Leettaschmidt

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now lasted for one year. As overwhelming victory for either side looks unlikely, many are now calling for a negotiated settlement to the war. For instance, China is promising details of a peace plan imminently.

A critical question underlying any negotiated settlement is: how can the demands on both sides be balanced to achieve a stable, durable peace?

The answer to this question often ignores an indispensable player, the Ukrainian people. For both legal and political reasons, Ukraine’s constitutional democracy requires any peace deal to be ratified by its people. If they are ignored, a stable peace deal is far less likely.

Negotiations hinging on Russia’s annexations

As we enter the second year of the war, bilateral negotiations are hopelessly deadlocked over the control of territory that lies within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.

On September 30, 2022, Russia illegally annexed four occupied territories in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Read more: Should the West negotiate with Russia? The pros and cons of high-level talks

In December, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky proposed a 10-point peace plan that called for Russia to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity and withdraw all of its armed forces from the country. Zelensky said this was “not up to negotiations”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he might be willing to negotiate, but the Kremlin later added Ukraine must recognise its annexation of the four Ukrainian regions.

In response, an increasing chorus of both “realist” and anti-war voices have argued that US President Joe Biden or the west more broadly must seek to broker a deal between Ukraine and Russia and stop the violence. This includes encouraging Ukraine to be “flexible” in its negotiations.

China is also putting forward a peace plan to encourage negotiations and end the war. It will reportedly focus on the need to uphold the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, but take into account Russia’s security concerns.

This has led many into a moral debate about whether Ukraine should be pushed to negotiate over the status of its sovereign territory.

The forgotten role of the Ukrainian people

The discussion so far misses a critical reality. A stable peace deal cannot just be a diplomatic pact between Ukraine, Russia, China and the west. It also requires the support of the Ukrainian people for both legal and political reasons.

Legally, Ukraine is a constitutional democracy. This means any formal cession of Ukraine’s sovereign territory (including Crimea) would require constitutional change and, therefore, a referendum. In fact, article 156 of Ukraine’s Constitution requires such fundamental changes to be put to an all-Ukrainian referendum.

Read more: How can Russia's invasion of Ukraine end? Here's how peace negotiations have worked in past wars

Politically, any stable peace deal must have broad public support or it will be abandoned by a future leader.

Zelensky knows this. In March 2022, he was willing to promise Russia that Ukraine would never join NATO in return for other security guarantees from the US and Europe. But he said ultimately this decision was not his to make – it had to be ratified by the people.

This makes political sense: an unpopular set of concessions in a peace deal with Russia would end Zelensky’s political career and would likely be overturned by a future president.

The legal and political role of the Ukrainian people should come as no surprise. They were largely ignored in the Minsk agreements drawn up by diplomats in Ukraine, Russia and Europe to try to resolve the conflict that broke out after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Russian-backed insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Most notably, article 11 of the Minsk II agreement required amendments to Ukraine’s Constitution decentralising control over the two regions in Donbas.

This agreement failed, in part, because of a lack of support from the Ukrainian people. The decentralisation reforms were highly controversial, triggering violent protests that ended any chance of reform.

Furthermore, in a 2019 referendum, the Ukrainian people inserted a commitment to “full-fledged membership” in NATO into Ukraine’s Constitution. This further undermined the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Read more: Russia says peace in Ukraine will be ‘on our terms’ – but what can the West accept and at what cost?

Vast majority of Ukrainians reject giving land to Russia

Those wanting a peace deal, therefore, must accept the reality that a peace deal cannot simply be the result of clever diplomatic bargaining and negotiation. It must also take into account the realities of Ukrainian democracy and the important role the people play in Ukrainian politics.

Ignoring the role of the people would be a significant mistake. In fact, there is strong evidence showing the war is deepening hostility to Russia among the Ukrainian people. Consequently, it is increasingly unlikely that Ukrainians would endorse any Russian annexation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory (even Russia’s 2014 absorption of Crimea).

In fact, polling shows as many as 84% of Ukrainians now reject any territorial concessions to Russia.

Ukrainian popular opinion can certainly change over time, particularly if a peace deal is crafted in a way that will garner support from the Ukrainian people. But the need for popular support will undoubtedly constrain the number of concessions that Ukraine can make and shape the details of any peace deal.

However, if these popular constraints are ignored, it is hard to avoid an even more sobering conclusion: short of major change in the war – such as overwhelming victory for either side or new leadership in Russia – it will be increasingly difficult to get a stable peace deal at all.

William Partlett 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.

This is such a lovely service. Knitters Jennifer Simonic and Masey Kaplan, the founders of Loose Ends, act as matchmakers, connecting volunteers to complete unfinished blankets, sweaters, and other craft projects left behind by deceased, disabled, or ill loved ones. — Read the rest

Although several of his best-known children’s books were first published in the 1960s, Roald Dahl is among the most popular authors for young people today. The recent decision by publisher Puffin, in conjunction with The Roald Dahl Story Company, to make several hundred revisions to new editions of his novels has been described as censorship by Salman Rushdie and attracted widespread criticism.

The changes, recommended by sensitivity readers, include removing or replacing words describing the appearance of characters, and adding gender-neutral language in places. For instance, Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is no longer “fat” but “enormous”. Mrs Twit, from The Twits, has become “beastly” rather than “ugly and beastly”. In Matilda, the protagonist no longer reads the works of Rudyard Kipling but Jane Austen.

While the term “cancel culture” has also been used to describe these editorial changes, there is actually a long history of altering books to meet contemporary expectations of what young people should read.

Should we consider children’s literature on a par with adult literature, where altering the author’s original words is roundly condemned? Or do we accept that children’s fiction should be treated differently because it has a role in inducting them into the contemporary world?

Bowdlerising literature

Thomas Bowdler’s The Family Shakespeare was published in 1807 and contained 20 of the author’s plays. It removed “words and expressions … which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family”, specifically in front of women and children.

“Bowdlerising” has since come to refer to the process of altering literary works on moral grounds, and bowdlerised editions of Shakespeare continued to be used in schools throughout the 20th century.

While Shakespeare’s works were not intended specifically for children, the fiction of Enid Blyton is a more recent example of bowdlerisation of works regarded as classics of children’s literature. There have been several waves of changes made to her books in the past four decades, including to The Faraway Tree and The Famous Five series.

While Blyton’s fiction is often regarded as formulaic and devoid of literary value, attempts to modernise names and remove references to corporal punishment, for example, nevertheless upset adults who were nostalgic for the books and wished to share them with children and grandchildren.

Read more: Abused, neglected, abandoned — did Roald Dahl hate children as much as the witches did?

How is children’s literature different?

Children’s literature implicitly shapes the minds of child readers by presenting particular social and cultural values as normal and natural. The term we use for this process within the study of children’s literature is “socialisation”.

People do not view literature for adults as directly forming how they think in this way, even if certain books might be seen as obscene or morally repugnant.

While many people are outraged at the overt censorship of Dahl’s novels, there are several layers of covert censorship that impact on the production of all children’s books.

Children’s authors know that certain content and language will prevent their book from being published. Publishers are aware that controversial topics, such as sex and gender identity, may see books excluded from libraries and school curriculums, or targeted for protest. Librarians and teachers may select, or refuse to select, books because of the potential for complaint, or because of their own political beliefs.

Several of Dahl’s books have previously been the subject of adult attempts to rewrite or ban them. Most notably, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) was partially rewritten by Dahl in 1973 after pressure from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and children’s literature professionals.

Dahl’s original Oompa Loompas were “a tribe of tiny miniature pygmies” whom Willy Wonka “discovered” and “brought over from Africa” to work in his factory for no payment other than cacao beans.

While Dahl vehemently denied that the novel depicted Black people negatively, he revised the book. The Oompa Loompas then became residents of “Loompaland” with “golden-brown hair” and “rosy-white skin”.

Read more: From pygmies to puppets: what to do with Roald Dahl's enslaved Oompa-Loompas in modern adaptations?

Historical children’s books today

Children’s literature scholar Phil Nel suggests in Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature and the Need for Diverse Books that we have three options when deciding how to treat books containing language and ideas that would not appear in titles published today.

First, we can consider these books as “cultural artefacts” with historical significance, but which we discourage children from reading. This option works as a covert form of censorship, given the power adults hold over what books children can access.

Second, we can permit children only to read bowdlerised versions of these books, like those recently issued by Dahl’s publisher. This undermines the principle that literary works are valuable cultural objects, which must remain unchanged. In addition, revising occasional words will usually not shift the values now regarded as outdated in the text, only make it harder to identify and question them.

Third, we can allow children to read any version of a book, original or bowdlerised. This option allows for the possibility of child readers who might resist the book’s intended meaning.

It also enables discussion of topics such as racism and sexism with parents and educators, more easily achieved if the original language remains intact. While Nel favours this approach, he also acknowledges that refusing to alter texts may still be troubling for segments of the readership (for example, Black children reading editions of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in which the N-word has not been removed).

Dahl’s novel Matilda emphasises the power of books to enrich and transform the lives of children, while also acknowledging their intelligence as readers.

Although many aspects of the fictional past do not accord with the ideal version of the world we might wish to present to children, as adults we can help them to navigate that history, rather than hoping we can rewrite it.

Michelle Smith 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.

Tampa’s annual River O’Green Festival will return to Curtis Hixon Park on Friday, March 17 from 4pm-8pm. This fun St. Patrick’s Day celebration includes dying the Hillsborough River a brilliant emerald green. The River O’Green Fest is put on by Tampa’s Downtown Partnership with the City of Tampa and takes place along our award winning Riverwalk.

The event was originally scheduled for Saturday, March 18, but the Tampa Downtown Partnership opted to move the event a day early due to inclement weather.

“The safety of all our guests and vendors is of the utmost importance,” said Tampa Downtown Partnership President and CEO Lynda Remund. “With storms in the forecast on Saturday, we decided it was in everyone’s best interest to reschedule. The blessing in disguise is now we get to host the River O’ Green Fest on St. Paddy’s Day! We haven’t had the event on the actual holiday since 2018. It’ll be a great way for families to kick off the weekend and wrap up spring break.” 

The Hillsborough River provides a perfect backdrop to the celebration which includes live entertainment, games, kids activities, food trucks, and of course, beer.

“We’re so excited to work with the city and Grow Financial again to bring this Irish-themed celebration to our residents and visitors,” said Tampa Downtown Partnership President and CEO Lynda Remund. “I love seeing the hundreds of people who come downtown, decked out in green gear, for a day full of food and fun. It’s a great way to support our local businesses and bask in the beauty of this incredible city.” 

Hillsborough River turns green this March

While there is plenty to enjoy for adults, the River O’Green Fest is totally family-friendly, and your four-legged friends are more than welcome to attend.

“Seeing our Hillsborough River turn emerald green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day is a great reminder of the excitement and fun that Tampa has to offer,” added Mayor Jane Castor. “I know how much I look forward to this annual tradition and the opportunity it brings to come together and celebrate all that makes our city great.” 

For those worried about the river, organizers have assured that the dye used is completely safe. The dye used is safe for the environment, non-toxic, biodegradable, meets all EPA standards and is certified for use by NSF Std 60. In fact, it’s the same dye often used in water systems to trace the flow of drinking water.

Visit the official River O Green Festival event page for more details. After River O’ Green Fest, residents can prepare for the huge Riverfest event arriving in May.

What to read next:

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• Inaugural Food & Wine Fest announced for Tampa

The post Tampa’s giant River O’ Green Festival rescheduled for St. Patrick’s Day appeared first on That's So Tampa.

When you think about location data on your mobile phone, tablet or laptop, what comes to mind? Mailing addresses? Postal codes? These data indicate where you live, where you work, and the places you visit.

When combined with other types of data over time, companies and governments use them to analyze your consumption patterns, occupation, education, health and financial status.

Turning location services off only prevents smartphone apps from receiving location data. Smartphones can still be located by cell towers and wireless networks when location services are switched off.

This was highlighted by German politician Malte Spitz over a decade ago when he sued his cellphone provider, Deutsche Telekom, for any personal data they had about him.

When the case was settled and he eventually received the data, Spitz found 35,000 references to his location. He was able to visually reconstruct his movements over the previous six months, demonstrating the relevance of data protection laws to the public.

But there is more. By using critical code and documentary research methods, we found that raw satellite location measurement data are perpetually created in our devices all the time.

Because satellite data are building blocks used by our phones to determine where we are, they don’t always get turned off — nor are they collected and treated the same way as location data.

Data outputs

Smartphones determine your location in several ways. The first way involves phones triangulating distances between cell towers or Wi-Fi routers.

The second way involves smartphones interacting with navigation satellites. When satellites pass overhead, they transmit signals to smartphones, which allows smartphones to calculate their own location. This process uses a specialized piece of hardware called the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chipset. Every smartphone has one.

When these GNSS chipsets calculate navigation satellite signals, they output data in two standardized formats (known as protocols or languages): the GNSS raw measurement protocol and the National Marine Electronics Association protocol (NMEA 0183).

GNSS raw measurements include data such as the distance between satellites and cellphones and measurements of the signal itself.

NMEA 0183 contains similar information to GNSS raw measurements, but also includes additional information such as satellite identification numbers, the number of satellites in a constellation, what country owns a satellite, and the position of a satellite.

