About 100,000 babies were born through in vitro fertilization in 2024, according to the most recent U.S. data. But IVF commonly involves trying to create multiple embryos, because success is never guaranteed. If unused, those embryos can be frozen, discarded, donated to research or donated to another fertility patient.

In the eyes of some anti-abortion activists, those frozen IVF embryos are already children – children who need to be “adopted” into families. And that idea now appears in a federal document: grant guidelines announced by the Department of Health and Human Services in June 2026.

The department’s Embryo Adoption Awareness and Services program has existed since 2002. But this year’s funding notice describes IVF embryos as “children who already exist and are in need of a family.” Rather than presenting “embryo adoption” as one option among many for patients with remaining embryos, the document describes the practice as centered on embryos’ “rights” and “best interests.”

This language draws from a decades-long movement to give personhood status to fetuses and embryos, including those made in fertility clinics. The personhood movement is rooted in a belief embraced by many conservative Christians: that human life begins at fertilization and should receive legal protection from that moment.

Embryo adoption occupies a niche corner of U.S. fertility care. But the notice brings far-reaching questions about reproductive politics into sharper focus, including the future of IVF – a fertility treatment that many of those same conservative Christians support.

In my 2023 book, “Conceiving Christian America: Embryo Adoption and Reproductive Politics,” I show how embryo adoption developed as a Christian pro-life response to the accumulation of embryos remaining after IVF, recasting embryos as vulnerable children requiring rescue. Once a fringe view even among anti-abortion activists, that claim is now moving closer to the mainstream of reproductive politics.

Donation vs. adoption

Some fertility patients who no longer plan to use their frozen embryos donate them to other patients in the United States. An embryo is transferred through contracts and clinic consent forms, after which it can be transferred into a recipient’s uterus.

The small network of agencies, nonprofits and churches that offer embryo “adoption,” on the other hand, recast the donation process as one that saves “pre-born children.” Modeled on domestic adoption, many programs require home studies that assess prospective parents and their households. Many also allow donors to select who receives their embryos and encourage families to get to know each other rather than remain anonymous.

Legally, though, embryos in the U.S. generally are not adopted, because states do not classify them as children under adoption law. Instead, they are often transferred by contract as personal property.

The distinction between donation and adoption is not merely semantic, however, but part of a larger political project. Advocates seek to change how the public understands embryos and, ultimately, how the law classifies them.

As one advocate for embryo personhood told me in 2008, “What we call things matters.” Adoption language gives the process “some meaning and some dignity,” he said, by recasting IVF embryos as children deserving protection rather than as surplus tissue or research material.

Pushing for personhood

The world’s first embryo adoption program was launched in 1997 by Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which also facilitates traditional domestic and international adoptions. But the idea emerged from a longer effort that began taking shape in the 1960s, led largely by conservative Christian organizations, to establish legal personhood from the moment of fertilization onward.

In 1973, the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling found that the Constitution protected the right to have an abortion – a decision grounded in the right to privacy, stemming from the 14th Amendment’s due process clause. But the majority’s opinion also observed that the case for abortion rights would “collapse” if a fetus were recognized as a person under the 14th Amendment, with a constitutional right to life.

It was a watershed moment for personhood politics, and anti-abortion strategists responded quickly. One week later, Maryland Rep. Lawrence Hogan proposed the Human Life Amendment, which sought to extend constitutional personhood to “the moment of conception.” Similar efforts repeatedly failed in Congress and at the ballot box, including a prominent 2011 measure that Mississippi voters rejected.

As IVF advanced, the treatment raised new questions about when and where personhood begins. Some anti-abortion advocates extended claims about life beginning at fertilization to embryos created outside the body, but IVF was not one of the movement’s main targets.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, debates over human embryonic stem cell research drew national attention to what happens to embryos that remain after IVF. Scientists and patient advocates viewed embryos remaining after IVF as valuable materials for research that might lead to treatments for serious diseases.

To anti-abortion activists, however, using embryos in research destroyed human life. Embryo adoption entered the debate as a “life-affirming alternative” to discarding them or donating them to research.

President George W. Bush brought families from Nightlight’s embryo adoption program to White House press conferences opposing expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. These children helped convey Bush’s message that “there is no such thing as a spare embryo.”

From margins to mainstream

Embryo politics changed dramatically in 2022, when a new Supreme Court ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturned the constitutional protection for abortion.

Before Dobbs, persuading courts to recognize embryos and fetuses as persons had been a potent but divisive goal among anti-abortion groups. Some embraced it, while others favored a different strategy – in part because public support for IVF is so strong.

After Dobbs, however, activists intensified efforts to extend legal rights to embryos and fetuses. Personhood arguments now surface in not only abortion restrictions but also disputes involving pregnancy loss, child support and taxes. Fertility care, in particular, has moved toward the center of anti-abortion politics.

Alabama became a bellwether in 2024 when its Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created during IVF treatment qualified as “children” under the state’s wrongful death law, which allows parents to sue over the death of a child. The case arose after a patient entered a fertility clinic’s cryogenic storage area and dropped a container holding frozen embryos. Concerned about liability, clinics paused services, and the state quickly passed a law giving providers immunity for embryo damage or death during IVF services.

New territory

Today, the Health and Human Services funding notice signals a shift toward the personhood movement’s central premise: that embryos are children.

To be sure, embryo adoption occupies a small corner of U.S. fertility medicine. Few people choose to donate remaining embryos for procreative use. Nor is embryonic personhood a popular idea: Only 39% of Americans support laws declaring that human life begins at fertilization. A majority of white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants and Latter-day Saints support that view, yet majorities of these religious groups also oppose banning IVF.

But embryo adoption’s political power has never depended on widespread participation or public support. It lies in the story the movement tells about what embryos are, and advocates’ efforts to embed that story in institutions, policies and law.

I would argue the funding notice is one sign that the personhood movement is gaining force after the Dobbs decision. The question it raises is what legally recognizing embryos as children would mean for reproductive health and rights.

Risa Cromer has received research funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and served as a Public Religion Research Institute Fellow in 2025-2026.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/embryo-personhood-once-on-the-margins-of-abortion-debates-is-moving-closer-to-the-center/

A surprisingly large number and diversity of bee species – 74 out of 96 tested – have magnetic properties, according to research my colleagues and I recently published in the journal Science Advances.

Some animals are able to use iron-based magnetic compounds such as magnetite to detect and navigate via the Earth’s magnetic field – a sense called magnetoreception. We considered magnetism in the insects we tested to be a proxy for which species might be magnetoreceptive.

For decades, biologists have known that social, cavity-nesting honeybees exhibit magnetoreception. Most researchers assumed that this internal compass was tied to living in a colony; honeybees communicate the location of floral resources to other colony members through a dance that indicates direction relative to the position of the Sun and the geomagnetic field.

Our study had two goals: to compare magnetism between bee species that live in groups versus on their own, and to track down the evolutionary origin of magnetoreception in bees.

Finding magnetism wherever we looked

To test magnetic responses, we collected bee specimens from across the bee family Apidae, which includes social species such as honeybees along with solitary species such as chimney bees. We ground dried dead bees into a powder, then measured how magnetic this powder was in a magnetometer.

To our surprise, we found that the magnetic response was strong in both bees that live in groups and those that live alone. This result forced us to reject our initial hypothesis that magnetism was necessary only for social bee species.

Even more unexpected, a bee from a small social species in the family Halictidae was also strongly magnetic. We then broadened our search to include bees from across the bee evolutionary tree, suspecting that the evolutionary origin of magnetism could be found in older bee lineages.

We identified some trends regarding the strength of the magnetic response of the bees in our study. Larger bees tested as more magnetic. Social bees did tend to be more magnetic than solitary bees. And cavity-nesting bees tended to be more magnetic than ground-nesting bees.

Overall, though, we detected magnetism across all the different families of bees, for social and solitary bees, in nocturnal bees, and in bees that live in nests in the ground as well as those that live above ground in hives. Insects from other groups we examined for comparison, including beetles, wasps and flies, were also magnetic.

We again had to reject our hypothesis; this time, we demonstrated that magnetism probably predates the evolutionary origin of bees. We concluded that magnetism is probably an ancient, well-conserved trait.

What still isn’t known

Our work leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

For one, although we assume that the magnetic response is a proxy for magnetoreception, it is notoriously difficult to demonstrate this because it requires experiments with live organisms removed from their natural environment.

Magnetoreception is one of the most controversial animal senses. While there is good evidence that some organisms have the ability to detect and navigate along the magnetic fields of the Earth, it is probably not the primary sense used, even for organisms that do have magnetoreception. That makes it a challenging sense to isolate and study. Even in bumblebees, which biologists believe are magnetoreceptive, there remain many questions and doubts about their use of this sense.

Scientists are more certain that honeybees are magnetoreceptive – researchers have even trained them to discriminate between local magnetic anomalies. So we made the assumption that insects we tested that had stronger magnetic responses than honeybees are also magnetoreceptive. But we cannot prove it. Moreover, our work does not explain the function of magnetism, nor the mechanism behind magnetoreception.

And while the strength of the magnetic signal varied among body parts, it was never restricted to a single body part in the bees we tested. This means that some of the hypotheses for how magnetoreception operates – for instance, through light-sensitive cryptochromes in the eyes – are not well supported by our results.

Laura Russo 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/bees-of-many-species-contain-tiny-magnetic-particles-suggesting-they-may-have-an-innate-magnetic-compass-for-navigation/

Concerns surrounding young people’s screen time are widespread.

Australia became the first country to ban social media for users under 16 in December 2025, and Denmark, France and the U.K. have since announced similar restrictions to begin this year.

In the U.S., as of mid-2026, more than 30 states have passed laws banning or restricting cellphones in K–12 classrooms; in 2023, the U.S. surgeon general issued a formal advisory on social media and children’s and adolescents’ mental health; and bestselling books tell parents that smartphones are “rewiring” their children’s brains.

These concerns and policies are part of a quickly changing national and international conversation around how young people spend time on screens and its relationship to their overall health and development. My reading of the mounting research on this issue across disciplines is that the popular narrative blaming screens and smartphones for an adolescent mental health crisis runs well ahead of the current evidence.

I study adolescent digital media use and its influence on social, emotional and academic outcomes. A growing body of research suggests that one-size-fits-all solutions are not the answer and that managing appropriate use of digital media needs to take into account a child’s developmental milestones, how parents and adults around them use media, and the ways kids use it to connect and learn with friends and family.

