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SFA business students gain global edge through immersive study abroad tour of Spain and Portugal

NACOGDOCHES, Texas –– Nearly 50 students from Stephen F. Austin State University’s Nelson Rusche College of Business participated in an intensive, faculty-led study abroad program in Spain and Portugal May 10-21.Led by Dr. Matthew Lindsey, chair of the Department of Management and Marketing, and Dr. Mikhail Kouliavtsev, chair of the Department of Economics and Finance, the experiential learning trip bridged classroom business theory with real-world international operations across the Iberian Peninsula.

Jun 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • sfasu.edu

Elections to top science bodies test Croatia’s gender equality in research

Croatia’s track-record on gender equality in science has been both questioned and lauded in recent months, following both bad and good news on the topic. On the one hand, a senior awards committee was announced without a single woman researcher included. On the other, the national science academy welcomed its first cohort of fellows with more women than men.Members of the committee, which gives national awards recognising scientific achievement, are proposed by the ministry of science and endorsed by the parliament. The current line-up does include a woman, but she is culture minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek rather than a researcher. Even then, she didn’t make it into the photograph released to announce the appointments on April 16. “The image speaks a thousand words,” says Tanja Rudež, a science journalist for Jutarnji List newspaper. “I am surprised that none of these men, all well-known scientists, saw a problem with the fact that there was not a single successful female scientist on the committee,” she told Science|Business.Ivan Đikić, a prominent Croatian biochemist based at Goethe University Medical School, commented on LinkedIn that the news illustrated a “sad truth” about the state of science in Croatia.“It [. . .] reveals a system where women, despite contributing a substantial share of high-quality, internationally competitive science, are systematically excluded from the very processes that determine recognition and influence,” he wrote. Some 60% of researchers in Croatia are women, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, and they perform well in international competitions. For example, of the 12 European Research Council (ERC) grants awarded to Croatian researchers, seven went to women.“So how is it possible that decision-making bodies are still dominated by men over 60, while not a single female ERC laureate is involved in the selection process?” asked Đikić. “This is not a marginal oversight; it is a structural failure.” The ministry of science did not reply to a request for comment. The awards committee is not unusual. For example, a scientific advisory body announced by the ministry of demographics in April comprises 35 men and five women. The board of the Croatian Science Foundation, newly appointed by the parliament, is a little better, with five men and two women, but still unequal. “This is especially significant because such bodies do not merely distribute prestige. They shape research priorities, funding allocation and long-term scientific development,” Marija Lugarić, chair of the parliament’s committee on gender equality, told Science|Business. “Representation here matters not only symbolically, but materially.”Referring to the awards committee and the board of the science foundation, Lugarić says that while both bodies were appointed by parliament, neither met the minimum 40% gender balance threshold that Croatian law and EU guidelines expressly recommend for public bodies.Đikić wants to see EU institutions put pressure on the government to ensure basic standards of fairness, transparency and democratic governance in science policy are met. “Meaningful change will not come without pressure,” he wrote. “It must intensify both within Croatia and at the level of European institutions. Anything less undermines the credibility of Europe’s commitment to excellence and inclusion in science.”Rudež also underlined the importance of talking and writing about this topic, “because public opinion in Croatia does influence changes in the status and visibility of women in science.”The European Commission has not yet responded to a request for comment.Good news from the academyA more positive story came from the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts on 21 May, with the announcement of seven new women fellows and five men. This is the first time in the academy’s 165-year history that women have outnumbered men in a new intake.One of the new fellows, two-time ERC grantee Iva Tolić, credits the academy leadership with trying to be more modern and inclusive, representing the whole community better. “The academy is really aware that so far, before this election, there were very few women,” she told Science|Business. “So, they are actively trying to make this more equal.”Related articlesExplained: How the MSCA is close to achieving gender balanceCall for EU to leverage academic freedom in global talent raceRudež is more cautious, noting that despite the academy’s “breakthrough this year [. . .] it is still a predominantly male institution, with only 18% women.”This reflects a wider imbalance in Croatia’s research landscape. “The key levers of power in science are still in the hands of men,” she went on. “For example, all 14 rectors of private and public universities are men.”Similarly, Lugarić says a structural glass ceiling still exists in Croatian science, which is “most visible precisely where power is exercised.”She cites data from the Commission’s She Figures 2024 report, which shows that Croatia ranks second in the EU for gender equality in research and innovation overall, with an equality index of 79.6 out of 100. It is in the top five for women’s career advancement, participation in research; representation across all research sectors and for scientific publications.In stark contrast, it ranks second to last when it comes to women in decision-making positions in science. “This is not a coincidence,” Lugarić says. “It is a structural pattern.”Informal barriersThe persistent under-representation of women in the highest structures of Croatia’s academies, boards, award committees and leadership positions is not down to formal barriers, Lugarić says, but arises from more subtle obstacles such as “informal networks, persistent expectations regarding traditional gender roles and the unequal distribution of care responsibilities.”Tolić would like to see more support for young women in terms of affordable housing and child support, and higher salaries. Currently, she says, salaries in science stay low for the first 10-15 years, while housing and spaces in kindergarten are limited and expensive. “You have to work a lot, you get very little money, so it’s not great to have a family in this situation,” she says.But despite the challenges, Tolić is optimistic, saying that gender equality in research in Croatia is “definitely improving and going in the right direction.” The situation is particularly promising in biology, she adds, where most full professors, heads of department and deans of faculties are women. Lugarić, too, see the glass ceiling “very slowly, cracking,” and cites the academy election as an example that structural change is possible. Yet the situation in the national awards committee is a “stark reminder that without a conscious, systemic commitment to gender balance, progress will remain slow and uneven.”