NMEA 0183 was created and is governed by the NMEA, a not-for-profit lobby group that is also a marine electronics trade organization. The NMEA was formed at the 1957 New York Boat Show when boating equipment manufacturers decided to build stronger relationships within the electronic manufacturing industry.

In the decades since, the NMEA 0183 data standard has improved marine electronics communications and is now found on a wide variety of non-marine communications devices today, including smartphones.

Who has access to these data?

It is difficult to know who has access to data produced by these protocols. Access to NMEA protocols is only available under licence to businesses for a fee.

GNSS raw measurements, on the other hand, are a universal standard and can be read by different devices in the same way without a license. In 2016, Google allowed industries to have open access to it to foster innovation around device tracking accuracy, precision, analytics about how we move in real-time, and predictions about our movements in the future.

While automated processes can quietly harvest location data — like when a French-based company extracted location data from Salaat First, a Muslim prayer app — these data don’t need to be taken directly from smartphones to be exploited.

Data can be modelled, experimented with, or emulated in licensed devices in labs for innovation and algorithmic development.

Satellite-driven raw measurements from our devices were used to power global surveillance networks like STRIKE3, a now defunct European-led initiative that monitored and reported perceived threats to navigation satellites.

Data and citizen rights

Our research raises questions about how rights are protected in the midst of these practices. Citizens have little to no access to the data output from NMEA 0183 and GNSS raw measurements. Because of this, people are unable to negotiate the visibility of their data in these datasets.

The data output from NMEA 0183 and GNSS raw measurements flow unrestricted from every smartphone on the planet. Smartphones have unique identifiers — IMEI numbers — that are known to the tech ecosystem. They can be connected to a user’s personal details.

The flow of NMEA 0183 and GNSS data is invisible to the average person, meaning citizens are unsure of how these data are used, or with whom they are shared. Because of this, it’s impossible for people to challenge how their personal data are used.

As interest in the supposed security, entertainment and surveillance value of these protocols continue to grow, these protocols are increasingly susceptible to misuse by third-party developers.

But there is another layer to this: NMEA 0183 and GNSS raw measurements are standards in industries that offer products and services that many of us benefit from. The NMEA has foundations in safe passage at sea, making their data an important part of emergency services operations. GNSS raw measurements are also utilized for safety purposes.

Could solutions restrict the use of these data for life-critical situations only? Is there an oversight body that could assess what impacts industrial usage of these data might have upon smartphone owner rights and liberties? What about an audit led by civil society, who would be appropriately positioned to objectively inspect these issues to determine whether they might harm the public? For example, consider the way the federal privacy commissioner reviews app data activities.

Location data now flows constantly from GNSS chipsets. There is uncertainty about who is using these data, and for what purposes. Until industry and government reassure citizens that personal data are not being exploited and that rights are protected, these remain open questions.

Tommy Cooke has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Centre for Advanced Internet Studies (Bochum, Germany), and Queen's University's Wicked Ideas Competition.

Benjamin Muller receives funding from SSHRC and King's University College.

Kirstie Ball has received funding from SSHRC, ESRC, EPSRC, EU Framework 7 SSH and Security Programmes, The Leverhulme Trust and The British Academy.

Alicia Sabatino 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.

"I sometimes write fantasy, but I'm not a 'fantasy author', just call me Nnedi Okorafor."

The Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor has announced that DAW Books will publish a new novella trilogy titled She Who Knows. The first in 2024 and then the two others after. — Read the rest

A new exhibit Tampa Bay History Center will showcase the works of a very original local artist. John Costin’s bird etchings are truly one-of-a-kind. They are life size, scientifically accurate, and made using a unique etching process that Costin has honed over the years. These gorgeous works of art will be on display at the Tampa Bay History Museum from March 4 to October 15. Let’s learn more about the process that brings these Florida flyers to life.

What is plate etching?

Plate etching is an artistic process that has been around for centuries. It involves creating a design on a metal plate and then using a corrosive acid to etch the design into the plate. This is the general way to create an etching, however, the type of metal, what material is used to etch into the plates, the type of acid needed all varies from artist to artist.

“After I was exposed to etching, I pursued it. I developed it. Went into greater detail. Sort of like a mad scientist in his laboratory. Experimenting and discovering different techniques,” Costin explains.

4 plate original hand painted etching titled “RADIANT LANDSCAPE”

Costin uses copper plates, some that weight over 20 pounds, in his process. He then uses high-quality asphalt, the same stuff they use to make roads, to etch his drawings onto the plates. After drawing the image into the asphalt, he takes the plate and immerses it in acid, which marks the surface of that plate where he previously exposed the copper. The acid eats a texture into the plate surface which eventually holds the ink.

After the desired effect is achieved, the plate is cleaned and dried, then inked and printed. Plate etchings offer an artist a unique way to create prints with an individual look and feel.

Related: The Tampa Arts Alliance is Putting Tampa on the Map

“It takes an incredible amount of time. I’m currently working on a piece that was started in July.” This timeline makes sense as the project he’s working on is a pair of Sand-hill cranes, the largest etching he’s ever made. 

A few years ago, the Public Broadcasting System of South Florida spent the entire day in the studio to film a documentary about John and his process. Here is the video explaining it from start to finish.  

Costin likens the process to a challenge, like climbing a mountain, as it takes a great deal of commitment and you never really know what you’ll end up with.

“You don’t know exactly what it will look like when you’re finished,” Costin explains. “Things happen in the process that deviate from what you had in mind. It’s a process of evolution full of surprises.”

Capturing birds for his photos

Costin’s creative process actually starts way before etching with photographs. Fittingly, Costin is also a birder. He takes his camera with him wherever he goes, taking thousands of photographs of different birds. After studying the photographs, he puts them away and begins an initial drawing, posing the bird himself and deciding on the landscape. He will do a series of small watercolor studies of the subject. Then a detailed drawing. Then he’ll take the drawing and blow it up to the actual size of the bird. Each step involves a number of edits and adjustments. He doesn’t use computers or photography — it is totally hand drawn.

“You must be an engineer as much as an artist. Every piece created is so intense it is a learning process.”

He also works with from life. Sometimes he’ll go to a bird rehabilitation center and take his watercolors with him. Studying the subject and getting different angles.

Or he’ll take a special trip to get something truly unique. Once went to the Field Museum in Chicago, to see a pair of Ivory-billed woodpeckers. The last recorded sighting of these birds was in the 1930s. Costin was able to use two stuffed species as models to recreate them in etchings.

Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers. Now considered to be extinct; the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was once the largest woodpecker in North America (second largest in the world). 

Costin’s lifelong interest in birds has paid off in his work. Through accuracy and intense study, his etchings are able to capture the different textures and coloring of his subjects. Just don’t ask him to choose a favorite.

“Usually my favorite bird is the one I’m working on.” And when asked about his favorite part in the creating process, Costin chuckled, “The most satisfying is probably when I’m finished.”

Etched Feathers: A History of The Printed Bird

The exhibit at the Tampa Bay History Museum will feature more than just Costin’s work. Costin is also a collector of antique prints of birds and has pieces in his collection that date back to the 1600s. Part of the exhibit focuses on the progression of bird images.

“It’s interesting to see how various different naturalists portrayed birds through time and history,” Costin says.

One of Costin’s antique prints. This one is titled “FLAMINGO,” John Latham, 1785.

If you take a look at the evolution of bird depiction through time, you can see how artists used certain visual solutions to help their more primitive depictions come to life. There is a great evolution from the 1600s up to the 1830s when the images of birds became more refined.

Many of these antique prints come from books and were a form of scientific documentation. This is something that, after years of creating bird etchings, Costin knows a thing or two about. And he thinks we should view these antique etchings, and his etchings, in a different way.

“I look at it as fine art. I want the science right when I do the piece. But I also see it as a fine art form, as opposed to just documentation.”

Etched Feathers: A History of The Printed Bird will be on display at the Tampa Bay History Center from March 4 to October 15 in the Wayne Thomas Gallery. There will also be a members-only reception on March 22 from 6pm to 7:15 pm where Brad Massey, Ph.D., will talk about what he discovered during his research for the new exhibition.

The post John Costin’s Bird Etchings Make Wildlife Come to Life appeared first on ModernGlobe.

Finding a lost piece of Florida history is just another day on the job for Director of Special Collections Tomaro Taylor.  

“Our Collection Coordinator Sidney Jordan identified three historic Black newspapers that were either Tampa or Florida based,” she said. 

“They were the Black Journal, the newspaper for Black Professionals, the Florida Courier, which was Florida’s only statewide circulated Black weekly, and the Progressive Village Pioneer, which we already had a collection of papers from. They had no other holdings at any other library, which makes them extremely rare.”

As a USF alum, Taylor earned her bachelor’s and master’s in both psychology and American studies. While uncertain about going into the psychology field, she took a class with the late professor Priscilla Brewer. It was in that classroom she found the love that would define her career path. 

“I had just gone into the American Studies undergraduate program because when I graduated with my degree in Psychology, I wasn’t sure I wanted to work in that field,” she said. 

“I took a couple classes with Dr. Brewer and I just fell in love with our culture and American society. I loved the materiality. The historical record, and whatever format it presents itself in, is just something that really demonstrates the wealth of our culture. I learned so much from her.”

Though she originally took interest in museum studies, Taylor chose to stay at USF to get her master’s in library and information science. While she intended to use her degree to enter the museum education field, she chose to stay within the library field and began as a graduate assistant at the Tampa Library’s reference department. Taylor later took a residency position after completing her degree. 

“There was nothing I was interested in outside of the museum, but when I got to the program, I learned everything there was to know about libraries,” Taylor said.

“Working in a library, special collections was the closest thing to having a potential career in a museum. My degree didn’t align with my original professional ideas, so I thought, ‘How can I merge these things together?’ Special Collections was the opportunity for me to do that.”

The Special Collections at USF Library contain materials of importance to various subjects, most to material culture and history. Materials can be all mediums, such as a newspaper, movie, or piece of furniture. The collections are used mainly for research and teaching materials, but all students are able to access the collections online. 

Taylor joined the USF Special Collections department as a permanent faculty member in 2004 and has focused on archives ever since. Most of her work occurs behind the scenes, creating grassroots connections with donors and authenticating materials. What she said the department is truly looking for, however, is whether the materials will benefit the education of USF’s students.

“We have people who reach out to us and have materials that fit our specific collecting areas. Then we have to do an evaluation of the material, and what we’re looking for is the inherent value,” Taylor said. 

You have to ask, ‘How can it be used by people?’ We want to know if people can use this material for research purposes, what it can support in terms of their education and understanding of the world around them.” 

Because of the history of these materials, many are in very fragile condition. This is especially true for the Florida area, as weather conditions can cause further detriment, according to Taylor. That element is taken into consideration when discussing how materials can be used, but she said the introduction of digitizing has revolutionized the way that materials can be accessed by the public.  

“There is the element of asking if something can be physically used or if it would require some sort of treatment,” Taylor said. “Sometimes you can give the materials to an expert to do repair work. But when looking at digitizing, a large part of that is building out digital collections online and making them available for public use through the digital commons.” 

The Digital Common’s are available online for all USF students to access. These collections range from African American, LGBTQ and Florida’s natural history. For Taylor, being able to give space to the stories of those in American history who may not have been given a chance to be seen is something she finds to be more necessary than ever.

“It’s very important that the resources that we make available through libraries and Special Collections and Archives, speak to the needs of the people who come to use them,” she said.  

“We get a very wide range of people who are interested in learning about different topics and see different things in those resources. Whether it be the newspapers or correspondences or AV, regardless of if the formal is a physical or digital manifestation.”

After a COVID infection, whether it’s a first, second, or even a third, many of us wonder how long we might be protected against a reinfection, and whether we’ll be susceptible to new variants. Also, if we do catch COVID again, will the immunity we’ve acquired from this infection reduce the severity of the next one?

A new study published in The Lancet set out to answer these questions, looking at the strength and duration of natural immunity by COVID variant.

The authors collected data from 65 studies across 19 countries, making it the largest review on this topic to date. These studies compared COVID risk among people who had been infected previously and those without a prior infection. Studies looking at natural immunity in combination with vaccination (hybrid immunity) were excluded.

The researchers aimed to assess if infection induced similar protection against reinfection with different variants, and if this waned differently over time.

The analyses spanned studies from the beginning of the pandemic until September 2022, and looked primarily at the alpha, beta, delta and omicron BA.1 variants.

Protection from reinfection

The authors evaluated protection against reinfection, symptomatic disease, and severe disease (defined as hospitalisation or death) separately.

They found previous infection was highly protective against reinfection with alpha, beta and delta variants, but less so against omicron BA.1. A previous infection provided moderate protection from reinfection with omicron BA.1 (45%), compared with stronger protection against pre-omicron variants (82%). This was also the case for symptomatic infection.

Data from long-term studies showed that protection against reinfection for pre-omicron variants dropped to 78.6% over 40 weeks, whereas for omicron BA.1 it dropped more rapidly to 36.1%.

When assessing severe disease, however, all variants showed sustained protection above 88% for 40 weeks. This isn’t to say that protection drops substantially after 40 weeks. Rather, it seems there was limited data available that followed people for long enough for the authors to be able to draw strong conclusions beyond this time frame.

