ALBUQUERQUE – A federal jury convicted a former University of New Mexico football player on charges of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine while incarcerated at Cibola County Correctional Center. The verdict came after a five-day trial and approximately three-and-a-half hours of deliberation.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, while in custody awaiting trial for the 2022-armed robbery of a U.S. Postal Service employee, Rayshawn Boyce, 29, was implicated in a separate case involving drug trafficking within the Cibola County Correctional Center (CCCC). On May 17, 2022, CCCC personnel conducted a search of a unit and discovered a bag containing approximately one pound of methamphetamine in the shower area.
Photo of drugs in shower area
Review of surveillance footage revealed that on the evening of May 16, 2022, Correctional Officer Gabriella Torres smuggled a bundle of methamphetamine into the facility under her hoodie and dropped it in cell in an area that was not covered by a camera for Boyce to retrieve. A short time later, Boyce retrieved the bundle, concealed it in a blanket, and walked back to his cell. When he learned that the jail was being searched the next day, Boyce moved the bundle from his cell in the middle of the night, submerged it in water, and left it near the showers, where it was found that morning by CCCC personnel.
Federal investigators determined that Boyce and Torres were in a romantic relationship, during which Boyce persuaded Torres to smuggle drugs into the CCCC. On two separate occasions, Torres successfully smuggled marijuana into the facility for Boyce to distribute. Boyce instructed buyers to send payments through a CashApp account he had Torres established specifically for these transactions. On May 16, 2022, Boyce coordinated the delivery of a methamphetamine shipment to Torres for smuggling into CCCC.
Torres pled guilty to one count of conspiracy and remains on conditions of release pending sentencing, which is not currently scheduled. At sentencing, Torres could face 10 years to life in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Following the verdict, the Court ordered that Boyce remain in custody pending sentencing, which has not been scheduled. At sentencing, Boyce faces a mandatory minimum term of ten years of imprisonment and up to life.
In April 2024, a federal jury convicted Boyce of robbing a postal carrier, stealing an arrow key belonging to the United States Postal Service, and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. At sentencing for this prior conviction, Boyce faces up to ten years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
There is no parole in the federal system.
Acting U.S. Attorney Holland S. Kastrin and Raul Bujanda, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Albuquerque Field Office, made the announcement today.
The FBI Albuquerque Field Office investigated this case with assistance from Cibola County Correctional Center and CoreCivic. Assistant United States Attorneys Letitia Carroll Simms and Joseph M. Spindle are prosecuting the case.
Canadians are voting in a federal election on April 28, and questions about how to deal with the United States and make Canada’s economy more resilient are dominating public discourse.
The housing crisis, immigration policy and health-care system deficiencies are other top-of-mind concerns. But one issue we likely won’t hear much about from politicians is a trend that’s quietly shaping all of these issues: an aging population.
That means policymakers need to think more proactively about how they can transform Canada’s existing policies to address the needs of an aging population.
A new report we’ve published at the CSA Public Policy Centre outlines policy pathways for federal and provincial governments to consider as 2040 approaches.
It’s time for Canadians to reimagine where we live as we grow older, transform our understanding of health and health-care services and take a whole-of-society approach to advance cultural change around the experience of aging.
At the same time, significant investments will be needed for our already strained health-care system to meet the needs of older adults living with more chronic conditions. The average cost of delivering health care is about $12,000 per person per year for those over 65, compared to only $2,700 for those under 65.
Similarly, in the face of a years-long decline in the quality of Canada’s long-term care system and the preference of Canadians to age at home, a policy shift towards aging-in-place has become a priority.
However, this raises important questions about social isolation, accessibility of Canada’s built environment, suitability of housing options on the market as well as the availability and affordability of necessary services.
Recent polling shows that 95 per cent of Canadians over 45 believe that aging-in-place would maintain their independence, comfort and dignity. Yet only 12 per cent report having the funds available to receive adequate home care.
In the absence of thoughtful policy reform, there is potential for significant disparities in health outcomes, financial security and social inclusion among older adults in the years to come.
There is a perception that baby boomers are heading into a comfortable retirement with robust pensions and opportunities for leisure. While this may be the case for those who have accumulated or inherited wealth, others are facing the risk of poverty and homelessness.
Data indicates that around 30 per cent of people using shelters across Canada are aged 50 or older, with many others unsheltered, living outdoors or experiencing hidden homelessness.
With limited resources, governments will be challenged to meet the needs of older Canadians while ensuring younger Canadians can also thrive. Young Canadians are facing a housing market that feels out of reach and many are delaying the decision to start a family due to high costs of living.
Unlike the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is targeted to low-income Canadians over the age of 65, households with an annual income more than $300,000 may still be eligible for OAS payments.
Similarly, vouchers could be made available to help Canadians pay for costs such as long-term care or home care services. Eligibility for programs like this should be tested against both income and wealth — access to home equity can be a significant factor in one’s ability to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
To ensure equitable outcomes, these decisions should also be guided by meaningful engagement with diverse voices around the table, including those from older and younger generations and different lived experiences. Intergenerational dialogue can help different age groups understand each other’s challenges, collaborate on solutions and ultimately work towards solidarity and a much-needed reimagination of what it means to grow older.
As Canadians prepare to head to the polls, we should all consider the future we want to see for ourselves and our communities as we age. Making strategic investments to improve the quality of life for older Canadians today will also lay the foundation for future generations.
Sunil Johal is the Vice-President, Public Policy with the CSA Group and leads the CSA Public Policy Centre.
NEW YORK, April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Solomon Partners, a leading financial advisory firm and independent affiliate of Natixis, today announced the appointment of Tannon Krumpelman as a new Partner in its Financial Institutions Group (FIG). FIG is the newest extension to the Solomon platform and the addition of Mr. Krumpelman further demonstrates Solomon’s commitment to this strategically important sector.
“Tannon will be a tremendous asset to our firm,” said Solomon Partners CEO Marc Cooper. “His proven success advising clients across the financial services sector will be an excellent addition to our growing FIG team.”
During his more than 25-year career, Mr. Krumpelman has advised on over $250 billion of mergers & acquisitions, strategic financing transactions and other corporate finance assignments for financial services companies and adjacent businesses.
Before joining Solomon Partners, Mr. Krumpelman was a Senior Managing Director at Evercore, where he helped lead the firm’s financial services advisory practice. Previously, he was a Managing Director at UBS and Goldman Sachs. Mr. Krumpelman earned his ScB in Chemical Engineering from Brown University.
“We are thrilled to welcome a banker of Tannon’s caliber and expertise to our team,” said Arik Rashkes, Partner and Head of the Financial Institutions Group. “Widely recognized as a preeminent advisor to the financial services sector, Tannon enhances our team’s capabilities and strengthens our commitment to delivering outstanding service to our clients.”
Mr. Krumpelman commented, “Solomon has developed an incredibly attractive platform to serve clients founded upon straightforward cultural values that mirror my own. I am excited and highly motivated to further contribute to Solomon’s growth by helping to build a world-class financial services advisory franchise with my esteemed FIG partners.”
About Solomon Partners
Founded in 1989, Solomon Partners is a leading financial advisory firm with a legacy as one of the oldest independent investment banks. Our difference is unmatched industry knowledge in the sectors we cover, creating superior value with unrivaled wisdom for our clients. We advise clients on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings, recapitalizations, capital markets solutions and activism defense across a range of verticals. These include Business Services; Consumer Retail; Distribution; Financial Institutions; Financial Sponsors; FinTech; Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants; Healthcare; Industrials; Infrastructure, Power & Renewables; Media; and Technology. Solomon Partners is an independently operated affiliate of Natixis, part of Groupe BPCE. For further information, visit solomonpartners.com.
More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes that a set of seemingly plain, functional objects are in fact a key part of the complex rituals which would ensure the transformation and regeneration of the young king in the afterlife.
Tutankhamun inherited a throne tainted by the shifts in religious and political practices implemented by his father, Akhenaten. His reign had been hallmarked by the move from the capital city of Thebes to a new city, Akhetaten (“the horizon of the Aten”).
Under Akhenaten, the solar deity Aten was elevated above all others, including the principal state god Amun. This resulted in the king being the sole high priest and beneficiary (along with his family) of the Aten. The resulting disconnection between state and religion severely reduced the power and influence of priests and members of the royal court. But on Akhenaten’s death, these were restored by his son.
Tutankhamun was named Tutankh-aten (“the living image of Aten”) at birth, but took the name of Amun back when Thebes was restored as the capital city of Egypt after his accession. This time (known as the Amarna period after the modern name of Akhenaten’s city) and its changes mean that it is more challenging to understand matters such as burial practices, religious rites and so on because it was not necessarily a “typical” time.
Therefore, while we have learned much about funerary practices from Tutankhamun’s tomb, there are objects which are still being reinterpreted.
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The artefacts in focus are a set of four clay trays, approximately 7.5 x 4.0 x 1.2cm, plain in design and apparently quite utilitarian.
This type of artefact is known from other funerary contexts including elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings. They have been described in various ways as mud trays, earthen dishes or troughs. The lack of consistency in terminology and suggestions on function illustrate the difficulty in understanding their precise role in the tomb.
Along with the clay trays are a set of wooden staves, just over a metre long, with a slight angle, and covered with gesso (a white pigment and binder mixture) and gold. In spite of the difference in materials, they were assumed by the man who uncovered the tomb, Howard Carter, to be directly associated with the trays. He believed they were probably intended as bases for the staffs to stand upright.
However, it is clear that they have an even greater function to fulfil as, contextually, everything in the tomb has symbolism and meaning, even down to the wooden boxes for preserved meats, which were intended to sustain Tutankhamun in the afterlife.
The care with which the trays and staff were laid out on matting indicates that they were important for the king’s burial. We might expect a royal burial to be filled with only the finest objects, made of the most valuable materials by elite craftsmen, with the association of materials such as gold with royalty and divinity. The richness of the rest of Tutankhamun’s burial for the most part fulfils this expectation. But, nevertheless, the ordinariness of the clay trays in the light of such riches confirms rather than refutes their significance.
The restoration of order
Following the royal court’s move back to Thebes in the wake of Akhenaten’s death, the restoration of Amun and the other gods was set in motion. The cult centre of Amun at the Temple of Karnak regained its status. The name of Akhenaten and his imagery, along with that of the sun disk, were subjected to a campaign of removal.
Tutankhamun erected the so-called Restoration Stela with titles and epithets invoking the traditional gods, and statements on “having repaired what was ruined … having repelled disorder”. The upheaval of the Amarna Period was reversed.
Discussions in academia on the dismantling of Akhenaten’s regime have tended to focus on issues such as name changes and the destruction of his upstart city. But ancient Egyptian religion had countless centuries of recorded tradition and observance, so profound demonstrations of loyalty to the traditional gods were needed.
The mud trays are now thought to be part of a wider funerary ritual, which both invoked the god Osiris and permitted the transfiguration of Tutankhamun. As king, he was thought to be the embodiment of the god Horus in life, and to become Osiris in death – rejuvenated and resurrected.
Osiris is usually shown as a mummified king, with green or black skin to represent the fertility of the land and the new life which comes from it. It is not a coincidence that the trays are made of mud.
Other aspects of the placement of the trays within the tomb such as specific placement and orientation (including particular symbols in the decoration of the tomb) indicate that the trays had a specific role to play. This may have been as an offering tray for Nile water, once more underlining the role of the river in creating life.
Tutankhamun and his treasures are so familiar today that it is possible to overlook, or even forget, the fact that once the doors were sealed after his funeral they were meant to never be seen again. Some of his grave goods – particularly those made from gold – have outshone others. However, the ordinariness of the trays among all the riches suggests that they are crucial components of his burial. They confirm Tutankhamun as both renewed in death through Osiris, and the king who restored order to Egypt.
Claire Isabella Gilmour 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.
The Pineapple Awards 2025. From left: Murdoch Cameron, Director of MCW architects; Jacqueline Moffat, Head of Projects at ARU Peterborough; Professor Ross Renton, Principal of ARU Peterborough; Lien Geens, Associate Director of MCW architects; and Christine Murray, Co-founder of The Pineapples Awards
ARU Peterborough’s new £32 million building, The Lab, has won a prestigious national award for its impact on the city.
The Lab triumphed in the Best Building category at the Pineapples Awards 2025, which celebrate buildings that have a positive effect on places and people.
ARU Peterborough outshone five other contenders in the category, including 8 Bishopgate, a 50-storey tower block in the City of London, and UCL East Marshgate, University College London’s new development at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London.
Pineapples have historically symbolised welcome in UK architecture, and ARU Peterborough received a golden pineapple trophy at the awards ceremony in London.
The judges praised The Lab, stating: “This building should be highlighted for the palpable impact that a facility can have in Peterborough. It is inspiring to see a regional team building something from scratch which inspires its local community.
“It is a real beacon for its placemaking and wider social impact. What really lifted it above the other projects was this impact which highlights the civic role that a university can have.
“The public spaces created are really versatile and adaptable for different uses. As the university campus develops this building will sit at its heart.”
The Lab is home to the Living Lab, designed to host exhibitions, talks, and public engagement events. It also contains teaching spaces, tissue culture and microbiology labs, and engineering workshops, allowing ARU Peterborough to offer a wider range of courses.
“We’ve received some impressive accolades in the last 18 months, including winning the Times Higher Education University of the Year award and being named Social Mobility University of the Year, but this award is very special indeed.
“From day one, we’ve been clear that ARU Peterborough is designed to serve the needs of this great city, and so to receive this award is fantastic recognition that we’re on the right track.
“As the university continues to grow, this building will be at its heart, and we encourage everyone to come and explore ARU Peterborough’s open campus for themselves.”
Professor Ross Renton, Principal of ARU Peterborough
Completed last summer and officially opened in the autumn, The Lab was built by Morgan Sindall Construction and designed by Cambridge-based MCW architects.