Jun 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science

With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!

Jun 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • iai.tv

COMMENTARY: Politics and failure

Politics is the only profession of which I am aware in which competence doesn't seem to matter. One can fail miserably; one can be corrupt and one can get away with crimes that if committed by someone outside of elective office, arrest, prosecution and a stint in jail would be the result. Yet politicians, Democrats and Republicans, continue to get re-elected.

Jun 3 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • newstribune.com

Dubai-Based Apparel Group Said to Explore IPO for India Business

Dubai-based fashion and lifestyle retailer Apparel Group is considering an initial public offering for its Indian unit in Mumbai, according to people familiar with the matter.

Jun 3 • 2:02 AM EDT • Business • bloomberg.com

Robinson to face incumbent Smith for Iowa House seat

Matt Robinson defeated Eli Licht for the Democratic nomination in Iowa House District 72 on Tuesday, gaining 56% of the voters’ favor.

Jun 3 • 2:00 AM EDT • Politics • telegraphherald.com

Exclusive: SpaceX plans to raise $75 billion in IPO at $135 per share, source says

SpaceX ​plans ​to raise $75 billion ⁠in ​its initial ​public offering by selling 555.6 ​million ​shares at a ‌target ⁠price of $135 per share, a ​source ​familiar ⁠with the ​matter told ​Reuters.

Jun 2 • 8:26 PM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Scott Pelley’s future at CBS in doubt after private meeting with top executives

Veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley had a contentious meeting with CBS News management on Tuesday afternoon, leading some of his colleagues to believe that he will be fired, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Jun 2 • 8:19 PM EDT • Business • cnn.com

What about California’s other statewide races? Here’s a look at the offices on the ballot today

California voters today are determining the general election candidates for 8 statewide offices, including insurance commissioner, superintendent and lieutenant governor.

Jun 2 • 7:10 PM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Ravens' Rashod Bateman: Absent due to personal matter

Ravens' Rashod Bateman: Absent due to personal matter

Jun 2 • 4:56 PM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com

Josh Jacobs at practice Tuesday, Matt LaFleur calls it "business as usual"

Jacobs was arrested in Wisconsin last month.

Jun 2 • 12:57 PM EDT • Business • nbcsports.com

Any Charlotte Democratic voter could be interim mayor. But politics matter

Applications just opened, and the City Council plans to make an appointment before the end of June.