The results also revealed that protection against severe disease after natural infection was comparable to that received from two vaccine doses, for both pre-omicron and omicron BA.1 variants.

Read more: Genetics might explain why some people have never had COVID – but we shouldn't be too focused on finding out

Making sense of the findings

A couple of years is a long time for highly contagious respiratory viruses, and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) has been no different. It has generated sequential variants of concern, with increased transmissibility and capacity to evade our immune responses compared with the ancestral virus.

The study’s observations, which treat protection against pre-omicron variants and omicron BA.1 separately, make sense when we consider how omicron variants differ from their predecessors.

By way of background, neutralising antibodies generated after previous viral infection are important to prevent subsequent virus entry to susceptible cells. These Y-shaped molecules recognise intact proteins of the virus exterior and attach to them, preventing the virus from latching on to the cell receptor necessary for infection.

But to persist, viruses like SARS-CoV-2 introduce random mutations in their genome when they replicate, aiming to continuously alter their proteins to escape immune recognition.

Omicron lineages have enough mutations to differentiate substantially from previous variants, and therefore evade existing antibodies. Evasion from neutralising antibodies explains our failure to control reinfection by omicron variants.

Thankfully, we don’t just rely on antibodies for protection. A type of immune cells called T cells recognise snippets of virus proteins rather than intact proteins. This means it would take many more mutations in the virus genome to completely evade T cell immunity.

Unlike antibodies, T cells don’t seek out viruses. Instead they recognise infected cells and rapidly eliminate them to reduce virus factories in the body. T cells therefore act where neutralising antibodies may have failed, after infection. A robust T cell response to coronaviruses is crucial to prevent severe disease, and fortunately, tougher for omicron to evade.

SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells wane more slowly than antibodies. In fact, people infected with the similar coronavirus SARS in 2003 still had T cells which recognise SARS-CoV-2 17 years after infection.

Infection versus vaccination

While a natural infection may offer equivalent protection to vaccination, this is not to say you should seek to become infected. SARS-CoV-2 remains a dangerous and unpredictable virus which can, in some cases, cause a host of damaging effects that linger long after recovery.

The authors suggest a person’s previous infection status and timing should be considered alongside their booster vaccinations to predict protection. However, this may be difficult to implement as infection surveillance has decreased in most countries compared with earlier in the pandemic. In any case, COVID certificates are used less commonly now.

They also suggest their findings could be used to inform the optimal timing for booster vaccination strategies. That is, there’s probably merit in waiting some time after an infection before getting a booster.

Read more: COVID reinfections could be more severe for some – but overall evidence doesn't give us cause for concern

Further high quality, long-term follow up studies will be important to supplement these findings, as the authors acknowledge there are not as many studies on natural infection compared with protection after vaccination. There were also few studies mapping protection against newer omicron sublineages. As the pandemic continues, there remains much to learn about immune protection against this evolving virus.

Zania Stamataki receives funding from the Medical Research Foundation and Innovate UK. She collaborates with AstraZeneca on projects unrelated to topics in this article.

Erotic magic, Black emancipation, gender fluidity, interplanetary spirit realms — these were but a few of the topics that preoccupied Paschal Beverly Randolph (b. 1825), an occult thinker who believed that his multiracial identity afforded him “peculiar mental power and marvelous versatility”. Lara Langer Cohen considers the neglected politics of Randolph’s esoteric writings alongside the repeated frustration of his activism: how dreams of other worlds, above and below our own, reflect the unfulfilled promises of Emancipation.

Three weeks left in comment period

Three weeks.

Just 21 days.

That’s all the time remaining.

Three weeks until the deadline for commenting on an enormous fee hike that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) wants to impose on genealogy records. If this rule goes through, getting copies of vast numbers of genealogically valuable records will be beyond the financial reach of many researchers, with fees rising by as much as 300%.¹

The Legal Genealogist reported on this proposal back in January,² and — trust me on this one! — will do so again before time runs out.

But the bottom line is this: as individual genealogists and as a genealogical community, we need to speak out on this.

Now… lots of folks are concerned that they aren’t quite sure what to say.

Not to worry.

First off, you can head over to the Records, Not Revenue website in its guide to issues with the Genealogy Program. Read through the site’s Summary of the Issues and its suggestions for Comment Starters.

If you’d like to hear more before commenting, and you’re a member of the National Genealogical Society, NGS is hosting an online discussion with the folks who started Records, Not Revenue — Rich Venezia, Marian Smith, and Renée Carl — on February 22 at 8 p.m. EST.³ Check your email for an invitation.⁴

Remember as well that the comment system for this proposed rule is all online, so you can read the comments posted by others to get more ideas on what to say. Just remember to use the search box to find comments about genealogy — the fee hike proposal affects all USCIS functions, not just the genealogy program, so lots of comments don’t apply to us.

And if you’re concerned that you don’t know how to comment, not to worry about that either. It’s really easy. Start out by writing up what you want to say on your own computer, and have it ready to post to the online system. Be sure to specifically mention that you’re commenting on the fees for the Genealogy Program. Otherwise the comment may be lost in the mass of comments opposing other proposed fee increases.

Then head over to the Federal Register page for this rule here. You’ll see a green box that reads “Submit a Formal Comment.” Click on that and follow the prompts. You can also comment at the Regulations.gov website here using the blue Comment button. The reference number is DHS Docket No. USCIS 2021-0010 — make sure to follow all the instructions to be sure your comment posts.

And, of course, always make sure to send a copy of your comments to the two United States Senators from your state and to the member of the House of Representatives for your district. You can get names and contact information for your Senators at Senate.gov and for your House member at House.gov.

It really is easy to speak out on this.

What will be hard is getting records if we don’t speak out.

So join me — speak out. Do it now.

And remember: the deadline for public comments on the rule is Monday, March 6, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. EST.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Speak out on USCIS fee hikes!,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 13 Feb 2023).

SOURCES

The impact of disinformation and misinformation has become impossible to ignore. Whether it is denial about climate change, conspiracy theories about elections, or misinformation about vaccines, the pervasiveness of social media has given “alternative facts” an influence previously not possible.

Bad information isn’t just a practical problem – it’s a philosophical one, too. For one thing, it’s about epistemology, the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with knowledge: how to discern truth, and what it means to “know” something, in the first place.

But what about ethics? People often think about responsibility in terms of actions and their consequences. We seldom discuss whether people are ethically accountable for not just what they do, but what they believe – and how they consume, analyze or ignore information to arrive at their beliefs.

So when someone embraces the idea that mankind has never touched the Moon, or that a mass shooting was a hoax, are they not just incorrect, but ethically wrong?

Know the good, do the good

Some thinkers have argued the answer is yes – arguments I’ve studied in my own work as an ethicist.

Even back in the 5th century B.C., Socrates linked epistemology and ethics implicitly. Socrates is mostly known through his students’ writings, such as Plato’s “Republic,” in which Plato depicts Socrates’ endeavors to uncover the nature of justice and goodness. One of the ideas attributed to Socrates is often summarized with the adage that “to know the good is to do the good.”

The idea, in part, is that everyone seeks to do what they think is best – so no one errs intentionally. To err ethically, in this view, is the result of a mistaken belief about what the good is, rather than an intent to act unjustly.

More recently, in the 19th century, British mathematician and philosopher W.K. Clifford linked the process of belief formation with ethics. In his 1877 essay “The Ethics of Belief,” Clifford made the forceful ethical claim that it is wrong – always, everywhere and for everyone – to believe something without sufficient evidence.

In his view, we all have an ethical duty to test our beliefs, to check our sources and to place more weight in scientific evidence than anecdotal hearsay. In short, we have a duty to cultivate what today might be called “epistemic humility”: the awareness that we ourselves can hold incorrect beliefs, and to act accordingly.

As a philosopher interested in disinformation and its relationship to ethics and public discourse, I think there is a lot to be gained from his essay. In my own research, I have argued that each us has a responsibility to be mindful of how we form our beliefs, insofar as we are fellow citizens with a common stake in our larger society.

Setting sail

Clifford begins his essay with the example of a ship owner who has chartered his vessel to a group of emigrants leaving Europe for the Americas. The owner has reason to doubt the boat is in a seaworthy-enough condition to cross the Atlantic, and considers having the boat thoroughly overhauled to make sure it is safe.

In the end, though, he convinces himself otherwise, suppressing and rationalizing away any doubts. He wishes the passengers well with a light heart. When the ship goes down midsea, and the ship’s passengers with it, he quietly collects the insurance.

Most people would probably say the ship owner was at least somewhat ethically to blame. After all, he neglected his due diligence to make sure the ship was sound before its voyage.

What if the ship had been fit for voyage and made the trip safely? It would be no credit to the owner, Clifford argues, because he had no right to believe it was safe: He’d chosen not to learn whether it was seaworthy.

In other words, it’s not only the owner’s actions – or lack of action – that have ethical implications. His beliefs do, too.

In this example it is easy to see how belief guides actions. Part of Clifford’s larger point, however, is that a person’s beliefs always hold the potential to affect others and their actions.

No man – or idea – is an island

There are two premises that can be found in Clifford’s essay.

The first is that each belief creates the cognitive conditions for related beliefs to follow. In other words, once you hold one belief, it becomes easier to believe in similar ideas.

This is borne out in contemporary cognitive science research. For example, a number of false conspiratorial beliefs – like the belief that NASA faked the Apollo Moon landings – are found to correspond with the likelihood of a person falsely believing that climate change is a hoax.

Clifford’s second premise is that no human beings are so isolated that their beliefs won’t at some point influence other people.

People do not arrive at their beliefs in a vacuum. The influence of family, friends, social circles, media and political leaders on others’ views is well documented. Studies show that mere exposure to misinformation can have a lasting cognitive impact on how we interpret and remember events, even after the information has been corrected. In other words, once accepted, misinformation creates a bias that resists revision.

Taking these points together, Clifford argues that it is always wrong – not just factually, but ethically – to believe something on insufficient evidence. This point does not assume that each person always has the resources to develop an informed belief on each topic. He argues it is acceptable to defer to experts if they exist, or withhold judgment on matters where one has no sound grounding for an informed belief.

That said, as Clifford suggests in his essay, theft is still harmful, even if the thief has never been exposed to the lesson that it is wrong.

An ounce of prevention

Arguing that people are ethically responsible for nonevidential beliefs doesn’t necessarily mean they are blameworthy. As I have argued in other work, Clifford’s premises show the morally relevant nature of belief formation. It is enough to suggest that developing and nurturing critical thinking is an ethical responsibility, without denouncing every person who holds a belief that can’t be supported as inherently immoral.

Ethics is often talked about as if it were merely a matter of identifying and chastising bad behaviors. Yet, as far back as Plato and Socrates, ethics has been about offering guidance for a life well lived in community with others.

Likewise, the ethics of belief can serve as a reminder of how important it is, for other people’s sakes, to develop good habits of inquiry. Learning to identify fallacious arguments can be a kind of cognitive inoculation against misinformation.

That might mean renewing educational institutions’ investment in disciplines that, like philosophy, have historically taught students how to think critically and communicate clearly. Modern society tends to look for technological mechanisms to guard us against misinformation, but the best solution might still be a solid education with generous exposure to the liberal arts – and ensuring all citizens have access to it.

Lawrence Torcello 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.

Get ready for something big. ZooTampa, currently nominated as one of the best zoos in the country, will bring tinier creatures to brilliant life. BUGTOPIA is a limited-time family-friendly event that opens on Saturday, February 25. This larger-than-life exhibit is free with Zoo admission or membership and features 13 enormous animatronic bugs that will amaze and educate guests in fun and unique ways. This is giving us very fun Ant-Man meets A Bug’s Life vibes.

BUGTOPIA enables guests to glimpse into the world from a bug’s perspective, delight in their bizarre beauty, and reflect on what we can learn from their brilliant behaviors. Roles will be reversed as guests venture into a bug’s world where they will find themselves looking up into the eyes of a larger-than-life Mexican red knee tarantula or at the tail of a mighty Emperor scorpion looming more than 10 feet in the air.

Giant bugs are coming to ZooTampa

Zoo members can enjoy special previews of BUGTOPIA on Friday, February 24, from 9:30am-5pm, Saturday, February 25, from 9am-12pm, and Sunday, February 26, from 9am-12pm.

“Bugs are fascinating creatures, and we’re proud to be able to share them with guests of all ages in BUGTOPIA,” said Chief Operating Office Scott Rose. “This exhibit is full of enormous animatronic bugs and insects that show what these animals look like close-up and how they’ve perfectly adapted to the world around them—our guests will never look at bugs the same way again.”

In addition to all the buzz from BUGTOPIA, the Zoo kicks off its extended springtime hours! The week of March 11 through March 19, 2023, guests can enjoy the Zoo from 9:30am-7pm. During the months of March and April, the Zoo will stay open until 7pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

ZooTampa is also set to undergo a $125 million renovation that would create a new river connection to the facility from downtown and Tampa Heights.

ZooTampa, 1101 W Sligh Ave

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The post BUGTOPIA brings giant animatronic bugs to ZooTampa this year appeared first on That's So Tampa.