“Our vision was to create more than just a building; we aimed to thoughtfully integrate The Lab with the first phases of the University while establishing it as an inspiring hub for the city.
“A key part of this was designing for transparency – offering inviting views into the dynamic activities within, encouraging the wider community to feel connected and enticed to be part of the university’s vibrant campus.
“Seeing The Lab come to life and now receive this prestigious award is a testament to the vision of the client and the dedication of the entire project team.”
The next undergraduate Open Day at ARU Peterborough is on Saturday, 7 June. The event provides the chance to explore the campus and find out more about the different employment-focused courses on offer.
ARU Peterborough is a partnership between Anglia Ruskin University, Peterborough City Council and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.
A district council in England has passed a motion to grant its local river the rights to flow freely, to be free from pollution and to enjoy its native biodiversity. The move by Lewes District Council in East Sussex to recognise the fundamental rights of the River Ouse is the first of its kind in the UK.
The Ouse (not to be confused with larger rivers of the same name in Yorkshire and East Anglia) flows southwards for 35 miles into the English Channel and suffers from the usual problems afflicting many rivers in the UK: chemical pollution, sewage dumping and so on.
As a legal academic who researches exactly these sorts of rights, I was excited to see the news from Lewes (even if the council’s motions ultimately can’t overrule national laws). But simply granting a river some rights isn’t enough. We now need to think about who will actually defend these rights.
This may mean appointing someone to represent the rights of the river. Who these representatives are, and how they think about nature and conservation, can be as important as the granting of these rights in the first place.
Appointing representatives who care about their own personal and property interests would be a grave mistake, as would appointing anyone who prioritises the rights of humans to a healthy environment over a more intrinsic right of nature (remember: the idea is that the River Ouse has rights in itself and shouldn’t need to demonstrate its worth to humans).
As further rivers, lakes, forests and more are granted rights like the Ouse, we’ll need to train up an army of people willing to represent the rights of nature.
Natural entities should have legal rights
The law professor Christopher Stone pioneered the rights of nature concept back in the 1970s. He argued that natural entities, like rivers or forests, should have legal rights and that a “guardian” or representative should be appointed to defend those rights in court when they are threatened.
Some legal systems have adopted this model. For example, in New Zealand, the Whanganui River was granted legal personhood, and two “human faces” were appointed to act and speak on its behalf. Their duties are outlined in a 2017 act, which specifies that these representatives must have the skills, knowledge and experience needed to effectively advocate for the river’s rights.
But even as rights of nature are being considered in many countries, there is still little consideration of who will represent these rights effectively. For instance, back in 2008 Ecuador became the first country to grant the rights of nature in its constitution. However the constitution states that “all persons” are representatives of the rights of nature. This is simply impractical: we can’t expect every citizen to truly care about the rights of nature.
Efforts to apply the rights of nature in Ecuador have often failed. Legal challenges can become highly politicised and there is little legal infrastructure beyond general constitutional principles.
For example, in a case brought after road builders had dumped material into the Vilcabamba River, plaintiffs claimed to represent nature in court. However, they were not genuinely advocating for the river’s rights – their main concern was protecting their downstream property.
An ecocentric perspective
Ultimately, defending the rights of nature in court will be a struggle if the nature in question – the river, forest or lake – is not represented by someone with an ecocentric perspective. That means prioritising the intrinsic value of nature itself, rather than focusing on how it can serve human interests.
Ecocentric advocates have proved to be the most effective defenders of the rights of nature in many court cases. For example, in lawsuits involving Ecuador’s Los Cedros cloud forest and its marine ecosystems, ecocentric arguments helped secure stronger legal protections and even inspired the courts to grant further rights of nature.
One of the most common legal frameworks involves appointing “all persons”, “a person”, or “a resident” as representatives or protectors. For instance, Uganda’s National Environment Act 2019 states that anyone has the right to bring an action before a court “for any infringement of rights of nature”.
Similarly, the city of Toledo, Ohio, tried to introduce the Lake Erie bill of rights which stated that the city or any resident could act on behalf of the lake’s ecosystem. (The bill was declared unconstitutional by a federal court in 2020 and did not become the law).
Having such broad representation can make these legal protections less effective. This is what Stone, the law professor, envisioned back in the 70s: representatives should be trained to view nature as having intrinsic value – the very reason it is granted rights – and to protect it on that basis.
There are some promising examples. Guardians were appointed to protect the Magpie River in Canada, for instance, after it was granted legal personhood in 2022. Their responsibilities include participating – on behalf of the river itself – in any consultations on projects that might affect the river.
When the River Atrato in Colombia was also granted legal rights, the court required the formation of a commission (with representatives from the state and local communities) to train and oversee the work of the guardians.
Moves to give rights to nature are promising. But from Colombia to Canada to Sussex, we’ll need a whole army of nature protectors to actually enforce those rights.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cecilia Manosa Nyblon, Director – We Are the Possible Programme, University of Exeter
Imagine heading into space, landing on the moon and walking in the dust. As you adjust to the weightlessness, you see something unexpected on the horizon. You’re looking back at the Earth, experiencing the “overview effect”. How would you feel? What would you see, hear, touch, taste and smell?
We asked these questions when we launched a creative writing workshop to harness the beauty and power of storytelling, education, theatre, and music to inspire a greener, healthier and fairer world for future generations.
One of us, Cecilia Mañosa Nyblon, brought together a team from the University of Exeter, the Met Office and international experts including marine scientists, poets, soundscape artists, musicians, playwrights and children’s authors who recognise the power of the arts to bridge the gap between science and society.
In 2021, our team launched We Are the Possible. This international award-winning programme brings together artists, scientists, educators and health professionals to connect hearts and minds. Together, we develop creative content and performances that are presented to policymakers and the public at annual UN climate summits and other public events.
As Kathleen Jamie, Scotland’s makar (national poet), said during the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow: “We can’t have that massive event around nature and environment without a poetry presence there.”
Since 2021, this programme has engaged more than 16,000 people in the UK, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan. Our projects have reached more than 33 million people worldwide through mainstream media, social media and online platforms. By inspiring global and local audiences, we hope to mobilise communities to care for and protect our planet.
“We Are the Possible” collaborated with artists, scientists, educators, musicians and schoolchildren to perform at Cop28, the UN climate summit, in Dubai in 2023.
The project’s creative lead, Sally Flint, weaves the words of climate scientists, health professionals, storytellers, artists, youth, educators and translators into an anthology of 12 poems or stories for the 12 days of each UN climate summit, showing what people value most and what’s at stake in our changing planet.
In our anthology for Cop28 (the 2023 climate summit in Dubai), Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who spent years negotiating for climate action at the UN summits, shared that “while this remains vital, I have also realised that connecting with people from the heart and with love is the most powerful place to start.”
Scientists have the data. We have the technological solutions. But governments and leaders are failing to act with urgency. The climate crisis is our biggest communication failure.
Culture has the power to help people imagine and inspire action through dialogue, images, storytelling and shared experiences. But for far too long, the arts, cultural heritage and creative industries have been absent in climate policy frameworks. In 2024, ministers of culture and education gathered in Abu Dhabi to establish a framework which recognises the transformative power and impact of culture and arts education [for sustainable development]https://www.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2024/02/WCCAE_UNESCO%20Framework_EN_0.pdf).
Since Cop28, our team has been working with our partner, a not-for-profit called the Emirates Literature Foundation, to involve Indigenous poets through visual artforms. This involvement shines a light on the importance of Indigenous knowledge in our climate conversations to heal and restore our planet.
We have also collaborated with a sustainable theatre company called The Theatre of Others to deliver The Earth Turns and Bright Light Burning. These immersive theatre performances (inspired by We Are the Possible anthologies) and panel discussions involve both policymakers and the public. After one of the performances, Jonathan Dewsbury, director of capital operations and net zero at the UK government’s Department for Education, told us: “If we don’t grab the arts, the poems, the music and embed them into our top policy thinkers, our top decision-makers, we are not going to make the right choices, the right solutions.”
Carpet weaving is an important part of Azerbaijan’s cultural identity. At Cop29 (the 2024 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan), one group of academics and students at Khazar University in Baku wove a traditional “Chelebi” carpet. This conveyed a message of unity and environmental stewardship through symbolic patterns inspired by We Are the Possible’s anthology.
Ocean-literate cultures
Around 50% of countries have no mention of climate change in their school curriculum, according to Unesco. Most teachers (95%) feel that teaching about climate climate change is important but less than 30% say are ready to teach it. Meanwhile, 75% young people around the world say they are frightened about their future.
Schools Across the Ocean, the education strand of We Are the Possible, is addressing this climate education gap. Led by our colleague, senior lecturer in education Anita Wood, this initiative has already connected more than 2,000 schoolchildren (aged 8-13) and more than 100 teachers in the UK, United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and other countries.
Inspiring children to put their words and artwork of hope about the ocean.
This six-week programme involves providing a toolkit for teachers plus activities and online workshops that engage children in science, art, storytelling and action for the ocean. The goal is for more children to understand why we all need a healthy ocean, develop their sense of agency and inspire others in their local communities to take action too.
Wendy Wilson, headteacher St Anne’s School in Alderney on the Channel Islands, found that Schools Across the Ocean meant that her students were not just learning about climate change. She said they were also “becoming active, global citizens who are climate literate, empowered and full of hope.”
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
We Are the Possible programme has been funded by the University of Exeter, Met Office, British Council, British Embassy Gulf Strategy Fund, British Embassy Azerbaijan, UKRI, AHRC, Knowledge E Foundation,Arts Council England and supported by Emirates Literature Foundation, American University in Cairo, Khorfakkan University, Khazar University, BIMM University, Extreme Hangout, Banlastic, Ocean Generation, Tahrir Cultural Centre, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, Cygnet Theatre, among others.
We Are the Possible programme has been funded by the University of Exeter, Met Office, British Council, British Embassy Gulf Strategy Fund, British Embassy Azerbaijan, UKRI, AHRC, Knowledge E Foundation, Arts Council England and supported by Emirates Literature Foundation, American University in Cairo, Khorfakkan University, Khazar University, BIMM University, Extreme Hangout, Banlastic, Ocean Generation, Tahrir Cultural Centre, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, Cygnet Theatre, among others.
A pre-Hispanic canal funnels water from mountains to farm fields.Ari Caramanica
Seeing the north coast of Peru for the first time, you would be hard-pressed to believe it’s one of the driest deserts in the world.
Parts of the region receive less than an inch of rain in an entire year. Yet, water and greenery are everywhere. This is the nation’s agro-industrial heartland, and, thanks to irrigation canals, almost every inch of the floodplain is blanketed in lucrative export crops, such as sugarcane, asparagus and blueberries.
However, the apparent success of this system masks an underlying fragility.
Water shortages have plagued the region for centuries, and now modern climate change combined with agro-industrial practices have further intensified droughts. In response, the Peruvian government has invested billions of dollars in irrigation infrastructure in recent years designed to deliver more water from a resource more than 100 miles away: glaciers in the Andes.
Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru lost over half its glacier surface area in the past half-century. mmphoto/DigitalVision via Getty Images
Most of the modern canal network originally dates to pre-Hispanic times, more than 1400 years ago. However, evidence suggests that while the canal systems of the past may have looked similar to those of the present, they functioned in more efficient, flexible ways. The key to adapting to our present and future climate may lie in comprehending the knowledge systems of the past – not just the equipment, technology or infrastructure, but how people used it.
An environment of extremes
The north coast of Peru is an environment of extremes.
In this desert, thousands of years ago, societies encountered many of the same challenges posed by the modern climate crisis: expanding drylands, water scarcity, vulnerable food production systems, and frequent, intense natural disasters.
Yet, people not only occupied this area for millennia, they thrived in it. Moche and Chimu societies created sophisticated, complex political and religious institutions, art and technology, and one of the largest pyramidal structures in the Americas.
Relief of fish adorn an adobe wall in the historic Tschudi Complex archaeological site at Chan Chan, the former capital of the Chimu empire in Peru. FabulousFabs/Flickr, CC BY-NC
When the Spanish arrived on the desert north coast of Peru shortly after 1532 C.E., early chroniclers remarked on the verdant, green valleys across the region.
The Spanish immediately recognized the importance of the canal network. They had used similar canal technology in Spain for centuries. So, they set about conscripting Indigenous labor and adapting the irrigation system to their goals.
Just a few decades later, however, historic records describe sand dunes and scrublands invading the green valleys, water shortages, and in 1578 a massive El Niño flood that nearly ended the young colony.
So how did the Indigenous operation of this landscape succeed, where the Spanish and the modern-day agro-industrial complex have repeatedly failed?
Culture was crucial for ancient canal systems
Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective.
Scientists, policymakers and stakeholders searching for models of sustainable agriculture and climate adaptations can look to the archaeological record. Successfully applying past practices to today’s challenges requires learning about the cultures that put those tools to work effectively for so long, so long ago.
The pre-Hispanic societies of Peru developed agricultural principles around the realities of the desert, which included both dry seasons and flash floods.
Large-scale irrigation infrastructure was combined with low-cost, easily modified canals. Aqueducts doubled as sediment traps to capture nutrients. Canal branches channeled both river water and floodwater. Even check-dams – small dams used to control high-energy floods – worked in multiple ways. Usually made of mounded cobble and gravel, they reduced the energy of flash floods, captured rich sediments and recharged the water table.
A drone’s view of sugarcane fields shows a pre-Hispanic adobe aqueduct on the right and small feeder canals in the modern fields. Ari Caramanica
The initial failures of the Spanish on the north coast exemplify the problem of trying to adopt technology without understanding the cultural insights behind it: While they may be identical in form, a Spanish canal isn’t a Moche canal.