Jun 2 • 11:43 AM EDT • Politics • charlotteobserver.com

The work you can't always see: Beer is political, part 2

Recently I published a piece about beer, politics, and the question of who speaks up and who doesn’t. I meant every word of it. I still do. And then my inbox opened up. Cleveland Prost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe I’ve been writing about beer since 2014. For most of that time, I kept things deliberately light — taproom profiles, new releases, the people behind the pints. Gradually, over years of building this thing, you gave me something I didn’t expect: permission. Permission to go deeper. To say what I actually saw in this industry and what I actually believed about it. That trust isn’t something I take lightly. It’s why that piece existed at all, and it’s why this one does too. I’m not walking anything back. But I want to go further. In that piece, I wrote that beer has never existed outside the system. That immigration policy affects who staffs breweries and harvests ingredients. That labor policy affects taproom workers. That civil rights policy affects who feels safe walking into a taproom. That “beer does not exist in a vacuum. The idea that it does is comforting. It is also false.” I believe that as much now as I did when I wrote it. But one idea came back at me, in different forms, over and over (from reader emails, comments, and conversations): that beer itself isn’t political — that it only becomes political when someone decides to make it that way. That what we’re really seeing is a choice by individuals to inject division into something that doesn’t inherently require it. It’s a comforting idea. It’s also wrong — and I think it’s worth being precise about why. That framing assumes that breweries operate outside the conditions shaping everything else. That politics is something you choose to bring into a room that was, until then, clean and neutral. That if you stay quiet, you stay clear of it. But the room was never neutral. It was never clean. Politics is already in the room. It’s in who walks through the door comfortably and who hesitates. It’s in whether a space can be used for organizing without fear. It’s in whether helping someone quietly might carry consequences you have to think carefully about in advance. It’s in who staffed the brewery, who harvested the grain, who can afford to be a regular. The idea that you opt out of all that by staying quiet is an illusion. You only change how visible your response to it is. This is, I realize, a hard thing to hear if you came to a beer newsletter for something lighter. I wrote recently that “beer, for me, has always felt like a refuge — a third place in an increasingly fractured world.” I meant that. I still do. But a refuge is not an escape from reality. It’s a place to gather strength to face it. Here’s what I actually missed — and what I want to correct. Multiple people in the industry reached out to me. I’m not naming them and I’m not identifying their businesses, because that’s not my call. If and when they want to be loud about what they’re doing, that agency belongs to them. What I can share is the substance of what they said, because it complicated something I presented too cleanly. The overall message: *You don’t know what we all are doing.* And they’re right. I don’t. One example involved a collaboration brewed quietly to support another business facing serious challenges in a whole different region, with proceeds directed toward solidarity, community, and keeping operations afloat. No announcement. It could have been broadcast widely. The point was never publicity. Another example involved logistical support for community efforts: organizing safe transportation, providing space for meetings on otherwise closed days, facilitating gatherings under difficult conditions. All of it happening while balancing real financial pressure and genuine concern for personal safety. None of what they described is a brewer “deciding to make beer political.” It’s people responding to the conditions around them — conditions that are already shaping who feels safe, who has access, who can gather, who needs help, and who has the capacity to offer it. Politics, again, already in the room. Already shaping choices. Whether anyone announced it or not. I’ve spent decades in taprooms, at barrel releases, at festivals, in back offices and brewing floors, talking to the people who built this industry from nothing. I know how much happens that never makes it onto social media. I know the owner who quietly comp’d a tab for someone having a crisis. The brewer who drove an hour to pick up a stranger who needed a safe ride. The taproom that stayed dark on a Tuesday so a community group could use the space without it becoming A Whole Thing. None of that gets a post. Most of it never will. So when I wrote recently about silence — when I said that “silence right now doesn’t feel neutral, it feels like complicity” — I was writing about what I could see. And I was right about what I saw. The public silence of breweries that have the platform, the stability, and frankly the safety to say something and choose not to? That still troubles me. I’m not softening that. But some of what I read as silence is actually something else entirely. It’s people doing the work with their hands instead of their phones. It’s people who are genuinely afraid — not of being canceled, but of real consequences for their families, their employees, their ability to keep the doors open at all. That deserves more than a footnote. It deserves to be named clearly. Here’s the tension I want to sit with honestly: public statements matter. They matter because people can’t rally around something they can’t see. Visibility creates awareness and solidarity. It helps people find each other. It tells someone standing outside your taproom door, uncertain whether they’ll be welcomed inside, something they need to know — or whether it’s even safe for them to be in public at all. That’s not performative. I wrote recently that the craft beer movement “was built on collective defiance. It was built on rejecting consolidation. On pushing back against homogeneity.” I believe that too. And I’ll extend it: breweries should be at least as loud about their values as they are when they drop a new seasonal. Your hazy IPA gets a full rollout — the label art, the tap handle photo, the countdown post. Human dignity deserves the same energy. Be as loud about human rights as you are about your beer. There is no reason those two things should require different levels of courage from you. But visibility isn’t the only form of courage. And not everyone can be visible right now without real consequences — financial, personal, sometimes physical. There are people in this industry doing hard, unglamorous, sometimes risky work in the background, and announcing it would compromise it or paint a target on someone who’s already stretched thin. That’s not silence as complicity. That’s operational discipline under pressure. What I want to push back on — clearly, not gently — is the idea that behind-the-scenes action and public visibility are in competition with each other. The person organizing quietly in the back room and the person posting a statement of solidarity on a Tuesday morning are both doing something real. We need both. We need the quiet infrastructure and we need the visible signal. We need people to know that this industry — at its best, at its most independent, and human — gives a fuck. I closed that piece with a question: “Reactive and fearful? Or clear and values-driven?” That question still stands. But having heard from you, I’d add a corollary: the values-driven path isn’t always the loudest one. Sometimes it’s a phone call and a recipe. Sometimes it’s a room made available on a closed Tuesday. Sometimes it’s a drive across town for someone who needed a safe ride home. All of it is political. All of it was always political. You don’t get to opt out of that — you only get to decide what you do with it. I’ve spent more than a decade writing about this industry because I believe it can be exactly that. I’ve been lucky enough to build an audience that lets me say so plainly. That’s a privilege I intend to use. The work is happening. Some of it you’ll see. Some of it you won’t. Support it either way. Cleveland Prost is a reader-supported publication covering beer and brewing across New York state. To receive new posts and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Cleveland Prost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