Screen time: From monolith to multifaceted

Wide adoption of digital media and the internet broadened the range of experiences young people could have online. At the same time, the digital age introduced newfound uncertainties. As with the advent of radio, comic books and arcades, adults worried about how children might interact with or be affected by internet use.

In response, the American Academy of Pediatrics first recommended in 1999 that parents and caregivers keep children under 2 away from screens. In the decades since, professional guidance largely treated children’s media use as a behavior to be mitigated.

Policies introduced by the academy in 2013 and 2016 continued to advise that school-age kids and adolescents – those ages 5 to 18 – be restricted to no more than two hours of “entertainment” screen time a day. The goal was to curb risks associated with heavy media use, among them disrupted sleep, online safety, cyberbullying and physical inactivity.

Originally created for young people’s engagement with stationary media that tend to be confined to one room or context – for example, watching television – these hourly limits became outdated with the integration of smartphones and other digital devices into everyday life. Compared with watching television, online media was far more difficult to track and define, and more nuanced in its use.

Developmentally beneficial activities such as education, socializing and leisure have come to rely on the internet to extend and maintain face-to-face connections. Remote schooling and social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated this digitization of daily life.

In my view, adopting strict time limits and restrictions could pose risks to children’s well-being, autonomy and development, for example, by harming adolescent self-esteem.

The latest guidelines

In January 2026, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its decade-old framework that had largely organized its advice around hourly screen limits. The new policy statement on children, adolescents and digital media diverges from this blanket approach. Instead, it suggests parents consider the larger picture in which this media use exists rather than lumping all screen use together.

Similar to the World Health Organization’s 2019 guidance for children under 5, the American Academy of Pediatrics still advises that parents avoid screen media for children younger than 18 months. This recommendation is largely because extended use by children by themselves can be problematic for many young children, crowding out important developmental milestones.

Both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics also recommend that when children under 24 months use screens, they should be limited to content and devices that encourage children and caregivers to interact. For ages 2 to 5, screen time – including TV and interactive apps on devices – may be extended to more solo use, provided it’s high-quality digital media designed around learning goals in mathematics and reading. But recreational use should be limited to roughly an hour per day.

For school-age children and teens, the newest guidance has begun to step away from fixed screen time limits and asks families to weigh online activity in the context of everyday life.

Doing so recognizes that a child’s digital experiences are shaped by diverse factors rather than the hours spent online. Current guidelines call on caregivers to distinguish among types of media, from television and social media to video games and interacting with artificial intelligence chatbots. They also call for taking into account a child’s individual characteristics, such as their interests and personality, family members’ own use of screens, and the type of content children are spending time on.

Rethinking screen time

Moving beyond strict screen time limits includes questioning the kind of digital activities kids and adolescents participate in. Do the activities encourage time spent interacting with others online, which can help young people develop important skills and competencies?

Scrolling an algorithm-based, auto-playing video feed likely does not equate to the same opportunities as video-chatting with friends, creating digital art or working with teammates in a multiplayer game. Research suggests these different uses relate to development in different ways and can help kids develop varying skill sets pertaining to everyday life and schooling.

Indeed, a large review of current research found that young people who take part in a range of digital activities, such as browsing the web, online gaming or interacting on social media, show positive associations with social connection, identity exploration, civic participation and learning.

Using these guidelines at home

The current evidence suggests parents and caregivers are best positioned to be digital instructors. Cutting children off altogether can carry its own risks for social and emotional development. Caregiver mediation of children’s screen time can produce widely different outcomes and effects, depending on whether the guidance is supportive or controlling.

Considering your own digital media use is the first step: Are family members engaging in problematic or heavy media use that children in the household might emulate? What applications and uses are most common in the family, and what positive or negative effects might they have, depending on the child’s age? How could these digital activities be safely integrated with other everyday experiences to increase their benefit for children? Conversely, what online time might be better spent on face-to-face experiences?

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Family Media Plan tool turns these ideas into concrete questions. For example, it recommends working out what each child needs from digital technology, what activities screens might be crowding out, and where their family or household can build in screen-free time. The recommendation is to talk with each child about why they are drawn to particular apps or online activities, what they encounter while browsing, and what might be lost when kids bring phones to gatherings such as mealtimes.

The debate over young people’s screen time is not going away. But the most up-to-date guidelines, and the growing body of research behind them, make a strong case for a more holistic approach. The guidelines treat digital media as a complex, diverse and evolving environment that children need to learn to navigate in the digital age. The risks and rewards depend, as with any developmental setting, on the child, the content and what online time might be crowding out.

Gabriel E. Hales 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/screen-time-guidelines-for-kids-and-adolescents-have-shifted-as-research-paints-a-more-nuanced-picture/

My wife stared at me in shock as I ripped opened the package. The FedEx driver hadn’t even made it back to his truck as I held the item up overhead like a trophy. Fumbling for words, she asked: “Why on earth did you buy a Speedo … with dinosaur tear-away trunks?”

Honestly, I couldn’t remember. Maybe it was for a social media skit? Maybe I was planning on making her laugh? Or maybe I was just a “victim” of an online ad that showed me the wrong message at the right time.

Scroll on social media for even 30 seconds, and your brain is already a little more tired than it was before. And in that mentally foggy state, you become more open to ads that just tell you what to buy – “The facts make it clear, we’re the best!” – than to ads that invite you to draw your own conclusion.

I’m a professor of advertising who has spent years studying how social media affects consumer behavior. And my recent research underscores how the mental tax of processing information, or “cognitive load,” changes the way people respond to product claims from brands.

Explicit versus implicit pitches

Joined by fellow researchers Stan Li and Bixuan Sun, I ran three experiments testing how people processed online ads for eco-friendly products.

In each study, half the participants first spent time on Instagram, scrolling for 30 seconds, while the other half did not. Everyone then viewed an Instagram post from a sustainable brand.

Participants in the first study saw an ad for laundry detergent sheets; the second, an eco-friendly phone case; and the third, a reusable water bottle. Each ad laid out several environmental facts about the product.

The only thing we changed was the last line of the caption. Half the participants saw an implicit conclusion: “Who makes the best, most sustainable detergent? Here are the facts, now decide for yourself.” The other half saw an explicit conclusion: “Who makes the best, most sustainable detergent? The facts make it clear – it’s TruEarth!!”

What emerged was a consistent pattern: Under normal conditions, without cognitive load, participants preferred the implicit conclusion. In other words, they wanted to think for themselves.

But when cognitive load was introduced just through scrolling on Instagram – something half of all U.S. adults do every day – participants preferred the ad that explicitly told them to buy the featured product because it was “the best.”

We found that credibility explained this phenomena. When consumers were under cognitive load and preferred the ads with explicit conclusions, it wasn’t because they consciously noticed that the ad was telling them what to do. Nobody would ever admit to being that impressionable. Rather, they preferred clear and bold conclusions because those claims made the brands seem more credible.

I think this tracks with the way we look at people, too. Under normal conditions, someone who’s bossy or pushy can come across as arrogant and annoying. But when we’re stressed or in a crisis situation, that same assertiveness can be reassuring.

The puzzle is that sustainability claims are challenging for advertisers. You can’t taste “50% lower emissions” or see “ethically sourced” the way you can judge a coffee’s flavor or a shirt’s fit. Sometimes, you have to take the brand’s word for it. That makes credibility especially important. No brand wants to be accused of greenwashing.

The cost of cognitive load

Normally, when people have the mental bandwidth to think something through, they prefer to reach their own conclusions and are less swayed by superficial information. It feels more like their own opinion and less like an order or strong suggestion.

Imagine one friend recommending a restaurant by listing dishes they loved and letting you decide whether it sounds good, while another flatly declares: “You have to go to this restaurant, it’s the best.” We all like to think of ourselves as rational consumers who make up our own minds about what to do, say, and purchase – even if this isn’t true.

And when we have the time, patience and mental energy to really think through a purchase decision, we may prefer ads that let us draw our own conclusion, based on the facts.

But if cognitive load is in play, the calculation flips. Picture trying to evaluate that same restaurant recommendation from your friend while responding to your boss’s texts, half-listening to a podcast and keeping an eye on a pot of pasta on the stove, all at the end of a long week. You just don’t have the spare mental effort to assess the evidence yourself.

In that state, a friend who just tells you to trust them is easier to believe. The confidence sends a signal that they know what they’re talking about, and the extra clarity is a relief rather than an imposition.

That’s essentially what’s happening when people scroll on social media. Their attention is split across a feed of friends, acquaintances, advertisements, family, celebrities, influencers, brands and strangers – all competing for the same limited mental resources. When a sustainability-themed ad follows that scroll, spelling out “it’s us” rather than “you decide,” it doesn’t come across as pushy. It comes across as confident and trustworthy, precisely because users don’t have the spare capacity to work it out on their own.

If you’ve seen the 1991 movie “Father of the Bride,” you’ll know that Steve Martin’s character is a loving father and that Martin Short is not shy. But weddings are stressful. And when Martin’s cognitive load increases to his breaking point, he makes a bad decision:

And this won’t surprise you: Every consumer thinks they are more rational, and less emotional, than everybody else.

Of course, this could be true. Sometimes. But even the most rational person has “foggy brain” now and then. Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, our research emphasizes the importance of being in the right mental state when buying online, especially for big purchases.

The times when your cognitive load or brain fog is higher – late afternoon, later in the week, or right before a big event – are not when you should be making important financial decisions. And definitely don’t buy anything on a Friday afternoon at 4 p.m.

Instead, you should wait until the following morning, when you can think clearly.

When credibility backfires

While an explicit product claim works because it signals credibility, it can quickly tip into what looks like false advertising when it’s not backed by evidence. Worse, it could trigger a boomerang effect where you end up hating the ad or brand.

In our case, we only tested claims paired with real and specific facts, such as whether the goods used recycled materials and had verified certifications or quantified emissions cuts. But a brand that states its conclusion boldly without backing it up may find that the same trick backfires. And skepticism, once triggered, is hard to undo.

Our finding does have limitations for now. While we studied sustainability messaging in part because it’s uniquely hard to verify on the spot, it’s unclear whether the same effect about explicit messaging shows up for other claims that can be dense and hard to check, such as ads promoting health benefits or offering financial products. We all know how easy it is for false or misleading messages to go viral and do plenty of damage before their claims can be fact-checked.

But for now, if you’re scrolling, half-distracted, and a brand confidently declares itself the best, remember that confidence might be working on you exactly because your guard is down.

