Sara Oyler-McCance’s selection for this award reflects recognition of her decades’ long contributions to the wildlife profession, including her distinguished career with USGS and leadership role at the Fort Collins Science Center, and her sustained and significant contributions to the field of conservation genetics and management of western wildlife.
Sara has set an exceptional example of how earning a wildlife degree from the University of Maine can empower students to go on to great professional and personal achievement.
The MEL provides essential science for the management of natural resources, supporting efforts to monitor, restore, and understand wildlife populations. With this, they have published hundreds of papers on the genetics and genomics of iconic wildlife like American bison, sage-grouse, wild horses, honeybees, Burmese pythons, and others pictured below.
Discoveries include identification and characterization of new species, like the Gunnison sage-grouse, novel technologies, like the use of eDNA for studying cryptic invasive species, and innovative solutions, like the use of genomic data mining to understand local adaptation in wildlife.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
A study published in Nature Climate Change assesses temperature-related deaths in urban heat islands.
Dr Chloe Brimicombe, Climate Scientist and Extreme Heat Impact Researcher, University of London, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said:
“The paper shows how urban greening (maintaining parks and planting trees) and cool roofs, painting roofs white are intervention which reduces the rise in heat in cities and are associated with reduced heat related mortality.
“In the paper all the results are related to a general U-shaped relationship this is where we see more deaths when it’s cold and hot in comparison to when it’s just warm. This is a global trend but there are actually local differences so sometimes we see a J shape where there’s a point at which heat related mortality rises faster than cold related mortality. It’s also different for age, cause of death and for socio-economic factors like wealth, type of housing and ethnicity.
“Also, there is what we call a lagged effect, someone could take up to a month to die from cold, whereas it is 3 days to a week with heat – when we consider our body, they affect us differently – you shiver when cold and sweat when hot.
“In addition, this paper does not take into account humid heat which is more deadly than dry heat. And we have seen in other recent studies that urban greening may be affecting this and therefore heat during the night-time and mortality.
“This is a problem in UK towns and cities, there has been local research showing that green roofs are associated with reduced heat-mortality in London. We see a rise in cold and heat related mortality in UK cities, we all remember how unbearable UK urban areas were in the July 2022 heatwave. This paper gives evidence that more funding should be set aside so that local towns and cities can increase adaptation strategies including maintaining parks, planting trees and vegetation, increasing coverage of cool roofs and reflective roofing which may reduce the burden of heat related mortality.
“With all this in mind the paper demonstrates really how we need to take into account local contexts and there is a lot that local cities are doing, and we should celebrate these efforts, but adaptation alone is not enough we need to urgently prioritise transitions to net zero and beyond.”
Dr Clare Heaviside, Associate Professor (Cities, Climate and Health), University College London (UCL), said:
“Urban adaptations influence local temperatures year-round, impacting human health. These complex effects vary across populations, cities and geographic and climatic zones. Therefore, maximising benefits and minimising negative impacts in specific settings requires location-specific modelling and data (health and meteorology), rather than relying on generalised results that extrapolate sparse data to different settings.
“That is why our (and many other) modelling studies use locally derived temperature-mortality relationships, daily mortality data and detailed regional urban climate modelling to best assess the impacts of adaptations like greening and cool roofs. For example, we modelled the health impacts of the UHI in summer and winter in the West Midlands, and found a protective effect of the UHI on winter mortality as well as a (larger) negative impact of the UHI in summer.
“Cool roofs reduced summer mortality and had a negligible effect in winter, so even with cool roofs present all year round, the reduced solar radiation in winter meant that the cool roofs did not diminish the beneficial impact of the UHI during cold weather. Therefore we found an annual net positive health impact of cool roofs, due to the larger benefits in summer. Of course this is highly context specific and will not necessarily be the case everywhere, so we would need similar data and modelling in other locations to test similar impacts of adaptations.”
Dr Madeleine Thomson, Head of Climate Impacts and Adaptation at Wellcome, said:
“While the study’s modelling provides valuable insights into global trends, it assumes adaptation strategies have the same impact across seasons around the world.
“Local context matters. Effective climate adaptation must be tailored to the place — and the people — it’s meant to protect. Many cities are already doing this with evidence-based approaches that consider the impact year-round.
“Copenhagen, for example, planted deciduous trees that offer shade in summer to reduce urban heat, while shedding their leaves in winter to let sunlight in—helping to cool the city in summer without intensifying winter cold. This seasonal adaptability makes them an effective tool against the urban heat island effect.”
“Extreme heat is a rising global threat due to climate change, putting vulnerable groups — including older adults, children, and pregnant women — at serious health risks. Cities must act with urgency, using local evidence to protect lives now and into the future.”
‘Dual impact of global urban overheating on mortality’ by Shasha Wang et al. was published in Nature Climate Change at 16:00 UK time Monday 21 April 2025, which is when the embargo will lift.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
A study published in Nature Medicine looks at blood pressure control for dementia.
Dr Julia Dudley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said:
“This large trial of over 33,000 people in rural China provides further evidence that addressing high blood pressure could be one way to reduce dementia risk. This is consistent with a landmark report published in The Lancet last year, which highlighted untreated high blood pressure as one of 14 risk factors that account for almost half of global dementia cases. Existing medicines and lifestyle changes to reduce blood pressure could present a more accessible way to lower dementia risk for those with high blood pressure.
“While the results from this trial are reassuring, further studies are needed to understand how other risk factors like genetics interact with factors like high blood pressure to influence dementia risk. It will also be interesting to see whether interventions trialed in this study can work in other populations across the world.
“Looking after our heart and blood vessel health is something we can all do to improve our overall wellbeing and reduce our risk of dementia. With no current treatments available on the NHS to slow or stop the diseases that cause dementia, there has never been a more pressing need to promote good brain health and to gain a deeper understanding of how we can reduce our risk of developing dementia.
“The government also has a vital role to play in tackling the health and lifestyle factors that influence dementia risk – including cardiovascular health. This could mean introducing policies to reduce salt, sugar, and calories in processed foods, and lowering the NHS Health Check eligibility age in England from 40 to 30, so more people can start managing their blood pressure earlier in life.
“If you’re worried about your blood pressure, or haven’t had it checked for a while, speak to your GP or your local pharmacy may offer this service. If you’re over 40, you should ideally have your blood pressure checked at least every five years.”
Prof James Leiper, Director of Research, British Heart Foundation, said:
“There has been evidence for a long time that people who have high blood pressure have a higher risk of developing dementia, especially vascular dementia. The findings of this large trial, involving high blood pressure treatments that are already widespread, offer strong evidence that enhanced treatment of high blood pressure could in turn reduce the heightened dementia risk that comes with it.
“It will be important to see whether this reduced risk continues for longer than the four-year follow up period in the study, and whether similar effects are seen in other populations that receive the same treatment. If so, wider use of high blood pressure treatment in people with the condition could be recommended to fight the growing impact of dementia.”
Dr Richard Oakley, Associate Director of Research and Innovation at Alzheimer’s Society, said:
“Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer. The condition is progressive and although no single behaviour is guaranteed to prevent dementia, we know that what’s good for your heart is often also good for your head.
“This study is one of the first big trials to test whether treating high blood pressure, supported by health coaching can reduce dementia risk, and the results appear to be promising.
“It is encouraging that the intervention worked in real-world, rural settings using non-physician healthcare workers, which may have implications for delivering care in areas with limited resources in the future. However, this four-year study cannot tell us whether the benefits will last in the long-term so we will continue to follow this trial.
“Research will one day beat dementia. This study takes another step forwards and we will be keen to see further studies provide more information about the impact of blood pressure control over the longer term and in other populations.”
Prof Sir Mark Caulfield, Vice Principal for Health for Queen Mary’s Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, said:
“the findings reported in Nature Medicine show that optimizing blood pressure control convincingly reduces risk of dementia. There have been prior studies suggesting correlation of blood pressure level and dementia risk -especially vascular dementia – but this is a very emphatic outcome of a trial. The trial is in a Chinese population so some people might say it isn’t generalisable, but we know from other research that the correlation of blood pressure level with adverse outcomes is consistent across populations. This is a really major advance in dementia prevention and will transform global blood pressure guidance and prevention strategies.”
Prof Ian Maidment, Professor of Clinical Pharmacy, Aston University, said:
“There is already good evidence that we should control hypertension to reduce the potential risk of dementia.
“The study here showed that the intervention reduced the risk of dementia (as expected). However, the intervention would require significant modification. It was delivered by “village doctors” in rural villages in China. It would require significant changes for the UK and other similar healthcare systems; although potentially community pharmacists could deliver a similar programme.
“There are also a number of further limitations to consider before we should consider changing UK practice. The cohort were relatively young at baseline (62/ 63 years old) and only followed up for 48 months. In part due to these two factors, very few dementia cases actually arose during the trial: 4.59% (n=668) intervention vs 5.40% (n=734) in control. This represents 66 excess cases (734 minus 668; although the denominator is different. There were 17,407 people in the intervention group vs 16,588 in the control group). There was also no health economic data for the intervention delivered across 163 villages for 48 months.”
Prof Masud Husain, Professor of Neurology, University of Oxford, said:
“This is a landmark study with a very large sample size and a robust effect. It’s a wake-up call to treat high blood pressure intensively, not just to protect the heart but also the brain.”
“Remarkably, within just four years, there was a significant reduction in the incidence of dementia by aggressively treating raised blood pressure. Although many patients and their GPs understand how important it is to treat blood pressure, they might not appreciate what a risk it poses for developing dementia. In my clinic, I recommend keeping BP consistently below 140/80.”
Prof Tara Spires-Jones, Director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, Group Leader in the UK Dementia Research Institute, and President of the British Neuroscience Association said:
“This paper by He and team based at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center tested whether treatment for high blood pressure was associated with a reduction in risk of developing dementia. The team randomly assigned 163 villages in rural China to treat people with high blood pressure with medication and coaching to help them manage blood pressure and in 163 similar villages, people received standard care. The team observed that the people in the group receiving treatment for two years had a 15% reduced risk of developing dementia to the control group . This randomized, controlled trial provides further strong evidence supporting the importance of managing blood pressure and other cardiovascular risks to protect the brain during ageing. It is important to note that treating high blood pressure was not a fool-proof guarantee as some people receiving treatment still developed dementia. Although lifestyle modification is not a guarantee of avoiding dementia, strong evidence suggests there are things we can all do to keep our brains healthy and reduce dementia risk as we age including keeping mentally, physically, and socially active, treating conditions like hearing loss and high blood pressure, and avoiding things like head injury, too much alcohol, and smoking.”
Prof Atticus Hainsworth, Professor of Cerebrovascular Disease, St George’s, University of London (SGUL), said:
“It is encouraging to see further support for the concept that intensive blood pressure control reduces dementia risk. Jiang He and colleagues report a large clinical study, sampling older people from over 300 Chinese villages (almost 34,000 participants). Blood pressure was treated with cheap, readily-available drugs, managed by community healthcare workers who were not specialist doctors. They found a significant reduction in dementia risk among those villages where blood pressure was treated intensively. The implication is clear. We have an intervention that moves the needle on dementia risk, that can be delivered to large numbers of people in their communities, at modest cost.
“There are parallels with a previous large clinical trial of intensive blood pressure lowering in older North Americans (the SPRINT-MIND study). The reduction in risk was similar – about 15%. In both studies, the beneficial effect did not depend on using specific drug type to lower blood pressure. And in both, an effect of treatment was apparent after 12-18 months (though both studies continued for a longer duration).
“Replicating experimental findings doesn’t always happen. Here we are looking at similar findings from two big trials in different settings – rural China and (largely urban, primarily white) North America. These concordant findings may prompt changes in healthcare policy guidelines.”
Prof Toby Richards, Department of Allied and Public Health, School Of Health, Sport And Bioscience at the University of East London, said:
“Dementia is a rising problem in society today.
“In this large community based clinical trial in 34,000 people, the authors have shown two important findings. Firstly, that non-medical staff can provide medical information and deliver primary care protocols effectively in a community setting. And secondly that effectively lowering blood pressure to
“The data reinforce recent European Society of Cardiology 2024 guidelines aiming for a lower blood pressure and a structured algorithm of treatment.
“This has important ramifications for individuals. Blood Pressure can be relatively easy to measure at home enabling individuals to take control and autonomy for their health and these data show benefit in reducing the risk for developing dementia.
“In a resource strapped NHS these data also show that an algorithm of Treatment based on the European Society guidelines can be implemented by non-health care professionals, potentially at pharmacy level.
“In summary these data support treating blood pressure to
‘Blood pressure reduction and all-cause dementia in people with uncontrolled hypertension: an open-label, blinded-endpoint, cluster-randomized trial’ by Jiang He et al. was published in Nature Medicine at 16:00 UK time on Monday 21st Monday.
Prof James Leiper: No conflicts of interest to declare.
Prof Sir Mark Caulfield: Mark Caulfield was President of the British and Irish Hypertension Society between 2009-11 and served on the European Society of Hypertension Council.
Between 2013-21 he was Chief Scientist for Genomics England, a Department of Health and Social Care Company
Prof Ian Maidment: No declarations of interest.
Prof Masud Husain: I don’t have any conflicts of interest.
Prof Tara Spires-Jones: I have no conflicts with this study but have received payments for consulting, scientific talks, or collaborative research over the past 10 years from AbbVie, Sanofi, Merck, Scottish Brain Sciences, Jay Therapeutics, Cognition Therapeutics, Ono, and Eisai. I am also Charity trustee for the British Neuroscience Association and the Guarantors of Brain and serve as scientific advisor to several other charities and non-profit institutions.
