a significant impact on the share price (insider information). Regulated information (and in particular insider information) must always be disseminated effectively and in full. The Company will continue to use a professional disseminator.
The Company will continue to draw up lists of insiders, and senior executives and managers will continue to make declarations of securities transactions to the AMF.
Composition of the Board – Corporate governance
The Company will continue to apply the rules on parity on the Board set out in Article L.225-18-1 of the French Commercial Code. These parity rules are also in line with the Company’s CSR commitments.
The Company will continue to be subject to the legal provisions of articles L.823-19 et seq. of the French Commercial Code concerning audit committees. More generally, the existing committees will be maintained, as the Company does not wish to change its good governance practices.
Executive remuneration
The Shareholders’ Meeting will no longer be required to approve the remuneration policy for corporate officers or to approve the remuneration paid or awarded to corporate officers in respect of the previous financial year.
Shareholders’ Meetings
The press release specifying the terms of availability of the documents submitted to the meeting will no longer be required.
The preparatory documents for the meeting and other documents (including the total number of voting rights and shares existing at the date of publication of the prior notice) will no longer be required to be posted online twenty-one days before the date of the Shareholders’ Meeting, but on the date of the notice of meeting.
The results of votes and the minutes of the Shareholders’ Meeting will continue to be posted on the Company’s website.
Disclosure thresholds – Public offer
The protection of minority shareholders, in the event of a change of control, will be ensured on Euronext Growth Paris by the mechanism of a mandatory public offer in the event of crossing, directly or indirectly, alone or in concert, the threshold of 50% of the capital or voting rights.
Furthermore, companies listed on Euronext Growth Paris only need to communicate to the market, in terms of changes in shareholding, the crossing of thresholds (upwards or downwards) of 50% and 90% of the capital or voting rights.
However, in accordance with legal provisions, the company will remain subject, for a period of 3 years from its delisting from the Euronext Paris market, to the public offer regime and the maintenance of information obligations relating to threshold crossings and declarations of intentions as applicable to companies listed on Euronext Paris.
Liquidity of the share
As Euronext Growth is a less-regulated market, the transfer to Euronext Growth Paris could result in a change in the liquidity of CEGEDIM S.A. shares, which could differ from the liquidity observed on the regulated Euronext Paris market. The Company confirms that the liquidity contact currently in place will be maintained after the market transfer.
The transfer could also lead some investors, favoring shares of issuers listed on a regulated market, to sell their CEGEDIM S.A. shares. After studying the composition of its shareholder base, the Company has identified only a very limited number of funds whose prospectuses exclude the possibility of investing on Euronext Growth.
Provisional timetable for the transaction (subject to approval by Euronext)
In the coming days, an application will be filed with Euronext Paris for the delisting of Cegedim Group shares from the Euronext regulated market and their concomitant admission to Euronext Growth. Subject to approval by Euronext Paris, the Group expects to be admitted to Euronext Growth Paris in early September 2025.
The Cegedim Group will be supported in its plan to transfer to Euronext Growth by TP ICAP Midcap as listing sponsor.
About Cegedim: Founded in 1969, Cegedim is an innovative technology and services group in the field of digital data flow management for healthcare ecosystems and B2B, and a business software publisher for healthcare and insurance professionals. Cegedim employs nearly 6,700 people in more than 10 countries and generated revenue of over €654 million in 2024. Cegedim SA is listed in Paris (EURONEXT: CGM). To learn more please visit: www.cegedim.fr And follow Cegedim on X: @Cegedimgroup, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Aude Balleydier Cegedim Media Relations and Communications Manager
SSCP Lager BidCo AB (publ) (“Logent” or the “Company”) has successfully issued subsequent senior secured floating rate notes in an amount of SEK 200,000,000 under the terms and conditions of the Company’s outstanding notes loan 2023/2026 with ISIN SE0021021193 (the “Subsequent Notes”). The order book was significantly oversubscribed, and the Subsequent Notes were issued to 102 per cent. of nominal amount.
The Subsequent Notes carry a floating interest rate of 3m Stibor + 625 basis points and will mature in December 2026. Logent intends to apply for admission to trading of the Subsequent Notes on the corporate bond list of Nasdaq Stockholm.
The net proceeds from the issuance of the Subsequent Notes will be applied towards consummation of the acquisition of the Finnish entity HUB logistics Finland Oy, financing transaction costs and general corporate purposes. Following the issuance of the Subsequent Notes, the aggregate outstanding nominal amount under the notes loan is SEK 1,050 million.
The Company has mandated Nordea Bank Abp and Pareto Securities AS as Joint Bookrunners in connection with the issuance of the Subsequent Notes. Snellman Advokatbyrå AB has acted as legal advisor to the Company and Gernandt & Danielsson Advokatbyrå KB has acted as legal advisor to the Joint Bookrunners.
About Logent Group Logent is an independent logistics partner, with a Nordic base present in Northern Europe and global networks. We have a wide range of services and create value for our customers through guaranteed cost and quality improvements. Our service offer include Logistics Services such as Warehouse design and operations, Transport Management and Customs, Port and Terminal operations, Staffing Services and Consulting Services. This means that Logent has grown to a turnover of about SEK 2.4 billion from the start in 2006 and employs approximately 2,800 people in Northern Europe.
Thousands of British nationals are charged with drug smuggling abroad every year. The UK charity Prisoners Abroad reports a rise in the number of British people imprisoned abroad for drug offences in 2024-25, compared to the previous year, especially women under 34.
Two recent examples making headlines are Bella May Culley, an 18-year-old woman from County Durham, and Charlotte May Lee, a 21-year-old from south London. Culley was arrested in Georgia with 14 kilos of cannabis. Lee was arrested in Sri Lanka, with 46 kilos of synthetic cannabis (she has denied knowing it was in her bag and has yet to be charged).
If they are convicted, Culley and May face very long sentences. Reports suggest that Culley could receive up to 20 years or life imprisonment in Georgia. In Sri Lanka, May faces a sentence of up to 25 years.