So unless you want to experience buyer’s remorse, consider holding off on that late-night purchase for now. Wait until the next morning.

Matthew Pittman 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/why-you-let-down-your-guard-on-ads-when-scrolling-on-social-media/

Three weeks after Venezuela was struck by twin earthquakes on June 24, the scale of the devastation is still growing. The death toll is approaching 5,000 people, with 18,000 homeless and 21,000 more in shelters.

The worst-hit state is La Guaira on the Caribbean coast – an area that had already been the site of one of Venezuela’s worst natural disasters. In December 1999, the state, then called Vargas, saw several days of torrential rain which flushed mud and rock down the slopes of the Ávila mountains.

Hillside houses were swept away, entire neighbourhoods were buried under landslides, and buildings collapsed near the shore. Tens of thousands of people were thought to have perished, though the precise number is still unknown.

As I recounted in my 2003 book, Venezuela: The Crossroads of Hugo Chávez, the armed forces were central to that disaster response. As part of Plan Bolívar 2000, a programme that deployed around 70,000 troops across Venezuela for civic tasks such as infrastructure and road building, the military was sent to Vargas in large numbers. Soldiers pulled many survivors from the mud and rubble in the first days.

But as the relief effort dragged on, it soured into a dispute over who was in charge. In one incident, the then-governor of Vargas, Alfredo Laya, ordered a unit of paratroopers to deliver food and water to stranded families. The officers replied that they had no such orders and, following an argument, Laya was arrested.

In other incidents, military and civilian leaders disagreed over where to evacuate affected families and whether to house them in military or civilian facilities. Pablo Medina, an ally of Venezuela’s president at the time, Hugo Chávez, accused the army of acting “as if an atomic bomb had been dropped”, instead of responding to a natural disaster.

That episode was an early indication of how embedded in Venezuelan public life the military would become in the following years.

First under Chávez and later his successor Nicolás Maduro, who was removed from power by a January 2026 US military operation, the Venezuelan armed forces expanded well beyond the barracks. Military figures took senior posts across government ministries and state companies, gaining a direct stake in the running of the country.

Twenty-seven years on, after the same coast was struck by earthquakes, the military’s role in the disaster response has again been surrounded by controversy.

As in 1999, the armed forces are deeply involved in the operation. Visiting La Guaira in late June 2026, human rights NGO Provea reported that the government appeared to be prioritising military and police control of the territory over basic relief.

Provea criticised the “excessive military presence” near camps for affected people, and flagged the presence of intelligence and counter-espionage bodies with no legal role in disaster management. It warned that saturating the zone with armed agents was slowing aid delivery and could constitute a mechanism of social control.

The Venezuelan government has told a different story. It claims the militarisation of the disaster zone is necessary to allow relief to move in and reach the affected families.

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez – who spent much of the first two weeks after the earthquakes battling criticism that the state’s response had been too slow – said her government wanted to stop what she called media “labs” from spinning negative narratives.

As the relief effort turned into reconstruction, Rodríguez launched a rebuilding plan called Venezuela Renace (Venezuela Reborn). The government says that, under this plan, nearly 5,000 buildings across La Guaira and the capital, Caracas, have been inspected. The plan has also provided economic support to help the worst-affected families.

The rebuilding is being run through a mix of civilian and military bodies. On the coast, however, the works are coordinated by a single military figure, Major General Juan Ernesto Sulbarán Quintero, with army engineers taking on the rebuilding in several La Guaira neighbourhoods. More than 30,000 security personnel are still deployed in the worst-affected states.

The next phase

The military’s prominence in the recovery effort raises questions about what comes next. It also offers a glimpse into the future of civil-military relations in post-Maduro Venezuela.

Before the earthquakes, there were signs that Rodríguez was keen to reduce the visibility of the Venezuelan armed forces in politics, while bringing them more tightly under her control.

She replaced the long-serving defence minister, General Padrino López, with a more discreet and loyal insider called Gustavo González López.

Rodríguez also appointed a new general staff, regional commanders and heads for each of the five individual branches of the armed forces – the army, navy, air force, national guard and Bolivarian Militia.

At the same time, she has returned several government ministries from military to civilian hands, while relaunching welfare programmes aimed at troops. These changes suggested a move towards a less overt political role for the Venezuelan armed forces.

But despite this rebalancing, the military remains influential in Venezuela. The Rodríguez government still leans heavily on it for political support, as well as to contain the opposition and help secure oil and mining areas for private investors – a strategic US interest in Venezuela.

In some contexts, humanitarian response and civic action can provide a legitimate internal mission for a professional military – provided it is bound by clear prerogatives away from governance.

Given the military’s history in Venezuela, however, the recent disaster is more likely to reinforce its broad role in decision-making and influence over how the country is run.

Pablo Uchoa 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/venezuela-earthquakes-create-opening-for-militarys-return-to-public-life/

Andy Burnham has won on his third attempt to be Labour’s leader. In 2010, as a rising star associated with the Blairite wing, he made his first bid for the leadership. In truth, he had little prospect of success: he was merely placing a marker. Five years later, he stood again but could do little to derail the Jeremy Corbyn bandwagon.

Yet fast-forward 11 years and his ascent seemed unstoppable. Next week, he will become the UK’s 59th prime minister.

To understand why and how this happened, the circumstances that created this opportunity for Burnham are key. In 2024 Labour returned to power with a thumping majority, but with little more than a third of the total vote. Within months the new government was lurching from crisis to crisis; its standing in the polls collapsed and Keir Starmer became the most unpopular prime minister since modern records began.

At the same time, the party faced powerful challenges from opposite ends of the political spectrum – the radical-right Reform UK and the left-wing Greens. Labour’s electorate was visibly disintegrating, its plight made stark by the disastrous local and devolved parliamentary elections of May 2026 when it shed huge numbers of local councillors and lost Wales for the first time in over a century. The message for the parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) was stark: virtually all of them were at risk of losing their seats.

In these circumstances speculation around a challenge to Starmer mounted. But why should a man twice rejected by the party so rapidly emerge as the sole contender for the crown? The key (though not sole) factors are Labour’s system for electing its leader, the balance of internal party alignments, the structure of competition and the personal factor.

In terms of the election procedures, in 2010 Labour’s leader was selected by an electoral college divided into three sections: MPs, party members and trade union political levy-payers.

This was replaced in 2013 by direct membership voting, with three categories of members – ordinary members, affiliated (trade union) members and registered supporters. (This is discussed in detail in my book, Order and Rebellion: Labour’s Managerial Politics from Miliband to Starmer, co-authored with Emmanuelle Avril). This was the system in 2015 when Corbyn swept the board across all three categories.

But by 2026 there had been two significant changes. First, the class of registered supporters had been abolished. Second, the nominations threshold for leadership contenders had been raised from 12.5% to 20% of the PLP. It is unlikely the former had much effect but the latter certainly did, by effectively blocking anyone from the hard left from entering. This benefited the soft left, where Burnham positions himself.

Soft-left membership

There are no really reliable estimates of the shifting balance of alignments within Labour’s membership. Gauging this is difficult because of massive turnovers in membership between 2010 and 2026. Most observers would agree that the membership shifted after 2015 and then to the right after 2020.

Paradoxically, the centre of gravity among the rank and file did not change dramatically. Close observers of the party agreed that the mean party members tended to be soft left. This is why Starmer contested the 2020 race on a soft left platform (soon abandoned). If Burnham had done likewise in 2015, he might have won.

The structure of competition in Burnham’s three contests differed considerably. In 2010 he was not a serious contender, with the race effectively between the Miliband brothers Ed and David. In 2015 there were four contestants: Burnham, Corbyn from the hard left, and Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper from the right.

As a member of the shadow cabinet under Ed Miliband, Burnham had shifted to the left and was initially seen as the frontrunner. However, he made a fatal miscalculation in assuming that in response to the 2015 election defeat the party would move to the right and so he did so himself.

In fact, the party swung left and Corbyn was able to sweep up the leftwing vote – including those broadly on the soft left.

Burnham learned his lesson. After quitting parliament and winning the newly created post of mayor of Greater Manchester, he increasingly adopted a soft left posture. In the race to succeed Starmer, there were only three other plausible candidates: Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband from the soft left, and Wes Streeting from the right.

Here, chance intervened on Burnham’s side. The popular Rayner was forced to resign as deputy prime minister and deputy leader over a tax issue. Otherwise, she would probably have been in pole position. Like Rayner, Miliband, who worked closely with Burnham, was unwilling to stand against him since both shared his soft left stance. This left Streeting. His problem was simple: even if he mustered the 81 nominations he required, as a right-winger he had no chance of beating Burnham in a leadership contest. Streeting knew this, so opted not to stand.

Finally, among Burnham’s personal qualities, two are worth noting. The first is his undoubted popularity among those who know him best – his Greater Manchester constituents. More broadly, he normally receives a better net rating than any other Labour politician.

The second is his willingness to take a major risk by standing for a constituency, Makerfield, that he could easily have lost. Every one of its wards were won by Reform in the local elections and its demographics rendered it a top target for the party.

But Burnham’s unexpectedly decisive victory in the byelection demonstrated his mass appeal. For hundreds of beleaguered Labour MPs fearful of losing their seats, he was seen as their one and only lifeline. Burnham had staked his career on Makerfield and won.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Eric Shaw is a member of the Labour party..

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/andy-burnham-is-the-labour-leader-third-time-lucky-for-the-uks-prime-minister-in-waiting/

Many Pauline Hanson supporters judge her by standards very different from those they apply to other politicians. For them, she’s a medium through which to register their general feelings of grievance and alienation. So they don’t care much if she flouts ordinary rules.

But is there a limit to this tolerance – a limit Hanson has tested with her recent behaviour? In the past, Barnaby Joyce has warned those over-hyping One Nation’s prospects of the danger of flying “too close to the sun”. Will some supporters see Hanson to have been doing just that in the company she’s kept during her current overseas trip?

The publicity out of Britain and Europe stretches the patience of Joyce. He insisted to Nine on Friday, “Pauline’s doing a great job as the leader. We’re good mates, we talk all the time and I find it a very easy, constructive relationship to be in as far as politics goes, to be quite frank”.

Others might call it a rough political marriage. But still not nearly as rough as his previous relationship with then Nationals’ leader David Littleproud.

Joyce, not a stranger to going OTT on occasion, nevertheless can’t but be concerned at his leader’s judgement, to say nothing of the problem also being caused by One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts as debate swirls around his penchant for conspiracy theories.