Prof Atticus Hainsworth: I have co-authored a publication with one of the authors, Dr Jeff Williamson, on a related topic. I lead the Vascular Experimental Medicine group in DementiasPlatformUK. I serve on a scientific panel for AriBio Ltd.
Prof Toby Richards: Professor Richards has declared no conflicts of interest.
For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
The team of the Department of Youth Policy and Educational Work of the State University of Management took part in organizing the forum “School of Information and Spiritual Security”.
The goal of the forum is to develop a methodology for creating popular media content in the area of preserving traditional spiritual and moral values, fostering religious culture, patriotism and all-Russian civic identity, taking into account the experience of young people.
Speakers at the Forum included the Chairman of the All-Russian Interethnic Union of Youth, Director of the Scientific, Methodological and Project Center for Strengthening Interethnic Friendship and Citizenship of the State University of Management Kantemir Khurtayev, expert of the Council for Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation Alexey Vaits, expert of the State Duma Committee on Nationalities Anna Bakaeva, head of the Department of Educational and Cultural Work of the Department of Youth Policy and Educational Work of the State University of Management Alexandra Kobylyanskaya and others.
The event was attended by 50 people: opinion leaders, activists of youth national communities and regional associations, as well as interethnic student associations of Moscow universities, representatives of the Central Asian republics and the republics of the North Caucasus Federal District, bloggers and residents of the Center for New Media.
Participants had the opportunity to analyze effective methods and tools for preserving traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, get acquainted with the key principles of forming religious culture, and improve their skills in creating popular content based on modern methods of conveying values. The leisure part included a screening and discussion of the film “Paradise Under the Feet of Mothers” and a house concert.
The organizers were the All-Russian public movement for promoting friendship and harmony among young people “All-Russian Interethnic Union of Youth”, the Centralized religious organization “International Islamic Mission” and the Scientific, Methodological and Project Center for Strengthening Interethnic Friendship and Citizenship of the State University of Management under the Coordination Council of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia with the assistance of the Fund for the Support of Islamic Culture, Science and Education.
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 21.04.2025
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
MIAMI and NEW YORK and LONDON, April 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cyber A.I. Group, Inc. (“CyberAI” or the “Company”), an emerging growth Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence and IT services company engaged in the development of next-generation Cybersecurity technology, announced today the appointment of industry leading expert and adjunct professor at NYU, Dr. Peter J. Morales as the Company’s Chief Technology Officer.
Dr. Morales brings over 30 years of pioneering experience across finance, education, enterprise technology and the defense sectors, with a long-standing commitment to ethical innovation, advanced systems architecture, and AI expertise. As CTO at CyberAI, Dr. Morales is expected to play a pivotal role in accelerating the CyberAI’s strategy and scaling AI-powered solutions by driving the launch of the Company’s next-generation AI-driven cybersecurity IP through its CyberAI Sentinel 2.0™ initiatives.
CyberAI Sentinel 2.0™ represents a paradigm shift in Cybersecurity, committed to monetizing proprietary technology and providing clients with a holistic solution to cybersecurity threats by safeguarding digital assets. CyberAI intends to become a cost-effective solution to comprehensive Cybersecurity services for middle market companies on a global basis. This is in addition to CyberAI’s short-term objective of acquiring, consolidating and transforming IT services companies aggregating $100 million in revenues within the next 12 to 18 months with an anticipated listing on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
“We are honored to announce the appointment of Dr. Morales as our new Chief Technology Officer,” stated Walter Hughes, CEO of CyberAI. “His proven track record of building secure, scalable systems across both public and private sectors—including developing technology infrastructure at the NYSE and leading cloud initiatives at NYU— makes Dr. Morales uniquely qualified to guide our global technology initiatives, including CyberAI Sentinel 2.0, as we acquire and evolve top-performing IT service companies toward our stated objective of achieving $100 million in revenue.”
Over the years, Dr. Morales has held executive and academic leadership roles that bridge advanced technology with strategic innovation. At the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), he served as VP, CIO, and CISO, leading programs in cybersecurity, software development, data analytics, and enterprise systems. In addition, over 10 years at NYU, Dr. Morales led a global peer-to-peer collaboration platform initiative, launched a PMO, oversaw the university’s first AWS cloud migration, and cultivated a research partnership with NASA Langley, resulting in a Space Act Agreement.
His early career included developing mission-critical systems for the U.S. Navy’s F-18 aircraft and building high-performance trading infrastructure for the American and New York Stock Exchanges. Dr. Morales also led the creation of a pioneering diagnostic platform for pediatric neurological research at North Shore University Hospital.
“Throughout my career, I’ve been drawn to challenges where complex systems, human ingenuity, and mission-critical outcomes intersect, and that’s exactly what CyberAI represents,” said Dr. Morales. “CyberAI’s model—rooted in acquiring established, high-performing companies and enhancing their value through practical, responsible A.I. adoption—is exactly the kind of approach that intrigues me. With its visionary strategy and strong momentum, CyberAI is positioned to transform the IT services landscape and I look forward to helping integrate and elevate their CyberAI Sentinel 2.0 initiatives through secure, intelligent systems that drive real-world impact.”
Dr. Morales holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Engineering Management from NYU Tandon School of Engineering, as well as a Doctorate in Computer Science with a specialization in computational econometric modeling. He has been a PMP-certified project manager for more than 20 years and is Scrum Master certified.
In addition, Dr. Morales continues to teach in NYU’s M.S. programs in Project and Systems Management, and he serves on the boards of the EPIC Education Foundation and NABU, a UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) NGO. He has also delivered project management training across numerous New York City agencies and taught advanced tech and leadership courses at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.
“Dr. Morales brings the kind of visionary yet grounded leadership that is essential to CyberAI’s long-term success,” said Alfonso J. Cervantes, Jr., Executive Chairman of CyberAI. “As we execute on our global acquisition strategy, we are not simply aggregating companies—we are transforming them into next-generation technology enterprises. His leadership ensures we can generate our own proprietary technology into industry leading AI innovation, operational efficiency, and cyber resilience.”
Through AI innovation, CyberAI Sentinel 2.0 is designed to empower enterprises with intelligent, adaptive, and proactive protection, while also leveraging CyberAI’s expanding customer base as the Company continues to grow through its M&A initiatives.
About Cyber A.I. Group
Cyber A.I. Group, Inc. (“CyberAI”) is an international company engaged in the acquisition and management of worldwide Cybersecurity and IT services firms. CyberAI is pursuing a highly proactive “Buy & Build” strategy to rapidly expand operations internationally by acquiring a broad spectrum of IT services companies and repositioning them to address fast-growing market needs for Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence markets. The Company has developed an active pipeline of 300+ perspective acquisitions which are in various stages of analysis. The Company’s initial target is to acquire multiple companies representing aggregate revenues annualizing $100 million within the next 12 to 18 months with an anticipated listing on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE). CyberAI’s business model is focused on the acquisition and consolidation of IT services worldwide with proven ability in broad conventional technology services with strong cash flow and enhance performance through A.I.-driven Cybersecurity initiatives. This emphasis on conventional companies with strong revenues and EBITDA distinguishes CyberAI from the explosion of A.I. startups that may be pinning their future on a single technological breakthrough which may never materialize. This “Buy & Build” strategy provides CyberAI with the maximum flexibility for diversification and risk management for moving into new fields and addressing fast moving market opportunities. For additional information, please visit: cyberaigroup.io.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Speech by Irina Chechik
As part of the III National (All-Russian) scientific and practical conference with international participation “Current issues of economics and management in construction”, the Department of Intercultural Communication of SPbGASU organized and held a section “Language training of future professionals” on April 17.
In her welcoming speech, the head of the Department of Intercultural Communication Elena Selezneva emphasized the importance of including the section in the work of the university conference, since knowledge of foreign languages, understanding of cultural characteristics, and the ability to effectively interact with representatives of other cultures are becoming key competencies for specialists in any field. A separate greeting was addressed to young scientists participating in the section: students, postgraduates.
Professor of the Department of Intercultural Communication Elena Chirkova shared her thoughts on the importance of live communication: “In a world where digital technologies are rapidly changing the usual forms of communication, it is live communication that remains the foundation on which true understanding and deep mutual perception are built.” The professor is confident that live communication is not just an exchange of information. It is an exchange of emotions, cultural characteristics and unique experience that cannot be fully conveyed through screens and virtual platforms. This is especially true for learning foreign languages – a process that requires not only knowledge, but also live interaction, immersion in the cultural context and direct dialogue with teachers or native speakers. With the availability of online courses and programs for additional practice, it is live language learning, including dialogues, discussions, exchange of experience and cultural characteristics, that forms real language competence.
Participants from St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Tyumen, Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) and others discussed the improvement of language training strategies, improving the quality of teaching foreign languages, including Russian as a foreign language. Particular attention was paid to the introduction of new technologies, primarily artificial intelligence, to solve current problems of language education.
Associate Professor of the Department of Intercultural Communication Irina Chechik and Senior Lecturer of the Department Natalia Savelyeva prepared a report “Study of the language of the specialty by foreign students-architects based on local history texts (initial stage of training)”. In her speech Irina Chechik noted the enthusiasm with which students-architects perceive local history texts containing information about the architectural monuments of St. Petersburg. Irina Vladimirovna gave examples of such texts from a new teaching aid developed by teachers of Russian as a foreign language of the Department of Intercultural Communication.
In this textbook, the authors chose popular science texts. Grammar is given through constructions (models), which are practiced in exercises. Each text contains information about the history of the object, archival photographs. Students are asked to compare different architectural monuments, which gives additional opportunities to include speech activity.
Senior Lecturer of the Department of Intercultural Communication Valeria Ryabkova presented a report on “The Role of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Language Training of University Students”. Valeria Valeryevna noted the explosive growth of interest in this topic. Artificial intelligence in education opens up many new opportunities: it allows developing and implementing teaching methods for specific disciplines, simulating speech and thinking activity, implementing automated control and providing feedback. Valeria Ryabkova reviewed specialized and universal generative chatbots and gave an example of a task from her textbook on English for forensic experts using artificial intelligence. According to the speaker, specific pedagogical technologies for the use of generative artificial intelligence are not yet available, and we are at the stage of analyzing the accumulated experience.
“Artificial intelligence has a certain didactic potential, but requires careful control from teachers. First of all, we ourselves must learn to use it and teach our students to use it,” Valeria Ryabkova summed up.
We thank all section participants for their fruitful work and exchange of valuable experience!
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
The Liberals want to cement policies implemented by Justin Trudeau’s government, particularly the ban on assault-style weapons.
The Conservative Party of Canada, on the other hand, seems intent on avoiding the gun control issue, although Leader Pierre Poilievre has suggested he might weaken Canada’s firearm laws.
Since 2015, the Liberal Party has substantially strengthened Canada’s gun control laws.
In 2019, the Liberals passed Bill C-71, which enhanced background checks for purchasers. It also required retailers to keep records of firearm transactions. Following the April 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting, the federal government prohibited several models of assault-style firearms.
Bill C-21, passed in 2024, codified a freeze on the sale and transfer of handguns. In addition, it increased penalties for firearms smuggling and trafficking, and added offences concerning what are known as “ghost guns,” untraceable firearms assembled with components purchased either as a kit or as separate pieces. Bill C-21 also included new measures aimed at reducing intimate partner violence.
The Liberal Party’s 2025 platform does not propose introducing significant new gun control measures. Rather, the party pledges to defend and cement existing firearm laws. Carney accuses Poilievre of wanting to “import irresponsible, American-style gun laws” into Canada.
The Liberal platform promises “to keep assault-style firearms out of our communities,” while “respecting the longstanding traditions of hunting, including among Indigenous Peoples, and sport shooting.”
The Liberals will implement “an efficient gun buyback program for assault-style firearms.” They also promise that new models of firearms entering the Canadian market are classified “by the RCMP and not the gun industry.”
In addition, the Liberals promise to automatically revoke gun licences “for individuals convicted of violent offences, particularly those convicted of intimate partner violence offences, and those subject to protection orders.”
Other Liberal commitments include toughening oversight of the firearms licensing system and strongly enforcing measures aimed at reducing intimate partner violence.
Opposition party positions
The NDP says nothing about firearms in its platform, while the Bloc Québécois vaguely commits to continuing to demand better control of illegal and prohibited firearms.
The Conservative Party also largely avoids mentioning gun control. For example, on April 9, the party announced part of its criminal justice policy. It urges the adoption of a “three-strikes-and-you’re out” law. There was, however, no mention of the Conservatives’ proposed gun control platform.
The lack of a clear position seems designed to avoid entangling Poilievre in the thorny gun control issue. The Conservatives learned the dangers of promising to repeal popular gun control measures in the 2021 election. Erin O’Toole had secured the Conservative Party leadership by appealing to gun owners, and the party’s 2021 election platform promised to repeal the Liberal ban on assault-style firearms.
The Liberals drew attention to O’Toole’s promise, badly knocking the Conservatives off message for several days. O’Toole was forced to retreat from his commitment to repeal the ban. He instead promised the Conservatives would retain the ban until an independent “classification review” of firearms was completed.
Opponents of gun control responded by expressing a sense of betrayal.
In his review of the 2021 election, Canadian political scientist Faron Ellis found that O’Toole “compounded the damage when he had no definitive answers, appearing evasive or even deceitful, as the Liberals would repeatedly charge through to the end of the campaign.”