And another three young Britons face the death penalty after being charged with smuggling nearly a kilo of cocaine into Indonesia. All of these cases are ongoing and the suspects have not been found guilty of any crime.
Why would people take the risk of such harsh punishments?
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For my book Drug Mules: Women in the International Cocaine Trade, I spent over a year visiting prisons in Ecuador to speak to people convicted of drug trafficking. I spoke to drug mules as well as people who recruited and managed them to understand how the business works. I spoke to people from the UK, Europe, the US, southeast Asia and Africa.
My research sheds light on how drug mules end up carrying such massive quantities, and why harsh punishments are an ineffective deterrent.
Who becomes a drug mule?
The abiding stereotype of the drug mule is someone who is motivated by poverty, often a woman from a drug-producing country. In fact, like most areas of crime, the majority of people arrested for smuggling drugs worldwide are men.
People’s motivations for trafficking drugs are extremely varied. In my research, I came across people motivated by grinding poverty, debts or a chance to make a change in their lives. The sums they were promised ranged from £5,000 to £10,000.
Some people didn’t expect to get paid at all, however. They became involved through debt (theirs or a family member’s), and carrying drugs was offered as a way to repay the debt. In rare cases, people became involved through threats and coercion.
There are, broadly, two kinds of people arrested at international borders with drugs. The first is carrying drugs that they have bought (and packed) themselves, and probably only a small quantity which they might use or sell for a modest profit. They probably also bought their own tickets to travel.
One trafficker I interviewed recalled that he carried only a few hundred grams of cocaine in a talc bottle. If caught, they can face custody, depending on the type and amount of drugs.
The second kind is carrying drugs that someone else has paid for – they are drug mules. The person paying for the drugs (we could call them the investor) decides what is smuggled, where to and how it will be concealed – not the mule.
Investors are, of course, motivated by profit: five kilos will be more profitable than just the one. And so, mules tend to carry much larger amounts than those carrying their own drugs.
Drug mules typically do not know what they are carrying, or how much. When people working as drug mules receive the drugs, they arrive ready to evade customs. In some cases, more professional groups might pay a specialist to conceal the drugs more effectively.
Traffickers have been known to evade detection by concealing cocaine in clear plastic products.
Understanding more about the role of drug mules sheds light on the harsh sentences that people accused of drug importation – like Culley and May – are facing. Possible sentences are very long, not only because Sri Lanka and Georgia have extremely tough drug laws, but also because of the large quantities of drugs involved.
When it comes to sentencing people for drug offences, the quantity of the drug (or, in some countries the monetary value) has long been taken as a proxy for harm. As I have argued in my research, this is a disproportionate and unfair punishment.
The key UN treaty on narcotic drugs requires countries to criminalise and punish activities relating to illegal drugs. The convention labels drug addiction as “evil”, paving the way for very harsh punishments for those who sell or transport drugs.
Drug trafficking can even be punished by death in some countries – over 600 people were executed globally in 2024. In many cases, people were executed even though they were in possession of relatively small quantities of an illegal drug – often less than 100g.
Each nation makes its own laws, but broadly speaking, more drugs means more punishment. This seems logical and proportionate, unless the person being charged with drug trafficking hasn’t made those decisions. And, as my research found, drug mules tend to be carrying larger quantities, paid for by investors or even groups of investors.
The job of the drug mule is characterised by exploitation rather than choice. If they don’t choose where they travel to, or what they are carrying, then deterrent sentences will simply fail to deter. They only serve to punish those who are most powerless and most exploited in the international drug trade.
Jennifer Fleetwood has previously receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
I have been researching the possibility of living on Mars for several years. But it took an invitation to give a talk about space at HMP Erlestoke in England – a category C men’s prison – to make me realise that there are a surprising number of similarities between the challenges that would be faced by would-be Martians and daily life in jail.
The talk was part of a literary festival called “Penned Up”. As I discussed the parallels between Mars and prison with those incarcerated at HMP Erlestoke, the men agreed with me that, despite seeming so different, they both would share long-term isolation, confinement and psychological challenges (not to mention bad food).
So, as plans for exploration of Mars advance and we consider how to survive on this distant and hostile world, could there be important lessons from an environment closer to home – the modern prison? Understanding this overlap could be critical for ensuring the wellbeing of those we send to Mars. We know the terrible conditions of prisons can have a severe impact on people, and perhaps we can learn from that to help keep others safe and well.
It’s important to recognise the fundamental distinction between prisons and space exploration. Prisons are a punitive measure, depriving individuals of their freedom, while space exploration is a highly selective, paid endeavour undertaken by choice. As I saw, living in prison is a profoundly challenging environment. Despite legal minimum standards, overcrowding and shortages mean many prisons fail to uphold them.
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The profoundly negative impact of poor prison conditions highlights the urgent need for effective solutions. But the knowledge gained from this could also then help support people in other challenging and remote environments, such as space exploration.
We have many years’ experience of studying psychological and team challenges from isolated, confined and extreme environments such as submarines, polar research stations, space simulators on Earth and space stations. But few people have looked to the public prisons on our doorstep for what we can learn.
Extreme routine
Daily life in both a prison and in space is governed by structured routines. In prisons, days are often planned down to the minute, dictating everything from waking to sleeping. This rigid scheduling is mirrored by mission-controlled timetables for astronauts.
Mandatory work is another common thread. Prison routines often include assigned tasks, such as kitchen or laundry duty, which serve the needs of the facility. Similarly, Martian astronauts would need to perform scientific experiments, equipment maintenance and resource production duties. Mandatory work can sometimes lead to resentment if there’s little autonomy.
Basic food and limited sleep is another common factor. When I asked the inmates what the food was like, they laughed. A staff member explained that the budget is £3.08 per person (the government benchmark figure is even less at £2.70 per person per day). Prison food can be of low nutritional value and meal times are fixed, impacting both health and morale.