The United States Supreme Court is deciding a pair of cases that could end affirmative action programs that consider race in college admissions.

Though the court is the most diverse in American history – with three justices of color and four women – the conservatives, who have historically opposed affirmative action programs, hold a 6-3 majority. And that majority has the power to ban the use of race when the court issues a decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. A decision is expected in June 2023.

If the court were to ban affirmative action, the decision would be part of a larger, profound conservative transformation of constitutional law. The court, for example, demonstrated its willingness to reconsider landmark rulings when it overturned the 1973 abortion decision in Roe v. Wade.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a leading Black conservative, is a well-known opponent of affirmative action programs and recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that allow the use of race as a factor in college admissions.

Thomas’ views are in stark contrast with those of the two other justices of color – Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Black woman.

As scholars of constitutional law and civil rights, we believe that the ideological disagreements among the justices of color reflect the national division over how to address the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow and modern-day inequalities.

Historical underpinnings of affirmative action

Following the Civil War, the nation grappled with building a multiracial democracy.

Congress sought to construct that new democracy in part by enacting laws that provided race-conscious remedies.

In addition to enacting laws, the nation transformed the U.S. Constitution by adopting the Reconstruction Amendments. These amendments included the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, and the 15th Amendment, which provides that the right to vote may not be denied or abridged on “account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

But it was the the 14th Amendment that addressed discrimination against Black Americans by ensuring that no state may deprive any person “the equal protection of the laws.”

Written in broad, general language, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause was designed by the 39th Congress to open the door to different interpretations by future generations. Today’s arguments for and against affirmative action are based on differing interpretations of the meaning of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Thomas’ opposition to affirmative action

In their suits against Harvard and UNC, the anti-affirmative action organization Students for Fair Admissions argues that schools’ race-conscious admissions process violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection and discriminates against high-achieving Asian American students in favor of traditionally underrepresented Black and Hispanic people.

Thomas takes that argument a step further.

He has argued that all racial classifications – regardless of their perceived benefit in remedying inequality – are harmful because they stigmatize minorities.

Race-conscious admissions policies, he wrote in his dissent of the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, “stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority.”

In addition, Thomas argued that university administrators lack a pressing or compelling reason to divide Americans into racial classes, since African Americans can and will succeed without this help.

“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,” Thomas concluded.

Thomas made another point in October 2022, during oral arguments in the affirmative action cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I may be tone-deaf when it comes to all these other things that happen on campus, about feeling good and all that,” Thomas said to one of the attorneys defending affirmative action. “I’m really interested in a simple thing: What benefits academically are there to your definition or the diversity that you’re asserting?”

Sotomayor’s and Jackson’s support of affirmative action

Justice Sotomayor’s line of questioning during oral arguments in the cases against Harvard and UNC strongly suggest that she believes that diversity is constitutional.

Sotomayor, for example, pointed out that the 39th Congress that wrote the 14th Amendment invested “a lot of money in trying to get Black children, whether they were children of slaves or free slaves … educated in integrated schools.”

She emphasized in her questions that race is only one factor and is never a quota in either the UNC or Harvard admissions policies.

Sotomayor also has said that she is the “product of affirmative action.”

Justice Jackson has not ruled or participated in an affirmative action case as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. She took office in June 2022, and the Harvard and UNC cases are her first opportunity to rule on this issue.

But her line of questioning during oral arguments in the Harvard and UNC cases suggests she also believes that race-based efforts to obtain diversity are constitutional.

Jackson asked attorneys representing Students for Fair Admissions if their client endured harm from an admissions process in which race was one of 40 factors that are considered. Other factors include demonstrated leadership skills, grade point average and resilience.

Ending affirmative action will not end diversity efforts

In the wake of protests after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 by a white Minneapolis police officer, most Americans see racism as a major problem.

A 2020 Monmouth University poll found that 76% of Americans surveyed called racism a big problem, up 25% from just five years previously.

Yet, while many Americans think that racism is a problem, a majority of Americans also think that affirmative action is problematic.

A 2022 Pew Research poll found that 73% responded that race or ethnicity should not be considered when making decisions about student admissions.

In our view, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on affirmative action in these two cases, attempts to achieve a diverse student body or corporate workforce will continue – just in new ways.

When California ended affirmative action, minority enrollment in state universities initially plummeted dramatically.

But in recent years, the California university system has increased minority enrollment by relying on socioeconomic factors, location and recruitment.

Other state universities have adopted race-neutral programs that promote student diversity.

Texas, for example, enacted a law in 1998 that allows students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class to automatically gain admission to state universities.

This plan enhanced student diversity by ensuring that students in poor and ethnically diverse districts could gain admission to elite public universities.

Affirmative action and the legacy of Reconstruction

The idea that the Constitution is colorblind and prohibits racial classifications has become popular today, but it was not the mainstream understanding of equal protection in the 19th century.

In its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Supreme Court conducted exhaustive historical research and pointed out that there was no consensus on whether segregation should be illegal in public schools when the 14th Amendment was adopted.

Disagreements over the equal protection clause are sure to continue, regardless of what the Supreme Court decides in the Harvard and UNC cases – as will the nation’s efforts to construct a just, multiracial democracy.

Erin Lain is affiliated with Polk County Bar Association and the ACLU of Iowa.

Miguel Schor 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.

In January 2018, the Polish parliament passed a law that imposed prison terms of up to three years of anyone who claimed Poles had any responsibility for or complicity in crimes committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The law was intended to silence historians, and indeed, it has created a chilling atmosphere within academia and beyond.

My research focuses on the relations between Polish Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish population.

In my case, the Polish government (acting directly or through proxies) has decided to use civil litigation. I have been sued for libel and Polish organizations have requested my removal from my position as professor of history at the University of Ottawa.

More recently, I have been questioned by Poland’s Internal Security Agency and the country’s justice minister has expressed outrage about my work.

These are just some of the legal and extra-legal challenges related to writing the history of the Holocaust in Poland today.

Read more: Poland is trying to rewrite history with this controversial new holocaust law

History and nationalism

The notion of wartime complicity by segments of Polish society in the Holocaust has long been considered a taboo subject.

In 2015, the far-right Law and Justice party came to power in Poland. Defending the good name of the nation has become one of the focal elements of its political platform and a sure way to consolidate its electoral base.

As a result, independent historians and educators, myself included, have become targets of vicious hate campaigns in state-owned and state-controlled media.

There is a saying among scholars of the Holocaust: “I did not choose to study the Holocaust, it chose me.”

Trained as a historian of the 17th and 18th centuries, I came to the study of the Holocaust rather unexpectedly, at the turn of the century, while on a trip to Warsaw visiting my ailing father, a Holocaust survivor.

With some time on my hands, I did what most historians do: I went to the local archives. That’s when I stumbled upon thousands of files of the German courts from occupied Warsaw.

What made me curious was the fact that hundreds of files concerned Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. I found out that the Germans prosecuted them for the breaches of various Nazi regulations: Refusing to wear prescribed armbands with the star of David, for leaving the ghetto without permission, for violating curfews, for buying and smuggling food from the “Aryan” side to the ghetto or for “slandering the good name of the German nation” — which usually meant telling jokes about the occupation.

The Holocaust’s ‘bystanders’

The eminent scholar on the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg, divided the human scenery of the Holocaust into three categories: perpetrators, victims and bystanders. Over the years, we have learned much about the Holocaust’s German perpetrators and Jewish victims, but much less about the ill-defined last category.

Who were the bystanders? Were they people who knew nothing about the ongoing Jewish catastrophe? Or people who were conscious of the event but who chose indifference?

Poland was an epicentre of the Holocaust. It was a place where the Nazis built death camps, and where most of the Jewish population was murdered. In my research, I found that it was simply impossible — I saw that very clearly — for people to remain distant or aloof from the genocide.

Not all the Jewish ghettos (and there were hundreds of ghettos in Poland) were isolated from the outside world. Most of the ghettos were either open (no walls), or with flimsy fences that did not prevent contact between the Jews and other Poles.

Then, in 1942, the liquidation actions began. The Germans, together with local helpers, rounded up the Jews and drove Jewish families towards the nearest railway station, where they were placed on death trains destined for the death camps of Treblinka, Bełżec, Sobibór and Auschwitz.

All of this happened in plain view of the surrounding non-Jewish population. Once the masses of Jews had been deported to their deaths, the emptied ghettos became the sites of massive robbery. Tens of thousands of houses, apartments and furniture were all for the taking.

That is when uncounted thousands of Jews who chose to hide in ingenious hideouts under and inside their houses were detected, pulled out and delivered into the hands of the Germans for immediate execution.

Some Jews fled the ghettos altogether, seeking shelter in the forests, most often, with locals who offered assistance either for a fee or for altruistic reasons.

During this last, final stage of the Holocaust — one which the Germans called Judenjagd or “hunt for the Jews” — the hidden Jews, from the German standpoint, became largely invisible. During this last phase (which continued until the end of the war), it was often one’s non-Jewish neighbours who decided who lived and who died.

It was my research into this stage of the Holocaust that led me to believe that being a bystander in Eastern Europe and, most of all, in Poland, was simply impossible. The whole idea of “bystanding” needed to be re-examined, questioned and perhaps even dismissed.

My research generated discussion among historians but, at the same time, in Poland, it also raised ire and anger among nationalists.

Night Without End

It was within such a political context that Night Without End, a book that I co-wrote and co-edited, was published in 2018. The two-volume, 1,600-page study is a specialized inquiry into the fates of Jews in selected areas of wartime Poland. We looked at the Jewish struggle for survival and German genocidal policies.

We also tried to understand the attitudes of the surrounding Polish society to the Jewish catastrophe. The results were grim: the results of many years of research pointed to the fact that at least two-thirds of Jews who went into hiding had either been murdered or betrayed to the Nazis by their Polish neighbours.

The reaction of the authorities was swift and furious. My co-author and I have been denounced in the press. An unprecedented campaign of hate, followed by civil lawsuits and criminal accusations, ensued.

Attacks on historians and on history itself go hand in hand with attacks on other vital parts of open and democratic society. The defence of history and the struggle to preserve our right to know what has happened are among the foundations of the democratic system.

“Who controls past, controls the future,” George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four. His words have never rang more true.

Jan Grabowski 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.

Looking for that perfect picture to illustrate your post? That catchy tune to jazz up your video? Look no further than Openverse, the huge library of free and open stock photos, images, and audio contributed to the public commons by people around the world, now available at its new domain: openverse.org.

Here at CC we use Openverse daily to explore the public commons and find works to reuse in our communications and projects. Powerful tools like Openverse demonstrate how open technologies and communities like WordPress can build on the rich public commons we all help create to support what we call better sharing: sharing that is inclusive, just and equitable — where everyone has wide opportunity to access content, to contribute their own creativity, and to receive recognition and rewards for their contributions.

Finding and using free and open works has never been easier: Just visit Openverse, enter some keywords, and pick your favorite from the results. You can also filter by content type, sources, aspect ratio, size, open license and public domain statuses, and more, like the search for the keywords “art” and “universe” we used to find the image in this post.

Once you’ve picked a work, Openverse provides everything you need to use it: Visit the work in its home collection and copy a well-formed attribution statement to give proper credit for your use.

Openverse was incubated here at CC as “CC Search”, moving to the WordPress community in 2021, and has continued to thrive in its new home, now cataloging over 600 million images and audio tracks, with new collections of open works being added all the time, like the recent addition of more than 15 million images from iNaturalist, the project that enables citizen scientists and researchers to document and understand global biodiversity.

Contributors in the WordPress community continue to add new features and capabilities to Openverse. Coming up next will be new tools to easily use images from Openverse directly in WordPress itself; content safety features that will enable users to blur or opt in/out from specific types of sensitive content; and improvements to search relevancy and the quality of results.

Can you help expand the Openverse?

As a creator, share your work to the commons with a CC open license or CC0 dedication to the public domain on one of sources already cataloged in Openverse.

Do you know a great collection of open works? Suggest a new source for Openverse.

Do you have communication and/or technical skills? Join the Openverse contributor team and help with things like testing new features, writing documentation, contributing code, and amplifying news from the project. Have a look at Openverse’s good first issues or their guide for new contributors.

The post Revisiting the Openverse: Finding Open Images and Audio appeared first on Creative Commons.

In the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018, many Americans hoped that, finally, something would be done to address the problem of gun violence in the nation’s schools.

Despite the outpouring of grief and calls for action that followed the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, school shootings continue to occur with alarming frequency. While progress has been made in some areas, such as increased funding for school security and mental health resources, there is still much work to be done to ensure the safety and well-being of students and educators in schools across the country.

On Jan. 6, 2023, in Newport News, Virginia, a 6-year-old student is alleged to have intentionally shot his teacher. He is among the youngest school shooting perpetrators dating back to 1970.

And as criminologists who track any time a gun is fired at a K-12 school, including deliberate attacks, suicides, accidental shootings, gang-related violence and shootings at after-hours school events, we know this case is only the tip of the iceberg.

School shootings got more common, not rarer, after Parkland

Since Parkland, there have been over 900 shootings in K-12 school settings according to our data. Thirty-two were indiscriminate attacks apparently driven by the intent to kill as many people as possible, including mass casualty events at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022 and at Oxford High School, in Oxford, Michigan, in November 2021.