Nor would Joyce be much impressed by Hanson continuing to talk up her daughter Lee Hanson as a potential future head of One Nation.

Leaders are judged in part by who they choose to associate with – and British far-right figure Tommy Robinson is definitely not someone of good repute, personally or politically.

Appearing on Robinson’s podcast, in a mutual admiration chat, Hanson was unfiltered, alleging Muslims are exploiting the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

“A lot of people come into Australia purely for the welfare system, or to get on our NDIS,” she said.

When Robinson asked the nationality or origins of these people, Hanson said:

A lot of them are ripping the system off, who are a lot from the Muslim areas, and they’re getting on the scheme. But there’s a lot of Aussies too – other Aussies. So I’m not just going to pick them out.

“But it is quite known that in the Muslim streets, you’ve got quite a lot in that street who are on the NDA scheme, so we know that it’s actually happening.”

She also claimed Sharia law was operating in Australia.

It was the latest in her years of targeting Muslims.

Joyce defends the appearance with Robinson, saying Robinson would not be the figure he is if there was not the schism in Britain between “the Judeo-Christian premise and the Islamist premise – and we do not want that in Australia”.

If Tommy Robinson was unquestionably bad company to keep, by enjoying Gina Rinehart’s company at a luxury resort in Sicily and an upmarket fashion show, Hanson sent out an off-key message.

A while ago Rinehart gave Hanson a plane. That attracted controversy and criticism but Hanson’s supporters probably buy her line that the plane enables her to get around to remote places to meet the voters.

However the pictures of her swanning around a pool with Rinehart might jar with some of these same supporters who laud her as a woman of the people empathising with their struggles in hard times.

Will they start to think this leader they’ve believed isn’t like the rest of the political class is getting too big for her boots?

It’s notable, incidentally, how often and quickly politicians respond to what some say are virtual summonses from Rinehart. Remember Peter Dutton dashing across the continent for a brief appearance at a Rinehart party? Say no, and maybe there is not so much Rinehart political largesse available. And what’s it about from Rinehart’s end? Is it an assertion of the power of money, or a sign of personal loneliness?

Hanson has given the Seven Network’s Spotlight program special access during her travels, including to the recording of the podcast. That will kick along the publicity – not necessarily in a good way.

As it’s played out, Hanson’s overseas odyssey smacks of a risky personal indulgence. Coming polls will test whether it has been counter productive.

FOOTNOTE: Barnaby Joyce is going abroad next week, accompanied by three of his four daughters, to meet the parents of his fourth daughter’s French boyfriend. Where are they getting together? Sicily, as it happens. But they are not expecting Gina.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/view-from-the-hill-has-hanson-flown-too-close-to-the-sun-for-some-one-nation-supporters/

The impacts of a strengthening El Niño and the lingering effects of the war in Iran highlight two separate and seemingly unrelated global hazards. But in the Greater Horn of Africa, an area already beset by prolonged crisis and conflict, these factors are combining with others to potentially create a major, multicountry polycrisis.

As experts in famine, conflict and humanitarian crises, our concerns about such a grave risk for the region in the second half of 2026 and into 2027 are based on a series of overlapping trends that include El Niño, the broader effects on food prices and fertilizer of the Iran war, internal conflicts and other localized factors. We fear the consequences could be catastrophic.

Several factors underpin this risk.

First, the short rains in the eastern Greater Horn of Africa – parts of Somalia, eastern Kenya, eastern Ethiopia – were well below average in the fall of 2025. The long rains in March to May of 2026 were also well below normal for much of that area, affecting both crops production and grazing and water for livestock, deepening the crisis of rural livelihoods.

The regional forecast for the northern Horn of Africa, where for the most part there is only one rainy season per year, is also projected to be below average. This includes the heavily populated highlands of Ethiopia, much of South Sudan and Sudan.

The super El Niño now forming could cause both drought and extensive flooding in parts of the Greater Horn of Africa, causing population displacement and tremendous loss of livelihoods.

Second, an unpredictable variant of the Ebola virus has taken hold in Congo and Uganda. Although it hasn’t yet spread to the rest of the region, the concern is that if Ebola spreads across the border to South Sudan, it will not only add a major epidemic risk but will also render the response to other shocks more difficult.

Third is the fact that all of the countries in the Greater Horn, with the exception of Kenya, are experiencing protracted, violent conflicts, with multiple parties jockeying for power and military advantage. This makes the task of dealing with the impact of climate, health and price shocks that much harder and risks further exacerbating or accelerating individual drivers.

Regional analysts have warned of an uptick in violence for Ethiopia and South Sudan. Violent conflict is a common denominator of contemporary famine, and famine or the risk of famine has already been noted in several countries in the region.

Conflict outside the region is also complicating matters. The war in Iran has already led to significant increases in transportation and food costs in the short term. But potentially more concerning is the fertilizer shortage caused by the war, which is projected to reduce harvests later in the year. If this happens, food prices will remain high long after the active conflict ends.

The Horn of Africa will be doubly affected by the fertilizer bottleneck – local production will be reduced, and global food prices will be higher. The bottleneck affects regional surplus-producing areas that might normally help to even out availability and prices in areas that do not produce enough to feed themselves. The El Niño effects, in combination with the high fertilizer costs, will likely reduce opportunities for agricultural work while also increasing the amount that food laborers – among the poorest people – have to spend on produce.

This combination of climatic, conflict, market and epidemic shocks are not simply additive but multiplicative, with each intensifying the other. Climate and epidemic shocks almost inevitably exacerbate conflict and encourage crackdowns on population movements.

A devastating aid cliff

To make matters worse, there are reasons to believe that the region will be less prepared to cope with the looming crisis than during previous El Niño years.

In the background is the deliberate gutting of much of the global humanitarian response infrastructure that people would have relied on in the past to mitigate the impacts of such a crisis.

In particular, the closure of USAID and the major cuts in spending on foreign aid – not only by the U.S. but by most Western nations – has undermined much of the international system’s capacity to respond to major shocks. Combined with longer-term political and governance challenges in eastern Africa, this conjunction of existing and anticipated factors in the Horn of Africa risks both further displacement and a rise in mortality.

There have already been calls by aid groups and regional bodies for higher levels of funding to be allocated through what remains of the international system.

But by itself, more money cannot solve this problem. Humanitarian programs have been shut down, staff have been laid off and infrastructure sold. Government-led programs in epidemic tracking and the provision of healthcare and other areas have likewise been curtailed.

Washington has recently increased its level of funding slightly, but U.S. humanitarian assistance is now more politicized and transactional, less sufficient and limited in its support of effective local systems and responses.

Local efforts addressing the problem

With the international humanitarian system compromised by funding cuts, the onus will be more heavily on governments, civil society and local communities in the Horn to mitigate anticipated shocks and their fallout.

The first responders in any crisis are usually next of kin, neighbors and local mutual aid groups. Since the collapse of the international aid system a year ago, long-standing efforts by local communities and organizations have ramped up significantly and effectively. These local mutual aid efforts are typically self-managed and financed through their own networks and diaspora remittances. But given the size of budget cuts in the formal humanitarian response system, these local initiatives can be better supported with complementary funding. Several intermediary organizations have recently emerged to support this effort.

Local mutual aid efforts can also be supported through more flexible public policies, for example, by easing restrictions on banking transfers to enable more effective diaspora support. Donors and the U.N. can also ensure that greater proportions of funding in the formal global humanitarian system go to local initiatives

Fundamentally, however, the most worrisome driver behind this polycrisis is violent conflict – wars in this region and elsewhere. In addition to the impacts of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, civil wars and ongoing insurgencies in Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia have also been dragging on for years and in some cases have drawn in more countries – either directly through financial support and weapons sales or indirectly through political support.

Not only does violent conflict complicate any response to crisis, it also raises the risk of starvation being used as a weapon of war – something already alleged in Sudan and the Tigray region of Ethiopia. But for the most part, the international community has been unwilling to hold warring parties and their foreign supporters accountable for intentionally starving parts of their populations.

Finally, data and monitoring systems have also been significantly crippled by aid cuts and misinformation, making it difficult to understand the gravity of these crises or to keep actors accountable. Improved monitoring and evidence, including evidence of atrocities and the use of starvation as a weapon, need to be supported if there is to be effective assistance and accountability.

The conjunction of so many potential hazards has all the hallmarks of the proverbial perfect storm. Not only will people’s access to adequate food be devastated, it will also affect civilian protection, access and mobility. Without immediate prevention measures, the looming polycrisis will have widespread impacts on basic health, nutrition and water services – and the potential for mass mortality and displacement.

Daniel Maxwell is a member of the IPC Famine Review Committee, hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Though now a Professor Emeritus, Daniel Maxwell was employed by Tufts university for 20 years and had numerous research grants from USAID.

Luka Kuol is affiliated with the University of Juba, South Sudan, as a professor, and the Sudd Institute, a national think tank in South Sudan, as a senior research fellow. He is also a member of the IPC Global Famine Review Committee.

Member of Famine Review Committee.

Alex de Waal and Merry Fitzpatrick do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/africas-greater-horn-region-is-facing-a-looming-polycrisis-fueled-by-conflict-prices-climate-and-disease/

No African teams made it past the quarter-finals of the 2026 men’s football World Cup, but their strategic and tactical play left a lasting impression.

The success of African teams doesn’t come out of the blue, it’s the result of a long process. It’s therefore surprising that African football remains underrated and downgraded by experts, often in a manner that reveals their ignorance both to African football and history. At times, their comments have a highly problematic racist tone.

This was the case with former star player Bastian Schweinsteiger, now a longtime commentator for a German TV network. Ahead of a group stage match against Côte d’Ivoire, he was asked what Germany’s team could expect. He responded:

A bit African football, a bit unorthodox, a bit wild … perhaps also not so conditioned by tactics. We must be prepared for it to be unpredictable.

Setting aside the fact that the German team was often the weaker side – both tactically and in terms of style of play – this characterisation is inappropriate and offensive. It’s based on a stereotyped, colonialist view of Africa.

On the one hand, Schweinsteiger faced criticism that his statement was racist.

As Cote d’Ivoire’s manager, Emerse Fae, said:

It is odd he would speak that way. We could call it racist … I can only hope it is a clumsy statement, rather than something going on in his mind.

On the other hand, there were many people on online forums and social media who wondered why Schweinsteiger’s statement was considered racist, as did his broadcaster, ARD.