Liberals believe that the controversy over O’Toole’s gun control position helped them turn the tide and win the 2021 election. For Conservatives, the lesson of the 2021 election seems to be that they should avoid making clear promises about firearm policy.
Poilievre’s agenda
Poilievre has not been completely silent on the gun control issue. Prior to the election, he told a prominent gun control critic that he will repeal Liberal gun laws.
However, he has been less explicit during the election campaign. He has mentioned gun control at his rallies, but does not detail what a Conservative government would do. For example, at an event in Woolwich, Ont., on April 10, he promised to “reverse the wasteful multi-billion dollar gun grab that targets our hunters and our sports shooters.”
It is unclear what exactly Poilievre means by his promise to “reverse the wasteful multi-billion dollar gun grab.” Would the Conservatives again allow the purchase and transfer handguns? Would they eliminate the ban on assault-style rifles, thereby making firearms like the AR-15 widely available?
Being frank about his position would help avoid suggestions that Poilievre has an agenda to substantially alter Canada’s gun control laws.
R. Blake Brown 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.
A mourner holds a portrait of Pope Francis at the Basílica de San José de Flores in Buenos Aires, a church where the pope worshipped in his youth.AP Photo/Gustavo Garello
Pope Francis, whose papacy blended tradition with pushes for inclusion and reform, died on April, 21, 2025 – Easter Monday – at the age of 88.
Here we spotlight five stories from The Conversation’s archive about his roots, faith, leadership and legacy.
1. A Jesuit pope
Jorge Mario Bergoglio became a pope of many firsts: the first modern pope from outside Europe, the first whose papal name honors St. Francis of Assisi, and the first Jesuit – a Catholic religious order founded in the 16th century.
Those Jesuit roots shed light on Pope Francis’ approach to some of the world’s most pressing problems, argues Timothy Gabrielli, a theologian at the University of Dayton.
Gabrielli highlights the Jesuits’ “Spiritual Exercises,” which prompt Catholics to deepen their relationship with God and carefully discern how to respond to problems. He argues that this spiritual pattern of looking beyond “presenting problems” to the deeper roots comes through in Francis’ writings, shaping the pope’s response to everything from climate change and inequality to clerical sex abuse.
Early on in his papacy, Francis famously told an interviewer, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Over the years, he has repeatedly called on Catholics to love LGBTQ+ people and spoken against laws that target them.
An LGBTQ couple embrace after a pastoral worker blesses them at a Catholic church in Germany, in defiance of practices approved by Rome. Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
But “Francis’ inclusiveness is not actually radical,” explains Steven Millies, a scholar at the Catholic Theological Union. “His remarks generally correspond to what the church teaches and calls on Catholics to do,” without changing doctrine – such as that marriage is only between a man and a woman.
Rather, Francis’ comments “express what the Catholic Church says about human dignity,” Millies writes. “Francis is calling on Catholics to take note that they should be concerned about justice for all people.”
At times, Francis did something that was once unthinkable for a pope: He apologized.
He was not the first pontiff to do so, however. Pope John Paul II declared a sweeping “Day of Pardon” in 2000, asking forgiveness for the church’s sins, and Pope Benedict XVI apologized to victims of sexual abuse. During Francis’ papacy, he acknowledged the church’s historic role in Canada’s residential school system for Indigenous children and apologized for abuses in the system.
But what does it mean for a pope to say, “I’m sorry”?
Members of the Assembly of First Nations perform in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on March 31, 2022, ahead of an Indigenous delegation’s meeting with Pope Francis. AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
Annie Selak, a theologian at Georgetown University, unpacks the history and significance of papal apologies, which can speak for the entire church, past and present. Often, she notes, statements skirt an actual admission of wrongdoing.
Still, apologies “do say something important,” Selak writes. A pope “apologizes both to the church and on behalf of the church to the world. These apologies are necessary starting points on the path to forgiveness and healing.”
Many popes convene meetings of the Synod of Bishops to advise the Vatican on church governance. But under Francis, these gatherings took on special meaning.
The Synod on Synodality was a multiyear, worldwide conversation where Catholics could share concerns and challenges with local church leaders, informing the topics synod participants would eventually discuss in Rome. What’s more, the synod’s voting members included not only bishops but lay Catholics – a first for the church.
The process “pictures the Catholic Church not as a top-down hierarchy but rather as an open conversation,” writes University of Dayton religious studies scholar Daniel Speed Thompson – one in which everyone in the church has a voice and listens to others’ voices.
In 2024, University of Notre Dame professor David Lantigua had a cup of maté tea with some “porteños,” as people from Buenos Aires are known. They shared a surprising take on the Argentine pope: “a theologian of the tango.”
Pope Francis drinks maté, the national beverage of Argentina, in St. Peter’s Square on his birthday on Dec. 17, 2014. Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images
Francis does love the dance – in 2014, thousands of Catholics tangoed in St. Peter’s Square to honor his birthday. But there’s more to it, Lantigua explains. Francis’ vision for the church was “based on relationships of trust and solidarity,” like a pair of dance partners. And part of his task as pope was to “tango” with all the world’s Catholics, carefully navigating culture wars and an increasingly diverse church.
Francis was “less interested in ivory tower theology than the faith of people on the streets,” where Argentina’s beloved dance was born.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Erin Corcoran, Professor of immigration, refguee and asylum law, University of Notre Dame
The detention of noncitizen university students after their Palestinian rights activism raises questions about the limits of free speech. Rob Dobi/Moment/Getty Images
In early March, the federal government arrested, detained and began deportation proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident born in Syria to Palestinian parents. Khalil participated in Palestinian rights protests at Columbia University in 2024.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in an April 9 memo that allowing Khalil to stay in the country would create a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
“The foreign policy of the United States champions core American interests and American citizens and condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish-born student at Tufts University, was detained by immigration authorities on March 25 near her Massachusetts home and is currently being held in Louisiana. She co-authored a 2024 op-ed in the campus newspaper calling for Tufts to recognize a genocide in the Gaza Strip.
And Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian man who is a lawful permanent resident and a Columbia University student active in the Palestinian rights protests, was detained and arrested on April 25. This happened when Mahdawi showed up at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for a citizenship interview in Vermont.
“If you apply for a student visa to come to the United States and you say you’re coming not just to study, but to participate in movements that vandalize universities, harass students, take over buildings, and cause chaos, we’re not giving you that visa,” Rubio said on March 23, when asked by a journalist about revoking student visas and arresting Öztürk.
These cases raise important questions: Do lawful permanent residents have the right to protected free speech? Or are there limitations – among them, a determination by the U.S. government that permanent residents’ speech or political activity makes them a threat to national security?
Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil speaks to reporters at Columbia University on June 1, 2024, during a media briefing organized by protesters who were objecting to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Noncitizens’ First Amendment rights
Arresting and detaining nonviolent, foreign protesters and the authors of opinion pieces is usually not legally permissible. That’s because these actions are protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees everyone the right to freedom of expression.
Still, the First Amendment does not apply to noncitizens physically outside the U.S. The Supreme Court, for example, ruled in 1972 that the government may deny visas and bar entry to noncitizens who were seeking admission to the U.S. to engage in constitutionally protected speech.
The Trump administration rests its argument that it can legally detain and deport noncitizens who have participated in Palestinian rights protests – but have not been charged with any crimes – on broad language in the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act.
This law articulates important immigration rules, like who can enter the country and how someone can become a citizen. It also includes vague language that gives the secretary of state power to deport noncitizens in certain cases.
“An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable,” the law reads.
As foreign-born students Mahdawi, Öztürk and Khalil fight in court for their right to legally stay in the U.S., Rubio and other Trump administration leaders claim that this law gives them the power to determine whether Khalil and other noncitizens are creating “serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security also wrote on the social platform X on March 9 that “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
But the Trump administration has not provided any further specific details about how the views and actions of Khalil and other detained foreign students create serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S. Nor has the government alleged that Khalil and other noncitizen students committed crimes or broke the law.
Khalil’s attorneys have challenged the government’s use of the Immigration and Nationality Act as a basis to deport him in federal court. The lawyers assert that the U.S. government is attempting to deport Khalil for protected speech.
Legal precedent and steps forward
The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment does not protect lawful permanent residents from being deported if their political affiliation violates the laws.
But the court has not yet decided if lawful permanent residents participating in protests or expressing political views are protected against deportation, when the only evident ground for their deportation is political speech.
A federal judge in New Jersey, where Khalil was first briefly detained, has ordered the government not to deport him until all his different court cases are resolved.
On April 11, a different immigration judge in Louisiana – where Khalil is currently detained – ruled that he could be deported for being a national security risk. Khalil’s attorneys are appealing this decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the Department of Justice.
Regardless of the outcome at the district court level, Khalil’s case will be appealed and most likely end up before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court will then have to determine the appropriate balance between the executive branch’s authority to deport noncitizens it classifies as posing a threat to the country, and the right to freedom of expression that all people residing in the U.S. have.
If the Supreme Court holds that the federal government can say that someone’s political speech can be a threat to U.S. national security interests, I believe the core of the First Amendment is at risk, for citizens as well as noncitizens.
Erin Corcoran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Victoria Vinogradova opens the championship
This year, the final of the All-Russian TIM Championship is held at SPbGASU. The SPO League 2025 is being held as part of the VIII International Conference “Information Modeling in Construction and Architecture” (BIMAC-2025). This emphasizes its importance, provides participants with the opportunity to meet representatives of many specialized companies and generally learn about the situation on the industry market.
Vice-Rector for Continuing Education at SPbGASU Victoria Vinogradova emphasized that this TIM Championship is being held jointly with industrial partners – the Association of SRO “Osnova Proekt” with the support of the National Association of Surveyors and Designers (NOPRIZ) and the industry Consortium of Secondary Vocational Education in the Sphere of Construction.
“Today, the construction market is digitalizing and is in dire need of relevant specialists. Therefore, together with industrial partners, we are implementing and supporting innovative educational initiatives, which include the TIM Championship. It allows participants not only to gain primary experience in information modeling, develop existing competencies, but also to pump up soft skills, for example, teamwork. All this contributes to a successful start in professional activity,” noted Victoria Vinogradova.
Having successfully completed the tasks of the correspondence stage, the teams from the Novosibirsk College of Architecture and Construction, Novgorod College of Construction, St. Petersburg College of Architecture and Construction, Belgorod College of Construction, Perm College of Construction, Rostov-on-Don College of Construction, Khabarovsk Technical College, Bryansk College of Construction named after Professor N. E. Zhukovsky reached the final of the TIM Championship. Within three working days, they will design an apartment building.
The head of the basic resource center “Novstroy” and the team of the Novgorod Construction College Tatyana Veselova said that the college tries to take part in many competitions.
“Participation in competitions helps students develop their abilities and motivates them. When they get a profession, the kids strive to achieve their goals, outline a path that will lead to career growth in the future, and understand that a certified specialist needs experience to be successful. The TIM Championship is aimed at acquiring practical skills, which is what makes it interesting. Our team prepared for it and is motivated to win,” noted Tatyana Veselova.
Third-year student of Novgorod Construction College Viktor Golubev recalled that representatives of his college participated in TIM Championship last year. This year, he decided to fill his gap. “We have been studying 3D modeling throughout the entire educational process, thanks to which we consider ourselves well prepared for TIM Championship. Information modeling is a relatively new and promising direction in the market, so specialists are in demand here. We need to have time to enter this niche and become the best. I am only determined to win!” Viktor noted.
Fourth-year student of the Perm Construction College Ksenia Yarusova is a future architect, but since this position was already occupied in the team, she is performing in a different area of activity. To do this, she studied the requirements stated in the conditions of the TIM Championship and prepared for it.
“Immersion in the specifics of related specialists’ activities has its advantages: it is much easier to work as an architect if you know, for example, the nuances of water supply design. This will allow us to minimize all inconsistencies in the project and misunderstandings with related companies. Information modeling is no longer the future, but the present of our industry, therefore, in order to be a sought-after and successful specialist, you need to have the relevant knowledge and skills. The TIM Championship gives you the opportunity to acquire them. Our team has prepared a lot for it and will do everything in our power to win,” shared Ksenia Yarusova.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
New research improves ocean weather forecasts, enhancing public safety and economic growth
U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researchers published a new paper that explains how atmospheric wind affects eddies, an ocean weather phenomena of spinning ocean currents. “Our theory and findings provide a roadmap for incorporating interactions between winds and ocean eddies into operational and long-term forecasting,” said Hussein Aluie, a co-author on the paper and professor at the University of Rochester.
“Accurate ocean forecasts are essential for navigation and shipping, fisheries management, disaster response, coastal management and climate prediction,” Aluie said. These economic sectors rely on accurate forecasts to plan for potentially dangerous conditions.
Aluie and a team of researchers used satellite imagery and climate models to discover that not only do atmospheric winds dampen eddies, like previously thought, but they can also energize them. Prevailing winds that move longitudinally across the globe, like westerlies and trade winds, slow eddies when they move in the opposite direction but energize them if they spin the same way.
Between the eddies are ocean weather phenomenon called strain, which account for about half of the ocean’s kinetic energy. The team found that strain is also dampened or energized by wind-like eddies.
“The new energy pathways between the atmosphere and the ocean that we discovered can help design better ocean observation systems and improve climate models,” said Shikhar Rai, the study’s first author and a doctoral student at the University of Rochester, in a university statement.