The author, Lucy Berthoud, giving a talk at HMP Erlestoke. Photo by Andy Aitchison., CC BY-SA
On Mars, astronauts would consume carefully planned dehydrated meals, which would no doubt have a higher budget and be nutritionally richer, but it is not as good as freshly cooked food back on Earth.
Sleep, a fundamental need, can also be elusive in both environments. In prisons, it can be disrupted by noise and poor conditions. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are continuously exposed to an average noise level of 72 decibels, which is equivalent to the sound of motorway traffic from a distance of 15 metres.
Limited space
Prison cells are famously small, often measuring little more than a few square metres, and frequently housing several people. They offer minimal personal space and little privacy. The European standard – if it’s upheld – is a minimum of four square metres per person in a single cell.
Similarly, Martian habitats, designed to function with the minimum resources and with a focus on life support, will also be challenging space-wise.
For example, the Apollo Command and Service module which went to lunar orbit had a volume of just 6.2 cubic metres for three astronauts. This lack of personal space and privacy in both settings can lead to heightened stress levels and challenges to emotion regulation.
Both places also provide a potentially high-risk environment. The threats may be different – often interpersonal in prisons – from violence, sexual assault, and extortion to potential staff abuse-, mainly environmental – radiation, cold and lack of air on Mars. But they can lead to a persistent state of vigilance which can significantly impact mental well-being in both cases.
Dealing with isolation
Perhaps the biggest parallels lie in the psychological challenges arising from prolonged isolation. Imprisonment involves a significant separation from family, friends, and the outside world, leading to feelings of isolation and loneliness.
While astronauts on a mission to Mars are highly trained professionals and have chosen to go, they too will operate under a significant degree of control. With a likely round trip time of two years, astronauts embarking on a mission to Mars may also experience isolation. This could lead to feelings of disconnection and homesickness, as has been studied in volunteers on Earth.
Prisoners experience a near-complete lack of control over even the most basic aspects of their daily existence. You can see the importance of feelings of control in the fact that even astronauts and cosmonauts sometimes rail against or even disobey mission control’s strict guidelines, as the Nasa astronaut Clayton Anderson has written about in his candid book The Ordinary Spaceman.
Social dynamics
Both groups require living in close quarters with a limited, unchanging set of companions. In prison, people are confined to a relatively small social environment, which can lead to complex subcultures and the potential for interpersonal conflict and violence, though supportive relationships can also be a crucial resource.
Equally, for Martian crews, strong group cohesion and mutual support will be absolutely essential. However, the inherent stress of the mission, confined living conditions and significant communication delays with Earth could still lead to tensions.
So we see that lessons learned from studying the experiences of people in jails can provide valuable insights for mitigating the negative impacts of life on Mars.
Strategies such as designing habitats to maximise personal space and privacy, improving food and maximising autonomy will be needed for Martian travel. It will be important to provide access to meaningful activities to combat monotony, ensuring access to comprehensive mental health support and fostering strong social connections and support networks. These have all been studied in prisons.
By trying to improve prison conditions and continuing to learn from prisons, we can better prepare our pioneers for the unprecedented challenges of making a home on Mars, improving their chances of survival and their ability to thrive.
Lucy Berthoud receives funding from UK Space Agency and UKRI.
Chinese tourists at Everest’s northern base camp, Rongbuk in Tibet, photograph the world’s highest mountain.Carl Cater, CC BY-NC-ND
To the discerning eye, other mountains are visible – giants between 23,000 and 26,000 feet high. Not one of their slenderer heads even reaches their chief’s shoulder. Beside Everest they escape notice, such is the pre-eminence of the greatest. (George Mallory, 1922)
The climbing season on Mount Everest peaks in late May and early June every year. Extreme weather patterns at this location and altitude mean the main climbing season is remarkably short, perhaps only a few weeks between the winter freeze and monsoon storms.
Even within that time, the precise location of the jetstream that accelerates wind speeds at the summit creates pinchpoints of ideal climbing conditions, leading to images of long queues of mountaineers at particularly challenging points such as the Hillary Step – named after one of the two men who first climbed Everest on May 29 1953.
In the 30 years after Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first stood at the summit, only 150 men and women matched their feat. But since then, the number of climbers has sky-rocketed. In 2019, a record 877 people summited the mountain, and in 2024 ascents were only just shy of this.
Rebecca Stephens, the first British woman to climb Everest in 1993, has described how the “global obsession with the world’s highest mountain is shaping its future and the future of the people who work on it”.
Stephens said her ascent in 1993, when there was only one commercial expedition on the mountain, felt like a watershed moment. Since then, commercial expeditions have mushroomed on Everest’s southern base camp on the Khumbu glacier (altitude: 5,364 metres), which now boasts a wide range of facilities including coffee shops and party tents.
The explosion of interest in climbing Everest has been aided by the fact that, despite its altitude and dangers, it is far from the most difficult high-altitude mountain. A member of the Tibet Mountaineering Association who had summited five times told me, on a good day, Everest was “very straightforward” – and that climbing Denali in Alaska (North America’s tallest peak) had been much more difficult.
By the end of 2024, there had been 12,884 ascents and 335 deaths on Everest, a survival rate of 97.4%. But the so-called “death zone” above 8,000 metres, combined with avalanches, extreme weather and frostbite, will always present significant hazards to the people who visit these slopes.
This climbing season, a Scottish former marine described quitting his attempt 800 metres below the summit after encountering two dead climbers. Meanwhile, four other ex-British special forces soldiers including UK government minister Alastair Carns used xenon gas and hypoxia training to travel to Everest and summit in under a week – leading to concerns that this could further increase the number of people attempting to scale the increasingly crowded mountain.
But while images of high-altitude queues and stories of occasional fatalities hog the headlines, most visitors to Everest do not attempt to climb it. And by far the majority of these tourists are on the “other side of Everest”, in China-administered Tibet.