Jun 2 • 10:13 AM EDT • Politics • clevelandprost.substack.com

Will Trump's waning popularity pull down California Republicans? Today's election offers a clue

Democrats seek to oust even more Republicans in California legislative races. Many will move on to November

Jun 2 • 10:05 AM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Motorola News | Designed for Comfort, Built for Everyday Entertainment: Introducing the new motorola edge 2026 and moto buds 2

Motorola brings the new edge and moto buds 2 to North America, designed to elevate the features that matter most to today's consumers.

Jun 2 • 8:57 AM EDT • Entertainment • motorolanews.com

California voting ends Tuesday. The results? Don't expect them anytime soon

Why California takes so long to count votes: Mail-in ballots, signature verification and competitive races could delay election results for weeks

Jun 2 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Top Democrats compete in wide-open primary for lieutenant governor

Fiona Ma, Josh Fryday, Michael Tubbs and Gloria Romero are the leading candidates for lieutenant governor in the California election.

Jun 2 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

California votes in most uncertain governor’s primary in years

Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer and Steve Hilton lead the polls in the final days of the California governor election. Results are coming in.

Jun 2 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Dunlap unveils healthcare priorities

Dunlap’s healthcare plan also includes measures to protect abortion access and require “safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.”

Jun 2 • 7:31 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

A stellar “Rosetta stone” reveals the source of mysterious cosmic signals

Astronomers have finally cracked the mystery behind a strange class of repeating cosmic signals that has baffled scientists for years. Using Australia’s ASKAP radio telescope, researchers traced the bursts to a rare stellar duo in which a dense white dwarf is relentlessly siphoning material from a nearby red dwarf companion. As the stolen matter spirals inward, the system unleashes powerful radio waves and X-rays every 1.4 hours.

Jun 1 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

One fat helped pancreatic cancer grow while another cut disease in half

A surprising new study suggests that when it comes to pancreatic cancer, the kind of fat you eat may matter more than how much. Researchers found that oleic acid—the main fat in olive oil and several other common foods—sped up tumor growth in mice predisposed to pancreatic cancer, while omega-3-rich fats from fish oil dramatically slowed disease development.

Jun 1 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Trump administration signals to GOP congressional leaders it will back off $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

The Trump administration has signaled to Republican congressional leaders that it plans to drop the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, though it was unclear how firm or permanent that plan is, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Jun 1 • 5:55 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Corridor Business Journal hiring business reporter

The Corridor Business Journal is the publication that the area’s most influential business leaders and entrepreneurs read to understand what’s actually happening. We’re looking for a hungry, driven journalist who wants to matter in a market, not disappear into a wire feed. This is a beat with real stakes. You’ll cover a seven-county region that […]

Jun 1 • 3:21 PM EDT • Business • corridorbusiness.com

Milan leaning more to Glasner than Jaissle for new coach

While Milan are also expected to meet with Matthias Jaissle of Al-Ahli, it is increasingly likely their next coach will be former Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner.The Rossoneri are having a total re...