ORLANDO, Fla., April 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ATI Nursing Education, an Ascend Learning brand and a leading provider of education technology solutions and support to more than 60% of the nation’s undergraduate nursing programs, is hosting the 2025 National Nurse Educator Summit, a vital industry event dedicated to advancing the future of nursing education. Taking place April 22-25 in Orlando, Florida, and virtually, this year’s Summit will bring together hundreds of nurse educators, academic leaders, and healthcare experts to tackle critical issues facing healthcare and nursing education today, including establishing a stable pipeline of nurses for years to come.
Since 2010, the National Nurse Educator Summit has been a catalyst for movement and a forum for exchanging ideas that drive real-world impact in healthcare, becoming a cornerstone of the academic nursing calendar. Over 700 nursing administrators and faculty across all 50 states are registered to gather for three and a half info-packed days of inspiring sessions, interactive workshops, and incredible networking opportunities.
“Nurse educators are often overlooked members of the nursing community. Many have left positions as practicing nurses to ensure the next generation has the tools they need to succeed,” said Dr. Lissy Hu, CEO of Ascend Learning. “The Summit allows them to connect with each other, share best practices, and work together to help the nurses of tomorrow succeed.”
This year’s Summit features an agenda packed with distinguished nurse educators from leading institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Duke IPEC Center, and others. Sessions will cover a wide variety of topics including innovative learning tools and teaching strategies, student and faculty retention, academic and practice readiness, and leadership.
“The nursing profession is at an inflection point, where shortages and new technologies are putting pressure on institutions to adapt so they can retain students and maintain the nursing pipeline,” said Patty Knect, Chief Nursing Officer at Ascend Learning. “The Summit is a space for collaboration, support, and action. We’re equipping faculty with the tools, strategies, and community they need to prepare the next generation of nurses—confidently and compassionately.”
With in-person registration currently at capacity, virtual attendance remains open for sessions beginning April 23. Register for the virtual Summit here.
About ATI Nursing Education ATI helps create competent, practice-ready nurses who are dedicated to maintaining public safety and ensuring the future of healthcare. As a leading provider of online learning programs for nursing, ATI supports and helps educate future nurses from admissions, throughout undergraduate and graduate nursing school, and via continuing education over the course of their careers. ATI began in 1998 with the aid of a nurse, and ATI’s team of doctorally- and master’s-prepared nurse educators continue to lead the development of ATI’s psychometrically designed and data-driven solutions. These solutions improve faculty effectiveness, fuel student progress, and advance program outcomes in three distinct areas: assessing performance, remediating problem areas, and predicting future student and program success. For nursing school administrators and nurse educators, ATI is the trusted advisor that consistently drives nursing success. To learn more about ATI, visit www.atitesting.com.
About Ascend Learning: Ascend Learning is a leading healthcare and learning technology company. With products that span the learning continuum, Ascend Learning focuses on high-growth careers in a range of industries, with a special focus on healthcare and other licensure-driven occupations. Ascend Learning products, from testing to certification, are used by physicians, emergency medical professionals, nurses, allied health professionals, certified personal trainers, financial advisors, skilled trades professionals and insurance brokers. Learn more at www.ascendlearning.com.
The imbroglio over the reported Russian request to Indonesia to base planes in Papua initially tripped Peter Dutton, and now is dogging Anthony Albanese.
After the respected military site Janes said a request had been made, the Australian government quickly obtained an assurance from the Indonesians there would be no Russian planes based there.
Moreover, the government was able to score a hit on Dutton, who had wrongly named Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto as having said there’d been a Russian approach. Later, Dutton admitted he’d stuffed up.
One might have thought the story would have died as the election caravan moved on. But it continued when it became obvious the government would not say, despite repeated questions, whether it knew a request had in fact been made to the Indonesians.
Then Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia, Sergei Tolchenov, leapt into the fray. Tolchenov wrote a letter to The Jakarta Post, responding to an article by Australian academic Matthew Sussex on The Conversation, which was republished in the Post.
It is hard to imagine that any ordinary Australians should be concerned about what is happening 1,300 kilometers from their territory, about matters that concern relations between other sovereign states and have nothing to do with Australia. Perhaps it would be better for them to pay attention to the United States’ Typhon medium-range missile system in the Philippines, which will definitely reach the territory of the continent?
It is clear that the leaders of the two main political parties, replacing each other in power and calling it democracy, are now trying to outdo each other, heating up the situation. They stop at nothing, and the time has come to play the so-called ‘Russian card’. This means to show to overseas mentors who is more anti-Russian and Russophobe. In this regard, I would like to remind them of the words of US President Donald Trump, which he pronounced in the White House on Feb. 28, 2025, to the Ukrainian citizen ‘Z’: ‘You have no cards’.“
Meanwhile, Employment Minister Murray Watt strayed off the government’s script of diplomatic silence when he told Sky on Sunday, “There is no proposal from Russia to have a base anywhere in Indonesia in the way that Peter Dutton and his colleagues have been claiming”.
The questioning intensified.
Late Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles was back on Sky to impose the official blackout over what the government knew of the alleged discussions between Russia and Indonesia.
“What we know about that, and when we knew about it, is obviously not something I’m going to ventilate in the public domain.
“What matters here is that the Indonesians have made it completely clear to us that they have absolutely no intent of having Russian aircraft operating from their nation,” Marles said.
Another instalment of “What the Russians Asked” may come in Tuesday night’s third leaders debate on Nine.
A possible chance for real reform
We keep getting lectured in this campaign about various significant issues (such as tax reform) that are being pushed under the carpet. But there’s something else that’s being overlooked: whether our institutions are in need of a big overhaul.
With public trust low, accountability vital but often wanting, and our democracy sometimes resembling a car urgently needing a service, there are plenty of reforms that could be considered.
John Daley (formerly of the Grattan Institute and now an independent consultant) and Rachel Krust, in a report released Monday and titled Institutional reform stocktake, propose a rich agenda for change. The stocktake was sponsored by the Susan McKinnon Foundation, a non-partisan body committed to promoting all aspects of better government.
The report identifies short-term priority reforms as well as ones that would take longer to achieve.
Parliamentarians often claim we’d be better governed with four-year terms. But given that would require a referendum, it is effectively out of reach. So the stocktake advocates a next-best option: fixed three year terms, which could be legislated. Four year terms would be a more distant aim.
The advantage of fixed terms is they’d stop the disruption of months of speculation about the timing (that we saw before the current election). The disadvantage to the party in power is the prime minister can’t choose the day best suiting them.
The Albanese government recently brought in caps for political donations and spending, to take effect in the coming term. Daley and Krust advocate these be revisited. The donation and disclosure caps should be lowered, they argue, and an expert commission should consider the caps on spending (which were criticised by some as limiting small and new players).
Other priority recommendations are to beef up civics education, enhance parliamentary committees, put more structure around the appointment and termination of departmental secretaries, and better resource independent members of parliament, particularly if they hold the balance of power.
One reason institutional reform is important is to achieve better policy outcomes, the report says. “Australian governments are getting worse at delivering policy changes that make a big difference to long-term problems.”
While identifying a prospective advantage for policy, the report puts its finger on why such reform faces resistance.
Institutional reforms have often not progressed in Australia because they would not serve the interests of incumbent parties. Many of the suggested changes would leave members of the government more exposed to questioning, challenge or censure, reduce the advantages of established political parties relative to new entrants, reduce the power of party officials relative to rank-and-file members, or reduce employment opportunities after a political career.
The report says if the election produces a hung parliament this “may widen the window for reform”.
“Crossbenchers usually have strong electoral incentives to prosecute institutional reforms, because they are usually both popular and not supported by incumbent parties.”
But the crossbenchers need to be quick. “This window of opportunity may narrow again. The power of independents to push for institutional change is greatest during negotiations immediately following an election.”
Michelle Grattan 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 – Canada – By Jonathan Hamilton-Diabo, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream; June Callwood Professor of Social Justice; Special Advisor on Indigenous Initiatives, Victoria University, University of Toronto
Pope Francis reads his statement of apology during a visit with Indigenous peoples at Maskwaci, the former Ermineskin Residential School, July 25, 2022, in Maskwacis, Alberta. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
With the death of Pope Francis, his apology for residential schools in Canada and its impacts needs to be explored nearly three years after it was delivered.
On July 25, 2022, in Maskwacîs, Alta., Pope Francis apologized on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church for its role in the residential school system:
This formal apology, and other statements the Pope made in Canada, came seven years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 Final Report. The TRC called for the Pope “to issue an apology to Survivors, their families, and communities for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools.” This was to occur, in Canada, within one year.
It is important to understand circumstances leading to the Pope’s Maskwacîs apology, the reaction at the time and its significance for the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Catholic Church.
I previous explored these themes as the Pope arrived in Canada. I questioned whether the apology would contribute to healing or deepen the distrust in the church. As a Mohawk faculty member raised in Catholicism, who teaches in the fields of theology and education, and has family members who attended these schools, I seek to revisit this question nearly three year later.
Seven years after TRC final report
The Pope’s Maskwacîs apology wasn’t the first time a statement was issued by a member of the Catholic Church. The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (the Oblates) apologized in 1991 “for the part we played in the cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious imperialism” which “continually threatened the cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions of the Native peoples.”
The importance of who offers an apology cannot be overstated. In 1998, Jane Stewart, the minister of Indian Affairs of Canada, read a Statement of Reconciliation acknowledging the tragedies experienced by students that attended residential school. Indigenous leaders criticized the statement, sensing a lack of ownership or not taking responsibility. It came across as an expression of regret rather than an apology, and was further rejected, as Prime Minister Jean Chrétien didn’t offer it.
In July 2022, Pope Francis apologized before thousands of people: survivors, their families, community members and leaders. This was significant, considering the length of time for this to materialize.
From this pain, a great amount of anger was directed towards the Catholic Church.
Church buildings were vandalized or set on fire. As many were in First Nations territories, this created tensions, since there were still community members that were part of the Christian tradition.
This outcry reignited attention towards residential schools and the Church. The Vatican invited a delegation of survivors to meet the Pope in March 2022. This visit provided an opportunity for delegation members to share their stories, however its location is important to consider. The meeting took place at the Vatican, potentially escalating the power imbalance between the Church and First Nation, Inuit and Métis delegates.
Some of the impacts of the apology may not be felt instantaneously. It represents hope for a better relationship and a starting point for healing. Without any apology, any measures that the church offered would not gain traction. The lack of a papal apology over many years kept this as the focal point, further damaging the relationship between the Church and many Indigenous people and continuing to erode trust.
Since then, the Catholic Church has undertaken steps to address the harms of the residential schools and contribute to healing process. In 2023, the Vatican released a statement on the Doctrine of Discovery, indicating the Catholic Church was distancing itself from this concept and repudiating it, as it was not part of Church teachings.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) and the Oblates committed to developing a process for the transparent access to records. Barriers to church records prevented access to documents that could help locate family members who never came home.
In a July 2024 statement, the CCCB said it has “established structures … to support dialogues and foster greater understanding of Indigenous cultural, linguistic and spiritual traditions and values,” and wishes to deepen academic collaborations to understand of the Doctrine of Discovery.
While small advancements in reconciliation activities stemming from Pope Francis’ apology have occurred, the healing journey is long. Distrust is evident as the Church’s sincerity in this process is questioned; however, the apology presents an opportunity to renew relationships and forge new paths together.
The criticisms of how and when it transpired and even what was said will always remain, however the apology was necessary.
It was necessary for many survivors, who felt recognized. It was necessary for the Church to formally acknowledge its responsibility. It was necessary for Pope Francis to offer the apology directly to Indigenous people.
Jonathan Hamilton-Diabo 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.
In my view, each moment represented a move toward reconciliation for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. My focus, for the most part, considers the healing dimension of his visit. At the same time, I understand and acknowledge the limitations of his apology and the deep pain caused because of what was not said.
Dene interpreter and survivor, Jessie Sylvestre, asked to translate Pope Francis’s apology during his visit, was critical and hurt that the Pope read his apology rather than speak it from the heart. She also named feeling “almost sick” and angry after seeing the “very patriarchal” sight of many priests and the Pope. The absence of women in visible leadership roles was noted as disturbing by other Indigenous women also.
Still, for many Indigenous survivors, Pope Francis’s apology was deeply meaningful and I wish to explore that phenomenon here.
I am particularly interested in why some survivors of Residential Schools in Canada are (and remain) Christian in the face of the horrendous treatment they endured at the hands of Christian churches’ representatives.
For perpetrators or those navigating moral responsibility for historic injustices and wrongs, it is much easier to avoid understanding what truly happened and rush to be reconciled. The long delay in the Pope coming to Canada and apologizing to Indigenous survivors after the TRC’s clear call for this in Call to Action No. 58 speaks to feet dragging with regard to the Catholic Church as an institution.
Yet, it is possible to say that by Pope Francis’s deeds and words he consciously and intentionally demonstrated he wanted to face the truth.
He acknowledged that his presence and his apology could trigger survivors but he understood why it was vitally important for many survivors to witness his apology. Many dared to share their burden with him despite the pain that was evoked.
Anishinaabe and Ukrainian writer Patty Krawec, from Lac Seul First Nation, uses the term “unforgetting” by which she means “excavating truth and bringing it to the surface.”
Such “unforgetting” was stirred up by Pope Francis’s presence and his words. For some, it was either consciously or intuitively an important step toward healing and reconciliation.
‘Incarnate’ meaning
Pope Francis, both because he represented the Catholic Church and because of who he is as a person, played a role in excavating deep memories and consoling the pain of “heavy burdens.”