Schweinsteiger responded weakly to the criticism:

I was talking about football, not people. This is a football analysis – nothing more, nothing less.

I often hear this kind of downplaying when football in Africa and its people are subtly devalued. As an anthropologist, my research focuses on the migration of football players from various parts of Africa and on the forces that have shaped the evolution of African football, especially the modern game. A key focus is on racialisation, othering, and racism experienced by players.

The research shows that African footballers, and Black players more generally, face different forms of racism.

On social media, they frequently encounter open and hostile rejection and insults. A recent example is the offensive post by Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla, after her country’s loss to France. She described Kylian Mbappé as a

colonised Cameroonian, desperately trying to pass himself off as French … resentful, arrogant and ugly.

Players from Africa also face structural disadvantages in the football industry. This is evident in shorter contracts and lower salaries, as well as peripheral playing positions and less consideration for coaching and administrative roles, as various studies show.

After all, they are also constantly confronted with more subtle forms of everyday racism, which manifests itself in their abilities and qualities being devalued. They are often reduced to their physical appearance, their intelligence denied.

Everyday racism is often expressed subtly and white people like Schweinsteiger are often not aware of its racist connotation. Therefore, the question of whether Bastian Schweinsteiger is a racist or not is not the crucial one (he most likely is not).

The key question is rather why these stereotypes are repeatedly expressed in football and why, for many people, they seem to reflect reality rather than appear problematic. To understand this, we need to do justice to Africa’s diversity and further look at the continent’s colonial history.

Colonial stereotypes

For one thing, simplistic statements like Schweinsteiger’s disparage football across an entire continent without making any distinctions. There is just as little such thing as an “African” style of football as there is a “European” one. This does not do justice to a complex reality and it reveals either ignorance or indifference.

Second, describing African football as “unorthodox,” “wild,” and “not characterised by tactics”, perpetuates stereotypes from the colonial era that extend beyond the sport. My study of African footballers in Germany shows how the players are vulnerable to broader, structural vulnerabilities in Europe.

How many view African migrant footballers is grounded in colonial thinking. European colonisation legitimised itself by ranking people. The enlightened European, capable of reflection, and the uneducated African, who must be tamed.

Starting in the 1920s, colonial administrators deliberately used football to subjugate Africans. Sport was used to teach team spirit and rules to the allegedly naïve, raw and perhaps threatening African in order to turn him into a person loyal to the colony.

Openly showing resistance was dangerous. But interestingly, this happened on the football field. Studies outline how some Africans didn’t try to play by the rules. They tried to make feints, dribbles, and tricks – on the one hand to entertain their own people, but also to display defiance.

During the struggle for independence, football was then used by some African countries to foster a sense of national and pan-African unity. After all, colonial borders had been drawn arbitrarily. National football teams were important, but so was the style of play – integrity and technical skill presented an alternative to the colonial image.

Over the years, national playing styles have developed in various ways. They are influenced by cultural values, transnational linkages and the game becoming professionalised. However, the original mix – powerful bodies, skillful dribbling, and a childlike, naïve approach – has become ingrained in European minds.

Slow poison

At first glance, subtle disparaging remarks like Schweinsteiger’s may not seem to be as racist as the open insults and degrading comments seen every day in football and society. But they are hurtful. And because they are firmly embedded in the social knowledge of European countries, they are hard to erase.

Read more:
Racial stereotypes of African footballers persist. A World Cup is a good time to talk about them

Rather, they are a creeping poison that, when constantly reproduced, shapes a society’s collective consciousness. As my research has found, such remarks not only disparage football in Africa but also shape the general perception of a continent that is allegedly backward at every level.

To tackle the powerful colonial-era image of an African inferiority, it is important to take action against all forms of racist disparagement in football and beyond, whether they are unintentional, subtle, or explicit.

Christian Ungruhe receives funding from the University of Passau.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/racism-at-the-world-cup-is-an-ugly-reality-how-to-understand-where-it-comes-from/

Jon Ronson’s book Them: Adventures with Extremists launched him to worldwide fame – and more dubiously, launched conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Though Jones has been deplatformed, his influence lingers: just this week, it was reported that Australia’s far-right One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts praised Jones in 2024 as “a beacon of hope around the world”.

Researched and written in the years preceding September 11, and published in April 2001, Them – which Ronson described in a preface to its second edition as “a snapshot of life in the Western world on 10 September 2001” – is turning 25.

Ronson’s original plan was to spend time with people who’d been described as “the extremist monsters of the Western world” as they went about their everyday lives. They included neo-Nazis, militias and Omar Bakri, a UK Islamic fundamentalist who called himself “Osama Bin Laden’s man in London”, and whom Ronson shadowed for a year in 1996 for a documentary.

Among other things, Ronson recorded the “clownish” Bakri watching the Lion King with a baby on his knee, and asking him to guard the money he’d been collecting for Hamas in giant Coca Cola bottles, while he retrieved a coat – which he agonised over as a Jewish person, but did (seemingly to avoid awkwardness).

Bakri, who told the Daily Mail the September 11 attacks were “exciting”, was barred from the United Kingdom after leaving in 2005. In 2010, he was arrested in Lebanon and sentenced to life in prison after a terrorism trial. Released pending retrial, he was sentenced again in 2015 to six years hard labour.

“I thought that perhaps an interesting way to look at our world would be to move into theirs and stand alongside them while they glared back at ours,” Ronson writes. But what started as a series of profiles of extremist leaders “quickly became something stranger”, when he realised the very different people he was following all shared a belief in the New World Order: a conspiracy theory that imagines “a tiny elite rules the world from inside a secret room”.

This tyrannical, shadowy elite, Ronson soon discovered, was said to launch wars and wield almost unimaginable power. It has the ability to, among other things, “select and cast out the heads of state, control Hollywood and the markets and the flow of capital, operate a harem of under-age kidnapped sex slaves”.

If there was any truth to the theory, Ronson reasoned, there must be an actual secret room, and it had to be located somewhere. So he resolved to find it.

At various points, he found himself chased by men in dark glasses and surveilled from behind trees. He also managed to witness robed international chief executives participate in a bizarre effigy-burning ritual in the forests of northern California – an experience he shared with Jones, then a harmless-seeming regional radio crank, based in Texas.

Now, 25 years on, that worldview has arguably become easier to sustain than Ronson could have imagined. Revelations surrounding figures such as Jeffrey Epstein – who did operate a network of underage girls he coerced into sexually servicing powerful men – have shown the wealthy and powerful can and do conceal serious and shocking crimes through networks of influence and privilege.

But rather than confirming the existence of a secret cabal directing world events, such scandals have often been absorbed into far broader conspiracy narratives – from QAnon to claims about bloodthirsty global elites harvesting adrenochrome from children – further blurring sometimes porous lines between fact and fiction.

Genuine curiosity and refusing caricature

The book helped to establish Ronson’s distinctive investigative approach: an interest in the fringe and the unusual, approached with a genuine sense of curiosity and a refusal of easy caricature.

This sensibility has run through his work since, from The Men Who Stared at Goats (looking at bizarre, fringe tactics adopted by the US army) and You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (an early critique of social media shaming) to his culture war conspiracy theories podcast series, Things Fell Apart.

But Them also propelled Jones into the mainstream – which Ronson has publicly regretted. When Ronson got to know him, “Alex was hollering his powerful apocalyptic vision down an ISDN line from a child’s bedroom in his house, with choo-choo train wallpaper and an Empire Strikes Back poster pinned on the wall”.

Since then, Jones has been “successfully sued” and has filed for bankruptcy after being found liable for defamation for his claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged and “no one died”.

Sadly, what once seemed extreme and marginal – the circulation of conspiracy theories and the associated peddling of prejudice and hate – now feels depressingly routine.

Just as it inadvertently captured the historical moment about to erupt with the September 11 attacks and their aftermath, Them anticipated the mainstreaming of conspiratorial thinking, which would become a defining feature of our misinformation-ridden historical moment.

Paranoia as the new common sense

“Paranoia was the new common sense,” writes columnist John Ganz in When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. “The country seemed to be seeking something new, a break with the exhausted possibilities of the past but also a restoration, a way to recover what had been lost.”

At the end of the 1980s, the Berlin Wall had been reduced to rubble and the communist bloc was crumbling. Excitable liberals were wittering on about the end of history. America stood triumphant, seemingly without rival. And yet something felt off.

Ganz argues appearances were deceptive. “America felt itself to be losing out: losing its dominant place in the world, losing the basis of its security and wealth, and losing its sense of itself.”

There had to be an explanation. And there had to be someone to blame.

This bled through in the culture of the early 1990s. “Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you,” sang Kurt Cobain, capturing the zeitgeist on Nevermind (1991). It was the time of Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) and The X-Files (1993). The truth, we were told, was out there. Trust no one – especially anyone in a position of authority.

Ruby Ridge: ground zero?

This atmosphere permeates Them’s second chapter, on the bloody Ruby Ridge standoff in regional Idaho in August 1992. Also permeating the chapter – and the book – are Ronson’s stated aims of painting people “as complicated grey areas, rather than magnificent heroes or sickening villains” and sticking “to the nuanced truth, rather than flattening it to make ideological points”.

Randy and Vicki Weaver were among the first Americans to articulate fears about the New World Order. In the 1980s, they moved from Iowa to a plywood cabin without electricity, high in the Idaho ranges. There, they home-schooled their children, living among bears and mountain lions.

Randy felt the need, Ronson tells us, to socialise from time to time. He made friends within the nearby Aryan Nations community and attended their summer camps with his children four times – though he told Ronson he wasn’t personally a white supremacist, but a “separatist”.

One such friend was an undercover agent, who asked Randy to sell him two illegal sawn-off shotguns. Once arrested, Randy was offered a choice: spy on Aryan Nations for the government or face time behind bars for illicit gun running. He went with the second option. Warned they could lose their house and convinced the New World Order was monitoring them (which was not untrue now), the Weavers stopped showing up to court.

In August 1992, US marshals hiding in the bushes shot the Weavers’ barking family dog as it came too close. Ronson reports that Weaver’s teenage son Sammy fired random shots in response, and was shot and killed. A marshal was killed too. Hundreds of federal agents descended, martial law was declared, and residents emerged from their homes bearing placards denouncing the New World Order. Vicki was shot and killed while holding her infant daughter.

Media coverage recast the human tragedy as a national psychodrama about extremism, government overreach and the collapse of public trust.