Spanish canals operated in a temperate climate and were managed by individual farmers who could maintain or increase their water flow. The Moche and Chimu canal was tied to a complex labor system that synchronized cleaning and maintenance and prioritized the efficient use of water. What’s more, Moche canals functioned in tandem with floodwater diversion canals, which activated during El Niño events to create niches of agricultural productivity amid disasters.
A handmade gate on a modern canal in northern Peru doesn’t seem that different from ancient canals, but the pre-Hispanic canal systems were generally more conceptually complex and interconnected. Ari Caramanica
Desert farming required flexibility and multifunctionality from its infrastructure. Achieving that often meant forgoing impermeable materials and permanent designs, which stands in stark contrast to the way modern-day water management works are constructed.
Copying ancient practices without the culture
Today, the Peruvian government is pushing forward with a decades-old, multibillion-dollar project to deliver water to the north coast from a glacier-fed river.
The Chavimochic project promises a grand transformation, turning desert into productive farmland. But it may be sacrificing long-term resilience for short-term prosperity.
Meanwhile, sustainable land management practices of past Indigenous inhabitants continue to support ecosystems hundreds and even thousands of years later. Studies show higher levels of biodiversity, crucial to ecosystem health, near archaeological sites.
On the Peruvian north coast, pre-Hispanic infrastructure continues to capture floodwater during El Niño events. When their modern-day fields are flooded or destroyed by these events, farmers will sometimes move their crops to areas surrounding archaeological remains where their corn, squash and bean plants can tap into the trapped water and sediments and safely grow without the need for further irrigation.
But this framing misses the bigger point: What made these technologies effective was the cultural stuff. Not just the tools but how they were used by the societies operating them. As long as modern engineering solutions try to update ancient technologies without considering the cultures that made them function, these projects will struggle.
Understanding the past matters
Archaeologists have an important role to play in building a climate-resilient future, but any meaningful progress would benefit from a historical approach that considers multiple ways of understanding the environment, of operating an irrigation canal and of organizing an agriculture-based economy.
That approach, in my view, begins with saving indigenous languages, where cultural logic is deeply embedded, as well as preserving archaeological and sacred sites, and creating partnerships built on trust with the people who have worked with the land and whose cultures have adapted their practices to the changing climate for thousands of years.
Ari Caramanica receives funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Press release
School children in Stockton-on-Tees inspire nature recovery
The activity, centred around Tilery Park, encouraged engagement from residents and schools to understand how the local community view and use green spaces.
Children at Tilery Primary School unleash their inner plants and animals to help boost long-term, local nature recovery.
Children at Tilery Primary School have unleashed their inner plants and animals by putting on a wildlife parade to help boost long-term nature recovery in Teesside.
Delivered through the Tees Nature Recovery Partnership (NRP), the project, aims to encourage engagement from residents to understand how they use or don’t use Tilery Park and to explore barriers to access, plus community-led future aspirations for local green spaces.
The children in Year Five and Six designed animal costumes based on their interpretation of Tilery Park and worked with Teesside University and local artists to design what they would like their green space to look like in 100 years, to remind them about the importance of protecting habitats for local wildlife now.
They worked with photography, textiles and art materials, design and imagination to see, listen and explore Tilery Rec next door to the school. Local community groups also shared their memories and joined in with activities such as bingo and sculpture-making.
Pupils had the chance to show off their work as part of a green space parade which also formed part of their geography curriculum and highlights the school’s dedication to environmental issues.
The parade was filmed by Teesside University’s Sarah Perks and Paul Stewart (working together as Forms of Circulation). They were joined by local artists including Annie O’Donnell, Wil Jackson, Christo Wallers and Lizzie Mckeone for this project.
Children in Year Five and Six designed animal costumes based on their interpretation of Tilery Park
Emma Carter, a teacher at Tilery Primary School, said:
Our Year Five and Six children had a wonderful time learning about Tilery Rec and how it was used in the past, how it is used now and how they would like to see it being used in the future.
It has been great for our children to be out and about in our community. They are incredibly excited about the parade and are looking forward to seeing the photos taken for Natural England. Tilery Primary pupils have really benefitted from this project and are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to take part.
Vicky Ward, Natural England Senior Project Manager for the Tees Estuary Nature Recovery Partnership said:
It is fantastic to see young people’s creativity, passion and enthusiasm in helping to protect our natural habitats here in Teesside.
Good quality green and blue spaces have an important role to play in our urban and rural environments for improving health and wellbeing, nature recovery and climate resilience. Along with addressing issues of economic growth, social inequality and environmental decline.
This project has utilised imaginative approaches to explore how local children, and other residents, perceive and use Tilery Park and the surrounding green spaces. Being able to co-create meaning through the arts, enables residents to participate by sharing their hopes and aspirations on how their local green spaces can be used and valued.
Professor Sarah Perks and Dr Paul Stewart, from Teesside University’s Institute for Collective Place Leadership led the creative project and communities’ engagement for this project as part of their research in curatorial and artistic practice.
Professor Perks, Professor of Curating in the University’s School of Arts & Creative Industries said:
We are dedicated to engaging communities with local nature and connecting with living ecosystems, as part of our work as curators and academics.
Dr Paul Stewart, Principal Lecturer in Research and Innovation in the University’s School of Arts and Creative Industries, added:
We felt inspired by the multiple ways the schoolchildren involved in the project worked collaboratively.
The Tees NRP started in January 2023 and covers an area of 17,200 hectares where Natural England and the Environment Agency, Hartlepool Borough Council, Groundwork NE&C, National Trust, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, RSPB Saltholme, Stockton Borough Council, Teesmouth Field Centre, Tees Rivers Trust, Tees Valley Nature Partnership and Tees Valley Wildlife Trust are developing projects that will deliver nature recovery on the ground as well as improve people’s access and connection to local spaces.
The aim is to create a place which is greener, cleaner and climate resilient, where nature growth is prioritised, cultural heritage is celebrated, and everyone has easy and accessible ways to connect to nature for now and always.
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
Sergei Sobyanin approved improvement plans for 2025, which include comprehensive work on more than 700 streets.
“A city for life — a street improvement plan for 2025 has been approved. More than 700 streets will be transformed. The focus is on upgrading three outbound highways at once: Profsoyuznaya Street, Volgogradsky Prospekt and Shchyolkovskoye Highway. Also in the plans are Novorizhanskoye and Ostashkovskoye Highways, Butyrskaya and Dubninskaya Streets. In the Presnensky District, it is planned to improve Mantulinskaya Street. On Akademika Sakharova Prospekt — the construction of a tram line. And a third tram line will appear next to the Main Entrance of VDNKh. Most of the work will take place outside the city center,” the Moscow Mayor said.
Source: Sergei Sobyanin’s Telegram channel @Mos_Sobyanin
The largest project of 2025 will be the renovation of three outbound highways at once: Profsoyuznaya Street with 60th Anniversary of October Avenue (length – 12.5 kilometers), Volgogradsky Avenue with Marxist Street (length – 12.5 kilometers) and Shchyolkovskoye Highway with Krasnoprudnaya and Bolshaya Cherkizovskaya Streets (length – about nine kilometers). In previous years, such work was not carried out on them or was carried out partially.
The main objective of the improvement is to make the urban environment more comfortable and functional for local residents, while maintaining the transit function of the highways. During the work, overhead cable lines will be moved underground, an additional drainage system will be installed, the pavement of sidewalks and roads will be replaced, modern energy-saving lamps will be installed, and contrast lighting supports will be installed on unregulated pedestrian crossings.
Modern bus stops will be installed for public transport passengers. Ventilation shafts and other engineering structures will receive decorative cladding and will become one of the attractive details of the renovated streets. In addition, small architectural forms will be placed along the roadway, lawns will be laid out, and green spaces will be planted.
To add color to the autumn-winter landscape, green islands with decorative compositions of conifers will be set up on Profsoyuznaya Street and Volgogradsky Prospekt.
As part of the improvement of Profsoyuznaya Street, two children’s playgrounds will be renovated, and on Volgogradsky Prospekt, the dog walking area will be put in order and decorative fencing with an individual design will be installed along industrial enterprises and garage complexes.
In addition, there are plans to put Novorizhanskoe and Ostashkovskoe highways, Butyrskaya and Dubninskaya streets in order.
It is planned to put Mantulinskaya Street in order in the Presnensky district, to make a tram line on Academician Sakharov Avenue and an additional (third) tram line near the main entrance to VDNKh.
The main works will be carried out outside the city center, where it is planned to improve about 700 small district streets. There, the roadway and sidewalks will be resurfaced, convenient approaches and driveways to residential areas, additional pedestrian crossings and rest areas will be created, modern bus stops, traffic lights and road signs, navigation steles and other elements of a comfortable urban environment will be installed. As part of the landscaping, lawns will be tidied up and green spaces will be planted.
The 2025 improvement program became the second stage of implementing the provisions of the Moscow development strategy for the period up to 2040. It is planned to carry out comprehensive work on more than three thousand city streets located outside the historical center.
The first stage of improvement took place in 2024, when 667 streets received a new look, as well as 10 large objects in the city center – Kadashevskaya Embankment with Staromonetny and Pyzhevsky Lanes, lanes near Tsvetnoy Boulevard (2nd Kolobovsky, Likhov, Bolshoy, Sredny and Maly Karetnye). A new tram line was laid on Sergiya Radonezhskogo Street and Rogozhskaya Zastava Square, and comprehensive improvements were carried out.
In addition, within the first stage, more than 20 kilometers of the Yauza River embankments, Komsomolsky Prospekt, the areas adjacent to the main building of the Lomonosov Moscow State University on Vorobyovy Gory, as well as a number of other significant city objects were put in order.
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More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes that a set of seemingly plain, functional objects are in fact a key part of the complex rituals which would ensure the transformation and regeneration of the young king in the afterlife.
Tutankhamun inherited a throne tainted by the shifts in religious and political practices implemented by his father, Akhenaten. His reign had been hallmarked by the move from the capital city of Thebes to a new city, Akhetaten (“the horizon of the Aten”).
Under Akhenaten, the solar deity Aten was elevated above all others, including the principal state god Amun. This resulted in the king being the sole high priest and beneficiary (along with his family) of the Aten. The resulting disconnection between state and religion severely reduced the power and influence of priests and members of the royal court. But on Akhenaten’s death, these were restored by his son.
Tutankhamun was named Tutankh-aten (“the living image of Aten”) at birth, but took the name of Amun back when Thebes was restored as the capital city of Egypt after his accession. This time (known as the Amarna period after the modern name of Akhenaten’s city) and its changes mean that it is more challenging to understand matters such as burial practices, religious rites and so on because it was not necessarily a “typical” time.
Therefore, while we have learned much about funerary practices from Tutankhamun’s tomb, there are objects which are still being reinterpreted.
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The artefacts in focus are a set of four clay trays, approximately 7.5 x 4.0 x 1.2cm, plain in design and apparently quite utilitarian.
This type of artefact is known from other funerary contexts including elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings. They have been described in various ways as mud trays, earthen dishes or troughs. The lack of consistency in terminology and suggestions on function illustrate the difficulty in understanding their precise role in the tomb.
Along with the clay trays are a set of wooden staves, just over a metre long, with a slight angle, and covered with gesso (a white pigment and binder mixture) and gold. In spite of the difference in materials, they were assumed by the man who uncovered the tomb, Howard Carter, to be directly associated with the trays. He believed they were probably intended as bases for the staffs to stand upright.
However, it is clear that they have an even greater function to fulfil as, contextually, everything in the tomb has symbolism and meaning, even down to the wooden boxes for preserved meats, which were intended to sustain Tutankhamun in the afterlife.
The care with which the trays and staff were laid out on matting indicates that they were important for the king’s burial. We might expect a royal burial to be filled with only the finest objects, made of the most valuable materials by elite craftsmen, with the association of materials such as gold with royalty and divinity. The richness of the rest of Tutankhamun’s burial for the most part fulfils this expectation. But, nevertheless, the ordinariness of the clay trays in the light of such riches confirms rather than refutes their significance.
The restoration of order
Following the royal court’s move back to Thebes in the wake of Akhenaten’s death, the restoration of Amun and the other gods was set in motion. The cult centre of Amun at the Temple of Karnak regained its status. The name of Akhenaten and his imagery, along with that of the sun disk, were subjected to a campaign of removal.
Tutankhamun erected the so-called Restoration Stela with titles and epithets invoking the traditional gods, and statements on “having repaired what was ruined … having repelled disorder”. The upheaval of the Amarna Period was reversed.
Discussions in academia on the dismantling of Akhenaten’s regime have tended to focus on issues such as name changes and the destruction of his upstart city. But ancient Egyptian religion had countless centuries of recorded tradition and observance, so profound demonstrations of loyalty to the traditional gods were needed.
The mud trays are now thought to be part of a wider funerary ritual, which both invoked the god Osiris and permitted the transfiguration of Tutankhamun. As king, he was thought to be the embodiment of the god Horus in life, and to become Osiris in death – rejuvenated and resurrected.
Osiris is usually shown as a mummified king, with green or black skin to represent the fertility of the land and the new life which comes from it. It is not a coincidence that the trays are made of mud.
Other aspects of the placement of the trays within the tomb such as specific placement and orientation (including particular symbols in the decoration of the tomb) indicate that the trays had a specific role to play. This may have been as an offering tray for Nile water, once more underlining the role of the river in creating life.
Tutankhamun and his treasures are so familiar today that it is possible to overlook, or even forget, the fact that once the doors were sealed after his funeral they were meant to never be seen again. Some of his grave goods – particularly those made from gold – have outshone others. However, the ordinariness of the trays among all the riches suggests that they are crucial components of his burial. They confirm Tutankhamun as both renewed in death through Osiris, and the king who restored order to Egypt.
Claire Isabella Gilmour 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.