He acknowledged the horrors of what Ojibwe author Richard Wagamese described as “an institution that tried to scrape the Indian off of their insides.” In Maskwacis, Pope Francis thanked Indigenous survivors for telling him “about the heavy burdens that you still bear, for sharing with me these bitter memories,” noting that even though costly, “it is right to remember, because forgetfulness leads to indifference.”
In his book, Method in Theology, Lonergan speaks about different “carriers of meaning.” One such carrier was what he termed “incarnate meaning,” the “meaning of a person, of their way of life, of their words or of their deeds.”
I believe that Pope Francis’ “incarnate meaning” was his most significant legacy in terms of what his visit meant for reconciliation. Certainly, he understood and acknowledged that words are not enough, “firm action and irreversible commitment” are required.
Continued spiritual violence
In the article “The Papal Apology and Seeds of an Action Plan,” Don Bolen, Archbishop of Regina, spells out four areas that witness to where action is taking place: truth telling (in the form of research and archival work), solidarity with Indigenous Peoples, supporting recovery of “Indigenous language and culture” and recognizing the intrinsic value of Indigenous Peoples’ “relationship with the land and environment.”
Yet, in a soon-to-be published paper (titled Spiritual Violence against Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Ethical Guidelines and Calls to Healing), with colleagues, I describe the ongoing “spiritual violence” against Indigenous traditions by Christian churches.
Pope Francis understood the privilege of encounter with the beauty of Indigenous Peoples’ traditions as he so clearly stated in his encyclical letter, Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home.
In that letter, he recognizes the deeply rooted values of Indigenous Peoples in relationship with land (which includes water, vegetation, animals — all that lives on and because of the land).
Several times during his visit to Canada, Pope Francis spoke of that special relationship, a relationship that is so foreign to a western perspective which tends to view land merely as a commodity and not as a living being with which one is in relationship.
As was witnessed in many encounters — Maskwacis, Edmonton, Québec and Iqaluit — perhaps Pope Francis’s most important legacy for truth and reconciliation in Canada is his willingness and humility to acknowledge the suffering, to be present to those who suffer, and in face of that suffering to have the audacity to say, “What are you going through?”
Christine Jamieson 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.
People are more likely to believe an explanation when they see direct evidence of it. In the U.S., the percentage of people who recognize that global warming is happening is higher in counties that experienced record high temperatures in the previous decade. But understanding what’s happening and why also matters. That’s because people’s existing knowledge shapes how they interpret the evidence they see.
We found that in many southern states − such as Alabama, Mississippi and Texas − the correlation between the percentage of bachelor’s degrees at the county level and climate concern was weak. Higher education levels didn’t seem to make much of a difference in how concerned people were about climate change.
However, in northern states − such as Maine, Vermont and Michigan − the education effect was stronger. We believe this difference is in part because climate change is more perceptible in colder states. A 1-degree temperature rise in Florida may not feel significant, whereas in Maine or Wisconsin, it would be more noticeable as winters became shorter and signs of spring came earlier.
We believe the results suggest that higher education helps people who are exposed to perceptible warming shifts better understand the changes they are experiencing; it’s the pairing of both that makes the difference.
We wondered whether political ideology might be driving the trends we were finding. Southern states also tend to be more politically conservative.
When we controlled for political leanings, however, our analysis found that the education effect appeared to be mostly influenced by whether people had experienced perceptible warming in recent years.
There were two outliers: Despite being cold states that have experienced the effects of climate change, North and South Dakota had low education effects when it came to climate concern. One possible explanation is that fossil fuels are central to their economies, shaping local attitudes toward climate change.
Nationally, our study suggests that higher education leverages people’s experience with climate change to increase their climate concern. It isn’t just having a college education alone, as the different results from warmer and colder parts of the country show. It is experiencing rising temperatures that makes the difference. The more perceptible the warming, the greater the effect.
Young people are growing up with climate change
A generation ago, climate change seemed to be more theoretical prediction than common experience for most people in the U.S.
This may be part of the reason why a sense of urgency has been slow to develop, even though three-quarters of Americans recognize that global warming is happening. Generations that grew up in the mid-20th century, when seasons and climate seemed constant, had little reason to expect change.
Younger generations may see the world differently. For them, climate change has been a reality in their developing years. Given their personal experiences and interest in science, we believe higher education will have a powerful effect.
R. Alexander Bentley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ellen P. Aprill, Senior Scholar in Residence at the UCLA Law School’s Lowell Milken Center For Philanthropy And Nonprofit Law, University of California, Los Angeles
The Trump administration is demanding that at least 60 U.S. colleges and universities change their policies or lose out on billions of dollars in federal funding.
In Harvard University’s case, the government has accused the Ivy league school – so far without providing any specific evidence – of violating some students’ civil rights by allowing other students to engage in what the authorities characterize as antisemitic speech. The government has demanded broad oversight of Harvard’s admissions policies, along with changes in its hiring processes and campus culture.
Harvard stands to lose out on more than US$2.2 billion. It may seem to be better insulated from this pressure than many other schools because it has the nation’s largest educational endowment – a reservoir of stocks, bonds and other financial assets that helps fund its operations, research and scholarships. Harvard’s endowment totaled more than $53 billion in 2024.
As a nonprofit law scholar, who served in the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy in the 1980s, I study and write about both state and federal law as it applies to nonprofit organizations. I believe that the law permits most colleges and universities to increase spending from their endowments in light of the financial pressures so many of them are facing.
Precedents for boosting endowment spending
Not all endowments are alike.
They tend to be composed of an array of smaller funds, some of which are subject to legal restrictions that make it impossible for the schools they support to freely use those assets.
Universities must respect the limits donors put on their gifts, such as tying them to specific scholarships, funding jobs held by certain kinds of professors or supporting the construction or maintenance of a particular building.
It’s up to a university’s governing board to decide how much of the school’s endowment will be spent in a given year.
As Harvard’s financial report for its 2024 fiscal year puts it: “There is a common misconception that endowments, including Harvard’s, can easily be accessed like checking accounts.” That is definitely not the case.
While it’s always important to proceed with care when spending money reserved for use on a rainy day or to ensure the long-term existence of a revered institution, most colleges and universities are freer to dip into their endowments than they may realize when conditions get stormy.
Under this law, managing and investing an endowment requires the university to consider its charitable purposes and financial needs, while respecting the intentions of the donors who provided its assets. These are state laws, not federal statutes. In most states, a university may spend as much of an endowment fund as it deems “prudent.”
Exercising that prudence requires the consideration of several factors.
They include the purposes of the institution as a whole and the particular endowment fund, prevailing economic conditions, and what other financial resources the institution can tap. However, in almost one-third of states, including California and New York, annually spending more than 7% of an endowment’s fair market value, measured by a three-year average, is presumed to be imprudent.
But that isn’t a legal maximum because the model law’s drafters noted that “circumstances in a particular year” could easily void that presumption. Based on my study of nonprofit law, including the laws that apply to higher education, I’m confident that this caveat could easily apply to the Trump administration’s education-related spending cuts in 2025, just as it did during the pandemic and the Great Recession.
What’s more, endowment spending rate by universities in 2024 was 4.8%. As a result, many universities, including those in states with a 7% cap on prudent spending, will likely be able to increase their use of endowment funds to maintain their budgets at prior levels.
In addition, living donors can release any restriction they placed on the funds they gave universities that are still held in their endowments. Even when those funds are from donors who have died, a university can ask a court to release restrictions that have become impractical or wasteful.
The Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act also permits institutions to lift restrictions on all endowment funds that are more than 20 years old and relatively small. This amount varies from state to state and typically ranges between $25,000and $100,000
Archon Fung, a John F. Kennedy School of Government professor, addresses students, faculty and other members of the Harvard University community on April 17, 2025. AP Photo/Charles Krupa
Why do the boards of even these universities tend to hesitate to dip deeply into their endowments when their revenue declines?
One explanation is that because endowments can enhance a university’s prestige, its leaders and endowment donors have a bias toward accumulating rather than spending. Another is that board members have an obligation to protect their institutions’ long-term viability. Boards also bear a responsibility to preserve funds for a future rainy day, no matter how severe the current turbulence may be, how large the endowment has become or how successful the school’s current fundraising efforts are.
At the same time, the Trump administration’s trade, fiscal and other policies may continue to roil financial markets, reducing the value of university endowments, for months or years to come.
In my view, it’s reasonable for colleges and universities to consider stepping up their endowment spending due to the Trump administration’s actions that could interfere with higher education revenue. Increasing endowment payouts now could ease, although not fully solve, the mounting crises that colleges and universities of all kinds now face.
The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School, is a member of The Conversation U.S.
Ellen P. Aprill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stan Meiburg, Executive Director, Sabin Center for Environment and Sustainability, Wake Forest University
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has announced plans to review or reverse dozens of environmental protection regulations.Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin have announced their intent to reconsider dozens of current regulations in an effort to loosen standards originally imposed to protect the environment and public health. But it’s not as simple as Trump and Zeldin just saying so.
There are some explicit restrictions that prevent loosening of existing environmental standards for clean air and water. In general, though, if the administration has evidence to support its claims that the protections should be reduced and the administration follows the process required by law, it is possible to loosen the restrictions. But as a former longtime senior leader at EPA and student of environmental policy, I know that process is not easy – and it’s not meant to be.
As examples of how the process of changing the rules and standards works, let’s look at the provisions of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Similar provisions exist in the nation’s wide range of environmental protection laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act; the Toxic Substances Control Act; the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and others.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announces plans to review several environmental regulations on March 12, 2025.
Keeping the air clean
The Clean Air Act sets uniform national standards for air quality, and it created the rules by which states create plans to meet those standards.
One section of the law, Part C of Title I of the act, is titled “Prevention of Significant Deterioration of Air Quality.” Its provisions are meant to prevent states that meet the national standards from allowing air quality to get worse in the future.
Its basic effect is to require that new sources of pollution, or existing ones that make significant equipment changes, use the best available technology that meets or exceeds the minimum federal standards for pollution control. Additional protections apply to sensitive areas like national parks.
For areas that did not yet meet the standards, a set of amendments passed in 1990 included one that prevented air quality from getting worse. That provision, known as the “anti-backsliding rule,” says that no state whose air did not meet the standards before Nov. 15, 1990, can change its plan “unless the modification insures equivalent or greater emission reductions.” And once a state’s air quality improves to meet the standards, the state must follow maintenance plans to make sure the air quality doesn’t get worse.
Protecting the water
Under the Clean Water Act, states set water quality standards to protect drinking water and water for recreation, as well as to protect wildlife.
The Environmental Protection Agency has interpreted key sections of the law to require that states ensure that whatever companies discharge into the water from factories or other operations don’t degrade downstream water quality – even if the existing conditions are better than the minimum standards. Known as “anti-degradation provisions,” these rules mean water that is currently far cleaner than the standards require can’t legally be made more dirty, even if only a little bit.
Many federal standards can be weakened, so long as the EPA follows the Administrative Procedure Act’s process.
Since the 1970 passage of the Clean Air Act, the national air quality standards have not been weakened. Technology standards for air and water pollution controls have tightened over time because of advances that improved performance while reducing costs.
To change the rules under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must first provide evidence that the existing rules are no longer appropriate. Without that evidence, any changes may be overturned by the courts as not founded in facts – in legal terms, “arbitrary and capricious.” The first Trump administration’s efforts to change the rules failed in many court cases on this basis.
This review process is also required of the EPA’s intended effort to revoke the so-called “endangerment finding,” which establishes the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. If successful, that revocation would undo the legal grounds for carbon dioxide and methane pollution standards for motor vehicles, electric utilities, oil and gas production, and large industrial sources.
Such an effort will certainly end up in court. The endangerment finding began with a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required the EPA to assess whether greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare. In 2009, the agency found that they did. In 2012, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that finding, and the Supreme Court declined to reconsider the case.
Algae floats on Lake Erie. Algae blooms can be caused by water pollution. AP Photo/Paul Sancya
Other ways to reduce environmental protections
The Trump administration’s stated plans for amending water pollution rules illustrate that rolling back protections can also mean undoing efforts to strengthen restrictions, if those efforts did not get finalized before 2025.
For instance, in June 2024, the Biden administration’s EPA notified the public that it intended to tighten restrictions on manufacturing plants’ discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, into surface water or public sewage-treatment systems. Those are a large category of human-made chemicals, used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat, which can be harmful to human health at some levels. These chemicals don’t break down easily and therefore are often called “forever chemicals.”
But the changes were never finalized, and on the second day of Trump’s second term, the new administration announced that the proposal had been withdrawn.
In general, U.S. environmental laws do not prevent the EPA from weakening protection standards. But merely announcing the agency’s intention to do something doesn’t make it so.
In a recent executive order, Trump claimed he could take an action without public notice and comment “because I am ordering the repeal.” But federal law specifies that the process of change requires explicit descriptions of scientific and technical reasons and evidence that justify any proposed actions, and a notice-and-comment process that involves the public.
In the meantime, the existing standards remain in place, enforceable by citizen lawsuits even if the federal government decides not to enforce them. Agencies require technical and legal expertise to craft rules that can survive inevitable challenges in the courts. Many of those experts have been fired or laid off by the Trump administration, making the job of changing regulations more difficult.
Stan Meiburg is a volunteer with the Environmental Protection Network, a non-partisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. He is also a 39 year alumnus of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is a professional colleague with Sid Shapiro, whose Conversation article is cited in this piece.
Why don’t humans have hair all over their bodies like other animals? – Murilo, age 5, Brazil
Have you ever wondered why you don’t have thick hair covering your whole body like a dog, cat or gorilla does?