School gun violence takes many forms. In January 2023, five students were wounded during shootings at high school basketball games in five different states. These shootings at school games are a “quiet phenomenon” that gets little national attention. Based on our data on more than 260 shootings at sports events, most schools do not have a plan for them, such as what an announcer should say or how people can evacuate.

Another emerging challenge for school leaders is the 264 fights in five years that escalated into shootings. Unlike any planned attacks, these cases were simple disputes that turned deadly because students were armed at school.

There were a record 302 shootings on school property in 2022. In April, one month before Uvalde, a sniper fired hundreds of shots during dismissal at the Edmund Burke School in Washington, D.C. Then, in October, at Central Visual Performing Arts High School in south St. Louis, a 19-year-old armed with a semi-automatic rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition shot and killed a teacher and a 15-year-old student, and injured seven other people.

Among the 250 shootings at schools in 2021, a 12-year-old girl, who wrote plans to target scores of her Rigby, Idaho, middle school classmates, wounded three students before a heroic teacher disarmed her in the hallway.

Owing to the pandemic and widespread school closures, in 2020 there were no planned attacks at schools for the first time since 1981. But in 2019, a student shot five classmates, killing two, before dying by suicide between classes at Saugus High in Santa Clarita, California. And two students committed a coordinated attack that killed one student and injured eight others at the STEM School in Highland Ranch, Colorado.

In total, since Parkland, 198 people have been killed, including 84 students, teachers and school staff, and another 637 people wounded in school shootings.

Equipment is not prevention

Since Parkland, school safety has been a priority for parents and policymakers, but efforts to physically fortify schools to keep intruders at bay often are detached from the reality that most school shooters are current or former students of the schools they target.

Having been trained in lockdown procedures since kindergarten, students know exactly how a school will respond to an active shooter and even plan for it; they navigate security daily. At Uvalde, the shooter was a former student who entered through a back door. The shooter in St. Louis was a former student who broke a side window to open a locked door.

New equipment designed to protect students from shooters can create a false sense of security and make classrooms feel more like prisons than places of learning. Following the attack in Uvalde, Texas legislators approved $110 million for school safety, but nearly half of the money went to new ballistic shields for school police officers. These shields do not prevent school shootings, or aid during one, because police are trained to immediately run to the shooter, not to their office to get a shield.

Some technologies could even inadvertently endanger students. Most classroom barricades violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal codes designed to help people evacuate from fires and other dangerous situations. And much like body armor can make a mass shooter harder to stop, so too, potentially, could a school’s new bulletproof furniture.

Preventing the next Parkland

Just three weeks before Parkland, on Jan. 23, 2018, 20 students were shot, two fatally, in a planned attack at Marshall County High in Benton, Kentucky. Three months after Parkland, on May 18, 2018, 10 people were killed and 13 wounded at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. Despite billions spent on security upgrades, schools are stuck in a perpetual cycle of gun violence. If current trends hold, there will be another 1,000 school shootings over the next five years.

But research shows that school shootings are not inevitable. They are preventable.

Nearly all school shooters exhibit warning signs before pulling the trigger, from changes in their behavior to verbal or written threats. From Parkland to Uvalde, these warnings were not recognized or reported until it was too late. Schools must think beyond metal detectors, security cameras and other high-tech gadgets and gizmos to invest in multidisciplinary behavioral intervention and threat assessment systems to respond to warning signs. There is federal money and resources available to do this thanks to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed in the wake of Uvalde in the summer of 2022.

Almost all shootings by children and teens can be prevented by safe storage of firearms and accountability for adult gun owners. When a weapon is stored separately from its ammunition, locked and unloaded, it is much more difficult for someone to quickly use it in a violent attack. While the family claims the gun was locked, safe and separate storage could have prevented a 6-year-old from shooting his teacher. It also could have prevented thousands of guns from being stolen and diverted into illegal markets.

Five years after Parkland, school shootings have become more frequent and deadly. The status quo is not working. Instead of accepting that more young lives will be lost and that the best schools and police can do is lock down and rehearse emergency responses, we believe school safety must shift to focus on upstream prevention.

David Riedman receives funding from Everytown for Gun Safety.

James Densley has received funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Joyce Foundation.

Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Joyce Foundation.

When was the last time you walked into a public space and didn’t hear someone coughing? After three years of flinching at the sound, it can be disarming to hear so many people coughing – and embarrassing if it’s you.

But take heart in knowing that you’re not alone. A long-lasting cough following illness from an upper respiratory infection is surprisingly common. And unfortunately, with the rise in seasonal flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus, or RVS cases in the fall of 2022 and winter of 2023, there’s been a lot of coughing lately.

A cough is a common symptom of these sorts of respiratory infections, and coughing is a complaint that leads to an estimated 30 million office visits every year. Some 40% of those end up in a pulmonologist’s office like mine.

Given how ubiquitous persistent coughing is, you might presume that the medical profession has a long list of treatments that we know work. That, unfortunately, depends on why you are coughing. But a cough following an upper respiratory infection does usually go away, in time.

How a cough works

Doctors have long wondered why the duration of cough varies so much following an upper respiratory viral or bacterial infection. The answer likely lies in differences in people, such as the presence of a condition like asthma or chronic bronchitis. I see this same variability in my office: Some patients develop a long-term cough, while others seem to kick the cough much sooner, with no clear explanation.

Coughing occurs due to a complex process that begins with an electrical impulse between the nerves within the airways, including the nose and throat. There are two types of nerves that can trigger a cough in response to external stimuli: chemical receptors and mechanical ones called mechanoreceptors. Chemical receptors respond to smells and fumes; they’re the reason people sometimes cough after breathing in spicy peppers sizzling on a hot skillet. Mechanoreceptors respond to sensations from irritants such as dust.

When these nerves are activated, the throat closes and pressure in the chest increases. This buildup of pressure leads to a burst of air and mucous into the lungs at around 500 mph – a speed nearly twice as fast as the world’s fastest cars.

Studies show that a viral infection alters how sensitive these same nerves are. When you have a viral infection, the resulting inflammatory process produces a molecule called bradykinin that drives the urge to cough. And it’s known that the virus itself can activate genetic changes that increase the sensitivity of these nerve pathways, which leads to more coughing.

But when the acute stage of infection is over and you start to feel better, the body repairs the damages caused by inflammation in your airways and lungs. Through this process, the cough reflex also abates. And the molecular processes that were making you cough and sneeze more frequently settle down and return to a normal state – at least in most cases. Unfortunately, in some people, this process takes longer than in others.

Knowing how long is too long to cough

Doctors find it useful to break respiratory symptoms like cough into specific categories.

There are three main types of coughs: acute, sub-acute and chronic. An acute cough is what most people experience when they’re sick with an active viral infection. A sub-acute cough lingers for three or more weeks following an upper respiratory illness. And a chronic cough is one that persists longer than 12 weeks. Chronic cough is most commonly caused by asthma, postnasal drip and, perhaps surprisingly to some, reflux.

Postinfectious cough is one variety of sub-acute cough and is the lingering cough that many people have after they get over their respiratory infection. It can last for weeks or months and can progress into chronic cough.

Because postinfectious cough is so common, doctors have long worked to determine how many people have a cough that persists after their other symptoms go away. Those estimates vary among studies. One small study in Japan found that of people who have a sub-acute and chronic cough, 12% resulted from a respiratory tract infection.

When it comes to COVID-19, the best evidence to date shows that only 2.5% of the people who have gotten it have also developed a chronic cough after infection. That number may seem small, but it translates to a lot of people coughing, given that the U.S. has more than 280,000 new cases of COVID-19 per week, as of early February 2023. The actual number, though, is unclear because the studies that look at postinfectious cough are often small and only account for the people who got COVID-19 and showed up in their doctor’s office or in a telehealth visit for evaluation.

No simple fix

The American College of Chest Physicians and the European Respiratory Society have published guidelines to help clinicians navigate these uncertainties and the dearth of data available on the diagnosis and treatment of coughing. Although the U.S. guidelines were published in 2006, they still represent the best evidence available for clinicians and their patients.

About half of patients recover from their cough without any treatment. For those who don’t, the limited data available suggests that inhalers, steroids, narcotics and certain over-the-counter medications may provide relief for some people.

In adults, the evidence for the efficacy of various treatments is mixed and limited. In my practice, I often prescribe a non-narcotic cough suppressant called benzonatate, sold under the brand name Tessalon Perles. It works by numbing the nerves in the lungs and airways, calming the cough reflex. Data for treatments in children is equally lacking, and studies have shown that over-the-counter cough suppressants and antihistamines were no more effective than the placebo.

Home remedies can also play an important role for some patients. Many people swear by honey, and there is some limited supporting evidence behind its benefits. One trial showed that honey was more effective at soothing a cough than the placebo over a three-day period.

When in doubt, ask a doctor

Being worried about a persistent cough is understandable – a quick Google search can present plenty of reasons to worry. Though not a very satisfying answer, most coughs really will eventually resolve on their own. However, if you lose weight rapidly, cough up blood, have night sweats or produce lots of sputum, you should talk to your primary care provider. In rare cases, sub-acute and chronic cough can be a sign of lung cancer or various forms of chronic pulmonary disease.

If you are simply nervous about it and want more information and advice, that is reason enough to check in with your doctor. After all, a cough is the reason behind millions of office visits every year.

Kyle B. Enfield receives funding from the National Heart and Lung Institute, Society of Critical Care Medicine - CureID, and the USDA. He is a member of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the American Thoracic Society, the Society for Health Care Epidemiology of America, and the Wilderness Medicine Society. He is a volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America.

Gov. Ron DeSantis initiated a forceful takeover of New College on Jan. 31, placing six conservative board of trustee members and appointing close allies to fight against “woke” culture, according to a Friday report by VanityFair.

Higher education is meant to help students develop into mature, responsible and independent adults. The state should not dictate curriculum because of political disagreements. 

The students at New College of Florida were caught off guard when DeSantis appointed the new board of trustee members, according to a Jan. 31 Tampa Bay Times report. In a 9-3 vote, the board ousted President Patricia Okker, according to a Jan. 29 The Guardian article. The board immediately voted to appoint interim president Richard Corcoran, a former Republican state House speaker and Florida education secretary. 

Corcoran is a close ally to DeSantis, according to the Tampa Bay Times, showcasing the growing attack on freedom of education and expression that Florida has become known for.

Christopher Rufo, one of the newly appointed board members, gave a speech at Hillsdale College April 5, claiming conservatives needed to lay siege to institutions that have been accused of indoctrinating students with left-leaning ideology. Other board members, like Manny Diaz and Charles Kesler, have openly made statements about wanting to turn New College into a right-leaning classical college like Hillsdale, according to Vanity Fair. 

Each board member has one common goal – to completely change the environment of New College to one where “woke goes to die,” as infamously said by DeSantis on Nov. 9 during his successful reelection speech.

Legislation proposed by DeSantis would dismantle university programs that are deemed “ideological,” according to a Jan. 31 article by Politico. Students on campus see this takeover as a political stunt to shape education into a more far-right indoctrination effort.

“New College is unique in terms of how quickly and aggressively and brazenly things are moving. But this is very much a part of a broader push against educational freedom,” third-year New College anthropology major Alex Obraud said in a Feb. 8 interview with VICE news. “This school is a test case of how far you can take censorship and push politics in public schools.”

DeSantis has already begun to probe schools for how much state funding went into diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as well as the medical records of people with gender dysphoria and sought treatment, according to a report by WUSF on Feb. 9. USF students held a protest in response, but USF Health complied with the governor’s demands, according to a Feb. 2 Oracle article.

The past few weeks have taken classroom censorship to a dangerous extreme. With the Florida government stepping in, public universities are being forced to comply to control the hiring of faculty, the curriculum or ruling certain subjects out of bounds based on political beliefs. 

Policies that aim to restrict education surrounding race and probe colleges that offer a safe environment for LGBTQ students do immense harm to students learning how to understand and analyze society in a more critical lens, according to a Nov. 22 article by the Intercultural Development Research Association (IRDA).

When places like this are funded mostly by the state, it makes it hard for them to reject these programs. 

“If funding for particular offices is coming from places other than the state, certain areas may have a little more flexibility during these times, but I’m not sure how long that will last,” special advisor to the College of Arts and Sciences Dean on diversity, equity and inclusion Tangela Serls said in a Sunday statement to The Oracle. 

Regardless of the potential harm to college students, DeSantis announced during a live broadcast on Jan. 31 that he plans to get rid of “ideological conformity” in public higher education by eliminating diversity programs, weakening tenure protections for professors and focusing the curriculum on the history and philosophy that has shaped Western civilization. The continued attacks on education do not help better students, but rather leave them worse off. 

If DeSantis is worried about education, he should be focusing on accessibility for college students in the state of Florida rather than restricting resources or AP courses that challenge his world view for the chance of a good Presidential campaign in 2024. Florida students deserve better than to be forced under a blindfold by the sunshine state.