As a specialty registrar in paediatric dentistry, I’ve seen first-hand the pain children experience because of poor oral health. Tooth decay happens when teeth are damaged by acids produced by oral bacteria breaking down sugar from foods and drinks – and although it’s largely preventable – it’s the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged between five and nine in England.
Tooth decay in children is also linked to obesity. Childhood obesity increases the risk of developing other diseases throughout childhood and into adulthood, including diabetes, high blood pressure and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
My research, conducted with colleagues at Loughborough University, explores how acceptable and feasible it is for dental teams to offer weight checks and support, such as referral to weight loss programmes, to patients during routine appointments. In my job as a paediatric dentist, I discuss weight and health with families and offer referral to local healthy lifestyle services.
The World Health Organization estimates that 43% of children have decay worldwide and 20% of children aged 5-19 years are overweight or living with obesity.
In England, 29.3% of five-year-olds have tooth decay and 21.3% of four and five year olds are overweight or living with obesity. A diet high in sugary foods and drinks increases the risk of developing both conditions. and evidence suggests that children who are overweight or living with obesity are more likely to have tooth decay.
Mouth disease is also linked with disease in other parts of the body. Gum disease, for example, is an infection of the tissues that support teeth, which has links with type 2 diabetes. When one disease is poorly controlled, it can make the other worse. The number of children with type 2 diabetes is increasing, with excess weight increasing the risk of developing this condition.
Given the links between diet, tooth decay, obesity, type 2 diabetes, as well as other diseases that can develop when living with obesity, dental teams may be ideal professionals to tackle both tooth decay and obesity. It can be difficult to see an NHS dentist in the UK but NHS dental teams do see millions of children every year and already advise families on reducing sugary foods and drinks in the diet to reduce the risk of tooth decay.
Dental teams taking body measurements is not new. Height and weight measurements to calculate body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat, are already collected by some dental teams. These measurements are helpful when prescribing medication and for planning dental treatment for children who need a general anaesthetic or sedation.
Some hospital dental teams, such as in Edinburgh and Dundee in Scotland, also offer weight and height checks for children and young people as part of routine appointments. The child’s weight is discussed with the child’s parent or carer in a sensitive way and families are offered referral to a local service to support healthy lifestyle changes.
This opportunity to support a child with their oral health as well as weight aligns with the NHS initiative, Making Every Contact Count. Making Every Contact Count calls on all health care professionals to take every opportunity within their appointments with patients to help improve patient health.
Children living in more deprived areas of the UK are at least twice as likely to be living with overweight and obesity. They’re also three times as likely to have tooth decay. The NHS aims to reduce these inequalities among children and has chosen oral health and diabetes as two key areas to improve care for children and young people.
The public have shown support for dental teams to talk about weight at dental visits and offer guidance to lose weight and improve health when done in a supportive way. Research published in 2024, found that over 80% of the public supported weight measurements being taken by dental teams and a discussion of weight at dental appointments. Most of the studies in this review came from the USA.
A UK based survey asked parents and carers if they would feel comfortable with their child(ren)’s weight and height being taken at a dental appointment in a dental practice. The survey found 58% of parents and carers would feel comfortable and a further 12% might feel comfortable with this approach.
This was very similar to how adults completing the survey felt about having their own height and weight measured at a dental appointment with 60% reporting they would feel comfortable and a further 10% saying they may feel comfortable.
Discussing weight can feel uneasy and dental teams say they worry they will upset patients if they talk about weight. Some studies have found dental teams are also concerned they do not have enough time to talk about weight and that they have not had training on how to do this.
However, studies have found when weight checks and support are offered to families by trained dental teams, help is well received and lack of time rarely a problem.
Dental decay and obesity are preventable in many cases. Both conditions can continue into adulthood with the risk of developing other health problems.
Research shows that dental teams are willing to provide support and that children and their families are open to receiving help for obesity. Dental teams do have an important role to play, as well as GPs and allied healthcare professionals, in tackling obesity in children as well as tooth decay.
Jessica Large 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 the years after Nato was formed in 1949, its US and European members had a collective approach to defence with clear goals in common, largely built around the protection of western Europe against the Soviet Union. Throughout this era, the US and Europe both relied on the stability of the international system by creating international cooperation on shared dilemmas.
Fast forward more than 70 years, and there is now a ticking clock on reinventing the transatlantic alliance.
European security and US-led Nato security are no longer one and the same. Certainly, recent statements from US leaders that the US will prioritise empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security has made for tough listening in Europe.
For some, this may be an overdue opportunity to fundamentally rework the transatlantic security relationship. For others, such statements are worryingly set against the backdrop of Trump’s pro-Russia stance, with Trump’s demands sounding sinister at best.
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte recently outlined a need to “build a stronger, a fairer and more lethal NATO”. Global threats were creating a more dangerous world, he argued.
Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, speaks at a 2025 meeting in Brussels,
From its establishment by 12 states on April 4, 1949, until the end of the cold war era, Nato was focused on one big thing: deterring Soviet aggression. Ultimately, Nato had one job, one enemy, one threat, one theatre and one instrument of power.
It was a partnership that enabled the US to build and maintain a more permanent role in European security. This collective security plan prevented the US from falling back into isolationist foreign policies that it had held before the second world war
Arguably, US attitudes fluctuated throughout this era. Initially the country sought a temporary role in Nato, with limited military commitment. It also encouraged western European Nato members to take early and primary responsibility for defence.
However, the huge Soviet nuclear threat hardened US attitudes. And Nato came to be seen as key to the US’s overall ability to prevent a Soviet invasion of western Europe. Equally important was the role of the Marshall Plan, a massive post-war reconstruction plan for Europe, which (in conjunction with Nato) represented the US’s desire to work with European partners to both stabilise the region, and ensure democracy.
Through the decades that followed, the US saw Nato as a cornerstone of its foreign policy. It is important to remember that transactionality has always been an integral part of the transatlantic relationship, but it was never at the expense of the values that underpinned it, and indeed reinforced both US national and European regional interests in doing so.
Throughout the 1990s, and well into the 2000s, Nato clearly represented the US’s preferred method of maintaining its military presence in Europe (including US bases, weapons and troops stationed in member countries). The US drove the redefinition of post-cold war Nato, to include former Warsaw Pact countries including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The question now is whether US leadership in Nato was focused so extensively on security of Europe and pushing back against the Soviets that for a long time the dilemma of who paid for what was essentially set aside.
Long overdue problems?
But two wake-up calls were to come. The first was the increasingly clear indications from US administrations from Barack Obama’s presidency onwards that the US was ill at ease with Nato as a whole, and it was unhappy with the lower financial commitment, than the US, coming from European members.
The second was in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Unfortunately, the first warning sign by Obama was largely ignored; and when Russia invaded Crimea, Nato did not step up to push back against Putin’s expansionism.
Now, Nato finds itself once again in the crosshairs of US anger about funding, and with Trump furious at European defence spending levels, and determined to massively revise the transatlantic bargain.
Trump’s first administration put spending from European Nato members firmly on the table. His recent position is merely a continuation of that theme.
From the European perspective, the US was, and is, a key part of the collective security structure that has empowered European defence and deterrence, but possibly with an out-of-date funding model.
Trump, meanwhile, appears to see the US’s involvement as politically naïve. He seems to view Nato as strategically futile and defence spending imbalances as an indication that Nato is nothing more than a giant security racket.
What is stark is the reversal between the US having helped found Nato and as the leading nation backing of a rule-bound global system under international law and Trump’s preference to reject any responsibilities for global leadership and stability.
What has come as a shock to European members is not perhaps the demands regarding improving defence funding, but the abdication of US leadership and the threat to leave Nato completely, with no ongoing US responsibility to defend the world order.
The onus is now on European Nato members to make both serious and swift changes. Indications of far more serious financial commitments, including from Germany, are emerging. European defence spending overall increased by 11.7% over the last year to roughly €423.3 billion (£371 billion), representing ten years of consecutive regional growth.
Next steps include focusing on AI-led technologies, cheap drones, digital tech and improved commitments to joint projects.
But the hardest task is also the most urgent. Namely, to avoid the chaos of a unilateral US withdrawal from Nato.
There’s a need to move the financial and military burden to Europe in a way agreeable to the US before the Nato summit in June. Discussions on how to achieve this need to cover everything from nuclear deterrence to challenges arising from the conflict in Ukraine.
Whether Rutte and European states can indeed preserve and maintain the collective security foundations on which Nato was first built remains to be seen. But, certainly, the current world situation is no less dangerous that the world in which Nato itself was first built.
Amelia Hadfield 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.
The education of autistic children and young people in western societies has been heavily influenced by a medicalised understanding of autism. This means considering autism as a disorder, with a focus on correcting autistic people’s perceived lacks, rather than building on their strengths.
Autistic learners’ strengths, interests, preferences, goals and values were typically sidelined. Making the learner appear less autistic was the main focus.
This included increasing eye contact and building neurotypical social skills. It involved attempting to reduce stimming: self-stimulatory behaviour, which can include chewing on objects, fidgeting, watching moving objects, and making repetitive sounds.
However, the neurodiversity movement – a social advocacy movement that promotes the idea that neurological differences are an expected and normal part of human variation – has challenged these assumptions. Instead of the autistic learner being viewed as disabled, it suggests the educational environment can be disabling for the autistic learner.
This contrasts with the past when school norms typically did not support the strengths and needs of autistic learners. These children were expected to fit in.
What autistic people want
The autistic voice has been largely missing from educational research and policymaking. My research study with colleagues, co-produced with autistic researchers, set out to change this. We wanted to identify the educational priorities of adult members of the autistic community, as well as teachers supporting autistic learners, in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
We did this by carrying out a survey comprising 34 autistic adults with no role in education (non-educators), ten autistic educators, and 65 non-autistic educators who supported autistic learners. We asked them about priority goals to be included in individual education plans for autistic learners.
The individual education plan is the foundation of inclusive and special education in many countries. It serves as an educational map that charts the learner’s current level of performance and their annual goals. It lays out the steps and resources needed to reach these goals.
In countries such as Finland, the US and UK, an individual learning plan is legally mandated for all learners who make use of special education services. However, this is not the case in the Republic of Ireland. Provisions were made in the 2004 Education for Persons with Special Education Needs Act. Over 20 years later, though, individual education plans are still not compulsory, regulated or assessed in the Republic of Ireland.
This lack of oversight has occurred against the backdrop of a 600% increase in special classes in the Republic of Ireland from 2013 to 2023. Autism classes accounted for 89% of these – 2,466 classes out of a total of 2,754.
Before carrying out the survey, we expected very little overlap in the goal priorities of autistic respondents and non-autistic respondents. We were wrong. Our findings clearly showed significant overlap in the priorities across the groups.
Our survey respondents prioritised goals that promote autonomy, social inclusion and communication. They saw these goals as contributing positively to autistic wellbeing.
On the other hand, academic goals did not feature as a priority for the vast majority of respondents. Academic goals include reading comprehension, writing skills, critical thinking, time management, problem solving and maths skills.
It could be argued that this does a disservice to the educational potential of autistic learners. However, while academic goals are important, wellbeing must come first. Without a strong foundation of physical and mental health, meaningful academic success is difficult to achieve.
Finally, all groups actively discouraged educational goals that focused on improving eye contact and reducing stimming. The overriding consensus was that a focus on changing these aspects of behaviour is detrimental to a learner’s ability to work towards meaningful and functional educational goals including independence, wellbeing and social inclusion.
Prioritising wellbeing
There is growing support for prioritising wellbeing, communication, socialisation and daily living skills over more academic goals. However, teachers may not be equipped to design, teach and monitor goals that align with these priorities of the autistic community.
Teachers in a UK study cited several barriers to supporting autistic learners in their classrooms. Their greatest frustration came from having limited access to autism-specific knowledge and expertise during their initial teacher training.
Similar frustrations were also reported among Irish teachers. Many teachers in the study thought a specialised qualification should be compulsory for those teaching in autism classes.
However, autism prevalence rates are on the rise, and there is an international trend towards inclusive education – educating children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. This means there is a growing likelihood that teachers will find themselves supporting autistic learners.
Research shows that teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and skills towards inclusion are improved if they can go on placements during their training to schools that emphasise a culture of inclusion.
Partnerships between universities and schools could be an important way to make this happen. This could help empower student teachers to go on to design and support effective individual education plans for their autistic learners.
However, without a legal mandate for individual education plans in the Republic of Ireland, initial teacher education and teacher professional development programmes will continue to struggle to effectively prepare teachers for this part of their role.
Laura Gormley works as an assistant professor in Dublin City university and received seed funding from SCoTENS (The Standing Conference on Teacher Education, North and South) to carry out this study.
To attract business investment, American cities and states offer companies billions of dollars in incentives, such as tax credits. As the theory goes, when governments create a business-friendly environment, it encourages investment, leading to job creation and economic growth.
While this theory may seem logical on its face, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Business investment follows employees, not just the other way around. In fact, our research suggests workers care less about whether a city has business-friendly policies and more about how safe they feel living in it. And interestingly, we found that politics influence people’s risk perceptions more than hard data such as crime statistics.
Our findings have major implications for cities and businesses. If people choose where to live and work based on perceived safety rather than economic incentives, then entrepreneurs and city leaders may need to rethink how they approach growth and investment.
The many faces of risk
We are managementprofessors who surveyed more than 500 employees and entrepreneurs from across the country to better understand how they rate 25 large U.S. cities on various dimensions of risk.
We asked about three different types of risk: risk related to crime, government function and social issues. Risk related to government function includes corruption and instability, while risk related to social issues includes potential infringements on individual rights.
We found that people’s views of risk weren’t driven primarily by objective statistics, such as FBI crime data. Instead, they were shaped by factors such as media representations, word of mouth and geographic stereotypes.
For example, studies suggest that crime in Denver has been rising, and U.S. News and World Report recently ranked it as the 10th most dangerous city based on FBI crime reports. However, the employees and entrepreneurs we surveyed ranked Denver as the safest city in the country.