Humans aren’t the only mammals with sparse hair. Elephants, rhinos and naked mole rats also have very little hair. It’s true for some marine mammals, such as whales and dolphins, too.
Scientists think the earliest mammals, which lived at the time of the dinosaurs, were quite hairy. But over hundreds of millions of years, a small handful of mammals, including humans, evolved to have less hair. What’s the advantage of not growing your own fur coat?
I’m a biologist who studies the genes that control hairiness in mammals. Why humans and a small number of other mammals are relatively hairless is an interesting question. It all comes down to whether certain genes are turned on or off.
Hair benefits
Hair and fur have many important jobs. They keep animals warm, protect their skin from the sun and injuries and help them blend into their surroundings.
They even assist animals in sensing their environment. Ever felt a tickle when something almost touches you? That’s your hair helping you detect things nearby.
Humans do have hair all over their bodies, but it is generally sparser and finer than that of our hairier relatives. A notable exception is the hair on our heads, which likely serves to protect the scalp from the sun. In human adults, the thicker hair that develops under the arms and between the legs likely reduces skin friction and aids in cooling by dispersing sweat.
So hair can be pretty beneficial. There must have been a strong evolutionary reason for people to lose so much of it.
Why humans lost their hair
The story begins about 7 million years ago, when humans and chimpanzees took different evolutionary paths. Although scientists can’t be sure why humans became less hairy, we have some strong theories that involve sweat.
Humans have far more sweat glands than chimps and other mammals do. Sweating keeps you cool. As sweat evaporates from your skin, heat energy is carried away from your body. This cooling system was likely crucial for early human ancestors, who lived in the hot African savanna.
Of course, there are plenty of mammals living in hot climates right now that are covered with fur. Early humans were able to hunt those kinds of animals by tiring them out over long chases in the heat – a strategy known as persistence hunting.
Humans didn’t need to be faster than the animals they hunted. They just needed to keep going until their prey got too hot and tired to flee. Being able to sweat a lot, without a thick coat of hair, made this endurance possible.
Genes that control hairiness
To better understand hairiness in mammals, my research team compared the genetic information of 62 different mammals, from humans to armadillos to dogs and squirrels. By lining up the DNA of all these different species, we were able to zero in on the genes linked to keeping or losing body hair.
Among the many discoveries we made, we learned humans still carry all the genes needed for a full coat of hair – they are just muted or switched off.
In the story of “Beauty and the Beast,” the Beast is covered in thick fur, which might seem like pure fantasy. But in real life some rare conditions can cause people to grow a lot of hair all over their bodies. This condition, called hypertrichosis, is very unusual and has been called “werewolf syndrome” because of how people who have it look.
Petrus Gonsalvus and his wife, Catherine, painted by Joris Hoefnagel, circa 1575. National Gallery of Art
In the 1500s, a Spanish man named Petrus Gonsalvus was born with hypertrichosis. As a child he was sent in an iron cage like an animal to Henry II of France as a gift. It wasn’t long before the king realized Petrus was like any other person and could be educated. In time, he married a lady, forming the inspiration for the “Beauty and the Beast” story.
While you will probably never meet someone with this rare trait, it shows how genes can lead to unique and surprising changes in hair growth.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Another week of successes for the American people is in the books as President Donald J. Trump continues to deliver on his promises.
Here is a non-comprehensive list of wins in week 13:
Americans continued to see early results of President Trump’s commitment to American manufacturing and job growth.
Abbott Laboratories announced it will spend $500 million on its Illinois and Texas facilities.
NVIDIA announced it will manufacture its AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S. as part of its pledge to produce $500 billion of AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years.
Honda Motor Co. announced plans to shift production of the Civic from Japan to the U.S. amid plans to boost its U.S. production by up to 30% in the next several years.
Ellwood Group – a small manufacturer of forged steel, nickel and aluminum products – announced a sales increase of 35% quarter-over-quarter following President Trump’s steel tariffs.
President Trump continued to secure our border and rid our communities of illegal immigrant criminals.
U.S. Border Patrol recorded the fewest illegal crossings at the southwest border on record in March – down 94% lower over last March.Violent terrorist gang members and criminal illegal immigrants continued to be deported to El Salvador.
In just the past several days, ICE arrested a host of depraved criminal illegal immigrants, including a convicted rapist in Brooklyn, a convicted murder in Los Angeles, and a convicted arsonist in Virginia.
President Trump continued to pursue peace through strength around the world.
The Trump administration secured the release of an America missionary held in Tunisia for 13 months.
The Trump Administration directed additional successful airstrikes against Houthi terrorists.
President Trump signed an order aimed at stopping illegal immigrants and other ineligible individuals from obtaining benefits under the Social Security Act and enhancing investigations into fraud.
President Trump took executive action to expand on the historic efforts of his first term to lower prescription drug prices — delivering lower prices for Medicare, providing massive discounts on lifesaving medications, like insulin, for low-income and uninsured Americans, and helping states save millions on prescription drug costs.
President Trump opened the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, undoing a nonsensical Biden-era ban and boosting the economy of American Samoa and other Pacific islands.
President Trump signed an executive order to restore American seafood competitiveness by reducing regulatory burdens, combating unfair foreign trade practices, and enhancing domestic seafood production and exports.
President Trump took additional action to ensure government remains accountable to the taxpayers who fund it.
President Trump signed a memorandum to ensure government is leveraging modern technology to effectively and efficiently conduct environmental reviews and evaluate permits.
President Trump signed an executive order to enforce existing law requiring the federal government to utilize the competitive marketplace and the innovations of private enterprise to provide better, more-cost-effective services to taxpayers.
President Trump rescinded two longstanding presidential actions that unnecessarily restricted where federal agencies could site their facilities.
President Trump signed an executive order to dramatically simplify and streamline the federal procurement process.
President Trump signed an executive order launching an investigation into the national security risks posed by U.S. reliance on imported processed critical minerals and their derivative products.
The Department of Justice announced a civil lawsuit against the Maine Department of Education over their consistent and willful refusal to protect women and girls in sports and other private spaces.
The Department of the Treasury continued its crackdown on Chinese facilitation of Iranian oil exports, sanctioning various Chinese companies purchasing from, and providing vessels for, Iran’s shadow fleet.
The Department of the Interior announced the emergency withdrawal and transfer of jurisdiction of nearly 110,000 acres of federal land along the southern border to support operations in border security.
The Trump Administration’s joint task force on Title IX launched an investigation into the University of Maryland over allowing a male athlete to compete in women’s fencing and use women’s-only intimate facilities, and launched an investigation into the University of Maryland and Wagner college for penalizing a female athlete for refusing to compete against a male.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released records on the government’s investigation into the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
The Department of State canceled 139 grants worth $214 million, including wasteful programs like “Building the Migrant Domestic Worker-Led Movement” in Lebanon or “Get the Trolls Out!” in the United Kingdom.
The Department of State scrapped its Global Engagement Center, which was at the center of U.S. government-sponsored censorship and media manipulation.
The Department of Health and Human Services launched new studies on the link between environmental toxins and autism.
Institutions across the country continued to dissolve their divisive “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programming in response to President Trump’s executive order.
James Madison University ended its DEI programming.
Ball State University announced it will end its DEI programming.
Rochester Community School District in Michigan eliminated its DEI director position.
SAN FRANCISCO and BOSTON, April 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — 5AM Ventures, a leading life science venture capital firm, is pleased to announce the addition of operational leadership and investment professionals who bring extraordinary experience to the organization. The appointments of Joshua Grass as Venture Partner, John Kelly as Partner, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer, and Lauren Daniel as Chief Compliance Officer and Deputy General Counsel will strengthen the firm’s investment capabilities, financial and operational governance, and regulatory oversight as it continues to expand its portfolio.
“We’re thrilled to welcome these exceptional leaders to our team,” said Andy Schwab, Managing Parter at 5AM Ventures. “Their collective expertise will be invaluable as we continue to pursue new growth opportunities for our investors and portfolio companies.”
Joshua Grass, Venture Partner Joshua is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with deep executive management, business development and operational expertise. He was most recently CEO of Escient Pharmaceuticals, a 5AM-backed biotech company developing small molecule therapeutics for neurosensory and inflammatory diseases. Escient was acquired by Incyte in 2024. Prior to Escient he was CEO of Modis Therapeutics after spending 15 years as a member of BioMarin’s senior executive management team leading Business and Corporate Development. Joshua earned a B.S. in Biology from California Polytechnic State University and an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from William E. Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.
John Kelly, Partner, Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer John, a seasoned finance and operations professional with twenty-five years of experience, has joined 5AM Ventures as CFO and COO. He was previously CFO and Principal at Axonic Capital responsible for oversight of all aspects of the diverse, multi-strategy funds, management company, general partner and family office entities, including financial and tax reporting, treasury, counterparty management, cost center allocation and budgeting, payroll, and HR programs. John holds a B.S. in Accounting from Villanova School of Business.
Lauren Daniel, JD, Chief Compliance Officer & Deputy General Counsel Lauren brings over fifteen years of experience in fund legal with a strong focus in regulatory compliance and risk management. Before joining 5AM, she served as Chief Compliance Officer and Counsel for Advent Global Opportunities, the public equity-focused platform of the global private equity firm Advent International. Since she joined in August, Lauren has been leading 5AM’s compliance efforts, ensuring that the firm continues to uphold the highest standards of regulatory adherence and governance practices. Lauren holds a B.A. in Political Science from Boston College and a J.D. from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
“With Joshua, John, and Lauren onboard, we are excited to scale and refine our financial operations and enhance our ability to navigate complex legal and regulatory landscapes, while continuing to identify and nurture next-generation life science companies aimed at developing transformative therapeutics for patients,” said Kush Parmar, Managing Partner at 5AM Ventures.
ABOUT 5AM VENTURES Founded in 2002, 5AM Ventures is a leading venture capital firm focused on investing in and building next-generation life science companies. Based in San Francisco, Boston, and New York City, 5AM takes a hands-on approach to investing and company building, often going beyond traditional board roles to leverage our diverse team of scientists, clinicians, drug developers and executives throughout a company’s life. With more than $2.2 billion raised since inception, 5AM has invested globally in over 140 public and private companies.
5AM has helped guide portfolio companies to meaningful value-accretive outcomes. Across the 5AM funds, over 30 portfolio companies have entered the public markets (e.g., through IPOs) and over 20 portfolio companies have been acquired through M&A. A full list of portfolio companies, including those companies which have entered the public markets or been exited through M&A, are available on our website.
Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –
Dobro.Center SPbPU
The event’s guest of honor was Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Youth Policy and Interaction with Public Organizations of St. Petersburg, SVO veteran Ivan Esipov.
In honor of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, a VR session “Leningrad through the eyes of Tanya Savicheva” was held, organized by “Victory Volunteers” and the Dobro.Center “Harmony”. With the help of modern technologies, students were able to immerse themselves in the events of the Leningrad blockade.
At the meeting of the scientific section “Youth and Society: Current Socially Significant Practices”, representatives of different regions of Russia and the CIS countries presented scientific reports in the field of youth policy. They shared data on social trends: ecology, consumer behavior, trust in content on social networks, youth marriages and cultural identity.
“The Humanitarian Forum was memorable for its high level of organization, relevant topics and lively discussions. Valuable experience, warm atmosphere and professionalism inspire further research,” shared the winner of the first degree diploma for the best report, a student of the Russian-Armenian University Donara Afrikyan.
The key event was the round table “
“Today, when society is facing new challenges, it is important to unite young people around common meanings, values and goals.
A student of the Humanitarian Institute of SPbPU Maria Guner read her poem dedicated to the veterans of the SVO. The event ended with an open microphone, where everyone could ask a question, make a suggestion, share their story.
“The volunteer movement in St. Petersburg is the flagship of assistance and unity in the country. The round table on humanitarian development at the Polytechnic University reflected the key areas of public organizations, including assistance to the front,” emphasized Deputy Chairman of the Youth Parliament of St. Petersburg, participant of the SVO, student of ITMO University Zakhar Kornev.
As part of the forum, Polytechnic University graduate and member of the Union of Artists of Russia Alexander Dudorov held a charity master class on painting. Participants created their own paintings using acrylic paints. During Alexander Alfeevich’s exhibition, SPbPU Ambassador, Head of the Process Automation Department of the IT Department of BorisHof Group of Companies Ruslan Talipov purchased two works by the St. Petersburg artist. All proceeds from the sale of the paintings are donated to the AdVita Foundation to help children, as well as to support needy children in Donbass.
In addition, activists of the SPbPU Dobro.Center joined forces with business partners – Gazprom Pererabotka, the Sputnik Hotel and the Izmailovo Hotel – to help the Nevsky Front – Children charity fund raise funds for a charity football tournament for children from orphanages in the Northwestern Federal District.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
Nguyen Thi Hai Anh, a second-year master’s student at the Institute of Marketing of the National University of Management, took part in the celebration of the World Youth Festival (WYF) birthday.
The event featured a presentation of the VFM Meeting, which will be held in September in Nizhny Novgorod on the instructions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and also saw the official start of registration for participation.
Let us recall that Nguyen Thi Hai Anh met with Vladimir Putin in March last year.
“The World Youth Festival has become an important impetus for the development of international youth cooperation. By 2030, international events in our country will unite more than 38 thousand young people from all over the world within the framework of the federal project “Russia in the World” of the national project “Youth and Children”, launched on the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin. We have planned WFY rallies and forums, as well as regular holding of the Festival itself. Today, the Russian experience of youth policy is of interest abroad, and we are ready to share this experience, strengthening Russia’s position as a leader in this important area,” said the head of Rosmolodezh, associate professor of the Department of Public and Municipal Administration of the State University of Management Grigory Gurov.