In the following months, militia movements expanded rapidly across the US. The infamous siege in Waco, Texas, where David Koresh’s Branch Davidians clashed with federal agents, ending with 75 members dead, unfolded in Texas less than a year later.

For many in the American far right, the ruined Weaver cabin became a symbol of resistance and martyrdom, assuming a quasi-mythic status. One pilgrim who visited was Timothy McVeigh, later responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people and injured close to 700.

Bilderberg: a secret society running the world?

Ronson soon realised the same name was on the lips of the various militia members and anti-government activists he spoke to: the Bilderberg Group. These are the people who actually run the world, they believed. Bilderberg was described as “the Roman Senate” or “a pyramid”.

Jones explained: “They’re way up there. Below them you’ve the IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations, then you’ve got us down here, the cattle, the human resources.” At the time, he was funding efforts to rebuild the Branch Davidian church.

Ronson first encountered Jones while interviewing Randy Weaver, who considered the then regional radio host “a true and tirelesss warrior”. Jones explained the Bilderbergers were orchestrating world decline from the behind the scenes. As with many conspiracy theories, the line between fantasy and reality was not always easy to discern.

The Bilderberg Group is real. It even has its own website. Established in the wake of World War II, it consists of annual private meetings attended by political and industrial leaders, financiers, media executives and royalty. It is, without doubt, a highly secretive organisation – which has intensified the suspicion around it.

Interestingly, UK politician Peter Mandelson, former US ambassador and friend of Epstein even after his conviction, is named in the book as a Bilderberg attendee.

This explains how Ronson eventually found himself sneaking into Bohemian Grove, the annual retreat (since 1878) of a secretive, elite club whose attendees “read much like a Bilderberg roll-call”, alongside Jones.

There, hidden among the redwoods of northern California, wealthy and politically connected men, many of them drunk, gathered for an elaborate ceremony centred on burning an effigy before a giant owl statue. Harmless elite play-acting, or dastardly occult ritual conducted by the secret rulers of the world? Ronson saw the former, Jones the latter.

In his short book on Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, The Elephant in the Room (2026), Ronson describes watching the alt-right move steadily closer to political power, propelled in part by “leading voice” Jones – who reportedly received a swift call from a newly elected Trump, thanking him for his support.

Despite a lingering “personal” fondness for his fellow Bohemian Grove crasher, Ronson calls him “basically the most irresponsible man I have ever met”, who “uses his powers to inflame paranoia” and “boldly makes stuff up to suit his weird agenda”.

Lizard people

I first became aware of David Icke, former semi-professional footballer and respected sports journalist, now a believer in giant lizards, in April 1991. I was at home, watching TV, not yet ten years old.

Icke was being interviewed live on a prime-time UK talk show, wearing an eye-wateringly lurid turquoise tracksuit. He had recently started to refer to himself as the “Son of the Godhead”. On air, he made a series of predictions about imminent and devastating natural catastrophes. The audience, not knowing what to make of it all, laughed.

Ronson describes the moment:

He said this with such ferocity, such conviction, that the audience stopped laughing for a moment […] You could feel it sweep across the television studio, sweep across the land, a stirring of some primordial paranoia. Could David Icke actually be a soothsayer?

But in fact, ridicule and opprobrium followed the segment. In the period after his very public shaming, Ronson records, Icke came to believe his mockery had been orchestrated by shadowy elites. He immersed himself in conspiracy literature, including on the Bilderberg Group.

Icke became convinced the global elite were not merely corrupt politicians or financiers, but something much stranger: shape-shifting reptilian beings manipulating humans across millennia. Ancient civilisations, occult rituals and modern political institutions were all folded into a single explanatory system.

The reptilian invaders, he concluded, were the secret rulers of the world.

Critics have long argued his talk of secret reptilian elites functions as a coded form of antisemitism, echoing older conspiratorial myths – including ideas traceable to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Yet Ronson suggests Icke genuinely believes the world is controlled by interdimensional lizard people.

The promise of hidden forces

This creates a puzzle. If someone claims giant lizards secretly control the planet, are we dealing with metaphor, coded prejudice, mental instability, opportunity or sincere belief? Increasingly, it seems the answer may be some unstable combination of them all.

Part of what makes Them feel so relevant now is that Ronson rejects the reassuring assumption that extremist or conspiratorial thinking falls outside the bounds of ordinary life.

Long before social media turned paranoia into a viable business model, he grasped that bizarre ideas do not emerge from nowhere. Rather, they are shaped by spectacle, distrust, insecurity and the seductive promise that hidden forces can explain an increasingly bewildering world – often with disastrous consequences.

Given Ronson’s record of books on topics just hitting (or about to explode into) the mainstream, the topic of his forthcoming one, to be published in August, is unsurprising: the masculinity crisis.

Alexander Howard 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/them-at-25-jon-ronsons-adventures-with-extremists-made-him-famous-and-alex-jones-too/

Deep beneath the French-Swiss border, the world’s largest scientific instrument has fallen silent. After years of smashing proton particles together at nearly the speed of light, Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has stopped operations and entered a long shutdown.

While no particle collisions are taking place at the LHC, thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians are dismantling parts of the machine, installing new technologies and preparing one of the most ambitious upgrades ever attempted in experimental physics.

When it switches on again, around 2030, it will become the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), capable of delivering roughly seven times more data than the collider that discovered the Higgs boson.

For me, this shutdown marks another milestone in a project that has shaped much of my scientific life. I first became involved in the High-Luminosity collider long before the Higgs boson particle was discovered in 2012. Over nearly two decades I have had the privilege of contributing to the programme on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the United States, I served as upgrade coordinator for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), a key experiment at the LHC. The CMS is built at one of the points within the Large Hadron Collider where separate beams of proton particles collide. CMS then captures data from these collisions so that it can be analysed by Cern physicists. I helped lead the international effort preparing CMS for the HL-collider era.

Today, in Oxford, I work on another LHC experiment called Atlas. Atlas and CMS work in broadly similar ways, but having two machines like this helps ensure significant discoveries by one experiment are cross-checked by a counterpart with a separate team of scientists. Here, my colleagues and I are building silicon pixel detector modules for its upgraded inner tracker. This will form a vital part of the HL-LHC upgrade.

A few months ago, I watched the first complete pixel ring assembled in Oxford. It was strikingly beautiful: a delicate arrangement of silicon sensors, electronics and support structures whose elegance reflected years of painstaking engineering.

For the first time, the detector we had imagined through countless design reviews, prototypes and production meetings had become real.

Our contribution is just one part of a detector being built by teams across the world. Thousands of components must come together before the High Luminosity collider is ready to explore a new frontier in particle physics.

The LHC has already transformed our understanding of nature. Its discovery of the Higgs boson confirmed the mechanism that gives elementary particles their mass. The Higgs had been the last missing piece in the standard model of particle physics. This is the best theory to explain elementary particles and the three fundamental forces that govern their interactions. But, as is often the case in science, answering one question opened many others.

Investigating the Higgs

Many of the most important questions now are no longer about whether the Higgs exists, but whether it behaves exactly as predicted. Tiny deviations from the standard model could point towards entirely new particles or forces. Such discoveries would help us understand mysteries such as dark matter or why the universe contains far more matter than antimatter.

The challenge is that these clues are incredibly subtle. Rather than requiring much higher collision energies, they demand vastly more collisions. The HL-LHC will increase the collider’s luminosity – the number of proton collisions it produces – by about a factor of seven over its lifetime.

Imagine replacing a camera that takes one photograph every second with one that captures seven. Each image looks much the same, but together they reveal details that would otherwise remain invisible.

For Higgs physics, that extra data will be transformative. The Higgs boson is remarkably elusive. Some of its most interesting decays – where it transforms into other particles – are so rare that they have remained just beyond the reach of today’s LHC. Others have only recently emerged as tantalising hints.

One example is the decay of the Higgs boson into two muons (a muon is an unstable, subatomic particle). This decay is a rare process that tests whether the Higgs couples to second-generation lepton particles. Another is the decay of the Higgs into charm quark particles. This is one of the most difficult Higgs measurements because it must be extracted from an overwhelming background of ordinary particle collisions.

These processes test one of the Higgs boson’s most fundamental properties: whether it interacts with lighter particles exactly as predicted by the standard model. Any deviation from those predictions, even a small one, could be evidence that new particles or forces are influencing the Higgs behind the scenes.

And perhaps the most ambitious goal of all is observing Higgs boson pairs, which would allow us to measure, for the first time, the Higgs self-coupling – the strength with which the Higgs field interacts with itself. That interaction determines the shape of the Higgs field that fills all of space and is thought to have played a key role in the evolution of the universe moments after the Big Bang.

These are exactly the kinds of measurements that motivated the design of the upgraded LHC. Achieving them requires a revolution not only in the accelerator itself but also in the detectors that record the collisions.

Particle web

At the High Luminosity LHC, every crossing of the proton beams will produce up to 200 simultaneous proton-proton interactions, several times more than today. Untangling this dense web of particles demands detectors that are faster, more precise and far more resistant to radiation than anything built before.

At the heart of the Atlas and CMS experiments, entirely new silicon tracking detectors are replacing the existing ones. They must survive radiation levels that would quickly destroy previous generations of sensors while measuring particle trajectories with extraordinary precision. Achieving this has required years of advances in silicon sensor technology, ultra-fast electronics, cooling systems and lightweight mechanical structures.

One of the most innovative features of the upgraded detectors is the addition of precision timing. New timing detectors – the High Granularity Timing Detector in Atlas and a similar system in CMS – will measure the arrival time of particles with a precision of only a few tens of trillionths of a second. Although hundreds of collisions occur almost simultaneously, they do not happen at exactly the same instant.

By adding time as a fourth dimension to particle tracking, these detectors will allow physicists to associate each particle with the correct collision, making it possible to reconstruct rare Higgs events hidden within an enormous background of overlapping interactions.

One of the greatest rewards of working on these detectors is seeing the next generation of physicists preparing to use them. The students helping to assemble today’s detectors will spend much of their careers analysing the data they eventually collect.

When the HL–LHC begins operating, it will not simply extend the scientific programme of the Large Hadron Collider. It will usher in a new era of precision Higgs physics. Whether it reveals subtle cracks in the standard model or confirms our current understanding with unprecedented accuracy, it will shape particle physics for decades to come.