Unlike a century ago, Everest is now easily accessed by tarmacked roads. (To compare the images, move the white bar right and left.) Sandy Irvine/Royal Geographical Society (1924)/Carl Cater (2024)
China’s “economic miracle”, combined with its desire to develop peripheral regions, has meant that Qomolangma (the Tibetan name for Everest) is now easily accessible, with tarmacked roads all the way to the northern base camp at Rongbuk (altitude: 5,150 metres).
From having lower numbers of visitors than the Nepalese side 20 years ago, the Tibetan side of Everest now welcomes more than half a million tourists a year – the vast majority from mainland China. Short Chinese holidays mean most of these visits are whistlestop trips that also take in the nearby high-altitude cities of Lhasa and Shigatse. Because of the lack of altitude acclimatisation time, many tourists carry oxygen bottles or wear oxygen backpacks during their visits.
The date of our visit was significant, being a century since the disappearance of early Everest adventurers George Mallory and Sandy Irvine on June 8 1924. We set out to examine both the human and environmental changes that have occurred over the intervening hundred years – using century-old journals and photographs as a baseline.
As geographers rather than high-altitude mountaineers, our aim was to retrace some of the reconnaissance routes used by the British in the 1920s – a time when Nepal was closed to foreign visitors. Between 1921 and 1924, three expeditions organised by the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club visited Tibet with the aim of being the first recorded people to climb Mount Everest. None, as far as we know, reached the top – and the remains of the two leaders of the final expedition, Mallory and Irvine, were only discovered on Everest many years later.
While the vistas are equally spectacular today, climate change has had a significant impact on glaciers throughout the region. Recent scientific estimates suggest that there has been between a 26% and 28% reduction in the glaciers surrounding Everest between the 1970s and 2010.
In 1921, the leader of the first expedition, Charles Howard-Bury, camped just below the Langma pass – the highest but most direct easterly route to Everest – and photographed “a peak of black rock with a glacier just below it”. It is apparent from this “slider” comparison, using a photograph I took from the same spot, how much this hanging glacier has retreated over the past century.
This glacier to the south of the Langma pass has retreated significantly. Charles Howard-Bury/Royal Geographical Society (1921)/Carl Cater (2024)
The human impact on Everest
Everest’s permanent northern base camp at Rongbuk in Tibet now welcomes up to 3,000 visitors a day in high season. Tourists are initially disgorged into a regimented tented village – modern versions of Tibetan yak herder accommodation.
Some of these jet-black tents, made from thick yak hair which breathes when dry and is waterproof when wet, provide simple (but heated and oxygenated) accommodation for the hardier tourists who want to be at the mountain early for the best photo opportunities.
Wandering up the astroturf lining the central boulevard, we meet a range of souvenir sellers before reaching the “world’s highest post office” and a circular plaza commemorating the various scientific and political achievements of the region. The near-landscape is largely brown: when he was here, Mallory described the contrast between the rain-shadowed “monotonously dreary, stony wastes” of Rongbuk with the beauty of the snowy mountains looming above.
Today, a boardwalk takes tourists marginally further to Rongbuk monastery – founded in 1902 and rebuilt after being damaged during the Chinese Cultural Revolution – and a final viewpoint of the north face of Everest. A yellow sandstone band is clearly visible just below the summit – evidence that this mighty mountain was once at the bottom of the ocean.
An astroturf walkway in the tourist village at Everest’s northern base camp, Rongbuk in Tibet. Carl Cater, CC BY-NC-ND
The mood on our trip was a sharp contrast to my visit in November 2007, when our Tibetan guide had been keen to evade any security checkpoints (albeit to maximise his personal profit, rather than any ethical standpoint). With only a few thousand annual, mostly international, visitors, the facilities back then were very limited, beyond a warning to tourists to proceed no further or face significant fines – and a shiny new sign proclaiming mobile phone coverage.
However, we were able to walk to the snout of the Rongbuk glacier, a jumble of shattered sandstone rocks at the terminal moraine. Today, tourists cannot go far beyond the monastery and are corralled on new boardwalks.
Tourism has brought rapid economic change to this region of the Tibetan plateau – including diversifying from traditional livelihoods. Central government efforts to reduce overgrazing in the fragile ecosystem have led to a system of payments to traditional herders – and a drop in livestock numbers from a peak of nearly 1 million in 2008 to below 700,000 today.
In contrast, the permanent human population of the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve (the protected area that includes the Tibetan side of Everest) has more than doubled since the 1950s to more than 120,000 people, with especially accelerated growth over the last decade coinciding with the rise in tourism. The Pang La pass which crosses into the Rongbuk valley, described as “desolate” by English mountaineer Alan Hinkes in the 1980s, is now festooned with souvenir shops and mobile coffee baristas.
Concern about the environmental impacts of these tourists led to the introduction of a fleet of electric buses in 2019, with visitors instructed to park their vehicles in the small town of Tashi Dzom before taking a 30-minute electric bus ride to the northern Everest base camp.
Tourists are brought up the mountain to Rongbuk in electric buses. Carl Cater, CC BY-NC-ND
Now there are plans to move the bus transfer station to a gleaming new park centre closer to the main highway, to save tourists having to drive the numerous switchbacks over the Pang La pass to Tashi Dzom, then negotiate traffic jams and parking challenges nearer the peak.
This is partly to cope with another western import to China: the concept of the “road trip”. For Chinese car enthusiasts, the 5,000-kilometre Route 318 from Shanghai to the foot of Everest is now one of their most popular long-distance drives.
‘The most beautiful valley in the world’
We visited the east and north faces of Everest in Tibet armed with photographs and accounts from those three early British expeditions more than a century ago – the first recorded attempts to climb the world’s highest mountain.
The first (1921) expedition led by Howard-Bury, an army lieutenant-colonel, botanist and future Conservative MP, was a detailed scientific and topographical survey of the area. In their attempts to find a route to the summit, approaches via the northern (Rongbuk) and eastern (Kama) valleys were reconnoitred.