More than 100 representatives from 35 countries of the world, who participated in the festival itself, which took place a year ago in Sirius, were invited to celebrate the first anniversary of the VFM. Together with a representative of the Embassy of Vietnam, a student of the State University of Management Nguyen Thi Hai Anh presented a gift to the VFM museum and gave an interview to the TV channel Moscow 24.
According to the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation, the WFM will be held in Russia regularly – once every six years. In between festivals, international thematic gatherings for two thousand participants from Russia and abroad will be held under the auspices of the WFM. The first gathering will be held in September 2025 in Nizhny Novgorod. Festival events of various formats will be held in Russia annually.
The World Youth Festival will take place from September 17 to 21 and will bring together 2,000 young people – a thousand from Russia and the same number from foreign countries, including 200 children. 200 volunteers from all over the country will help organize this event.
You can already apply to participate in the VFM Rally and become part of the international youth community today. Registration for participants will last until July 20, 2025. Those wishing to join the volunteer corps can apply until June 16, 2025 on the Dobro.rf platform.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
The University of Connecticut and Town of Mansfield are partnering again for the second “Don’t Mess with Mansfield” community litter cleanup on April 27, after a successful pilot event in November drew 140 volunteers and collected 116 bags of trash.
“Participating in ‘Don’t Mess with Mansfield’ and being able to physically see the litter that you’ve removed from the environment – litter that’s not going to make its way down through waterways to the ocean, litter that’s not going to trap little creatures – is like a concrete action that you can take to do something good for the environment, but also to take care of your home for yourself and for other people who share the community,” says Betsy Mortensen, communication outreach and education coordinator at the Office of Sustainability.
The inaugural “Don’t Mess with Mansfield” in November was the first major collaboration between the town and Office of Sustainability. Its success moved organizers to continue their efforts.
“We really want to have an established relationship with the Town of Mansfield and the Office of Sustainability, and then UConn in general,” says Amanda Stowe’ 26 (CAHNR), an intern at the Office of Sustainability. “A lot of times I feel like people look at UConn and think students are polluting and students are throwing their litter on the side of the road, but we want to wipe that perception and show that students want to give back to their community and clean up.”
The Town/University Relations Committee of Mansfield and the Office of Sustainability came up with the idea of a cleanup after citizens brought up the issue of litter in neighborhoods surrounding UConn.
“It was out of a desire to do something good for the town together and to enhance relationships between students and community members,” says Mortensen.
This event is a way to work together for environmental improvements while cultivating relationships between town residents and University students. From the Mansfield side, communications specialist Margaret Chatey and recycling coordinator Virginia “Ginny” Walton have worked closest on this project.
“Everyone can go out for a few hours, roll up their sleeves, have some fun, enjoy the outdoors together and benefit the community,” says Chatey.
“We want to host it twice a year,” adds Mortensen. “Once after the leaves are gone and another time before they start falling again.”
After assessing the success of the first cleanup, the Office of Sustainability has been expanding its goals.
“This semester we are focusing on targeting the areas that have the biggest buildup of litter and getting more volunteers to come out,” saysClaire Lawrence ’26 (CLAS), an intern at the Office of Sustainability.
Chatey says she wants students who take great pride in their university to have the opportunity to put forth that same attitude for their university’s locale.
“I hope that the university students, even if they only live here from August to May, that when they’re living here in Mansfield, they really consider this as their new hometown,” says Chatey. “It’s such a bonus to the Town of Mansfield to have all residents, no matter what age or what their longtime relationship is to Mansfield, recognize that litter is a detriment and want to clean it up.”
Mansfield has several other townwide litter cleanup initiatives, including “Adopt a Road,” a program in which residents or organizations make a commitment to clean up a portion of a road throughout the year.
This year, Greek organizations have been working on keeping Hunting Lodge Road and Separatist Road clean, says Walton.
“We’re excited to have UConn and these organizations helping us, especially among those well-traveled roads,” says Walton.
This semester, UConn’s Center for Fraternity and Sorority Development is a partner sponsor of the event, bringing in a large number of volunteers for the day’s work.
On the day of the cleanup, volunteers will have the opportunity to address areas of campus such as its core near the Student Union, Hunting Lodge Road, Separatist Road, North Eagleville Road, Eastwood Road, or Westwood Road.
“It’s very meaningful because it’s an engagement with the University on roads that are outside of the campus orbit,” says Walton. “So, there’s this connection between the town and the University, and I’m really happy that these organizations have been stepping up and participating.”
“I think it is important to acknowledge that how we treat our campus and surrounding areas impacts not only students, but wildlife and neighboring towns,” says Lawrence. “If everyone would do their part and take the afternoon to look after our common spaces, we could keep the environment happy and healthy.”
The success of these cleanup events is only anticipated to grow.
“I hope that it can be a fun event with hundreds of students and community members participating and building connections while also cleaning up our town,” says Mortensen.
“Don’t Mess with Mansfield” falls on the same weekend as the town’s Earth Day initiatives.
In addition to volunteering at “Don’t Mess with Mansfield” on April 27, residents have the chance to participate in events on April 26, including a townwide tag sale and activities and exhibitions at the Mansfield Community Center.
“It benefits everyone to have an active role in their community and sometimes that is the simple action of going out and picking up litter for a few hours with people you’ve never met before,” says Walton. “That’s what is an authentic experience. It’s hands-on making a difference.”
Two Neag School of Education professors and an alumnus will receive prestigious awards at this year’s American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in Denver. Bob Pianta ’77 (ED), ’78 MA is the 2025 recipient of the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award, Franklin Tuitt has earned the W. J. McKeachie Career Achievement Award, and Michael Coyne is the Notable Vocabulary Researcher Award winner.
“I offer heartfelt congratulations to my colleagues Dr. Coyne, Dr. Tuitt, and Dr. Pianta,” Dean Jason G. Irizarry says. “It is a tremendous honor to see members of our distinguished faculty and illustrious alumni of the Neag School recognized by AERA. These awards are not only a testament to their groundbreaking research, but also to their unwavering dedication to advancing knowledge and making meaningful contributions to society. We are incredibly proud of their achievements and the excellence they bring to our academic community.”
The Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award is “the premier acknowledgment of outstanding achievement and success in education research,” according to AERA. “Its purpose is to publicize, motivate, encourage, and suggest models for education research at its best.”
Bob Pianta ’77 (ED), ’78 MA (Courtesy of UVA)
Pianta is the Batten Bicentennial Professor of Early Childhood Education and former dean of the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development. His research measures teacher-student relationships and their impact on students’ learning and development. A member of the National Academy of Education and an AERA Fellow, Pianta led the research and development of a suite of tools designed to improve teachers’ interactions with their students, including the Classroom Assessment Scoring System and MyTeachingPartner.
“I am honored and grateful to have been considered for this award,” Pianta said in a UVA publication. “Receiving this is the product of the teamwork and dedication of researchers and staff, the participation of our partners in the field, and the generous efforts of many colleagues. It is very gratifying that our work has been helpful to so many educators and scholars around the world and it is exciting to see these ideas take hold in so many ways.”
AERA’s Faculty Teaching, Evaluation, and Development special interest group presents the W. J. McKeachie Career Achievement Award – named in honor of Bill McKeachie – each year to recognize outstanding, careerlong contributions to the research and development on college teaching and learning; issues related to faculty evaluation and development; and student ratings of teaching.
Franklin Tuitt (UConn photo)
Tuitt is a professor of higher education and student affairs in the Neag School’s Department of Educational Leadership and UConn’s former vice president and chief diversity officer. His scholarship critically examines issues of race, inclusive excellence, and diversity in and outside the classroom from the purview of faculty and students. Tuitt is also a 2024-2025 American Council on Education Fellow.
“I am deeply honored to receive the W. J. McKeachie Career Achievement Award from AERA’s Faculty Teaching, Evaluation, and Development SIG, especially as we navigate these challenging times in higher education,” Tuitt says. “This recognition is not mine alone. I share it with the brilliant nominators, mentors, colleagues, and students who have dared to dream alongside me about what it means to create more inclusive, affirming, and anti-racist learning environments, both inside and outside the classroom.”
The Notable Vocabulary Researcher Award is given by AERA’s Vocabulary special interest group, which promotes communication about vocabulary development and instruction, and fosters the sharing of information about ongoing research and promising practices related to vocabulary. The award, given annually, recognizes an important scholar in the field.
Michael Coyne (Peter Morenus/UConn photo)
Coyne is a professor of special education and head of the Neag School’s Department of Educational Psychology. His expertise is in beginning reading and early vocabulary instruction and intervention; school-based experimental research; multi-tiered systems of support; and effective practices for students with learning disabilities. Coyne also co-directs the Neag School’s Center for Behavioral Education and Research.
“I am truly grateful to receive this award,” Coyne says. “It is especially meaningful to be acknowledged by members of AERA’s vocabulary SIG – colleagues whose scholarship I deeply respect and whose research continues to make a real difference for teachers and learners.”
Pianta, Tuitt, and Coyne will officially receive their awards during AERA’s annual meeting in Denver, which runs April 23-27.
To view a full schedule of Neag School-affiliated presentations and events at the 2025 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, visit education.uconn.edu/aera.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Research Associate, University of Oxford
Zimbabwe is the house of stone, both literally and figuratively, with its very name derived from the ancient stone city of Great Zimbabwe. Stone is more than just a material here – it’s the totem pole of the country’s identity, shaping both its history and artistic legacy. And there’s no better place to witness this than Chapungu Sculpture Park.
On the outskirts of Harare’s industrial zone, the sprawling estate is both a gallery for stone artistry and a living landscape, home to over 90 varieties of indigenous trees, with a tributary of the Mukuvisi river running through it. Art and nature intertwine, offering a unique glimpse into Zimbabwe’s famous sculptural tradition.
Nature and art meet at the site.Costa Jute/PictureHubZim
The last time I visited, in 2021, founder Roy Guthrie was still around, but he has since passed away. His enduring legacy remains visible throughout the park.
The former refrigerator salesman turned stone broker was arguably one of the most influential figures in bringing Zimbabwean sculpture to the global stage. He organised international exhibitions and artist residencies. At one point he had more than 200 artists in his books.
View of the work on sale by resident artists.Costa Jute/PictureHubZim
But his vision extended beyond exporting artwork. His true ambition was to create the largest and most representative permanent collection of Zimbabwean stone sculpture. Here, in the open air, different generations of artists’ works stand side by side, demonstrating the evolution of the art form.
Today I am here to meet Marcey Mushore, Guthrie’s widow. She tells me the park is now managed by a trust and shares the many plans in place to honour and expand his work. One is establishing a dedicated museum.
As we walk from the entrance, beneath a canopy of trees nicknamed “the cathedral”, sculptures line the pathways, creating a quiet dialogue. Leading the way is our guide, artist-turned-administrator Nicholas Kadzungura. He arrived at Chapungu as an apprentice and has never left. Today he is a walking institutional memory.
A stone archive
My book in progress, The Stone Philosophers, foregrounds the lives of the black Zimbabwean artists who made stone sculpture famous. I am grappling with this vexing question: What does a stone archive look like? One possible answer could be that it takes the form of a well-tended garden park with sculptures from Zimbabwe’s master sculptors.
As we stand facing the water, Mushore points towards a cluster of trees to indicate where the museum would be built. Perhaps, in a few years, the brush will be cleared, and in its place will rise a building dedicated to housing the history of Zimbabwean stone sculpture.
The site of an intended stone sculpture museum at Chapungu.Costa Jute/PictureHubZim
Despite the international recognition it has garnered since the 1960s, there is still no local museum solely dedicated to this art form. British curator Frank McEwen, founding director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, is often regarded as the architect of the movement. And Guthrie considered McEwen an influence.
Zimbabwean sculpture
With Zimbabwean sculpture, each piece tells a story, simple and elaborate, ranging from spirit-filled folk tales to depictions of the everyday moments that shape life. You’re confronted by human-size shapes of torsos, heads, animals and sometimes abstract figurations.
While often categorised under the contentious label of “Shona sculpture”, the stone sculptors of Zimbabwe were not exclusively Shona, the country’s largest ethnic group. The term was popularised by McEwen.
In fact, some of these artists came from other parts of Zimbabwe and from neighbouring countries like Zambia, Malawi or Angola, broadening the scope of the tradition. The sculptors primarily work with serpentine stone – especially springstone, fruit serpentine and leopard rock – alongside opal stone, verdite and dolomite, sourced mainly from the Great Dyke, a 300km geological formation in central Zimbabwe.
Tinashe Makaza’s The Scroll (1996).Costa Jute/PictureHubZim
Beyond the architectural metaphor of Zimbabwean writer Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s novel, House of Stone, who were the builders and stone workers behind the legend of Zimbabwe?
The country’s name is thanks to the Shona people’s long artisanal tradition of stone working. It’s not just a metaphor. Cities were built with blood, sweat and tears. Stone sculpture was not a peculiarity that was ignited by colonial encounter. It was always there, through generations and traditions. It was just not yet classified in anthropological terms, or exhibited in the colonial museum.
The modern stone sculpture movement in Zimbabwe emerged organically. It was a phenomenon shaped by groups of friends, siblings, and spouses whose work made a significant contribution to the African modernism of the 1960s and 1970s.
The artists who brought stone sculpture to prominence formed networks that stretched from village to village, collaborating informally. Their work was eventually co-opted into the white-dominated art world of Rhodesia, as the country was known in colonial times. From there, it was exported to Europe and the US.