It’s all politics
We found that political perspectives were the main factor biasing the rankings. For example, conservative-leaning employees and entrepreneurs believed that Portland, Oregon, is dangerous, ranking it as America’s ninth-riskiest city. In contrast, those who are liberal-leaning ranked it as the second-safest city in the country.
Both of these beliefs can’t be accurate. Instead, when basing the ranking on objective crime data from the FBI, U.S. News ranked Portland the 15th most dangerous city in the country.
When assessing risk related to how the government functions, conservatives praised politicians in Nashville, Charlotte and Dallas, while the liberals praised those in Denver, Minneapolis and Portland. Similarly, when considering risk related to social issues, conservatives said New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco were “risky,” while the liberals said Tampa, Miami and Houston should be avoided.
Our findings also suggest that political perspectives influence the types of risk that employers and employees care about. For example, conservatives tend to care more about crime-related risk than liberals, and liberals care more about risk related to social issues.
Now what?
We’re not advocating that city leaders drop financial incentives altogether, or that employers ignore them. Evidence suggests that financialincentives and other business-friendly policiesmay be effective at attracting businesses and strengthening local economies.
However, our research suggests that when individuals are making important life decisions about where to live, work and invest, a city’s level of risk matters. Importantly, beliefs about risk are subjective and are biased by political perspectives.
In our view, city leaders must recognize and address concerns about crime, governance and social issues while actively working to improve public perceptions of their cities. Likewise, businesses may want to consider investing in cities that are less politically polarized when making investment decisions.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
On April 7, 2025, Doctor of Economics, Professor Alexey Mikhailovich Lyalin (04.07.1947–07.04.2025) passed away at the age of 78.
The farewell to Alexei Mikhailovich will take place on Thursday, April 10, at 12:00 in the Church of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple (Moscow, Okskaya St., 17).
Alexey Mikhailovich’s entire career is connected with our native university. In 1970, he graduated from the Moscow Engineering and Economics Institute named after S. Ordzhonikidze, where he subsequently worked his way up from a department assistant to the university rector, defending his candidate and doctoral dissertations.
He worked as a senior lecturer, associate professor of the Department of Economics, Organization and Management in Urban Economy until December 1987. At the same time, the staff elected him chairman of the trade union committee of the university. In 1981, he was appointed dean of the preparatory faculty. From 1990 to 2006, he worked as vice-rector for academic work at the State University of Management.
From April 25, 2006 to February 7, 2011, he was the rector of the State University of Management. After that, until 2022, he held the position of head of the project management department. Recently, Aleksey Mikhailovich worked as a professor of the project management department, under his scientific supervision, postgraduate students worked, and a number of scientific studies were conducted. Since 2018, he has been the chairman of the Council of Elders of the State University of Management.
Alexey Mikhailovich was awarded a number of state and departmental awards: the medal “In Memory of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow”, the jubilee certificate of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Construction, Architecture and Housing Policy, the title of “Honorary Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation”, the Certificate of Honor of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” of the 2nd degree.
Alexey Mikhailovich was distinguished by his great diligence, exactingness towards himself and others, and a very friendly attitude towards them. He had well-deserved authority and respect not only among students and the department staff, but also among all university employees.
Alexey Mikhailovich put his whole soul and heart into teaching students, and showed truly paternal care both in terms of their acquiring professional knowledge and in terms of their understanding of their civic responsibility.
The staff of the State University of Management mourns the irreparable loss and offers sincere condolences to his family and friends.
The memory of the talented scientist and outstanding leader Alexei Mikhailovich Lyalin will forever remain in our hearts.
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 04/08/2025
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.
Newly found subatomic phenomenon known as fractional excitons have unique properties predicted by earlier theoretical work
Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, physicists have revealed the presence of a previously unobserved type of subatomic phenomenon called a fractional exciton. Their findings confirm theoretical predictions of a quasiparticle with unique quantum properties that behaves as though it is made of equal fractions of opposite electric charges bound together by mutual attraction.
The discovery was supported by NSF through multiple grants and laboratory work performed at the NSF National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. The results are published in Nature and show potential for developing new ways to improve how information is stored and manipulated at the quantum level, which could lead to faster and more reliable quantum computers.
“Our findings point toward an entirely new class of quantum particles that carry no overall charge but follow unique quantum statistics,” says Jia Li, leader of the research team and associate professor of physics at Brown University. “The most exciting part is that this discovery unlocks a range of novel quantum phases of matter, presenting a new frontier for future research, deepening our understanding of fundamental physics and even opening up new possibilities in quantum computation.”
Li and his team were able to observe fractional excitons by using a phenomenon known as the fractional quantum Hall effect, which occurs when a strong magnetic field is applied to layers of atomically thin materials at very low temperatures. Under these conditions, the electrons flowing through the layers behave as though they have broken up into fractions of a single electron, containing only a portion of a single electron’s negative charge. Identical but opposite fractional amounts of positive charge, called “holes,” were also observed in adjacent layers within the material.
The researchers found that the attraction between the two oppositely charged fractional particles creates the predicted fractional exciton.
“We’ve essentially unlocked a new dimension for exploring and manipulating this phenomenon, and we’re only beginning to scratch the surface,” says Li. “This is the first time we’ve shown that these types of particles exist experimentally, and now we are delving deeper into what might come from them.”
The team’s next steps will involve studying how fractional excitons interact and whether their behavior can be controlled.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime Alerts (c)
SAN ANGELO, TX—The FBI Dallas Field Office and FBI San Angelo Resident Agency partnered with the Angelo State University Police Department (ASUPD) to serve as the host for federal civil rights training for regional law enforcement this week.
The interactive training explains how federal criminal statues related to law enforcement misconduct applies to local and state agencies, and outlines the roles of the FBI and Department of Justice. Presentation materials included body camera footage, scenario-based discussions and case study review.
Dallas FBI Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock explained, “Training is critical to the continued education of our law enforcement population to recognize and prevent potential civil rights violations. We are grateful for Angelo State University Police Department’s commitment to host this session for regional law enforcement, and thank them for their continued partnership.”
The FBI is the primary federal agency responsible for investigating allegations regarding possible violations of federal civil rights statutes and works closely with its partners to prevent and address hate crimes and color of law violations.
More than 25 law enforcement officers from 10 departments participated.
BOSTON and ORLANDO, Fla., April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, at the Ellucian Live conference, Flywire Corporation (Nasdaq: FLYW) (Flywire), a global payments enablement and software company, announced newly deployed integrations with Ellucian, a leading provider of software and services built to power higher education. Flywire’s new integration pathway with Ellucian Ethos, Ellucian’s API layer, enables institutions to accelerate their implementations of Flywire’s solutions, and ensures Flywire can be implemented on any Ellucian instance, including Banner and Colleague SaaS. These new achievements build off of Flywire and Ellucian’s award-winning integrations that enhance the student experience, while reducing complexity for institutions.
George Mason University in the United States leveraged Flywire’s Ellucian Ethos integration to successfully deploy Flywire Collection Management software, allowing, among other things, single sign-on access for students directly from their familiar Banner interface. Additionally, Oxford Brookes University will be the first institution to go live with Flywire’s Ellucian Ethos integration for international payments, making Flywire the first Ethos integration in the United Kingdom.
Flywire successfully deploys Banner integration via Ellucian Ethos at George Mason University
George Mason University, a longtime client using Flywire for cross-border tuition payments, leveraged Flywire’s Student Financial Software (SFS) integration via Ellucian Ethos to implement Flywire’s Collection Management solution. This automates the past-due collection process, providing proactive visibility and alerts to prompt student engagement, offering flexible payment plans, and accelerating collection timelines and cash flow. With the Flywire SFS/Ellucian integration, past-due accounts are loaded seamlessly, communications are automated, and students are always able to see their accurate balance, saving significant time and resources for administrative staff. Additionally, for staff, they can manage all workflows related to the student financial journey from their familiar Banner or Colleague platform.
“As a result of the Flywire SFS integration with Ellucian Banner, our students have secure, single sign-on access to our collection management application,” said Bill Cunningham, Director of Student Accounts at George Mason University. “This makes it easier for them to view their past-due balance and take action before it becomes a collection issue. This also reduces the workload for our internal collections team. The project was also one of the smoothest we’ve seen.”
Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. leverages Flywire’s payments integration with Ellucian Ethos & EPS
One of Ellucian’s earliest adopters to integrate a payment solution via Ellucian Ethos & EPS, Oxford Brookes University in the U.K., is leveraging the integration between Flywire and Ellucian Banner to offer a streamlined payment experience with hundreds of payment choices to their students and families directly within their Banner instance, without significant IT investment. Additionally, Flywire helps their students and families easily make and track payments in native currencies, and they get the benefit of seeing and accessing all payment information within their familiar Banner workflow.
“Embedding Flywire’s payment solution into our student information system makes it a natural part of the workflow – for both students and our finance team,” said a representative from Oxford Brookes. “Regardless of where they are in the world, students can easily and securely view charges and make payments. At the same time, reconciliation is fully automated and our systems are updated in real time. That kind of tight integration will drive huge efficiencies for our finance team.”
Building on a longstanding partnership between Flywire and Ellucian
With a singular focus on higher education, Ellucian has been empowering colleges and universities with powerful, enterprise solutions for over 50 years. Now, more than 2,900 higher education institutions across the globe rely on Ellucian for everything from managing business workflows to improving the student experience. This has been the driving force behind the long-standing partnership between Ellucian and Flywire. Thanks to ongoing innovation and collaboration, Flywire has previously been named an Ellucian Partner of the Year for Integration Excellence, recognition that highlights how Flywire’s integrations reduce complexity for institution administrators wanting to offer a streamlined experience with more flexible payment options to students and their families.
Additional benefits of Ellucian/Flywire integrations include:
Convenient and secure digital payment experience – Flywire’s powerful Global Payment Network allows students to securely pay in 140+ currencies across 240+ countries and territories with hundreds of payment options
Real-time payment and payment plan updates and automated reconciliation – via seamless data flow between Flywire and Ellucian Banner and Ellucian Colleague systems
Consolidated payment options – ability to offer a variety of payment options in one place accelerates funds flow, eases reconciliation, and streamlines financial operations
“Our ability to embed intuitive payment capabilities directly into Ellucian’s existing workflows enables schools to optimize the student financial experience, expand payment options, and streamline their backend financial processes,” said David King, Chief Technology Officer at Flywire. “And as one of the first partners to integrate a payment solution via Ellucian Ethos and EPS, Flywire is committed to building off a longstanding relationship to continue to drive technical innovation for global institutions.”
Zach Tussing, Director of Partnerships, Ellucian, added: “The Flywire and Ellucian teams have been working closely together to deliver an improved integration and an innovative customer experience. Flywire’s powerful global payments network and payments software, integrated with Ellucian’s suite of products, will deliver significant improvements for institutions around the world.”
Resources
To meet with the Flywire team at Ellucian Live:
Visit Flywire booth #234
Attend Flywire’s “Rethink Payments & Collections with University of South Florida & Texas A&M for Student Success” and “Texas A&M Automates Sponsor Invoicing to Drive Efficiency” sessions
See SFS in action during our solution showcase Tuesday, April 8th at 2:55pm ET
Flywire is a global payments enablement and software company. We combine our proprietary global payments network, next-gen payments platform and vertical-specific software to deliver the most important and complex payments for our clients and their customers.
Flywire leverages its vertical-specific software and payments technology to deeply embed within the existing A/R workflows for its clients across the education, healthcare and travel vertical markets, as well as in key B2B industries. Flywire also integrates with leading ERP systems, such as NetSuite, so organizations can optimize the payment experience for their customers while eliminating operational challenges.
Flywire supports more than 4,500 clients with diverse payment methods in more than 140 currencies across 240 countries and territories around the world. Flywire is headquartered in Boston, MA, USA with global offices. For more information, visit www.flywire.com. Follow Flywire on X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn and Facebook.
About Ellucian
With more than 2,900 customers in over 50 countries, Ellucian delivers technology solutions that drive student success and institutional excellence. For more information visit www.ellucian.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding Flywire’s expectations regarding the benefits of its education clients and business, Flywire’s business strategy and plans, market growth and trends. Flywire intends such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as, but not limited to, “believe,” “may,” “will,” “potentially,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “could,” “would,” “project,” “target,” “plan,” “expect,” or the negative of these terms, and similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations that involve risks, changes in circumstances, assumptions, and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in Flywire’s forward-looking statements include, among others, the factors that are described in the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” sections of Flywire’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and available on the SEC’s website athttps://www.sec.gov/. The information in this release is provided only as of the date of this release, and Flywire undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release on account of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.
Washington, D.C., April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — MissionSquare Retirement is pleased to announce the appointment of Betsy Schroeder as head of Retail Products. In this newly created position, Schroeder will be responsible for building out the firm’s retail product offering and solution set.
“At MissionSquare, we understand the important role in- and out-of-plan solutions can play when it comes to serving the holistic needs of individuals and their families,” said Andre Robinson, chief executive officer and president of MissionSquare Retirement. “Introducing this new position to the firm is an important step for our team as we look to build the most optimal and efficient model to align with today’s evolving retirement plan industry. We are thrilled that Betsy will lead the team as she brings an experienced background in retail solutions development.”
Schroeder comes to MissionSquare with more than 25 years of financial services experience and a successful, proven track record of retail product development. Most recently, she was head of Investment Product Management and Relationship Management at MassMutual. In this role, she was responsible for managing and overseeing MassMutual’s broker-dealer investment products and developing and growing the firm’s overall competitive product offering.
“Betsy’s deep industry experience will benefit us greatly as we look to further advance our retail personal wealth offerings,” added Jeffrey Gibson, chief product strategy officer at MissionSquare Retirement. “With a strong history of developing and growing retail product offerings for employers, Betsy will play an instrumental role in expanding our solution set and executing our go-to-market strategy.”