The potential elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts throughout Florida’s public universities could result in losses in students’ success and their ability to excel in a transnational context, according to special advisor to the College of Arts and Sciences Dean on DEI (SADEI) Tangela Serls and Middlebury College vice president for DEI Khuram Hussain.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he would defund all DEI and critical race theory (CRT) initiatives in a Jan. 31 press conference, following requests to the state’s public universities to detail their DEI and CRT-related spending. 

Hussain said because DEI functions as a primary point of contact between students with disabilities and the university, it ensures that students are able to access accommodations needed for their learning. Removing DEI offices would then have an impact on the positive gains made to support student success, according to Hussain.

“DEI offices are designed to support the capacity of students and professionals to fully participate in what higher education has to offer,” Hussain said. “Why would anyone who really understands what DEI offices aim to do want to curb this affirming work?”

Students won’t be prepared to perform in a global society, according to Serls. She said they will be less informed, less empathetic and less appreciative of differences across humanity.

Serls said faculty will also be affected, however, as they might run the risk of losing funding from national and international grantors who value DEI. Grantors who might think particular projects can no longer be carried out thoroughly due to state policies will cause faculty to lose out on funding, she said. In the long run, she said it might become difficult to recruit and retain talented faculty.

It is still unknown what state policies might mean for DEI practitioners, according to Hussain. A Feb. 7 universitywide email from President Rhea Law announced that the search for a new vice president for DEI had been halted due to the uncertainty surrounding DeSantis’ proposals and investigations regarding DEI efforts. 

Serls said those working in DEI won’t have the benefit of having an executive leader now that the search has been canceled. Without a leader’s vision and guidance, it will be more difficult to continue the work, she said. 

When it comes to funding, the effects will be felt at different degrees throughout different offices, according to Serls. For example, Student Support Services (SSS) is a federally funded grant program which does not receive state funds and is less likely to be affected, according to SSS Director LaTosha Thomas.

“If funding for particular offices is coming from places other than the state, certain areas may have a little more flexibility during these times, but I’m not sure how long that will last,” Serls said. 

USF reported the most DEI and CRT related spending, totaling $8.7 million, in an investigation by DeSantis. The university funded areas such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA), Upward Bound, SSS, Institute on Black Life and its own DEI office.

However, those working on DEI are collectively experiencing a type of psychological trauma navigating new state policies which can’t be understated or ignored, according to Serls. People might also be scared to speak up, she said.

“I believe people are terrified, and I can’t blame them because our livelihoods are at stake. In fact, I almost passed on the opportunity [to speak with The Oracle], but I decided that I needed to be brave,” Serls said. 

The OMA, DEI office and Institute on Black Life declined to comment upon The Oracle’s request. 

USF will continue to work with the governor on the state’s higher ed initiatives, according to Director of Media Relations Althea Johnson. 

Hussain said those who work in DEI focus on the creation of sustainable solutions to issues of interpersonal harm that arise on campus, and the absence of this could lead to a community that is less safe, respectful and capable of sustaining inclusive learning.

“For generations, we have looked to higher education to revitalize and inform democratic life – to do so, educators and administrators need the space to cultivate independent, broadminded and critical thinking,” he said. 

“At its core, DEI aims to advance these principles for all students and education professionals – to understand ourselves and our world in expansive and inclusive ways. If we silence advocates of transformative learning, we ultimately curb earnest and effective efforts to prepare students for democratic life.”

Assistant professor Kyaien Conner said Gov. Ron DeSantis’ initial rejection of Advanced Placement (AP) African American studies course in Florida could be a precursor to restrictions on critical race theory (CRT) classes in the state’s public universities and colleges.

College Board released a revised version of the course on Wednesday, omitting some scholars and figures involved with topics relating to CRT and political activism, according to an article from The Washington Post.

However, College Board released a statement saying the decision was not in response to DeSantis’ concerns about the course, and that these changes were in development before the governor publicly expressed his disapproval.

“We reject any claim that our work either indoctrinates students or, on the other hand, has bowed to political pressure,” Duke University professor Kerry Haynie said in the statement issued by College Board.

The initial rejection of the course from DeSantis was announced Jan. 23 and was soon followed by plans from the governor’s office to curb diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and CRT related initiatives in the states’ universities and colleges. 

As part of his plan to fight indoctrination in state schools, DeSantis said that the class uses Black history to push a political agenda. The state objected to the readings about African American scholars and activists such as Roderick Ferguson, Kimberlé Crenshaw and Angela Davis. Crenshaw and Davis were omitted from the revised version of the course, according to The Washington Post.

The course is designed to offer high school students an “evidence-based introduction to African American studies,” according to the College Board website. The pilot version of the class is currently being taught in some U.S. schools. It is a disciplinary course reaching into different academic fields such as the arts, humanities, political science, geography and science. 

Conner said the language used by the governor’s office is “incredibly clear.” She said legislators believe that DEI and CRT related programs are dividing students and are misinformed on what they actually entail.

“They are pushing a narrative that these kinds of programs and opportunities are a way to create divisions and are a way to be divisive,” Conner said. “We are not indoctrinating students. DEI programs are an attempt to create equity, not to create division.”

Visiting professor Kirsten England said the push back on the course limits students’ options and the diversity within the education system. Taking the course would be a choice that allows students to make themselves a better-educated citizen by showing them history from other perspectives, she said.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced on Jan. 25 that if DeSantis does not stop his attempts to “exterminate Black history,” the state’s Black leaders would sue for violating students’ constitutional rights.

Associate professor Richard Manning said that because the governor and the Republican-led congress of Florida control university funding, none of the state university presidents are in a comfortable position to be the first one to stand up to the governor and his plans for education.

“They don’t want to poke the bear, but sometimes the bear is chewing off your arm and it’s time to poke,” he said. 

At a Jan. 18 faculty senate meeting, Manning asked President Rhea Law if she believed in the existence of systemic racism in the United States. Law, however, declined to directly answer the question, Manning said.

“We have the obligation to address all of these things. We have incredible love amongst our groups but we also have hate. If that rises to the level of racism, that is just the case,” Law said at the meeting. “The university stands for bringing knowledge and direction and letting people learn about others and appreciating them. That is what we should be doing.”

Following Manning’s initial question, he told Law that a candid agreement to the existence of systemic racism might be a way to buttress the university’s commitment to faculty.

“I understand what you’re looking for,” Law responded. “I am here to support each of you and I do believe in the fairness and needs for DEI for all of our individuals. We should be teaching those things that support that. But I’m not going to fall into a trap of trying to define a term here or there. You know exactly where I stand and I hope everybody on this call understands [it]. 

Law then restated her commitment to the university’s strategic plan, which mentions a “diverse and inclusive community for learning” as one of its goals.

Manning said the point of asking the question was to have the president say something that would let at-risk faculty know that she understands and finds value in what they study and teach rather than agreeing with the governor. He said the most likely explanation as to why Law evaded the question is that it is too politically risky.

Law’s office declined to comment on the situation upon The Oracle’s request.

Manning said the contrast between education that the governor and legislature endorse and what they oppose is not a matter of history versus interpretation. He said all history, as opposed to the past, involves interpretation. It is a matter of which interpretations provide more of the facts and a more informative, explanatory story about how we got to where we are today, he said. 

Assistant professor David Ponton said what is happening to kids in secondary schools is the riskiest situation among DeSantis’ recent legislations and proposals. He said the students who will not have the chance to take the course to its fullest extent already have an understated understanding of Florida history by the time they arrive at college. They will no longer have the added perspective and research experience that comes with the course, according to Ponton.

“They’re going to miss out on that opportunity in the state of Florida and, when they come to the university level, they’re going to be behind their peers in other states,” he said.

The class would help foster three major skills: applying disciplinary knowledge, source analysis and argumentation, according to the course framework released by College Board. A final project in the course would also allow students to research any topics, theme, issue or development in the African American studies field and integrate evidence from other disciplines such as history or art.

Conner said pushing against DEI and towards colorblindness means erasing critical parts of individuals’ histories. To ignore the existence of systemic racism means placing groups of people at considerable risk for not being able to have the same opportunities as others, according to Conner.

“The idea of saying something that’s colorblind also means that you are erasing a critical aspect of who I am, of who people of color are, who don’t have the opportunity or the ability to walk outside of their door every day and be colorblind to the fact that racism exists,” she said. “Systemic racism exists.”

As the father of Black history, Carter G. Woodson had a simple goal – to legitimize the study of African American history and culture.

To that end, in 1912, shortly after becoming the second African American after W.E.B. Du Bois to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard, Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915.

More than 100 years later, Woodson’s goal and his work detailing the struggle of Black Americans to obtain full citizenship after centuries of systemic racism is still relevant today.

As dozens of GOP-controlled state legislatures across the U.S. have either considered or enacted laws restricting how race is taught in public schools, The Conversation U.S. has published numerous stories over the years exploring the rich terrain of Black history – and the never-ending quest to form what the Founding Fathers called a more perfect union.

1. From the Underground Railroad to Civil War battlefields

Armed with a deep faith, Harriet Tubman is most famous for her successes along the Underground Railroad, the interracial network of abolitionists who enabled Black people to escape from slavery along secret routes in the South to freedom in the North and Canada.

But Tubman’s activities as a Civil War spy are less well known.

As historian and Tubman biographer Kate Clifford Larson wrote, Tubman’s devotion to America’s promise of freedom endured, despite suffering decades of enslavement and second-class citizenship.

“I had reasoned this out in my mind,” Tubman once said. “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.”

Read more: Harriet Tubman led military raids during the Civil War as well as her better-known slave rescues

2. Juneteenth and the myths of emancipation

As a scholar of race and colonialism, Kris Manjapra wrote that Emancipation Days – Juneteenth in Texas – are not what many people think.

“Emancipations did not remove all the shackles that prevented Black people from obtaining full citizenship rights,” Manjapra noted. “Nor did emancipations prevent states from enacting their own laws that prohibited Black people from voting or living in white neighborhoods.”

Between the 1780s and 1930s, over 80 emancipations from slavery occurred, from Pennsylvania in 1780 to Sierra Leone in 1936.

In fact, there were 20 separate emancipations in the United States alone from 1780 to 1865.

Read more: Juneteenth celebrates just one of the United States’ 20 emancipation days – and the history of how emancipated people were kept unfree needs to be remembered, too

3. An image of a lynching found in a family photo album

As director of the Lynching in Texas project, historian Jeffrey L. Littlejohn provided the very kind of analysis that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican legislators in Texas want to ban from public schools.

Among the many documents and relics Littlejohn has received, one package stood out. Inside was a family album of photographs filled with the usual images of memories – a vacation, a wedding anniversary dinner – but also, one of the lynching of a Black man.

During the Jim Crow era, lynchings occurred regularly in Texas – with 16 in 1922 alone.

But in 2021, the GOP-controlled state Legislature in Texas enacted a law prohibiting K-12 educators from teaching that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from … the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”

In other words, as Littlejohn wrote, “this interpretation holds that slavery, racism and racism’s deadly manifestation, lynching, did not serve as systemic forces that shaped Texas history but were instead aberrations.”

The photo album serves as a direct challenge to that interpretation.

Read more: One family's photo album includes images of a vacation, a wedding anniversary and the lynching of a Black man in Texas

4. Black soldiers fight racism and Nazis during World War II

In his book “Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad,” historian Matthew Delmont explored the idea of Black patriotism and how many Black soldiers saw their service as a way to demonstrate the capabilities of their race.

Prompted by the Pittsburgh Courier, an influential Black newspaper during the 1940s, Delmont wrote that Black Americans rallied behind the Double V campaign during the war – victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home.

During the war, the Red Ball Express, the Allied forces’ transportation unit that delivered supplies to the front lines, was one example of such exceptional performance.

From August through November 1944, the mostly Black force moved more than 400,000 tons of ammunition, gasoline, medical supplies and rations to battlefronts in France, Belgium and Germany.

Read more: The forgotten story of Black soldiers and the Red Ball Express during World War II

5. An NBA champion’s cerebral fight for equal rights

In his biography of Bill Russell, “King of the Court,” Aram Goudsouzian wrote that the NBA champion sought to find worth in basketball amid the racial tumult of the civil rights movement.

He emerged from that crucible by crafting a persona that one teammate called “a kingly arrogance.”

Russell, who died July, 31, 2022, was the NBA’s first Black superstar, its first Black champion and its first Black coach.

As a civil rights activist, Russell questioned the nonviolence philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr. and defended the militant ideas of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. He refused to accept segregated accommodations in the Deep South and recalled instances of police brutality during his childhood in Oakland, California.
“It’s a thing you want to scream,” Russell wrote. “I MUST HAVE MY MANHOOD.”

Read more: Bill Russell's legacy of NBA championships and cerebral fight for equal rights

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Kevin McCarthy reportedly promised many things to Republican hardliners en route to clinching his job as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. One of them was a “balanced budget” in 10 years.

As part of that plan, Republicans are demanding substantial spending cuts and budget reforms in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling this year – putting the U.S. at risk of default.

But a look at the numbers – and the history – shows just how difficult balancing the budget will be.

Doing so requires the federal government to generate enough income to pay for all its spending. The U.S. has managed this feat only twice in the past 60 years – and both times involved raising taxes, something Republicans are loath to do. President Lyndon B. Johnson managed to do it in 1969, and President Bill Clinton created a surplus that ran from the fiscal years 1998 to 2001, when he left office.