Daniela Bortoletto is a member of the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/the-large-hadron-collider-is-being-upgraded-so-that-it-can-unlock-the-secrets-of-the-higgs-boson/

Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics are linked to millions of deaths a year – a number set to grow dramatically. From hospital wards to farms, resistance is being driven by how, and how often, we use antibiotics. Dr Sam Willcocks, director of the Antimicrobial Innovations Centre at Brunel University London, answers key questions about the issue, and points to some simple solutions.

What are superbugs and where are you likely to encounter them?

“Superbug” is the term used for bacteria that have become resistant to multiple antibiotics at once, and there are now many such bacteria found worldwide.

To help focus research and public health efforts, the World Health Organization keeps a list of the drug-resistant bacteria it finds most concerning. These include several species resistant to carbapenems – often considered “antibiotics of last resort” – as well as MRSA (a well-known resistant form of the bacteria that causes staph infections) and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

Many of these so-called “priority pathogens” are associated with hospital-acquired infections, where sick patients, invasive procedures and heavy antibiotic use all make it easier for resistance to take hold and spread. Others, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, are widespread around the world – and not just in hospitals.

How many people are dying from these infections?

In 2024, a major study in the medical journal, The Lancet, researchers looked at 30 years of data on drug-resistant infections worldwide. They found that around 4.7 million deaths a year are linked to bacteria that have become resistant to the antibiotics we normally use to kill them. If nothing changes, the researchers predict superbug-associated deaths could rise to more than 8 million a year by 2050.

Is antibiotic drug development an unwinnable arms race?

Yes, but we can make it as difficult as possible.

It is certainly true that bacteria are highly adept at evolving resistance to new antibiotics, especially if they are similar to compounds they have already seen before. This is why research scientists are putting their efforts into finding new classes of antibiotics, or using combinations of drugs with unique mechanisms of action.

But new drugs alone won’t solve the problem. Other approaches include disabling the mechanisms that bacteria use to resist antibiotics; cutting back on antibiotic use when it isn’t truly needed; exploring alternatives to antibiotics, such as viruses that kill bacteria (called phages); and developing treatments that boost the immune system. Just as important is stopping infections happening in the first place, through vaccines, clean water and better hygiene.

How bad could the situation get?

The famous warning that, if we run out of effective antibiotics, one day you could die from a scratch is perhaps a little dramatic, but it captures a real concern.

Most healthy people can fight off infection of minor cuts and scrapes without antibiotics, and that is unlikely to change. The greater threat is to the growing number of people who depend on antibiotics to make modern medicine safe: older adults, people with diabetes, cancer or weakened immune systems, women during childbirth, and people having surgery all face a higher risk of serious infection.

Some of the most dangerous resistant bacteria are found in hospitals, but resistance itself isn’t confined there – it spreads between animals, people and the environment. That’s why the problem is increasingly tackled through a “One Health” approach, which treats human, animal and environmental health as interconnected.

Wouldn’t bacteria evolve resistance anyway, even in the absence of effective antibiotics?

Yes, bacteria can evolve resistance even in the absence of human antibiotic use. Antibiotics are a modern discovery, not a modern invention. Microbes have been waging chemical warfare against one another for millions of years, producing antimicrobial compounds and evolving ways to evade them long before penicillin was discovered. The problem is one of scale.

Human use of antibiotics – in medicine, farming and industry – has exposed huge numbers of bacteria to these drugs, far more than would ever happen in nature. That gives resistance more opportunities to emerge. And once it does, the genes responsible can spread quickly from one bacterium to another, so resistance can stick around and keep circulating long after the antibiotic that caused it has stopped being used.

Do doctors still have many antibiotics to choose from?

Doctors have dozens of antibiotics to choose from, grouped into about 20 families that work in five or six different ways. These include well-known types such as penicillins, tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones. Whether a particular drug works isn’t fixed, it depends on which bacteria are causing the infection and whether that specific strain has developed resistance to it.

Very few antibiotics have become completely useless, but resistance is now widespread to some important drugs, including penicillins and carbapenems, which doctors often rely on when other options fail. The real danger is bacteria that resist multiple antibiotics at once, leaving doctors with few or no good options left. These infections are much harder to treat, sometimes requiring older drugs that are more toxic, more expensive or simply less likely to work.

Where are antibiotics most overused?

There’s no single culprit behind antibiotic overuse – human medicine, farming and the contamination of the wider environment all share the blame.

In farming, huge quantities of antibiotics are given to healthy animals, often to help them grow faster or to prevent disease in crowded conditions. Antibiotics also leak into soil and rivers from industrial waste. In primary-care medicine, 20-30% of antibiotic prescriptions may be unnecessary or wrongly used, often because doctors have to decide quickly, without access to diagnostic tests that would tell them which antibiotics are most likely to be effective, or if they are even needed at all.

And beneath all this are deeper problems: poverty, poor sanitation, limited access to healthcare, counterfeit medicines and weak health systems. That’s why antibiotic resistance isn’t just a medical problem; it’s a social, economic and environmental one too.

How much antibiotic use is ‘too much’? Is there a threshold of use?

There is no universal threshold beyond which antibiotic use suddenly becomes “too much”, but doctors do follow guidelines and scientists work out which doses work best. Problems can arise when bacteria are exposed to a dose too weak to kill them, since this gives resistant bacteria a chance to survive and multiply.

But using too much is a problem too. It can cause more side-effects, and it exposes more bacteria in the body to the drug, giving resistance more chances to develop.

Sometimes, antibiotics shouldn’t be used at all – for colds and flu, say, which are caused by viruses and don’t respond to antibiotics. That’s why modern guidelines focus on giving the right antibiotic at the right dose for the shortest time needed to work.

Can we have one antibiotic to kill all harmful bacteria?

Many antibiotics are already what are called “broad-spectrum” – they can kill many types of bacteria at once, rather than just one. This is useful when a doctor doesn’t yet know exactly what’s causing an infection and needs to start treatment straight away.

But broad-spectrum antibiotics come with a catch. As well as killing the bacteria making you ill, they may also wipe out harmless bacteria, such as those living in your gut. The more bacteria are exposed to a drug, the more chances resistance has to develop. Because of this, scientists are now trying to develop more targeted antibiotics: ones that go after specific harmful bacteria while leaving the helpful ones alone, which should also help slow down resistance.

What is the best way to beat antibiotic resistance? Does the answer lie in AI?

There is no single fix for antibiotic resistance. In fact, some of the best ways to tackle the problem don’t involve creating new antibiotics at all. Preventing infections, increasing vaccination, using faster tests to identify infections, improving hygiene, making sure antibiotics are only used when they are really needed and cutting unnecessary use in both healthcare and farming can all make a big difference.

Artificial intelligence is already helping. It is speeding up the search for new antibiotics, helping scientists find promising new drugs, improving tests that identify infections, and tracking the spread of antibiotic resistance. But AI is not a panacea. We still need to focus on the basics: preventing infections and using antibiotics responsibly.

Sam Willcocks receives funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/antibiotic-resistance-is-a-growing-problem-but-solutions-do-exist-expert-qa/

US President Donald Trump has used a rare nationwide prime-time address to again claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen, US voting machines cannot be trusted, and a “deep state” conspiracy has covered it all up.

However, the declassified documents the White House released alongside the speech do not support those claims.

As such, Trump’s speech may matter less for what it says about the 2020 election than what it portends for November’s Congressional midterm elections, which could result in huge losses for his Republican Party.

Critics say Trump is clearly setting the stage to delegitimise the vote, so he can contest the result if it doesn’t go his way.

Old claims, new packaging

Trump claimed his explosive allegations were backed up by a set of intelligence documents, which were newly declassified and posted on the White House website.

Trump said these documents revealed foreign interference in the 2020 election, Chinese access to voter data, and a cover-up by “rogue bureaucrats”. He also claimed illegal ballots were manufactured for his opponent, Joe Biden, and that more than 278,000 non-citizens were enrolled to vote.

Most of this is not new. Trump has made versions of these claims since his election defeat in 2020. More than 60 courts have rejected Trump’s claims of fraud in the election. Audits and recounts in contested states, including some run by Republicans, also confirmed the results.

Trump’s own former attorney-general, Bill Barr, found no fraud on a scale that could have changed the outcome, and his own cybersecurity agency called the election the “most secure” in US history.

In addition, the documents produced by the White House either do not support his claims or sit at odds with the speech.

What investigations have found

The official record is consistent. A joint report by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security found no evidence that any foreign government changed votes or blocked voting in the US in 2020 and 2022.

A declassified intelligence assessment in 2021 similarly found no sign that foreign actors touched any technical part of the voting process, including registration, ballots, counting or reporting.

This assessment also concluded Beijing did not actively interfere in the election. Even the one dissenting analyst in the report, whose “minority view” Trump’s speech presents as suppressed truth, agreed there was no evidence China interfered with US election systems. And, contrary to Trump’s view, that dissent was not “covered up”: it was published in the declassified assessment, alongside the majority analysis.

What the newly declassified documents do show is that China spied on campaigns and collected voter data. But collecting data is not changing votes or interfering in the process, and much of that data is commercially available. Trump’s speech blurs the distinction.

The claim about non-citizen voters follows a similar pattern: creating a false reality of widespread non-citizen voting fraud, when the real numbers are small and insignificant.

A Homeland Security program, for example, has checked about 60 million voter registrations and flagged roughly 24,000 possible non-citizens. This comes to about 0.04% of registered voters, a figure that shrinks further once false positives are removed.

State reviews have also flagged insignificant numbers of naturalised and native-born citizens on voter rolls. Utah audited its entire roll of more than two million voters over more than a year. After it found 27 confirmed non-citizens (about 0.001%), the Republican official who ran the audit said it showed no widespread problem.

The SAVE America Act would reshape who can vote

To address this issue, Trump urged Congress in his speech to pass the SAVE America Act.

The bill, which is currently stalled in the Senate, would require every American to show proof of citizenship (usually a passport or birth certificate) in person to register to vote, plus photo ID to cast a ballot.

While the bill is framed as an anti-fraud measure, electoral research suggests its primary impact would be widespread disenfranchisement.

There is direct evidence of this – a similar program has already been run at state level. When Kansas required documentary proof of citizenship for voter enrolment, it blocked about 31,000 eligible citizens (12% of all applicants) from registering. Federal courts struck it down.

Research also shows the costly administrative hurdles – the cost of applying for a passport, for instance – proposed in the SAVE America Act would considerably impact who can vote.

This burden would be toughest on young, rural and low-income voters, who make up a substantial proportion of US voters.

What’s at stake in November

Research on elections and electoral integrity shows that what leaders say about fraud is more damaging than actual electoral fraud itself.