Schroeder earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Bryant University, is a Certified Public Accountant and holds FINRA Series 6 and 26 licenses. She is based in Canton, Conn., and reports directly to Gibson.
MissionSquare continues to grow and expand its solutions to further strengthen its position in the market. This includes introducing new tools and resources to help employees and their families build retirement security.
About MissionSquare Retirement
Since its founding in 1972, MissionSquare Retirement has been dedicated to simplifying the path to retirement security for public service employees. As a mission-based, nonstock, nonprofit financial services company, we manage and administer over $72.0 billion in assets.* Our commitment to delivering results-oriented retirement plans, education, investments, and personalized advice sets us apart. Explore how we enable public service workers to build a secure financial future. For more information, visit www.missionsq.org or follow the company on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.
*As of Dec. 31, 2024. Includes 457(b) plans, 401(a) plans, 403(b) plans, Retirement Health Savings plans, Employer Investment Program plans, affiliated IRAs, and investment-only assets.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Alma Adams (12th District of North Carolina)
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, Ph.D. (NC-12), founder and co-chair of the Bipartisan Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Caucus and an HBCU art professor of 40 years, introduced the HBCU Arts Act, investing in arts education and conservation at HBCUs.
“Art is a universal language that allows people everywhere to experience and celebrate unique cultures and communities. It expands our worldview,”said Congresswoman Alma Adams. “Unfortunately, art programs and departments are often among the first ones cut when schools face financial hardship. Through the HBCU Arts Act, we can provide a historic investment to our HBCUs and ensure these programs remain accessible to our students of color for generations to come.”
The HBCU Arts Act aims to remove financial and other barriers to arts education and conservation for HBCUs, making these programs more accessible to their students. This bill recognizes the importance of fostering a diverse generation of artists and art professionals who are essential for creating, conserving, educating, and supporting African American art.
Specifically, the HBCU Arts Act:
Provides financial and other assistance to students in arts, arts education, and cultural programs.
Establishes outreach programs and development offices for arts, arts education, and cultural arts departments.
Provides comprehensive wraparound services for arts, arts education, and cultural students, including faculty and peer mentorship, work-based learning opportunities, guidance counseling, and career advising.
Exhibits, maintains, monitors, and protects African American art collections in exhibition and in storage.
Provides well-paid apprenticeship, internship, and fellowship opportunities to students in arts, arts education, and cultural programs through partnerships with nonprofit arts, arts education, and cultural institutes.
The HBCU Arts Act has a number of prominent organizations endorsing the bill, including Americans for the Arts, and the National Association for Music Education.
“As a Howard University graduate with a background in business and art history, I witnessed how HBCUs foster artistic excellence and creative leadership,”said Americans for the Arts CEO Erin Harkey.“The HBCU Arts Act is a smart, crucial investment that addresses historical funding inequities and establishes the support systems our students deserve. This legislation aligns with Americans for the Arts’ mission to ensure that arts and culture enrich every community. We fully endorse this bill and are prepared to mobilize our national network of arts leaders to amplify its impact. We commend Representative Adams for her vision in creating sustainable pathways that will strengthen HBCU arts programs and the future of American culture.”
“The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) is proud to once again endorse the HBCU Arts Act, reintroduced by Congresswoman Alma Adams,”said Dr. Deborah Confredo, President of the National Association for Music Education.“This important legislation addresses longstanding inequities in funding for arts programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. These institutions have historically nurtured extraordinary artistic talent, often in the face of systemic barriers. By providing targeted support to strengthen music and arts programs at HBCUs, this bill takes a meaningful step toward diversifying the pipeline of professional artists and educators. Artistic expression is both a reflection of and a pathway to understanding the complexity of human experience. Ensuring that creators from a broad spectrum of cultural and historical backgrounds are supported in their development is essential to the health and vitality of our field. NAfME remains steadfast in its commitment to equitable access to high-quality music and arts education, and we strongly urge the 119th Congress to advance this legislation.”
“HBCU Art Programs and the National Alliance of Artists from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (NAAHBCU) promotes art and art education with HBCUs, fostering artistic and life skills for students, and providing opportunities for artists and art professionals,”said Dr. Willie Hooker, Professor of Art at North Carolina A&T University.
HBCUs have an outsized impact on art:
HBCUs have a long-standing legacy of producing African American artists, fostering the careers of artists from Augusta Savage to Megan thee Stallion and everyone in between.
HBCUs are some of the most comprehensive collectors of art produced by artists of color. The Hampton University Museum remains the country’s oldest African American museum and houses one of the largest collections of African, African American, and Indigenous arts in the United States.
Arts and cultural production is a quickly growing economic center. In 2022, arts and cultural economic activity accounted for 4.3% of the GDP, or $1.1 trillion.
The bill is cosponsored by (12): Reps. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL-20), Joyce Beatty (OH-03), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Shontel Brown (OH-11), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-At-Large), Melanie Stansbury (NM-01), Frederica Wilson (FL-24), Terri Sewell (AL-07), Jonathan L. Jackson (IL-01), Valerie Foushee (NC-4), Maxwell Frost (FL-10), Andre Carson (IN-7).
Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:
ABUJA, Nigeria, April 8, 2025/APO Group/ —
Nigeria’s food and agriculture sector is set to enter a new era of industrialization, as the Nigerian government, the African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org), and the State government of Kaduna kickstart the construction of Phase 1 of the Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) program.
The groundbreaking ceremony starts in Kaduna on Tuesday, 8 April, where the chief guest, African Development Bank Group President Dr Akinwumi Adesina, will join Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, and the State Governor of Kaduna, Uba Sani. From Kaduna, Dr Adesina will head to Cross River State, where, together with the Federal Government and the State Governor, Bassey Edet Otu, a second groundbreaking ceremony will take place.
The $538 million first phase of the Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones program project includes eight states: Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Cross River, Imo, Ogun, Oyo, and the Federal Capital Territory. The program launched in 2022 with $210 million from the African Development Bank and support from the Islamic Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and ARISE Integrated Industrial Platforms.
The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones program will boost Nigeria’s food production and reduction importation, generate jobs for youth, safeguard the country’s foreign exchange, and transform rural areas from areas of misery into zones of prosperity.
Last year, Nigeria spent $4.7 billion importing food. The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones program is designed to reverse this trend by unlocking local production potential and strengthening agro-industrial value chains nationwide.
This initiative will increase agricultural productivity by over 60%, reduce post-harvest losses and strengthen value chains from farm to market. The cities of Kaduna and Cross River will host the Agro-Industrial Hubs, Agricultural Transformation Centers, and Aggregation Centers in the production zones, which are the foundational building blocks of the SAPZ program.
The program has the potential to create more than 60,000 jobs in each of the pioneering states. The sites were strategically selected for their agricultural potential, infrastructure readiness, and prime geographical location, ensuring they drive Nigeria’s agro-industrial growth. For Kaduna, the focus will be on maize, soybeans, ginger, and tomatoes. Cross River will leverage its cocoa, cassava, and rice. Additionally, for both states, the SAPZ sites are located near major universities, such as Ahmadu Bello University in Kaduna and the University of Calabar in Cross River. Proximity to universities will provide access to research, innovation, and skilled human capital, further strengthening the agro-industrial transformation.
Several other state governors, federal government officials, and development partners will attend the two groundbreaking ceremonies. With 37% of the African Development Bank Group’s $5.1 billion Nigeria portfolio dedicated to private sector initiatives, Nigeria presents substantial opportunities for partnership in its ongoing development.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Stanford University today jointly announced a research project with Stanford Medicine to initiate an innovative health solution based on Samsung’s obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) feature1 which has received De Novo — the first of its kind authorization — by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In recognition of World Health Day, this project underscores the importance of sleep in overall health by taking further steps in proactive care, beginning with a pioneering study.
Led by professor Robson Capasso as principal investigator and professor Clete Kushida as co-principal investigator, the joint study is designed to explore potential ways to further enhance Samsung’s Sleep Apnea feature to better support sleep health through timely interventions. Looking ahead, efforts will focus on going beyond detection by leveraging AI technology for daily monitoring to sleep apnea management, empowering users with the best possible sleep tools to improve their health.
Samsung’s Sleep Apnea feature on the Galaxy Watch2, which detects signs of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, previously received authorization by the US FDA following approval by Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS). With its latest approval by Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), the feature will become available to users in Brazil in late April, increasing availability to 29 markets globally. The Sleep Apnea feature will continue to be expanded to more countries around the world, allowing more people to proactively spot symptoms earlier, which help prevent further long-term OSA health-related complications.
“The ethical, equitable and evidence-based use of technology, after its validation through research is crucial in developing new approaches to detection and management of sleep apnea and other serious sleep-related health conditions,” said Robson Capasso, MD, FAASM, Chief of Sleep Surgery, Professor of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, former Associate Dean of Research, Stanford University School of Medicine. “We are excited about this groundbreaking collaboration and proud to be initiating a study utilizing smartwatches, a friendly and commonly accepted wearable”
“This collaboration with Stanford Medicine will combine our deep technological expertise with Stanford’s leading research capabilities to unlock new innovation in preventive care,” said Dr. Hon Pak, Senior Vice President and Head of the Digital Health Team, Mobile eXperience Business, Samsung Electronics. “Together, we aim to move beyond screening to also provide more meaningful daily support that helps people better understand and manage their sleep health.”
Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Lowrey, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain and Health Sciences, Northeastern University
Farmworkers at Del Bosque Farms pick and pack melons on a mobile platform in Firebaugh, Calif., in July 2021.AP Photo/Terry Chea
Agricultural employers who provide farmworkers with health insurance earn higher profits, even after accounting for the cost of that coverage. In addition, farmworkers who get health insurance through their employers are more productive and earn more money than those who do not.
These are the key findings from our study published in the March 2025 issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
To conduct this research, we crunched over three decades of data from the Labor Department’s National Agricultural Workers Survey. We focused on California, the nation’s largest producer of fruits, nuts and other labor-intensive agricultural products in the U.S., from 1989 to 2022.
We determined that if 20% more farmworkers got health insurance coverage, they would have earned $23,063 a year in 2022, up from $22,482 if they did not. Their employers, meanwhile, would earn $7,303 in net profits per worker annually in this same scenario, versus $6,598.
Despite labor shortages, agricultural employers may be reluctant to increase total compensation for farmworkers. They may also be wary of providing additional benefits such as health insurance for two main reasons.
First, seasonal workers are, by definition, transient, meaning that the employer who provides coverage may not necessarily be the same one who benefits from a healthier worker. Second, it costs an employer money but doesn’t necessarily benefit them in the future if the worker moves on.
As the share of farmworkers who are unauthorized immigrants has declined, the share who are U.S. citizens – including those born here – has grown and now stands at about 39%.
The low wages farmworkers earn offer little incentive for more U.S. citizens and permanent residents to take these jobs. These jobs might become more attractive if employers offered health care coverage to protect the health of the worker and their household.
Farmworkers who lack legal authorization to be in the U.S. are not eligible for private health insurance policies, and many can’t enroll in Medicaid, a government-run health insurance program that’s primarily for low-income Americans and people with disabilities. Regardless, some employers do take steps to help them gain access to health care services. As of 2025, a large share of farmworkers remain uninsured, including many citizens and immigrants with legal status.
Limited access to health care is an unfortunate reality for farmworkers, whose jobs are physically demanding and dangerous. In addition, farmworkers are paid at or near the minimum wage and are constantly searching for their next employment opportunity. This uncertainty causes high levels of stress, which can contribute to chronic health issues such as hypertension.
What still isn’t known
It is hard to estimate the effect of employer-provided health insurance on workers and employers, since labor market outcomes are a result of highly complex interactions.
For example, wages, productivity and how long someone keeps their job are highly interdependent variables determined by the interaction between what workers seek and what employers offer. And wages do not always reflect a worker’s skills and abilities, as some people are more willing to accept a job with low pay if their compensation includes good benefits such as health insurance.
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gregory H. Shill, Professor of Law & Michael and Brenda Sandler Faculty Fellow in Corporate Law, University of Iowa
When Congress passed a law in 2024 to ban TikTok unless it came under U.S. ownership, lawmakers argued that the app’s Chinese parent company posed national security concerns. The Trump administration, which had granted the viral video app a reprieve shortly after taking office in January 2025, extended that pause again on April 4 after the Chinese government reportedly scuttled a planned deal.
Regardless of how this all shakes out, the TikTok fight underscores deeper concerns about who controls social media in the United States.
Given that worry, it might surprise Americans to learn that nearly every social media giant is controlled by just one or two men. For example, Mark Zuckerberg controls Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, while Larry Page and Sergey Brin control Alphabet, which owns YouTube and Google.
What does “control” mean? These companies are publicly traded – anybody can buy or sell their shares – but a legal mechanism known as dual-class stock gives founders extra votes in shareholder decisions. The dual-class structure crowns these men “corporate royalty,” as one former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner has put it, granting them near-absolute control of corporate policy and resources without requiring them to take on commensurate financial risk.
While TikTok is unusual in many respects, the way it vests power in one man is actually quite banal. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is privately held, but it’s reportedly controlled by a co-founder, Chinese national Zhang Yiming, via a dual-class structure.
As a professor of corporate law, I’d urge policymakers and the public to consider the societal risks of a system that allows a single person to wield full control over a major corporation through dual-class stock.
The dual-class effect: Meta as a case study
In a standard single-class structure – where voting power tracks the amount of company equity a shareholder owns – someone seeking total control of a company must ordinarily spend a lot of money buying up shares, which also means assuming a lot of risk. This “skin in the game” requirement limits how much influence a single person can exert on a company.