As a member of the Clinton administration in the Commerce Department from 1997 to 2001, I participated in achieving that rare balanced budget and understand the obstacles to delivering a repeat performance. A quick look back at how we did it, along with how much has changed, shows that Republicans are unlikely to manage a similar performance.

How Clinton balanced the budget

When Clinton took office in 1993, the budget deficit in the previous year was just under 5% of gross domestic product, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted a bleak fiscal outlook.

Clinton’s balanced-budget recipe was a mixture of higher revenues and lower spending, with help from a booming economy. In his second term, he also negotiated a bipartisan budget deal with Republicans.

After campaigning on a pledge to cut the deficit, Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy during his first year in office. He introduced higher top personal income tax brackets, raised corporate taxes, increased taxes on Social Security benefits, added 4.3 cents per gallon onto gas taxes and eliminated a number of itemized tax deductions. On the spending side, Clinton took advantage of the “peace dividend” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union to reduce defense spending from 4.3% of GDP in 1993 to 2.9% by 2000.

These measures helped slash the overall deficit to 1.3% of GDP by the end of Clinton’s first term. That’s the smallest it had been in 22 years.

The higher taxes invited pushback from Republicans, who gained majorities in the House and Senate in 1995. Clinton wrangled continually with then-Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, who forced a government shutdown that same year.

As part of budget negotiations, Congress eventually passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which retained Clinton’s original tax increases but cut capital gains taxes and reduced spending on Medicare and Medicaid. Meanwhile, the economy, fueled by a tech boom, expanded rapidly during Clinton’s second term.

Higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, strong economic growth and continued restraint in government spending produced a budget surplus of US$69 billion in 1998. The surplus peaked in 2000 at $236 billion before falling to $128 billion in 2001. The surplus – which hasn’t been seen since – allowed the U.S. to pay down the national debt by over $450 billion.

Lessons for today

The lesson for Republicans today is that if they are serious about balancing the budget, it will require some very unpalatable choices.

On the spending side, so-called entitlements – mandatory programs such as Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits – now account for almost two-thirds of the federal budget, compared with less than half when Clinton took office. Funding for these programs is set by formula, making it difficult to change. And the population of Americans 65 or older has grown by 32% since 1993, increasing demand for entitlements.

Defense spending takes up another 14% of taxpayer dollars, greatly exceeding every other item in the so-called discretionary budget, which includes everything else from transportation and energy to airline traffic control and national parks.

The U.S. spends 8% of the budget simply paying interest on the national debt. This percentage hasn’t changed much, but the debt itself has soared from $4.5 trillion in 1993 to $31 trillion today mainly because of massive tax cuts during the Bush and Trump administrations, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and vast public spending to address the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now that historically low interest rates have come to an end, the U.S. will be forced to devote a bigger slice of the pie to paying interest.

The policy nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently estimated that if spending on defense, veterans, Social Security and Medicare were off the table, Congress would need to reduce all other spending by 85% to get to an overall balance. In other words, simple arithmetic means it is not feasible to achieve anything close to a balanced budget without addressing military spending and entitlement programs.

Reducing military spending is always controversial – and many Republicans (as well as some Democrats) would resist such cuts – but especially so at a time when the U.S. is ramping up military aid to Ukraine and the Pentagon perceives a threat from China. It’s the very opposite of the Clinton-era peace dividend.

Cutting mandatory spending would require significant reforms. The U.S. has one of the youngest minimum retirement thresholds in the world, at age 62, compared with 65 in Canada and 67 in Britain and Germany. Even France may soon have a higher minimum retirement age of 64 – though the current protests there over increasing it from 62 illustrate the political perils of such a change.

Can they do it again?

Certainly, opportunities do exist to close the gap between income and spending.

The Congressional Budget Office has released a report outlining 76 options for reducing the deficit. But many of the ideas require further hard choices, such as rolling back some or all of the last three tax cuts, increasing taxes on the wealthy, ending or curtailing tax deductions and adopting a consumption-based value-added tax or a carbon tax, as well as fundamental reforms to entitlement programs.

Unfortunately, Congress shows limited appetite to tackle such issues.

Back in 1997, after the smoke cleared, both the Clinton administration and the Republicans in Congress were able to claim some political credit for the resulting budget surpluses. But – crucially – both parties recognized that a deal was in the best interest of the country and were able to line up their respective members to get the votes in Congress needed to approve it. The contrast with the current political landscape is stark.

The Republican Study Committee, a bloc of more than 160 conservative lawmakers, released a budget blueprint in June 2022 that promises to balance the budget in seven years. The plan proposes trillions of dollars in spending cuts, many of which would fall hardest on low-income Americans. These include shrinking Medicaid, paring veterans benefits and raising the age for full Social Security retirement benefits from 67 to 70. It also calls for higher military spending and further tax cuts – which would require even more draconian cuts to core safety net programs.

It would also lock in the Trump tax cuts of 2017 – the opposite of what the Congressional Budget Office recommends or what Clinton did in the 1990s to secure a balanced budget.

Without a credible Republican deficit-cutting plan on the table, I believe that the odds favor a protracted stand-off over the debt ceiling, which could tip the precarious U.S. economy into recession.

While Congress seems highly unlikely to allow a debt default, this brawl would waste time and energy that could be better spent on figuring out how to strengthen programs like Social Security and close tax loopholes that drain revenue.

Balancing the budget is not an end in itself. Most economists agree that governments should reduce public debt during periods of prosperity and run deficits to assist people when the economy is weak.

The U.S. was fortunate in the late 1990s to enjoy a buoyant economy that enabled Congress and the president to achieve a fiscal surplus. What the country needs now, in my view, is not more quick fixes but a sustainable pathway to stabilizing the national debt. That requires growing revenues and reducing nonessential spending in a responsible way.

Linda J. Bilmes is the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Finance at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University. She is affiliated with the National Academy of Public Administration, where she serves on the Board of Directors, and the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration, where she is the member for the United States. She served as the Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary and CFO of the US Department of Commerce from 1999-2001, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration and Budget from 1997-1998.

Urban development leads to fewer shaded areas and more heat-absorbing paved surfaces. Cities tend to be warmer than their rural surroundings as a result, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island (UHI) effect. During the summer daytime, cities can be up to 12℃ hotter than rural areas.

UHIs are a major environmental hazard for urban dwellers. Research suggests that for each 1℃ rise in temperature, the risk of death increases by between 1% and 3%. Heat exposure also increases the risk of suffering cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses.

Our research calculated the death rates of urban inhabitants across 93 European cities (57 million people in total) between June and August 2015. We found that 6,700 premature deaths during this period were linked to UHIs.

But the pace of global warming is accelerating and 2–3 billion people are expected to live in cities by 2050. The health impacts of UHIs will likely worsen in the coming years.

Several strategies exist to protect urban residents from the impacts of heat. These include covering roofs and facades in vegetation (green roofs), decorating them in lighter colours, and replacing paved surfaces with areas of vegetation. Our modelling revealed that one-third (2,644) of UHI deaths in Europe could be prevented by increasing tree canopy cover to 30% in every urban neighbourhood.

Urban tree guidelines

This target was established last year by a study published in the Journal of Forestry Research. Since then it has been adopted by several cities worldwide, including Barcelona (Spain), Bristol (UK), Philadelphia (US), Canberra (Australia) and Seattle (US).

Urban forests regulate a city’s microclimates effectively. Research found that urban forests cooled the average temperature of 601 European cities by 1.1°C and by as much as 2.9°C.

Leafy neighbourhoods are also linked to improved mental and physical health. In California, a 10% increase in neighbourhood tree cover has been associated with a 19% reduction in rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Surrounding greenness, particularly greenness at schools, can be important in the cognitive development of children. Cognitive testing of schoolchildren in Barcelona revealed a 6% better working memory development in children at schools with the highest levels of greenness compared to those at the least-green schools.

More trees means less heat

We found substantial variation in UHI death rates across European cities. In 2015, Gothenburg in Sweden recorded no premature UHI deaths, while urban heat was responsible for 32 premature deaths per 100,000 people in the Romanian city Cluj-Napoca.

The cities with the highest UHI death rates were in southern and eastern Europe. Most of these cities generally had low tree coverage and recorded the highest UHI effect.

Just 3.3% of Thessaloniki in Greece is covered by trees, resulting in urban temperatures 2.8℃ higher than the surrounding area. By contrast, 27% of Gothenburg is covered by trees, delivering an UHI effect of just 0.4℃.

Overall, southern European cities will benefit most from increasing their tree cover. Our model estimates that Barcelona could reduce its UHI death rate by 60% by meeting the 30% tree coverage target.

The way forward

But the intensity of the UHI effect depends on multiple factors and is specific to each city. While vegetation cover influences urban temperatures during the day, nighttime temperatures are driven by the height of the urban canyon.

The cooling capacity of a tree canopy also varies. This depends on the type and size of trees, which are themselves contingent on the city’s natural climate and the degree to which trees are maintained.

Drier climates, like Thessaloniki, favour smaller trees that have fewer leaves. By contrast, Gothenburg’s cooler and wetter climate favours larger and leafier trees that provide better protection from daytime heat.

Due to this variation, we built a tool called the Cooling Efforts Index. The index assesses how much cooling can be achieved in each city for every 1% increase in tree cover. We also generated high-resolution maps for each city to identify the areas where tree coverage is needed most urgently.

In some cities, the majority of urban forests will grow on private land. Tree planting programmes must therefore encourage residents to plant trees.

In Victoria, a city on Canada’s western coast, neighbourhoods are offered a CAD$1,000 (£610) grant to plant residential trees. So far, over 78 trees have been planted on private property across the city.

Space can also be a major constraint in compact urban areas. So increasing tree cover to 30% may be challenging for some European cities.

But each city can adapt this target to its local context. For example, a lower tree canopy target can be combined with alternative measures like green roofs in compact urban areas.

Terrace roofs account for 67% of Barcelona’s roof surface area. As the city’s urban population continues to rise, the city council has launched a guide to transform roofs into areas with partial or total plant cover. The guide sets out the social and environmental benefits of green roofs and offers advice for choosing the right kind of terrace roof for the building.

Incorporating urban green infrastructure into cities should make them more resilient to climate change. But planting trees may not be enough. Tree growth is a long processes and around half of newly-planted trees die within two years. Preserving existing trees and complementing tree planting schemes with other measures that reduce the intensity of UHIs, such as reducing car use, are similarly important.

Urban trees provide substantial public health and environmental benefits. Our study suggests that by increasing tree coverage, premature UHI deaths in European cities can be reduced. But for the resilience of cities to increase, it remains important to combine greater tree coverage with other urban green infrastructure.

Mark Nieuwenhuijsen receives funding from European Union Horizon funding

Meelan Thondoo and Tamara Iungman do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a plan to completely defund diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and critical race theory (CRT) initiatives in Florida’s public universities on Tuesday during a press conference held at the New College of Florida.

The news comes after the DeSantis administration requested detailed cost reports pertaining to DEI-related expenses from all 12 of Florida’s public universities in December. Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez announced on Jan. 24 that an attempt would be made to curb DEI and CRT efforts, but the specific plan wasn’t discussed until now.

DeSantis said the reasoning for this decision was to direct colleges away from encouraging political activism and shift focus back to academics.

“The dominant view is the use of higher education under this view is to impose ideological conformity to try to provoke political activism. That’s not what we believe is appropriate in the state of Florida,” he said. “Instead, we need our higher education system to focus on promoting academic excellence, the pursuit of truth and to give students the foundation so they can think for themselves.

“The former approach is dominant throughout the country, particularly with respect to academia. You see it manifested in a lot of different ways, but more recently, you see it manifested in things like DEI bureaucracies, and this is basically a component of the administration within universities that are imposing a political agenda. These bureaucracies are hostile to academic freedom and really they constitute a drain on resources and end up contributing to higher costs.”

Another component of DeSantis’ plan is to keep a stricter eye on tenured faculty by requiring them to undergo review every five years, or sooner if necessary. This is to ensure faculty comply with new “anti-woke” legislation being passed, according to DeSantis.

“Now all tenured faculty at our state universities must undergo review every five years and can be let go if they are not performing to expectations. The Board of Trustees (BOT) has to determine whether they stay or go, but you may need to review more aggressively than just five,” he said.

“So we’re gonna give the BOT and the presidents of the universities the power to call a post tenure review at any time. So maybe you’re in year three, but there’s a need to do it. I’ve talked with folks around the country…and the most significant deadweight cost at universities is typically unproductive tenure faculty. And so why would we want to saddle you as taxpayers with that cost if we don’t have to do that?”

USF has spent a total of $8.7 million towards DEI efforts, the highest of any public university in Florida.

DeSantis said these new initiatives will increase enrollment at universities because of their broader appeal.

“I think the more we’re centering higher education on integrity of academic excellence, pursuit of truth, teaching kids to think for themselves and not trying to impose an orthodoxy, you are going to see people flooding into these institutions because there’s a desire for it,” he said.

“You’re gonna see a lot of interest in that when colleges and higher education embrace a more classical mission. People do respond to that.”