Views of Kharta, location of the 1921 expedition’s second base camp. Charles Howard-Bury/Royal Geographical Society (1921)/Carl Cater (2024)
Although less visited than the Khumbu base camp in Nepal or the Rongbuk base camp in Tibet, the eastern approach to Everest via the Kama valley is a wonderful trek with unobstructed views of the immense eastern face of Everest. Howard-Bury described the allure of the valley which remains today:
We had not been able to gather much information locally about Mount Everest. A few of the shepherds said that they had heard that there was a great mountain in the next valley to the south … They called this the Kama valley, and little did we realise at the time that in it, we were going to find one of the most beautiful valleys in the world.
The valley is accessed from the settlement of Kharta, a small-but-booming town on the banks of the Bong Chu-Arun river. Just below Kharta, the river enters a steep gorge, dropping from nearly 4,000m to 2,000m as it enters Nepal. Today, the Kama valley route is becoming popular with Chinese trekkers, although there are very limited facilities to deal with their impact on the area – notably, the human and plastic waste.
The 1921 expedition selected Kharta as the location of its second base camp after several months of exploration at Rongbuk. All were relieved to find such an amenable climate and greenery after the dry and cold of the Tibetan plateau. With the help of the dzongpen (village head) and a local fixer, they rented a farmhouse where many of the photos from the expedition were later developed. Located in a grove of poplar and willow with small streams trickling along its boundary, we also visited this farmhouse – now owned by a Tibetan farmer who cheerily showed us around and introduced the three generations of his family.
Three generations of the Tibetan family who now own the farm used by the 1921 British expedition. Carl Cater, CC BY-NC-ND
The British expeditions’ investigations of the Kama valley are of particular interest as this valley sits on the climatic boundary between drier and wetter areas to the north and south of the Himalayan range. Howard-Bury described thick mists coming up the Kama valley each evening, providing significant moisture to the region:
As usual, in the evening, the clouds came up and enveloped us in a thick mist … When we started the following morning, there was still a thick Scotch mist which made the vegetation very wet … On the opposite side of the valley were immense black cliffs descending sheer for many thousand feet.
Still evident today, this precipitation, combined with great variations in altitude and temperature, supports a profusion of plants – as well as animal life that our predecessors described as “extraordinarily tame”. Now as then, in summer, the hillsides are covered with the yellow, white and pink flowers of rhododendrons and azealas, and huge juniper trees grow in the lower valley. Howard-Bury described spending “the whole afternoon lying among the rhododendrons at 15,000 feet – admiring the beautiful glimpses of these mighty peaks revealed by occasional breaks among the fleecy clouds”.
Adorned with prayer flags, the high passes are still used by local people as portals to the sacred Kama valley. In 1921, when he crossed the Langma pass to enter this “sanctuary”, Mallory wrote that the grumblings of his previously stubborn porters had suddenly transformed into “great friendliness” and “splendid marching” – such that they were “undepressed with the gloomy circumstance of again encamping in the rain”. Descending into the Kama valley, Howard-Bury effused:
To the west, our gaze encountered a most wonderful amphitheatre of peaks and glaciers. Three great glaciers almost met in the deep green valley that lay at our feet. One of these glaciers evidently came down from Mount Everest.
While the topography here remains largely unchanged, the very significant reduction in the volume of the central glacier is evident in these comparison images:
The spectacular Kama valley photographed from below the Langma pass. Mount Everest is the distant right peak. Charles Howard-Bury/Royal Geographical Society (1921)/Carl Cater (2024)
In 1921, the expedition wrote that the outflow from the Kangshung glacier (which descends from Everest) had to “hurl itself into a great ice cavern” in order to flow under the Kandoshang glacier (from Makalu, the world’s fifth-highest peak) and become the Kama river. Today, as a result of glacial retreat, that ice cavern is no longer present and the main stream from the Kangshung glacier flows unimpeded along the snout of the Kangdoshang glacier.
Further up the valley, the 1921 expedition established another base camp in the high meadows towards the head of the valley at Pethang Ringmo, which, as well as a final camp stop for trekking groups today, remains an important grazing area for migratory yak herders. These herders were important sources of information for the early explorers, but today there is some evidence of overgrazing. Howard-Bury commented:
We found ourselves among pleasant grassy meadows – it was a most delightfully sunny spot at 16,400 feet, right under the gigantic and marvellously beautiful cliffs of Chomolönzo – now all powdered over with the fresh snow of the night before and only separated from us by the Kangshung glacier, here about a mile wide. Great avalanches thunder down its sides all day long with a terrifying sound.
A century later, avalanches continue to show us this is a dynamic landscape in a state of constant flux. Often, we would glimpse the rapid tumbling of ice and snow in a long white cloud, rushing down the steep couloirs seconds before the terrifying sound reaches you – reminding us of one of the major threats to climbers.
The ‘gigantic’ cliffs of Mount Chomolönzo viewed from Pethang Ringmo. Charles Howard-Bury/Royal Geographical Society (1921)/Carl Cater (2024)
At the head of the Kama valley, the Kangshung face of Everest is perhaps the most impressive of all the sides of the mountain, towering some two miles above the glacier below. Both the north-east (Tibetan) and south-east (Nepalese) ridges – the most popular routes to the summit – are clearly visible from here. The Kangshung face itself was not climbed successfully until an assault by an American team in 1983, and the first British ascent of Everest without oxygen by Stephen Venables in 1988.
While initially, the mountains and peaks look remarkably similar to the 1920s, the drop in the level of the glacier quickly becomes apparent. The ordered glacial flow has been replaced by rocky detritus and numerous perched lakes, leaving a lunar-like landscape.
During his first visit, and despite having spent much of his life in the mountains of Europe, Mallory wrote that he was in awe of the vista here:
Perhaps the astonishing charm and beauty here lie in the complications half-hidden behind a mask of apparent simplicity, so that one’s eye never tires of following up the lines of the great arêtes, of following down the arms pushed out from their great shoulders, and of following along the broken edge of the hanging glacier covering the upper half of this eastern face of Everest.