That safeguard is informal, not mandatory, and dual-class structures do away with it. Ascendant among Silicon Valley firms since Google’s 2004 initial public offering in the U.S. and recently legalized in the U.K., the dual-class model is fiercely debated in corporate governance circles. To date, however, its downsides have been understood only as a problem for shareholders, not society, despite broad and bipartisan concern about the influence of Big Tech.
This setup gives him a lock on corporate policy as a controlling shareholder, even though he only owns a bit over one-eighth of Meta stock by value. He has full control of the company without placing anywhere near an equivalent amount of money at risk.
You don’t have to be the parent of an Instagram-addicted teenager to see that Meta has generated what might be described as social costs. For example, Amnesty International has alleged that Facebook algorithms “substantially contributed to the atrocities perpetrated by the Myanmar military” in 2017. Facebook has also been criticized for promoting misinformation during past U.S. elections and for suppressing embarrassing stories about Hunter Biden.
These examples underscore broader social concerns around content moderation, privacy and tech titans’ outsized political influence. Notably, Zuckerberg – who has been associated with progressive causes in the past – has moved to embrace President Donald Trump strongly in recent months and asked for Trump’s support for Meta in a legal battle with the European Union.
When corporate control meets the Supreme Court
In a 2023 law journal article, I noted that recent Supreme Court decisions expanding corporate constitutional rights stand to give company founders unprecedented power to shape society. While the rise of founder-controlled social media giants with distinct political agendas has gotten a lot of attention, the widening scope of what is deemed protected corporate speech and religious exercise hasn’t been a part of that conversation.
I think there’s a real possibility that these two streams will converge, granting constitutional protection to “founder kings” who wish to leverage company resources for private agendas. Two recent legal developments raise the stakes.
First, the courts – and in particular the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts – have been expanding corporate constitutional rights, which could allow dual-class founders to carve out exceptions to generally applicable laws.
To get a sense of the potential consequences, suppose the controlling shareholder of a dual-class company were to cause it to defy a federal mandate – for example, a requirement to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception – on the grounds that complying would violate their religious beliefs. The Supreme Court in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell recognized exactly this sort of faith-based exception for a large family-owned but privately held business.
Would it recognize such an exception for a company like Snap? The company, best known for its app Snapchat, is publicly traded, but just two men, Robert Murphy and Evan Spiegel, control 99.5% of the voting power.
We can’t be sure. Hobby Lobby is different from Snap in many ways. Yet what they have in common is the ability of their owners to plausibly claim a unitary speech or religious exercise interest that would not characterize a typical large business. Snap’s public owners have no say at all – zero votes – in the company’s affairs. If the controllers of Snap asserted a religious basis for exempting the company from a regulation – and to be clear, this is a purely hypothetical example – the courts might well indulge the claim.
The judicial system’s expanding view of corporate constitutional rights – seen not just in Hobby Lobby but in Citizens United v. FEC and a number of more recent and ongoing cases in state and lower federal courts – could empower founders to leverage their businesses for private agendas. Whether or not this is likely for Snap in particular, the combination of the dual-class model and changes in the law would seem to leave the door open.
Elon Musk vs. the dual-class model
A fitting contrast might be none other than Twitter – renamed X after Elon Musk acquired it and who recently merged it into xAI, another Musk-led venture.
As a privately held company, xAI is not required to file public investor reports, and much about its ownership structure remains opaque. But let’s assume the company is majority-owned by Musk in a conventional single-class structure – the type Twitter had before he bought it. Given a chance to provoke, Musk has consistently proved eager to raise his hand. Couldn’t he use his control to get X or xAI – we’ll stick with “X” for simplicity – to exercise the same vast control that Murphy and Spiegel could at Snap, or Zuckerberg at Meta?
Yes – but with a subtle yet important difference.
There’s a certain logic to X’s key corporate decisions being vested in Musk. Quite famously, he ponied up US$44 billion to buy the entire company. Legal prohibitions on the deployment of private resources for influence are confined to a small universe of cases – antitrust, bribery, certain types of campaign contributions. Those resources include businesses, which are a form of property, that are owned by wealthy individuals or groups. With limited exceptions, people can use their own property as they wish.
In a dual-class company, though, controllers use other people’s property as they wish. They can get the immense legal, economic and organizational power of the corporate form without having to put much skin in the game.
Beyond TikTok: The conversation the US should be having
Traditionally, questions of rich-guy influence have been seen through the lens of politics, taxes or public regulation. But seeing them as questions about the exercise of private corporate control makes clear the special social challenges posed by dual-class stock.
Wall Street has mostly accepted the bargain: ironclad insulation of Zuckerberg in exchange for rock-solid Meta returns. But this debate is not only of interest for the investment community. Everyone has a stake in its outcome.
It’s fair for the public to question the wisdom of allowing company founders to leverage the resources and newly jumbo-sized constitutional rights of large corporations in service of a special agenda – be it for a foreign government, a political party or a religious faith – that isn’t even connected to classical purposes of the corporation or advantages of the dual-class model.
The distinctive risks posed by TikTok are mostly unrelated to its share structure. But the debate over the ban-or-sell law offers a reminder: The powers created by dual-class stock aren’t unique to Chinese control. America’s homegrown-found kings wield them, too.
Gregory H. Shill 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.
To attract business investment, American cities and states offer companies billions of dollars in incentives, such as tax credits. As the theory goes, when governments create a business-friendly environment, it encourages investment, leading to job creation and economic growth.
While this theory may seem logical on its face, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Business investment follows employees, not just the other way around. In fact, our research suggests workers care less about whether a city has business-friendly policies and more about how safe they feel living in it. And interestingly, we found that politics influence people’s risk perceptions more than hard data such as crime statistics.
Our findings have major implications for cities and businesses. If people choose where to live and work based on perceived safety rather than economic incentives, then entrepreneurs and city leaders may need to rethink how they approach growth and investment.
The many faces of risk
We are managementprofessors who surveyed more than 500 employees and entrepreneurs from across the country to better understand how they rate 25 large U.S. cities on various dimensions of risk.
We asked about three different types of risk: risk related to crime, government function and social issues. Risk related to government function includes corruption and instability, while risk related to social issues includes potential infringements on individual rights.
We found that people’s views of risk weren’t driven primarily by objective statistics, such as FBI crime data. Instead, they were shaped by factors such as media representations, word of mouth and geographic stereotypes.
For example, studies suggest that crime in Denver has been rising, and U.S. News and World Report recently ranked it as the 10th most dangerous city based on FBI crime reports. However, the employees and entrepreneurs we surveyed ranked Denver as the safest city in the country.
It’s all politics
We found that political perspectives were the main factor biasing the rankings. For example, conservative-leaning employees and entrepreneurs believed that Portland, Oregon, is dangerous, ranking it as America’s ninth-riskiest city. In contrast, those who are liberal-leaning ranked it as the second-safest city in the country.
Both of these beliefs can’t be accurate. Instead, when basing the ranking on objective crime data from the FBI, U.S. News ranked Portland the 15th most dangerous city in the country.
When assessing risk related to how the government functions, conservatives praised politicians in Nashville, Charlotte and Dallas, while the liberals praised those in Denver, Minneapolis and Portland. Similarly, when considering risk related to social issues, conservatives said New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco were “risky,” while the liberals said Tampa, Miami and Houston should be avoided.
Our findings also suggest that political perspectives influence the types of risk that employers and employees care about. For example, conservatives tend to care more about crime-related risk than liberals, and liberals care more about risk related to social issues.
Now what?
We’re not advocating that city leaders drop financial incentives altogether, or that employers ignore them. Evidence suggests that financialincentives and other business-friendly policiesmay be effective at attracting businesses and strengthening local economies.
However, our research suggests that when individuals are making important life decisions about where to live, work and invest, a city’s level of risk matters. Importantly, beliefs about risk are subjective and are biased by political perspectives.
In our view, city leaders must recognize and address concerns about crime, governance and social issues while actively working to improve public perceptions of their cities. Likewise, businesses may want to consider investing in cities that are less politically polarized when making investment decisions.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A pre-Hispanic canal funnels water from mountains to farm fields.Ari Caramanica
Seeing the north coast of Peru for the first time, you would be hard-pressed to believe it’s one of the driest deserts in the world.
Parts of the region receive less than an inch of rain in an entire year. Yet, water and greenery are everywhere. This is the nation’s agro-industrial heartland, and, thanks to irrigation canals, almost every inch of the floodplain is blanketed in lucrative export crops, such as sugarcane, asparagus and blueberries.
However, the apparent success of this system masks an underlying fragility.
Water shortages have plagued the region for centuries, and now modern climate change combined with agro-industrial practices have further intensified droughts. In response, the Peruvian government has invested billions of dollars in irrigation infrastructure in recent years designed to deliver more water from a resource more than 100 miles away: glaciers in the Andes.
Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru lost over half its glacier surface area in the past half-century. mmphoto/DigitalVision via Getty Images
Most of the modern canal network originally dates to pre-Hispanic times, more than 1400 years ago. However, evidence suggests that while the canal systems of the past may have looked similar to those of the present, they functioned in more efficient, flexible ways. The key to adapting to our present and future climate may lie in comprehending the knowledge systems of the past – not just the equipment, technology or infrastructure, but how people used it.
An environment of extremes
The north coast of Peru is an environment of extremes.
In this desert, thousands of years ago, societies encountered many of the same challenges posed by the modern climate crisis: expanding drylands, water scarcity, vulnerable food production systems, and frequent, intense natural disasters.
Yet, people not only occupied this area for millennia, they thrived in it. Moche and Chimu societies created sophisticated, complex political and religious institutions, art and technology, and one of the largest pyramidal structures in the Americas.
Relief of fish adorn an adobe wall in the historic Tschudi Complex archaeological site at Chan Chan, the former capital of the Chimu empire in Peru. FabulousFabs/Flickr, CC BY-NC
When the Spanish arrived on the desert north coast of Peru shortly after 1532 C.E., early chroniclers remarked on the verdant, green valleys across the region.
The Spanish immediately recognized the importance of the canal network. They had used similar canal technology in Spain for centuries. So, they set about conscripting Indigenous labor and adapting the irrigation system to their goals.
Just a few decades later, however, historic records describe sand dunes and scrublands invading the green valleys, water shortages, and in 1578 a massive El Niño flood that nearly ended the young colony.
So how did the Indigenous operation of this landscape succeed, where the Spanish and the modern-day agro-industrial complex have repeatedly failed?
Culture was crucial for ancient canal systems
Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective.
Scientists, policymakers and stakeholders searching for models of sustainable agriculture and climate adaptations can look to the archaeological record. Successfully applying past practices to today’s challenges requires learning about the cultures that put those tools to work effectively for so long, so long ago.
The pre-Hispanic societies of Peru developed agricultural principles around the realities of the desert, which included both dry seasons and flash floods.
Large-scale irrigation infrastructure was combined with low-cost, easily modified canals. Aqueducts doubled as sediment traps to capture nutrients. Canal branches channeled both river water and floodwater. Even check-dams – small dams used to control high-energy floods – worked in multiple ways. Usually made of mounded cobble and gravel, they reduced the energy of flash floods, captured rich sediments and recharged the water table.
A drone’s view of sugarcane fields shows a pre-Hispanic adobe aqueduct on the right and small feeder canals in the modern fields. Ari Caramanica
The initial failures of the Spanish on the north coast exemplify the problem of trying to adopt technology without understanding the cultural insights behind it: While they may be identical in form, a Spanish canal isn’t a Moche canal.
Spanish canals operated in a temperate climate and were managed by individual farmers who could maintain or increase their water flow. The Moche and Chimu canal was tied to a complex labor system that synchronized cleaning and maintenance and prioritized the efficient use of water. What’s more, Moche canals functioned in tandem with floodwater diversion canals, which activated during El Niño events to create niches of agricultural productivity amid disasters.
A handmade gate on a modern canal in northern Peru doesn’t seem that different from ancient canals, but the pre-Hispanic canal systems were generally more conceptually complex and interconnected. Ari Caramanica
Desert farming required flexibility and multifunctionality from its infrastructure. Achieving that often meant forgoing impermeable materials and permanent designs, which stands in stark contrast to the way modern-day water management works are constructed.
Copying ancient practices without the culture
Today, the Peruvian government is pushing forward with a decades-old, multibillion-dollar project to deliver water to the north coast from a glacier-fed river.
The Chavimochic project promises a grand transformation, turning desert into productive farmland. But it may be sacrificing long-term resilience for short-term prosperity.
Meanwhile, sustainable land management practices of past Indigenous inhabitants continue to support ecosystems hundreds and even thousands of years later. Studies show higher levels of biodiversity, crucial to ecosystem health, near archaeological sites.
On the Peruvian north coast, pre-Hispanic infrastructure continues to capture floodwater during El Niño events. When their modern-day fields are flooded or destroyed by these events, farmers will sometimes move their crops to areas surrounding archaeological remains where their corn, squash and bean plants can tap into the trapped water and sediments and safely grow without the need for further irrigation.
But this framing misses the bigger point: What made these technologies effective was the cultural stuff. Not just the tools but how they were used by the societies operating them. As long as modern engineering solutions try to update ancient technologies without considering the cultures that made them function, these projects will struggle.
Understanding the past matters
Archaeologists have an important role to play in building a climate-resilient future, but any meaningful progress would benefit from a historical approach that considers multiple ways of understanding the environment, of operating an irrigation canal and of organizing an agriculture-based economy.
That approach, in my view, begins with saving indigenous languages, where cultural logic is deeply embedded, as well as preserving archaeological and sacred sites, and creating partnerships built on trust with the people who have worked with the land and whose cultures have adapted their practices to the changing climate for thousands of years.
Ari Caramanica receives funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities.
Over the past few weeks, as negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine drag on, I’ve thought back to Feb. 28, 2025: the day of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s heated visit to the Oval Office.