Following an announcement made by Gov. Ron DeSantis to investigate gender-affirming care procedures performed by Florida public universities, freshman communications and music studies double major Brooke Starz felt compelled to take a stand.

Starz was one of 12 students handing out flyers linked to a petition for USF leadership to protect transgender students’ rights to medical privacy at the protest, which occurred Tuesday in front of the Marshall Student Center (MSC).

In contrast to other demonstrators in the group, their face was painted pink, blue and white in honor of the transgender flag. Fighting for protections against USF’s transgender community in the face of DeSantis’ investigation marked not only a sign of protest, but a symbol of their identity, according to Starz.

“Protecting LGBTQ+ rights helps us seem more like people. People look at us differently or they look at us as trans people, so just having resources and having awareness is just making us more normal,” they said.

“There’s nothing wrong with being unique, but wanting to just be able to live happily, and looking however you want and asking you how you want … that’s so important for existing. I mean, what’s the point in life if you can’t be yourself and be happy in who you are and what you’re doing?”

Leading the protest was a leadership team created among junior economics and philosophy major Ben Braver and representatives of the Trans+ Student Union. Despite three other protests occurring on campus, Braver said he found celebrating trans joy to be especially important given recent attacks on LGBTQ+ rights by the Florida legislature.

The protestors’ petition, which is also available online, addresses USF President Rhea Law, students, staff and faculty and urges them to take action in protecting the privacy of transgender students.

DeSantis’ request, released Jan. 11, requires all Florida public universities to submit detailed information on services they provide to people seeking gender affirming treatment. Services required to be disclosed include the number of encounters when sexual reassignment procedures were sought out as well as the names of the facilities patients were referred to, according to a Jan. 22 Oracle article.

Protestors stood outside of the MSC collecting signatures between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to present to USF Health in response to DeSantis’ investigation, which requires USF to disclose procedures performed on each of its campuses.

Those passing by the demonstration were greeted with popular songs sung and played on the guitar by the protestors as well as chants of “Do you believe in civil rights?” and “Protect trans rights now, sign the petition.”

Students who stopped to engage with demonstrators and sign the petition were greeted with a variety of activities and free items to grab, including cornhole, face painting, condoms and Tampa Bay Abortion Fund stickers.

Given the authority granted to the government by Florida Sunshine Law — which grants anyone the ability to request state held documents, data or information — the group wrote in their petition that transgender students can be personally identified by both the government and malicious actors if the investigation is conducted as ordered.

For a member of the Trans+ Student Union who wished to remain anonymous, DeSantis’ utilization of the Sunshine Law represents a blatant and intentional attack upon transgender communities across the state of Florida.

As students involved in the investigation cannot claim that their HIPPA rights are being violated given how Sunshine law is structured, USF’s anonymous medical data on transgender students can easily be used against them, according to the anonymous source.

“We stand against DeSantis’ request to USF Health to provide anonymized data on transgender healthcare, which is to say the services provided to how many students and the ages of those students. While these are not medical records … it is getting into dangerous territory with the right to privacy because with age and only a few other things, it can get very easy to extrapolate who is receiving that health care and support,” they said.

“So we’re here to demonstrate against that and to prove to both USF and DeSantis that the student body of USF will care about its trans students and that we’re not going down without being vocal about our basic rights.”

Ensuring private medical records aren’t disclosed shouldn’t just be a priority for transgender students, but the American public, according to Starz. If the government has the ability to require individual healthcare records to be disclosed, they said they fear little will prevent DeSantis from extending his authority to researching other vulnerable groups.

Following the demonstration, Braver said he and representatives of the Trans+ Student Union met with Student Government (SG) to discuss USF’s plan of action in responding to DeSantis’ investigation.

In addition to presenting the book of signatures, which ended up gathering over 700 signatures during the demonstration, Braver said he was also able to speak to SG representatives about drafting a resolution for the university to denounce the investigation. If the resolution were to gain support, Braver said his hope is that all Florida public colleges would be able to back the statement collectively.

Proceeding into the future, Starz said politicians must realize the ramifications decisions such as DeSantis’ gender affirming care investigation have upon transgender communities. Without means to protect themselves from having their private medical information disclosed, Starz said transgender students will be left more vulnerable than ever before.

“This could result in people getting outed to their family, people coming into the school attacking people or people just not being able to get the things that they need in order to transition. I know a lot of people that get help here that they couldn’t get at home because they couldn’t tell their parents,” they said.

“They didn’t have states that were able to help them out, so we’re really lucky to have this resource here and to have that taken away or to have us be attacked because we have a resource is horrible.”

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Getting everyone who is eligible for free or discounted health insurance to sign up for it requires making it as easy as possible to enroll – and that convenience especially matters for young, healthy and low-income people. Those are the key findings of a recent study I conducted with Myles Wagner, an economics Ph.D. student.

We examined the subsidized health insurance program for low-income Massachusetts residents enacted in 2006 when Mitt Romney served as the state’s governor. The Massachusetts program – dubbed RomneyCare – resembled the program created by the Affordable Care Act and served as its model. For residents below the poverty line, which then stood at about US$22,000 for a family of four, coverage cost nothing.

Even when they didn’t have to pay a dime, eligible residents still had to sign up using a two-step process: After applying, they chose a plan among four or five options.

But the program didn’t always work this way. The state government didn’t make beneficiaries choose a plan until 2010. Instead, anyone who qualified but didn’t respond when asked to select one was automatically enrolled in a plan the state picked out. This meant that no one would go without insurance if they forgot to respond or got confused by the rules.

We compared the number and socioecononomic characteristics of residents who enrolled in the program before and after the change, with a control group unaffected by the policy because they had higher incomes and were not eligible for auto-enrollment.

We found that having a streamlined process makes a big difference. With automatic enrollment, 48% more people signed up for coverage each month. This meant one-third more people obtained coverage over the long run, and it reduced the uninsured rate among low-income people eligible for this coverage by about 25%.

A one-step process also had other consequences. Those who were automatically enrolled were especially likely to be young and healthy, with health care costs 44% below average.

They were also more likely to reside in low-income neighborhoods.

Massachusetts ended auto-enrollment in 2010 for budgetary reasons, and it didn’t reinstate it when the state shifted to an Affordable Care Act market in 2014.

Why it matters

About 5 million to 14 million Americans could soon lose their health insurance coverage through Medicaid – the government-funded U.S. health insurer for low-income Americans.

That’s because once the federal government designated the COVID-19 pandemic a “public health emergency” in March 2020, it changed Medicaid rules.

In exchange for agreeing to not remove anyone from the program, the states got more funding to run it.

The number of people enrolled soared to 90.9 million in September 2022, up 28% from February 2020. That’s roughly 1 in 4 of all Americans.

But the government’s continuous enrollment policy is slated to expire starting in April and the public health emergency is scheduled to officially end on May 11, 2023.

Unless those whose coverage expires actively sign up for new coverage, they could become uninsured – even if, like many uninsured Americans today, they would qualify for free or discounted coverage if they were to apply through an ACA health insurance exchange.

What still isn’t known

It’s still unclear how automatic enrollment policies can comply with the ACA’s rules to limit the number of people who will otherwise become uninsured when they lose Medicaid coverage.

But there are a variety of different proposals out there. Some states, including Maryland, California and – no surprise – Massachusetts, are starting to experiment with different approaches.

So once the pandemic-related Medicaid policies end, there will probably be new evidence that suggests which design works best.

Mark Shepard has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Commonwealth Fund, the Arnold Foundation, and Harvard University.

Scientists have known for years that unhealthy diets – particularly those that are high in fat and sugar – may cause detrimental changes to the brain and lead to cognitive impairment.

Many factors that contribute to cognitive decline are out of a person’s control, such as genetics and socioeconomic factors. But ongoing research increasingly indicates that a poor diet is a risk factor for memory impairments during normal aging and increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

But when evaluating how some diets may erode brain health as we age, research on the effects of consuming minimally processed versus ultra-processed foods has been scant – that is, until now.

Two recent large-scale studies suggest that eating ultra-processed foods may exacerbate age-related cognitive decline and increase the risk of developing dementia. In contrast, another recent study reported that ultra-processed food consumption was not associated with worse cognition in people over 60.

Although more research is needed, as a neuroscientist who researches how diet can influence cognition later in life, I find that these early studies add a new layer for considering how fundamental nutrition is to brain health.

Lots of ingredients, minimal nutrition

Ultra-processed foods tend to be lower in nutrients and fiber and higher in sugar, fat and salt compared to unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Some examples of ultra-processed foods include soda, packaged cookies, chips, frozen meals, flavored nuts, flavored yogurt, distilled alcoholic beverages and fast foods. Even packaged breads, including those high in nutritious whole grains, qualify as ultra-processed in many cases because of the additives and preservatives they contain.

Another way to look at it: You are not likely to find the ingredients that make up most of these foods in your home kitchen.

But don’t confuse ultra-processed with processed foods, which still retain most of their natural characteristics, although they’ve undergone some form of processing – like canned vegetables, dried pasta or frozen fruit.

Parsing the research

In a December 2022 study, researchers compared the rate of cognitive decline over approximately eight years between groups of people that consumed different amounts of ultra-processed foods.

At the beginning of the study, over 10,000 participants living in Brazil reported their dietary habits from the previous 12 months. Then, for the ensuing years, the researchers evaluated the cognitive performance of the participants with standard tests of memory and executive function.

Those who ate a diet containing more ultra-processed foods at the start of the study showed slightly more cognitive decline compared with those that ate little to no ultra-processed foods. This was a relatively modest difference in the rate of cognitive decline between experimental groups. It is not yet clear if the small difference in cognitive decline associated with higher consumption of ultra-processed foods will have a meaningful effect at the level of an individual person.

The second study, with about 72,000 participants in the U.K., measured the association between eating ultra-processed foods and dementia. For the group eating the highest amounts of ultra-processed foods, approximately 1 out of 120 people were diagnosed with dementia over a 10-year period. For the group that consumed little to no ultra-processed foods, this number was 1 out of 170.

Research examining the relationship between health and ultra-processed foods uses the NOVA classification, which is a categorization system based on the type and extent of industrial food processing. Some nutritionists have criticized the NOVA classification for not having clear definitions of food processing, which could lead to misclassification. They also argue that the potential health risks from consuming ultra-processed foods could be explained by low levels of fiber and nutrients and high levels of fat, sugar and salt in the diet rather than the amount of processing.

Many ultra-processed foods are high in additives, preservatives or coloring agents, while also having other features of an unhealthy diet, such as being low in fiber and nutrients. Thus, it is unclear if eating food that has undergone more processing has an additional negative impact on health beyond low diet quality.

For example, you could eat a burger and fries from a fast food chain, which would be high in fat, sugar and salt as well as being ultra-processed. You could make that same meal at home, which could also be high in fat, sugar and salt but would not be ultra-processed. More research is needed to determine whether one is worse than the other.

Brain-healthy diets

Even when the processes that lead to dementia are not occurring, the aging brain undergoes biochemical and structural changes that are associated with worsening cognition.

But for adults over the age of 55, a healthier diet could increase the likelihood of maintaining better brain function. In particular, the Mediterranean diet and ketogenic diet are associated with better cognition in advanced age.

The Mediterranean diet emphasizes the consumption of plant-based foods and healthy fats, like olive oil, seeds and nuts. The ketogenic diet is high in fat and low in carbohydrates, with the primary fiber source being from vegetables. Both diets minimize or eliminate the consumption of sugar.

Our research and the work of others show that both diets can reverse some of these changes and improve cognitive function – possibly by reducing harmful inflammation.

Although inflammation is a normal immune response to injury or infection, chronic inflammation can be detrimental to the brain. Studies have shown that excess sugar and fat can contribute to chronic inflammation, and ultra-processed foods might also exacerbate harmful inflammation.

Another way that diet and ultra-processed foods may influence brain health is through the gut-brain axis, which is the communication that occurs between the brain and the gut microbiome, or the community of microorganisms that live in the digestive tract.

Not only does the gut microbiome help with digestion, but it also influences the immune system, while producing hormones and neurotransmitters that are critical for brain function.

Studies have shown that the ketogenic and Mediterranean diets change the composition of microorganisms in the gut in ways that benefit the person. Ultra-processed food consumption is also associated with alterations in the type and abundance of gut microorganisms that have more harmful effects.

The uncertainties

Disentangling the specific effects of individual foods on the human body is difficult, in part because maintaining strict control over people’s diets to study them over long periods of time is problematic. Moreover, randomized controlled trials, the most reliable type of study for establishing causality, are expensive to carry out.

So far, most nutritional studies, including these two, have only shown correlations between ultra-processed food consumption and health. But they cannot rule out other lifestyle factors such as exercise, education, socioeconomic status, social connections, stress and many more variables that may influence cognitive function.

This is where lab-based studies using animals are incredibly useful. Rats show cognitive decline in old age that parallels humans. It’s easy to control rodent diets and activity levels in a laboratory. And rats go from middle to old age within months, which shortens study times.

Lab-based studies in animals will make it possible to determine if ultra-processed foods are playing a key role in the development of cognitive impairments and dementia in people. As the world’s population ages and the number of older adults with dementia increases, this knowledge cannot come soon enough.

Sara N. Burke ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.