The park represents stone artists across the generations.Costa Jute/PictureHubZim
Although these artists rose to prominence during a period of decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s, they remained marginal figures in their own country. When Rhodesia declared unilateral independence in 1965, becoming an isolated stronghold of white supremacy, the history of stone sculpture became inseparable from the broader struggles faced by black Zimbabweans. It reflected the racist exclusions and hardships endured by its creators, who persisted against the odds.
Keeping tradition alive
Today, Zimbabwe is better known for its young visual artists, who primarily work in painting, mixed media and collage. While stone sculpture was once the country’s dominant art form, its visibility has diminished – not in production, but in critical conversations about art. A simple internet search yields little on its history or artistic significance; instead, results are dominated by commercial gallery websites showcasing polished sculptures for sale, with little attention given to the artists or their creative processes.
This emphasis on the final product over the maker is not new. It traces back to the very origins of the stone sculpture movement. What we see here is a repressed archive, where gaps in documentation are not accidental but the result of historical omissions. These absences, in turn, expose deeper questions of power, access and visibility in the art world.
As we conclude our tour of Chapungu, a group of artists, seated on planks of wood and large stones, wave at us. They represent a new generation, carrying forward the tradition of stone sculpture in Zimbabwe, ensuring that this art form continues to evolve and endure.
– Zimbabwe’s house of stone: the gallery that showcases a famous sculpture tradition – https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-house-of-stone-the-gallery-that-showcases-a-famous-sculpture-tradition-253072
Zimbabwe is the house of stone, both literally and figuratively, with its very name derived from the ancient stone city of Great Zimbabwe. Stone is more than just a material here – it’s the totem pole of the country’s identity, shaping both its history and artistic legacy. And there’s no better place to witness this than Chapungu Sculpture Park.
On the outskirts of Harare’s industrial zone, the sprawling estate is both a gallery for stone artistry and a living landscape, home to over 90 varieties of indigenous trees, with a tributary of the Mukuvisi river running through it. Art and nature intertwine, offering a unique glimpse into Zimbabwe’s famous sculptural tradition.
The last time I visited, in 2021, founder Roy Guthrie was still around, but he has since passed away. His enduring legacy remains visible throughout the park.
The former refrigerator salesman turned stone broker was arguably one of the most influential figures in bringing Zimbabwean sculpture to the global stage. He organised international exhibitions and artist residencies. At one point he had more than 200 artists in his books.
But his vision extended beyond exporting artwork. His true ambition was to create the largest and most representative permanent collection of Zimbabwean stone sculpture. Here, in the open air, different generations of artists’ works stand side by side, demonstrating the evolution of the art form.
Today I am here to meet Marcey Mushore, Guthrie’s widow. She tells me the park is now managed by a trust and shares the many plans in place to honour and expand his work. One is establishing a dedicated museum.
As we walk from the entrance, beneath a canopy of trees nicknamed “the cathedral”, sculptures line the pathways, creating a quiet dialogue. Leading the way is our guide, artist-turned-administrator Nicholas Kadzungura. He arrived at Chapungu as an apprentice and has never left. Today he is a walking institutional memory.
A stone archive
My book in progress, The Stone Philosophers, foregrounds the lives of the black Zimbabwean artists who made stone sculpture famous. I am grappling with this vexing question: What does a stone archive look like? One possible answer could be that it takes the form of a well-tended garden park with sculptures from Zimbabwe’s master sculptors.
As we stand facing the water, Mushore points towards a cluster of trees to indicate where the museum would be built. Perhaps, in a few years, the brush will be cleared, and in its place will rise a building dedicated to housing the history of Zimbabwean stone sculpture.
Despite the international recognition it has garnered since the 1960s, there is still no local museum solely dedicated to this art form. British curator Frank McEwen, founding director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, is often regarded as the architect of the movement. And Guthrie considered McEwen an influence.
Zimbabwean sculpture
With Zimbabwean sculpture, each piece tells a story, simple and elaborate, ranging from spirit-filled folk tales to depictions of the everyday moments that shape life. You’re confronted by human-size shapes of torsos, heads, animals and sometimes abstract figurations.
While often categorised under the contentious label of “Shona sculpture”, the stone sculptors of Zimbabwe were not exclusively Shona, the country’s largest ethnic group. The term was popularised by McEwen.
In fact, some of these artists came from other parts of Zimbabwe and from neighbouring countries like Zambia, Malawi or Angola, broadening the scope of the tradition. The sculptors primarily work with serpentine stone – especially springstone, fruit serpentine and leopard rock – alongside opal stone, verdite and dolomite, sourced mainly from the Great Dyke, a 300km geological formation in central Zimbabwe.
Beyond the architectural metaphor of Zimbabwean writer Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s novel, House of Stone, who were the builders and stone workers behind the legend of Zimbabwe?
The country’s name is thanks to the Shona people’s long artisanal tradition of stone working. It’s not just a metaphor. Cities were built with blood, sweat and tears. Stone sculpture was not a peculiarity that was ignited by colonial encounter. It was always there, through generations and traditions. It was just not yet classified in anthropological terms, or exhibited in the colonial museum.
The modern stone sculpture movement in Zimbabwe emerged organically. It was a phenomenon shaped by groups of friends, siblings, and spouses whose work made a significant contribution to the African modernism of the 1960s and 1970s.
The artists who brought stone sculpture to prominence formed networks that stretched from village to village, collaborating informally. Their work was eventually co-opted into the white-dominated art world of Rhodesia, as the country was known in colonial times. From there, it was exported to Europe and the US.
Although these artists rose to prominence during a period of decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s, they remained marginal figures in their own country. When Rhodesia declared unilateral independence in 1965, becoming an isolated stronghold of white supremacy, the history of stone sculpture became inseparable from the broader struggles faced by black Zimbabweans. It reflected the racist exclusions and hardships endured by its creators, who persisted against the odds.
Keeping tradition alive
Today, Zimbabwe is better known for its young visual artists, who primarily work in painting, mixed media and collage. While stone sculpture was once the country’s dominant art form, its visibility has diminished – not in production, but in critical conversations about art. A simple internet search yields little on its history or artistic significance; instead, results are dominated by commercial gallery websites showcasing polished sculptures for sale, with little attention given to the artists or their creative processes.
This emphasis on the final product over the maker is not new. It traces back to the very origins of the stone sculpture movement. What we see here is a repressed archive, where gaps in documentation are not accidental but the result of historical omissions. These absences, in turn, expose deeper questions of power, access and visibility in the art world.
As we conclude our tour of Chapungu, a group of artists, seated on planks of wood and large stones, wave at us. They represent a new generation, carrying forward the tradition of stone sculpture in Zimbabwe, ensuring that this art form continues to evolve and endure.
Tinashe Mushakavanhu 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: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Rashid Mangushev
Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Geotechnics at St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering Rashid Abdullovich Mangushev was awarded a high state award.
On April 16, by the decree of the President of Russia “On awarding state awards of the Russian Federation”, Rashid Abdullovich was awarded the honorary title “Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation”.
Rashid Mangushev is a recognized specialist in the field of geotechnics, author and co-author of more than 280 scientific papers, 11 original inventions and patents.
Congratulations on your well-deserved award and we wish you further success!
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Garry Straker, Vice President of Compensation Consulting at Salary.com, a leading provider of compensation market data and software
WHAT:
Will join Kelsey Gregory, Compensation Analyst, and Kelly Hayward, Compensation Analyst, both of Gonzaga University, to explore “Adapting Pay Practices to Compete Across Various Labor Markets” during the CUPA-HR Spring Conference.
WHEN:
The event will take place Sunday, April 27 – Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Salary.com will present on Monday, April 28, at 3:30 p.m. PT.
Amid today’s dynamic labor market, higher education institutions find themselves competing for key administrative talent. During the CUPA-HR Spring Conference, Garry Straker, Vice President of Compensation Consulting at Salary.com, will sit down with Kelsey Gregory, Compensation Analyst, and Kelly Hayward, Compensation Analyst, both of Gonzaga University, to explore compensation strategies that helped the institution become more flexible and effective in its hiring process. The panel will also look at how multiple salary survey data sources can be deployed to improve competitive analyses and inform compensation structure design.
About Salary.com Salary.com has been helping organizations with human capital needs for over 25 years. The company leads the industry in compensation data, software, and services. More than 30,000 organizations in 30+ countries use Salary.com’s solutions to hire and retain talent and compete in a changing world. Salary.com provides over 10 billion data points across over 225 industries using a proprietary AI framework to ensure fair pay. The company’s main product, CompAnalyst®, helps organizations simplify hiring, reduce guesswork, and increase retention. Employee trust depends on fair pay, and Salary.com helps get it right. For additional information, please visit www.salary.com/business.
Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week’s contribution is from Cole Messa and Ken Sims, from the University of Wyoming, and Mark Stelten, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and deputy scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
The Basalts of Warm River and Shotgun Valley, which erupted about 1.17 million years ago after the formation of Henrys Fork Caldera in southeast Idaho. Photo by Brandi Lawler, University of Wyoming, August 8, 2018.
Digital elevation model of Yellowstone National Park and vicinity, showing the location of the calderas formed during each of Yellowstone’s three most recent volcanic cycles. The youngest caldera-forming eruption produced Yellowstone Caldera (green line), located within Yellowstone National Park. Henrys Fork Caldera (blue line), was formed as a result of Yellowstone’s second caldera-forming eruption, approximately 1.3 million years ago, and has since been filled in with basaltic lava flows that cause the flat, low-relief topography in that region. Figure modified from Christiansen et al. (2007).
The Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field has produced three caldera-forming eruptions over the last 2.1 million years, including the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff (2.1 million years ago), the Mesa Falls Tuff (1.3 million years ago), and the Lava Creek Tuff that produced Yellowstone caldera 631,000 years ago. Between these large eruptions, numerous lava flows and domes erupted within the calderas produced by these large eruptions. Although most eruptions at Yellowstone tend to be rhyolite in composition—high in silica and very viscous, which is why eruptions can be very explosive and also produce thick lava flows—these magmas represent the end product of a large magmatic system that extends from ~4 km depth to the base of the crust (~40 km). In fact, rhyolite is only present in significant quantities between approximately 4 km and 15 km depth in crust, whereas the rest of the magmatic system is likely dominated by basalt, which comes from deeper in the Earth, is lower in silica content, and is much more fluid.
Map of Yellowstone caldera showing the distribution of rhyolites erupted after the formation of Yellowstone caldera and basalts erupted outside the caldera.
Geologists have long known that large, shallow rhyolite magma bodies like that at Yellowstone need a large supply of heat to keep remain active and not freeze solid. This heat source is probably related to the transport of hot, basaltic magmas from deep in the crust to shallower portions of the crust where rhyolite resides. Furthermore, an influx of heat from deeply sourced basalts may be required to “prime” the rhyolite system for an eruption. In other words, the influx of heat into the shallow crust can cause the proportion of liquid magma in the magmatic system to increase, possibly leading to an eruption.
To test these ideas and better understand the role that the deeper, basaltic part of the magmatic system plays in priming eruptions in the shallow, rhyolitic part, a research group representing a collaboration between the University of Wyoming’s High-Precision Isotope Laboratory (WILD) and the USGS Volcano Science Center recently measured eruption ages using the argon dating technique on suite of samples collected from throughout the Henrys Fork Caldera region, located just west of present day Yellowstone caldera near the town of Island Park, Idaho. Henrys Fork Caldera is home to much of Yellowstone’s basaltic activity and has gone mostly unresearched since mapping efforts by the late Dr. Robert L. Christiansen were completed in 2001. The new eruption ages, coupled with field mapping efforts, revealed that Henrys Fork Caldera is home to multiple episodes of basaltic lava flow activity over the past 1.3 million years. Importantly, each of these episodes coincides with a period of known rhyolite eruptive activity in the Yellowstone region.
This alignment of eruption timing led the researchers to suggest that periods of volcanic unrest at Yellowstone are characterized by an increase in activity in the lower, basaltic portion of the magmatic system that provides the heat necessary to spur the shallow, rhyolitic portion of the magmatic system into growing and/or erupting. These periods of increased activity in the lower portion of the magmatic system are manifested on the surface as periods where numerous basaltic magmas erupt outside the caldera, while rhyolites, which are less dense, “block” the basalt from rising where a rhyolite magma chamber is present—namely in the area of Yellowstone caldera—but may erupt themselves. This explains why Yellowstone caldera is characterized by numerous episodes of rhyolite lava flow activity that correlate in time with basaltic activity outside the caldera.
Another striking conclusion from the new research is the identification of a basalt eruption that is just 35,000 years old located in the Henrys Fork Caldera region. Previously, it was thought that the youngest eruption in the region was the rhyolite lava of the Pitchstone Plateau about 70,000 years ago, while the youngest known basalt flow was 120,000 years old. The new result means that this 35,000 year old basalt is now the youngest Yellowstone eruption known. The younger age implies that basaltic activity remains possible west of Yellowstone National Park, and that the deeper, basaltic portion of Yellowstone magmatic system has been active since the last known eruption of rhyolite at Yellowstone.
The new research was published in the journal Geology: “New 40Ar/39Ar Eruption Ages Reveal an Important Temporal Relationship Between Mafic and Silicic Volcanism in the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field.”
The Pinehaven Basalt, which erupted in Henrys Fork Caldera, southeast Idaho, about 35,000 years ago. Photo by Brandi Lawler, University of Wyoming, August 6, 2018.