Zelenskyy has called the tone of the meeting “regrettable” as he tries to salvage support for Ukraine. But in some ways, he has stood by his decision to speak up as President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated his country, calling it ungrateful for foreign assistance. “In that conversation, I was defending the dignity of Ukraine,” he told Time magazine.
Watching Zelenskyy left me thinking about political courage. Philosophers have written about bravery for thousands of years, but what is it?
Some of my own recent research in philosophy of education has also focused on courage. In particular, I have been interested in Paul Tillich’s notion of the “courage to be,” as well as its implications for politics and education. Tillich was a German philosopher and theologian who left the country after the Nazis rose to power.
Born in a village in eastern Germany in 1886, Tillich lived in a Europe ravaged by two world wars. As such, he experienced firsthand the fundamental anxiety that many felt during this period of prolonged violence and destruction.
In the early 1930s, Tillich wrote “The Socialist Decision,” which can be interpreted as a challenge to right-wing populist movements. The Nazis banned the book, and he soon immigrated to the United States, where he would spend the rest of his life and write his most important philosophical and theological works.
Tillich’s book “The Courage to Be,” published in 1952, is based on a series of lectures that he delivered at Yale University. Tillich was inspired to address courage, since he viewed this concept as one that integrates theological, sociological and philosophical problems. Moreover, Tillich suggests that this concept was useful for understanding societies’ challenges after World War II.
At its core, the book springs from an attempt to respond to anxiety: people’s anxious search for meaning and security, especially as many people lost faith in the religious traditions that once anchored their sense of purpose and reality. There is courage, Tillich writes, in affirming oneself despite that sense of emptiness, and despite the knowledge that our lives are short and uncertain.
Tillich defines “the courage to be” as “the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite of those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation.” In other words, it is not simply an attitude or disposition. The courage to be is a deed – the ability to stay true to oneself.
When it comes to ethics or politics, Tillich’s idea of courage entails the ability to sacrifice things such as pleasure, happiness and, in the most extreme cases, one’s life for some higher cause. Such acts of courage are praiseworthy because they suggest that the most ethically essential parts – the noble aspects – of our being are prevailing over the less essential.
In spite of, a part of
What Tillich calls “courage to be” consists of two indivisible parts or aspects.
The first is what he refers to as “the courage to be in spite of”: courageously choosing to affirm one’s essential being, one’s core values, despite tough and even daunting forces of resistance.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle for civil rights during the 1960s provides a good example of this aspect of the courage to be. Documentary evidence indicates that the FBI tried to destroy his reputation with blackmail and wiretaps, not to mention the close to 30 times he was jailed.
Martin Luther King Jr., kneeling on left, leads marchers singing and praying during a protest against segregated housing policies in Chicago in August 1966. AP Photo/File
The second aspect Tillich describes in his book is “the courage to be as a part,” to partake in something larger than oneself. Tillich writes that “the self is self only because it has a world, a structured universe, to which it belongs.” The courage to be as a part could mean participating in a political movement, a religious community, a worker strike, or any other initiative that involves people coming together for a common purpose.
For Tillich, these types of courage should not be considered separate qualities but two interrelated aspects of the courage to be.
At Zelenskyy’s meeting in the Oval Office, I believe we witnessed a leader embodying both senses of the courage to be. As a president, Zelenskyy stood up for the right of his country to defend itself in the face of Russia’s assault. He remained steadfast in spite of efforts by Trump and Vance to pressure him to accept an agreement that would not have provided security guarantees for Ukraine.
Yet it seemed to me the plainspoken, animated Zelenskyy also displayed Tillich’s notion of the courage to be as a part. He acted not only as an individual, or a politician, but as a Ukrainian trying to defend his country from an invader − a cause that has inspired protests around the globe.
Mordechai Gordon 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.
Altadena is inherently prone to fire. But Black residents are the most vulnerable. Mario Tama/Getty Images
The damage from the Eaton Fire wasn’t indiscriminate. The blaze that ravaged the city of Altadena, California, in January 2025, killing 17 people and consuming over 9,000 buildings, destroyed Black Altadenans’ homes in greatest proportion.
About 48% of Black-owned homes sustained major damage or total destruction, compared with 37% of those owned by Asian, Latino or white Altadenans, according to a February 2025 report from the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.
The Eaton Fire’s uneven devastation reveals a pattern of racial discrimination previously concealed along neat blocks of mid-century, ranch-style homes and tree-lined streets.
‘A place for white people only’
In the early 20th century, Altadena was a professional enclave connected to Los Angeles, 13 miles away, by the Pacific Electric Railway, or “Red Car” system.
These organizations, which had lofty names such as the Great Northwest Improvement Association and West Altadena Improvement Association, urged homeowners to write language into their deeds that would bar Black, Latino or Asian tenants from buying or renting there.
“We want our section of Pasadena and Altadena to be a place for white people only,” read one homeowners association notice sent to property owners in 1919.
By the end of World War II, most properties in Altadena had racially restrictive deeds or covenants – a trend being repeated in white suburbs across the country.
But the Los Angeles area was changing. The West Coast economy boomed after the war, and Black Americans from Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas began heading to California. Many landed in Pasadena, directly south of Altadena.
Claiming that Americans preferred buses and automobiles to trains, a consortium of automobile, oil and tire companies persuaded Los Angeles officials to rip out the electric railway and replace it with roads.
Some relocated within Pasadena or moved to Duarte, Monrovia, Pomona or South Los Angeles. But a handful of families bought homes in Altadena, defying the illegal racial covenants still in place there.
One new Black resident, Joseph Henry Davis, bought a home west of Lake Avenue, the main north-south artery dividing the city, in what was, as one local newspaper put it in 1964, an “all-white Altadena neighborhood.”
When Davis moved in, the story reports, his new neighbors put up “a 40-inch white plaster cross that (read) ‘you are not welcome here.‘” The Davis family “paid it no attention.”
Black residents almost exclusively lived in West Altadena. Lots there were smaller than those on the east side of town, so they were more affordable. They were also older, which made them more vulnerable to fires because they were built with materials that were more flammable than those used in newer homes.
Rising home values, paradoxically, had a similarly malignant effect. In the 1980s, the Los Angeles area became one of the most expensive housing markets in the nation. Many Black Altadenans could no longer afford to live there. The share of the city’s population that was Black fell from 43% in 1980 to 38% in 1990. By the 2000s it had dropped to below 25%.
Great Recession takes its toll
Black homeowners who remained in Altadena were hit hard by the 2008 housing crisis. That crisis was caused in part by lenders steering borrowers, particularly borrowers of color, into subprime loans, even when they qualified for better deals.
Between 2007 and 2009, Black households lost 48% of their wealth – nearly half their assets. White wealth dropped during the Great Recession, too, but only by about one-quarter.
Those inequities were a tinderbox that the Eaton Fire ignited.
Altadena is inherently prone to fire because it borders the Angeles National Forest, gets Santa Ana winds that spread embers, and has highly flammable vegetation. But because Black Altadenans’ homes sit on smaller lots, with structures and landscaping located closer together, the ember fire spread more easily in Black neighborhoods.
Black Altadenans also tend to be older than their white neighbors, because most had bought into the area before the real estate boom of the 1980s. The physical and financial strains typical of an aging household may have caused hardships for removing vegetation – a best practice in protecting a structure from an ember fire.
All these factors likely contributed to the Eaton Fire disproportionately burning Black-owned homes. All are connected to the city’s legacy of discrimination and exclusion. And they will all make fire recovery harder for Black Altadenans, too.
Calvin Schermerhorn 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.
First 3D-printed PEEK facial implant manufactured at the point-of-care using 3D Systems’ EXT 220 MED
Point-of-care collaboration between surgeons, engineers, and technology enables tailored solutions to address complex patient needs
3D Systems’ solutions accelerating additive manufacturing use in maxillofacial reconstruction — total market anticipated to reach more than $4 billion by end of 2034
ROCK HILL, S.C., April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD) announced that in collaboration with the University Hospital Basel (Switzerland) the Company’s unique point-of-care additive manufacturing solution has been used to design and produce the world’s first Medical Device Regulation (MDR)-compliant 3D-printed PEEK facial implant. Prof. Florian Thieringer and Dr. Neha Sharma, together with their team of biomedical engineers, successfully designed and manufactured a custom device to address a patient’s unique need using 3D Systems technology and product manufacturing expertise. They used this implant as part of a successful surgery completed at the hospital on March 18, 2025. Production of the first MDR-compliant facial implant was completed using VESTAKEEP® i4 3DF PEEK by Evonik on 3D Systems’ EXT 220 MED. The cleanroom-based architecture of the printer and simplified post-processing workflows enable the efficient production of patient-specific medical devices directly at the hospital.
“Our goal is always to provide the best possible care for our patients,” said Prof. Thieringer. “Being directly involved in both the design and manufacturing of patient-specific implants — right here in our hospital — allows us to tailor treatments precisely to individual needs, respond faster, and improve surgical outcomes. The ability to produce implants on demand represents a new era in personalized care.”
For more than a decade, surgeons have used VSP® surgical planning solutions that combine best-in-class digital workflows with the industry’s broadest additive manufacturing portfolio of printers and materials to deliver comprehensive patient-matched solutions. Bringing together surgeons, engineers, and technology in the clinical setting allows for the immediate development of patient-specific treatments, overcoming the limitations of standard medical devices. As a result, healthcare providers are improving outcomes1,2, increasing efficiency3, and lowering the cost of care4.
“The rapid adoption of the EXT 220 MED by leading healthcare institutions combined with our expanding applications pipeline, underscores the transformative power of 3D printing in clinical settings,” said Stefan Leonhardt, Ph.D., director, medical devices, 3D Systems. “We are proud to collaborate with the pioneering clinicians at University Hospital Basel and other leading hospitals worldwide to expand the applications that can be addressed with additive manufacturing. Since its launch in August 2023, our innovative solution has already been utilized in more than 80 successful cranial implant surgeries at partner hospitals, demonstrating its swift integration and real-world effectiveness in delivering personalized patient care. The successful use of the EXT 220 MED for maxillofacial implants showcases our commitment to ongoing innovation that delivers personalized healthcare solutions for new applications.”
It is anticipated that the use of 3D-printed facial implants will accelerate based on the availability of advanced technologies. According to Market Research Future5, the 3D-printed maxillofacial implant market size was estimated at more than $2 billion in 2024 and is anticipated to more than double to over $4 billion by the end of 2034. Additive manufacturing is disrupting this sector by enabling a more cost-effective, efficient solution. As a pioneer in personalized healthcare solutions, 3D Systems has worked with surgeons for over a decade to plan more than 150,000 patient-specific cases and additively manufacture more than two million implants and instruments for 100+ CE-marked and FDA-cleared devices from its world-class, FDA-registered, ISO 13485-certified facilities in Littleton, Colorado, and Leuven, Belgium. For more information, please visit the Company’s website.
Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements made in this release that are not statements of historical or current facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from historical results or from any future results or projections expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In many cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as “believes,” “belief,” “expects,” “may,” “will,” “estimates,” “intends,” “anticipates” or “plans” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are based upon management’s beliefs, assumptions, and current expectations and may include comments as to the company’s beliefs and expectations as to future events and trends affecting its business and are necessarily subject to uncertainties, many of which are outside the control of the company. The factors described under the headings “Forward-Looking Statements” and “Risk Factors” in the company’s periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other factors, could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected or predicted in forward-looking statements. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not, and should not be relied upon as a guarantee of future performance or results, nor will they necessarily prove to be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results will be achieved. The forward-looking statements included are made only as of the date of the statement. 3D Systems undertakes no obligation to update or review any forward-looking statements made by management or on its behalf, whether as a result of future developments, subsequent events or circumstances or otherwise, except as required by law.
About 3D Systems More than 35 years ago, Chuck Hull’s curiosity and desire to improve the way products were designed and manufactured gave birth to 3D printing, 3D Systems, and the additive manufacturing industry. Since then, that same spark continues to ignite the 3D Systems team as we work side-by-side with our customers to change the way industries innovate. As a full-service solutions partner, we deliver industry-leading 3D printing technologies, materials and software to high-value markets such as medical and dental; aerospace, space and defense; transportation and motorsports; AI infrastructure; and durable goods. Each application-specific solution is powered by the expertise and passion of our employees who endeavor to achieve our shared goal of Transforming Manufacturing for a Better Future. More information on the company is available at www.3dsystems.com.
1 Ballard DH, Trace AP, Ali S, et al. Clinical Applications of 3D Printing: Primer for Radiologists. Acad Radiol 2018;25(1):52–65. 2 Chepelev L, Wake N, Ryan J, et al. Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 3D printing Special Interest Group (SIG): guidelines for medical 3D printing and appropriateness for clinical scenarios. 3D Print Med 2018;4(1):11. 3 Morgan C, Khatri C, Hanna SA, Ashrafian H, Sarraf KM. Use of three-dimensional printing in preoperative planning in orthopaedic trauma surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis. World J Orthop 2020;11(1):57– 67. 4 Ballard DH, Mills P, Duszak R Jr, Weisman JA, Rybicki FJ, Woodard PK. Medical 3D Printing Cost-Savings in Orthopedic and Maxillofacial Surgery: Cost Analysis of Operating Room Time Saved with 3D Printed Anatomic Models and Surgical Guides. Acad Radiol. 2020 Aug;27(8):1103-1113. 5 Market Research Future, 3D Printed Maxillofacial Implant Market Research Report By Application (Craniomaxillofacial Reconstruction, Dental Implants, Orthognathic Surgery, Trauma Reconstruction), By Material (Titanium, POM, Polyether Ether Ketone, Glass Ceramics), By Technology (Stereolithography, Selective Laser Sintering, Fused Deposition Modeling, Computer-Aided Design), By End Use (Hospitals, Dental Clinics, Ambulatory Surgical Centers) and By Regional (North America, Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa) – Forecast to 2034 (March 2025).