This view of the south-east ridge of Mount Everest shows the retreating Kangshung glacier. George Mallory/Royal Geographical Society (1921)/Carl Cater (2024)
While Everest was the prize sought by all the expeditions, the sight of the Makalu massif, dominating the Kama valley to the south, appears to have had a greater impact on both the climbers. Howard-Bury claimed it was by “far the more beautiful mountain of the two”, while Mallory “saw a scene of magnificence and splendour even more remarkable than the facts suggest”. He wrote:
Among all the mountains I have seen, and, if we may judge by photographs, all that ever have been seen, Makalu is incomparable for its spectacular and rugged grandeur. It was significant to us that the astonishing precipices rising above us on the far side of the glacier as we looked across from our camp – a terrific awe-inspiring sweep of snow-bound rocks – were the sides not so much of an individual mountain, but rather of a gigantic bastion or outwork defending Makalu.
In fact, according to Howard-Bury, “the shepherds would insist that Makalu was the higher of the two mountains, and would not believe us when we said that Mount Everest was the higher”.
The future of the Everest region
This historical comparison of hundred-year-old images and quotes represents both the enduring mountains but also the rapid changes that the Himalayas now face. Forces of tourism on one hand and climate change on the other are posing huge challenges for these marginal environments.
Our research shows that tourist and climbing activity is having significant impacts on the region. The causes are both directly at the mountain but also at home, particularly in the damage that all of our consumptive lifestyles are having on Himalayan glaciers.
Of course, these activities have also brought much-needed development opportunities to local populations, and the residents of both the Nepalese and Tibetan sides are generally much better off than populations in less-visited areas of their respective countries.
The expected redesignation of the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve as a national park in the current Chinese central government plan may bring opportunities for further management locally as the crowds continue to grow. However, we also identified a shortfall in protecting the significant cultural heritage and longstanding spiritual relationship to the mountain, which is often eclipsed by its physical size.
Perhaps a more balanced relationship to the mountain and its people is required, one that reevaluates our rather unhealthy obsession with just one peak. Reading the accounts from the 1920s, one is aware that there was a deep reverence for the region – not only from local people but also from its British visitors.
Journeys through Tibet’s Kama valley to Mount Everest more than a century apart. Video: Carl Cater and Linsheng Zhong.
In the intervening years, summit bids on the Tibetan side have historically been much lower than in Nepal. Closed to outsiders for much of the latter half of the last century, Tibetan ascents briefly became more popular in the 1990s and 2000s, with a few well-organised commercial operators. But closures in 2008 during Olympic preparations, and again during the COVID pandemic from 2020 to 2023, once again meant a much-reduced number of attempts.
Combined with less reliance on foreign exchange, China has been able to exert much more control on the climbing industry, and in 2024 did not charge a permit fee at all, preferring to ensure climbers were appropriately experienced. There may be merit in this approach, as no one was killed on the Tibetan side in 2024, as opposed to the eight climbers who perished on the southern side.
But on both sides of the mountain, it is highly unlikely that our global obsession with Everest will wane. As longtime chronicler Alan Arnette notes, the mountain has an “immutable attraction that is oddly perverse”. So, it is important we continue to monitor the changes in this dynamic landscape wrought by both its visitors and climate change.
To counter the rising commercialisation of both mountaineering and mountain tourism requires, above all, greater respect for our mountains and the people who reside on them. According to Lakhpa Puti Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountain Academy, notes:
The Himalayan mountains are holy spots – and we, the Sherpas, worship them. Before climbing any mountain we worship it, begging apologies on having to step on it on the top, and asking to absolve the sin we are going to incur from this particular violence.
Watch more image comparisons of the Everest expeditions here. All historical photographs are published courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society. Slider comparisons built using Juxtapose.
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Carl Cater received funding from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ President’s International Fellowship Initiative. With thanks to Linsheng Zhong, Professor of Human and Tourism Geography at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Yuxiang Lin, Doctoral Researcher, Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, University of Birmingham
The EU has given the green light for Bulgaria to join the euro from January 1 2026. This huge step towards European integration comes just six months after Bulgaria became a full member of Schengen area, within which people can move freely across borders.
However, while rapprochement moves apace at the top level, euroscepticism shows little sign of abating at the grassroots level in Bulgaria, or in national party politics.
Protests calling for Bulgaria to stick with its national currency have sprung up in both capital city Sofia and in several towns around the country. A May poll showed that 38% of Bulgarians were against the euro and only 21% agreed that the switch should go ahead in January.
Others wanted to wait a few years. In a similar poll in January, 40% of respondents said they never wanted Bulgaria to join the euro.
Anti-euro protests tend to be associated with the Bulgarian nationalist political parties. The most influential of these, Vazrazhdane, has become increasingly popular and won 13.63% in the most recent parliamentary elections in October 2024. It had won just 2.45% in elections held in April 2021.
Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007. When, in December 2021, I interviewed a former spokesman for the political party NDSV (National Movement Simeon II), which was in government from 2001 to 2009, they said Bulgarians had very high expectations ahead of becoming part of the bloc.
They had thought it would take just a few years for Bulgaria to be as economically developed as Switzerland, and that their standard of life would soar. The dream was that Bulgaria to become the so-called “Switzerland of the Balkans”, as both countries have similar population size and a similar touristic appeal.
The EU has channelled €16.3 billion into Bulgaria since the country joined EU, particularly for infrastructure development. However, a year of fieldwork has shown me that Sofia has been the main benefactor of this investment.
Small municipalities and rural communities have not felt the benefit as clearly. Among the €16.3 billion, Sofia received €3.1 billion and Plovdiv received €0.8 billion.
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Whereas Sofia gets new metro lines during recent years, citizens in some municipalities still struggle with basic public services for survival. Nearly 15% of the country’s population struggles with regular quality water supply.
The imagined “European” standard of life has not yet reached small municipalities and rural areas. Europe still feels far away.