Democracies depend on what political scientists call “losers’ consent”: the willingness of the losing side to accept the results of free and fair elections. Studies consistently find that when a candidate alleges fraud, trust falls sharply among their supporters. Some research also points to demobilisation and decreased turnout among those who adhere to these claims.

The claims keep working even after they are debunked. The supposed absence of evidence of voter fraud is treated as proof of a cover-up, not evidence of a system working as it should.

US intelligence agencies warned of exactly this in 2020, cautioning that fabricated, hard-to-disprove claims about election processes could damage public confidence more than any real attack.

The context surrounding Trump’s speech raises further concerns.

A week ago, Trump removed the remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, the federal body that certifies voting machines and helps administer elections, leaving it unable to act.

He has now directed his intelligence chief to investigate and charge the “rogue bureaucrats” behind the alleged cover-up of a rigged 2020 election.

Asked whether Trump would accept November’s midterm results, his press secretary declined to answer.

For many, the combination of these moves – questioning the machines and voting processes, sidelining the agency that certifies them, threatening the officials who check the claims, and leaving open whether results will be accepted – point to a clear aim of delegitimising the upcoming elections.

The clearest test will come in November. Will Trump’s claims of fraud follow the evidence, or follow the results?

Jean-Nicolas Bordeleau 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/trump-is-rehashing-old-claims-the-2020-election-was-stolen-his-real-aim-sowing-doubt-in-the-midterms/

Over the last decade, blue carbon ecosystems, such as mangroves and seagrasses, have taken centre stage in global discussions on tackling climate change, and Indonesia — home to 17 per cent of the world’s mangroves and seagrasses — has become a key actor in this agenda.

Yet, while global attention often centres on restoration targets, carbon markets, and blue finance, far less discussion has focused on a more fundamental question: who will actually deliver this transition?

A recent study shows that blue carbon is not merely about quantifying how much carbon these ecosystems store, capture and release, a process called ecosystem carbon accounting.

It also deeply involves valuing co-benefits and addressing trade-offs across governance, finance, policy, and on-the-ground practice. Consequently, successful implementation depends not only on policy and investment, but also on supporting people and developing their unique skill sets to implement a more holistic approach to blue carbon.

Yet, workforce readiness may be one of the most overlooked enabling conditions for building a sustainable blue economy.

As a key global player in the blue carbon transition, Indonesia has the opportunity to successfully drive this work by developing competency standards across skills ranging from monitoring and accounting to inclusive engagement with coastal communities.

Baca juga:
Indonesia’s ‘blue carbon credits’ are crucial for global climate mitigation. Here’s how to help them flourish

Who will deliver the blue carbon transition?

“Blue carbon” refers to the capacity of coastal and marine ecosystems to absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and store it for long periods of time.

For Indonesia to successfully drive sustainable blue initiatives, it will require expertise across numerous fields—not only scientists who study coastal ecosystems, but also restoration practitioners, policymakers, financing experts, and community facilitators.

In practice, many practitioners work across these overlapping spaces — for instance, a marine biologist can also work with community engagement to design sustainable and responsive blue carbon projects that meet local needs.

These practical applications highlight the crucial role of cross-disciplinary collaboration in defining what blue carbon work actually means in practice.

However, only a handful of studies have explored practitioners’ perspectives on blue Nature-based Solutions (NbS) initiatives, leaving a major gap in our understanding of the skill sets required for the future.

While the existing blue carbon literature heavily focuses on ecological processes, it rarely addresses the complex social and economic challenges on the ground.

Baca juga:
Indonesia’s ‘blue carbon credits’ are crucial for global climate mitigation. Here’s how to help them flourish

Beyond technical skills

Competency standards are widely used across sectors to clarify the knowledge, technical skills, and professional capabilities associated with specific areas of practice. It serves as a framework providing guidance on what a person needs to learn and master in order to work professionally.

In the context of blue carbon, competency standards can help establish clearer training pathways, improve project consistency, strengthen professional development, and progressively increase the quality and integrity of implementation.

Indonesia already has a number of guidelines. For example, the Mangrove Blue Carbon Measurement Manual and existing SKKNI (Indonesian National Occupational Competency Standards) for specific areas of work (e.g. mangrove monitoring and forest carbon inventory).

However, they often work in silos. As a result, there’s currently a lack of a comprehensive policy tool that integrates and further develops these existing resources into a consolidated framework.

Blue carbon projects demand interdisciplinary competencies. Practitioners technical expertise, such as monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) to generate robust carbon data, alongside strong interpersonal skills for meaningful community engagement on the ground.

Baca juga:
Sea of opportunity: protecting mangroves and seagrass could boost Indonesia’s new climate targets

Technical expertise alone is rarely enough for effective blue carbon implementation. Because blue carbon ecosystems are deeply intertwined with local livelihoods and cultural values, community engagement work is critical to ensure sustainability, equity, and inclusivity considerations are brought to the forefront.

The future blue carbon workforce will likely be required to possess not only scientific and technical competencies but also strong public participation skills.

The latter plays a key role in determining the success of blue carbon projects by enabling equitable benefit-sharing, securing a social license to operate, and ensuring long-term sustainability.

Baca juga:
Sea of opportunity: protecting mangroves and seagrass could boost Indonesia’s new climate targets

Building a future-ready blue carbon workforce

Indonesia’s push for an ocean-climate agenda is just one part of its broader shift toward a sustainable blue economy — a journey that will inevitably bring new challenges.

But with these challenges comes an opportunity to pave the way for more interconnected career paths, targeted training, and widespread capacity building.

How can workforce development keep pace with shifting ocean-climate priorities? Which skills will take center stage over the next ten years? And how do we keep future competency standards flexible without sacrificing quality and credibility?

These are crucial conversations worth starting today among the diverse stakeholders involved in implementing blue carbon projects.

Indonesia already boasts a strong network of practitioners on the ground. The next step is investing in the people and skill sets needed to turn ambition into action. Inclusive and adaptive competency development can play a vital role in building a sustainable blue economy.

Ultimately, this development is just one part of a much larger, more complex process. It should not be viewed as a prescriptive solution, but rather as an enabling mechanism that fosters a capable, interdisciplinary, and future-ready workforce for Indonesia’s evolving blue economy.

Carolina Contreras tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/building-indonesias-blue-carbon-workforce/

Neil the Seal became a social media sensation almost overnight.

Neil is a five-year-old male southern elephant seal who weighs roughly one tonne. He was born on the Tasman Peninsula in October 2020, and has made an annual trip to Tasmania each year since. This is because many seal species regularly return to the place they were born, as well as the sites where they breed and rest.

Over the past few years, Neil has been seen lounging on streets and climbing onto cars at southern Tasmania’s Seven Mile Beach. But beyond his hilarious antics, Neil offers a unique opportunity to understand the behaviour of the world’s largest seal species.

From him, we can also learn how to better coexist with marine wildlife, as we encounter them more often.

In need of rest

Imagine you’ve had an exhausting day of travel, work or running between meetings. The last thing you’d want when lying down to rest is to be swamped by hundreds of people wanting to take a picture of you.

For southern elephant seals, this isn’t far from reality.

Rest is essential for these marine mammals. Satellite-tracking studies show southern elephant seals spend months foraging at sea, often travelling thousands of kilometres across the Southern Ocean. So when they do come ashore – typically twice a year – they need time to recover.

After going through a catastrophic moult – the process by which seals shed their fur and top layer of skin once a year – these animals must also replenish their energy by resting.

“Haul-out periods” is the term scientists use to describe these times of rest. Disturbing seals during these critical periods – say by trying to touch, move or get too close to an animal – can stress them. It can also endanger the safety of both the seal and any people nearby.

Behind the antics

Viral videos show Neil appearing to push traffic cones, haul himself over parked cars and even chase people.

So what’s driving this behaviour?

The answer is surprisingly simple. Like any young male elephant seal, Neil was trying to attract the attention of other seals. But instead, he directed this behaviour towards people.

Young male seals spend years developing their size, strength and behaviour to compete with other males. Once they’re older, male seals will contend for the best breeding spots and for females with whom they want to mate. Asserting dominance, testing their strength and exploring unfamiliar objects are all part of their development.

In the absence of other elephant seals, Neil often directed these natural behaviours towards whatever was in his path – be it a traffic cone, bollard or parked car.

By understanding Neil’s actions, we realise that what might seem amusing or scary from a human perspective is often just normal animal behaviour.

Read more:
Neil the seal is more than a viral animal. He’s become a global folk hero

What Neil really teaches us

Neil’s story is a striking example of what can happen when scientists, wildlife managers, local councils, police and the public work together.

As his popularity grew, authorities developed management plans to protect both Neil and the eager onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of him. This included setting up temporary barriers to protect Neil from crowds. Public education campaigns helped ensure people behaved safely and responsibly around Neil – for example by staying at least 20 metres away from him.

This collaborative approach is increasingly important, as human-wildlife encounters become more common. We don’t fully understand why this is happening. One reason could be that some populations – such as South American fur seals in Patagonia – are increasing in numbers after previously being hunted. Environmental changes may also be pushing animals further south as climate change alters their habitat.

The public plays a vital role in protecting marine animals. In many cases, citizen scientists are the first to report unusual wildlife sightings. They provide valuable insight into where animals are resting, and how they are coping in changing environments. Without these observations, we wouldn’t know about many wildlife encounters. We also wouldn’t be able to understand how different populations and species are faring.

When humans go too far

Many other charismatic marine mammals have attracted global attention – sometimes with tragic consequences.

One well-known example is Freya the walrus who, by lounging on boats and floating docks, drew fans across Norway. Despite repeated warnings, people failed to keep their distance and kept approaching Freya to take photographs. Eventually, Norwegian authorities made the difficult decision to euthanise Freya, citing ongoing public safety concerns.

Thankfully, such tragedies can be avoided. Neil’s story shows that through good communication and public education, we can keep both wildlife and humans safe.

Will Neil be back?

It’s impossible to know if Neil will return to Tasmania, as he’s done each year since 2020. It’s likely he’s now back in the Southern Ocean, foraging for food. But many Australians are already hoping to see him again.

Either way, Neil’s legacy won’t just be about the viral videos or social media fame. It will also be the lesson he’s taught us, that sharing Australia’s coastline with wildlife comes with responsibility.

Saia Nahir Bartes 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/neil-the-seal-can-teach-us-plenty-about-seal-behaviour-a-marine-biologist-explains/