Becoming part of the EU has given opportunities to Bulgarian citizens to work and live abroad in European countries. Official figures show 861,054 Bulgarian citizens lived in other EU countries in 2022. Recently a total of 74% of young people in Bulgaria are considering more or less seriously the idea of emigrating abroad.
However, the trend of young people working abroad in Europe has caused brain drain and has partially contributed to the decreasing population of Bulgaria, which fell from 7.68 million before it joined the EU in 2006 to 6.44 million in 2024.
According to a research analyst at a Sofia-based non-governmental organisation who I interviewed recently, many Bulgarian parents hope that their children working abroad in Europe will return to work in Bulgaria, because jobs for migrants abroad tend not be for high-skilled workers.
Accession to the eurozone is more likely to benefit Sofia-based people who do business abroad rather than older people living local lives in small municipalities or rural areas. Younger and working people have already been shown to be the ones who benefited most from European integration in Bulgaria and Romania in the first place.
That said, support for EU membership has been rising recently.
Holding a coalition together
Despite euroscepticism, European integration is one of the few issues that unites Bulgaria’s fragile coalition government – although not all political parties agree with joining the eurozone.
Bulgaria held seven parliamentary elections between April 2021 and October 2024. It therefore has been a surprise that amid the political turmoil, the coalition government that was formed in October 2024 has survived. A very important motivational source here is unity on the question of Europe.
But with mixed results so far and with meaningful levels of opposition the joining the euro, Bulgaria’s government will have to be careful about the potential for eurosceptic movements to grow as they have in several other EU nations.
Yuxiang Lin 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 John Kiely, Department of Physical Education & Sport Sciences, University of Limerick
If you’ve sustained an injury while exercising, giving up alcohol while you recover could be key.Andrey_Popov/ Shutterstock
Rest, rehab and patience are cornerstones of injury recovery. But should quitting alcohol be a part of any recovery plan? This is what England cricket captain Ben Stokes has done – saying he’s given up alcohol in a bid to quickly recover from a serious hamstring injury.
While this may seem extreme, emerging research shows that even small amounts of alcohol can interrupt recovery and delay healing in five key ways:
1. Disrupting immune function
Alcohol disrupts immune cells’ ability to reach and repair injured tissues – slowing the regeneration of healthy muscle, tendons and ligaments. This delays the clean-up of damaged cells and also prolongs swelling and sensitivity, which further delays the process of repair.
The effect of heavy drinking (more than four or five drinks at one time) on the immune system can leave your body vulnerable to infection and delay repair for between three to five days afterwards. Even moderate drinking (one to three drinks at one time) stalls tissue regeneration and prolongs swelling and tenderness in the injured area.
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2. Interfering with muscle rebuilding
Muscle protein synthesis – the process of repairing and rebuilding muscle – is reduced for 24 to 48 hours after even moderate alcohol consumption. In one study, muscle protein synthesis was shown to be reduced by 24-37% after drinking.
When this process is impaired, muscle regeneration slows. This results in persisting weakness, soreness and greater susceptibility to re-injury.
3. Delaying bone and tissue healing
When bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles are damaged, signals from these injured tissues trigger natural repair processes. But alcohol disrupts these signalling pathways and interferes with the body’s natural repair mechanisms, delaying healing and increasing swelling and scarring of the injured tissues.
Heavy drinking can prolong healing from a bone fracture by one to two weeks, and extend recovery from sprains and strains by two to three weeks.
4. Disrupting hormonal balance
Hormones are chemical messengers that coordinate many of the body’s recovery processes – including tissue repair, inflammation and muscle growth. Two especially helpful healing hormones are testosterone and growth hormone. Both help rebuild muscle and other connective tissues after injury.
Alcohol lowers circulating levels of these hormones and blunts the body’s ability to regenerate damaged tissues.
At the same time, alcohol raises cortisol levels. Cortisol is the body’s primary stress hormone. Elevated cortisol levels convince the brain that there’s an immediate threat. The brain subsequently seeks to mobilise available energy in preparation for a “fight” or “flight” response.
Clear communication between the brain and body is essential for smooth, precise and coordinated movement. But alcohol interferes with this communication.
As a result, coordination, balance and reaction times all plummet. The subtle movement impairments caused by even moderate drinking can linger for a couple of days afterwards. These increase the risk of movement errors and re-injury to the already vulnerable tissues.
Alcohol and injury recovery
Current research illustrates that there’s no safe threshold of alcohol consumption during rehabilitation. Even low-to-moderate drinking impairs athletic performance and injury recovery for a couple of days, depending on the dose, the person and the aspect of recovery being measured.
Binge drinking (periods of abstinence followed by consuming four or five drinks in one session) causes substantial short-term damage. Low-to-moderate drinking causes subtler disruptions, but these disruptions typically happen more frequently.
Stokes’ decision to abstain from alcohol is not an overreaction – it’s a clear-headed, evidence-led commitment to optimal recovery. As new evidence reshapes our understanding of alcohol’s multiple impacts, the message is simple: rehabilitation doesn’t happen in the pub. Whether you’re a professional athlete, a recreational runner or an enthusiastic “weekend warrior”, every drink counts.
When returning from an injury, the less you drink, the better your chances of a complete recovery. If a rapid and complete recovery is your goal, then less is better, and none is best.
Deciding to drink alcohol during rehabilitation is a personal choice. But if healing is the priority, one of the simplest, most controllable ways to skew the odds in your favour is to follow Stokes’ lead and skip that drink.
John Kiely 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.
Pterosaurs were an amazing group of flying reptiles that occupied the skies around the same time that dinosaurs roamed on land. Appearing in the fossil record around 230 million years ago, pterosaurs survived until 66 million years ago, when an asteroid impact helped wipe them, and many other life forms, out.
The pterosaurs are often the animals in the background, while the dinosaurs occupy the foreground. However, they are worthy of much more recognition than they are commonly given, not just as interesting ancient animals, but because they could also inspire aircraft designs.
Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight. They were in the air 80 million years before birds and around 180 million years before bats. However, their flight apparatus was rather different to either. The wings of bats are supported by multiple digits (like our fingers). Birds use feathers as structural units in the wings.
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But pterosaurs primarily had one finger to support their wings. Their main wing was composed of a single giant “spar” – a structural unit – made of up of the bones of the arm and the greatly elongated fourth finger, with a membrane that stretched from the tip of the finger down to the ankle. This membrane acted as a flight surface.
As a group, pterosaurs were diverse – some were specialist fishers, filter feeders, terrestrial predators, insect hunters, seed crackers, and more. Some could climb well and many species were highly mobile on the ground.
They also got very large. The biggest pterosaurs had wingspans of over 10m and could weigh over 250kg. Even the smallest pterosaurs could fly: juveniles with 10cm wingspans were probably capable of flight within days or even hours of hatching.
The bones of pterosaurs, like those of birds and many dinosaurs, were filled by extensions of the lungs called air-sacs, and they were extremely thin walled. This made the skeletons of the animals very stiff for their weight (rather important when flying). It also made their skeletons very fragile after death, and so pterosaur fossils are rare.
However, in a handful of sites around the world – most notably in Germany, Brazil and China – where the preservation of fossils is exceptionally good, we have huge numbers of pterosaur fossils with both complete skeletons and a lot of soft tissue. This gives us an incredible insight into the shape and structure of their wings and how they flew.
In addition to the main wing surface, pterosaurs had two other smaller subsidiary surfaces that would have given them extra control. At the front of the main wing sitting in the crux of the elbow was a small membrane between the wrist and the base of the neck, supported by a unique long wrist bone called the pteroid.
At the back of the body, earlier pterosaurs had a single large sheet of membrane between the legs, supported in the middle by a long tail and on each side by long fifth toes on the feet. Later pterosaurs split this rear membrane and had only a small piece of membrane running from the ankle on each leg to the base of a short tail.
As well as the outer skin-like layers, the wings had at least three major layers, comprising blood vessels, a layer of muscles, and a layer of stiffening fibres. Some might well have had extensions of the airsacs in the main wing membranes too, which could presumably be inflated and deflated to a degree. The wing as a whole was therefore extremely elastic and flexible.
Artist’s impression of pterosaurs in flight. Natalie Jagielska
This would have given pterosaurs extraordinary control over their wings. All of this makes them an intriguing model for future aircraft design.
Flight challenge
Aircraft wings are not (and cannot) be perfectly stiff. Adding flexibility, or better still, actual shape changing potential, could give them substantial performance benefits. But stiffness and flexibility need to be balanced. Problems with aeroelasticity – the tendency of a soft wing to vibrate in ways that greatly reduce performance (or even cause flight to fail outright) – limit how pliable the wings can be.
Pterosaurs had multiple mechanisms to address this challenge, from passive mechanisms, such as fibres within the wing, to active mechanisms, such as the muscles that ran throughout the wing and could tighten on demand. This wing tensioning anatomy is*is?* among the most sophisticated aeroelastic control systems known to science.
The key to applying our knowledge of pterosaurs to future aircraft design comes not in closely mimicking the exact shape and form of pterosaurs, but instead, in understanding and extracting core principles from their anatomy.
The membranous wings of pterosaurs were great at changing shape. The leading
edge could lie flat or depress to a sharp angle, thanks to the small anterior membrane. The main wing surface could change its curvature, or camber. There is even evidence that the wing could manage what is called reflex camber – a shape in which the trailing edge of the wing curves upwards.
Even the stiff portion of the wing (the spar) made of bone and surrounding muscles, was mobile – through motions of the shoulder, elbow, and wrist and flexibility within the bone itself near the wingtip. This soft, shape changing structure gave pterosaurs exceptional control over their moment-to-moment wing performance, optimising for lower speed or higher speed within fractions of a wingbeat. This would have made them particularly adept at slow speed flight – good for tight turns and precise, soft landings.
Greater manoeuvrability and pinpoint landings are a premium for autonomous vehicles working in busy environments – such as cities or natural disaster zones full of debris. So future survey and rescue drones could take lessons from pterosaur wing control systems.
The jointed, flexible wing anatomy of pterosaurs also meant that the wings could fold tightly, and unlike the wings of birds, the folded wings of pterosaurs doubled as powerful walking limbs. Because the hands contacted the ground while walking, the forelimbs were available to help push the animals into the air during take-off leaps. Mathematical models predict half-second launch times, from a standing start, in even the largest pterosaurs.
The exceptional mechanical loads associated with these launches were handled
by one of the highest stiffness-to-weight skeletons to ever evolve. This folded-wing, rapid-launch system has great potential for applications to future technologies.
So much so, in fact, that a prototype folding wing system modelled on pterosaurs has already undergone some testing (through a Nasa-funded university project on which one of the authors, Michael Habib, consulted). A folding, flapping wing that doubles as a launch system could allow future drones to take off with limited space – perhaps while on ships at sea. It could also be used to allow small flying drones to land and launch again out of craters on Mars.
The red planet has just enough atmosphere to make flapping wing and rotor wing systems work. But it’s energetically costly and hovering is tough – better to land, measure and launch again. Similarly, rapid take offs from uneven terrain, precise landings, tight turns, and on demand tweaks to improve performance are all features that could be applied to the drones of the future, in wingsuits, and more.
As the control systems for drones become increasingly driven by intelligent software, we will need a new generation of hardware to match. Pterosaurs may hold the keys to unlocking a future of highly manoeuvrable autonomous aerial vehicles that are competent in harsh conditions and urban environments. These would be ideal for search and rescue or surveys in locations that are too dangerous for humans.
So despite having been extinct for 66 million years, the pterosaurs have huge potential as the inspiration for aircraft design. Sometimes looking back can be the best way to look forward.
Michael Habib has worked on a prototype folding wing system based on pterosaur flight through a Nasa-funded university project.
David Hone and Liz Martin do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