Jun 1 • 2:50 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Exclusive: Barrick Mining weighs London listing as it negotiates Africa business sale, sources say

Barrick Mining , one of the world's leading gold miners, is weighing a possible London listing for ‌its African business, with a potential all-share transaction with UK-listed Endeavour Mining seen as one option under consideration, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Jun 1 • 10:22 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Clemson biologist leads global study on how flowers beat the heat

The research funded by a grant from the Human Frontier Science Program focuses on the flowering stage, one of the most vulnerable stages in a plant's life cycle.

Jun 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • news.clemson.edu

More candidates are using their personal wealth to campaign than ever before. Should voters care?

All eyes are on one billionaire’s spending for governor. A CalMatters analysis shows the story may lie in the millions spent by down-ballot candidates.

Jun 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Why a yearslong fight over gambling is good news for California politicians

A brutal fight over gambling in California shows no signs of letting up after a recent court ruling. That’s good news for politicians seeking campaign contributions.

Jun 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Insights from Dževada Garić, Professor of Political Science

In our latest Speaker Spotlight, Dzevada Garic, highlights the role of journalism in matters of interfaith coexistence.

Jun 1 • 6:40 AM EDT • Science • corporate.dw.com

Cubs Minor League Wrap: Matthew Boyd rehabs for Iowa

Matthew Boyd makes a successful rehab appearance, as does Will Sanders. South Bend keeps winning.

May 31 • 9:55 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Beaten Kentucky Derby Favorite Further Ado Returns In Matt Winn

Spendthrift Farm’s Blue Grass Stakes (G1) winner Further Ado headlines a talented field of eight 3-year-olds entered in next Sunday’s 29th running of the $500,000 Matt Winn Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs. Contested at 1 1/16 miles for 3-year-olds, the Matt Winn shares the Sunday ...

May 31 • 7:04 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Here’s your first look at ‘A Minecraft Movie Squared’ with Kirsten Dunst as Alex

Is Matt Berry playing Herobrine?

May 31 • 3:28 PM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com

Aidan Miller not doing baseball activities, but Phillies optimistic for 2026

Aidan Miller is not currently doing baseball activities, but Preston Mattingly said the Phillies remain optimistic their top prospect will play in 2026.

May 31 • 3:25 PM EDT • Sports • nbcsportsphiladelphia.com

Xbox will "adjust" its promotional materials after fans slam decision to use rival logos in its showcases

Xbox boss Asha Sharma has admitted that including competitor logos in Xbox teasers and showcase presentations is "a miss", confirming this will be "adjusted".

May 31 • 11:53 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

'Alaskan Bush People' star Matt Brown found dead in Washington state river at the age of 42

Matt Brown, who starred on "Alaskan Bush People" from 2014 to 2019, has died at 43. His brother Bear Brown confirmed the death on social media Saturday.

May 31 • 11:24 AM EDT • Entertainment • foxnews.com

Smile? Your health may be tied to the ballot box.

If you’ve avoided news coverage but realize your vote still should matter, here’s our pitch for www.santafenewmexican.com/elections.

May 31 • 3:00 AM EDT • Health • santafenewmexican.com

Giant Study Reveals The Secret to Heart Health Isn't Low-Carb or Low-Fat

There's another factor that may matter more.

May 30 • 7:12 PM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com

Giant Study Reveals The Secret to Heart Health Isn't Low-Carb or Low-Fat

There's another factor that may matter more.

May 30 • 7:12 PM EDT • Health • sciencealert.com

Matt Quatraro Breaks Down Defensive Miscues vs Rangers

Quatraro pointed to two early throwing errors after the Royals dropped their fourth game in a row.

May 30 • 6:53 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Falcons players discuss Matt Ryan's presence at OTAs

Falcons TE Kyle Pitts, QB Tua Tagovailoa comment on Matt Ryan's impact

May 30 • 3:59 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Quantum light gives a 20-fold boost to ultrafast laser processes

Nonlinear interactions between light and matter are at the heart of some of the most powerful tools in modern optics, but pushing these processes to their limits has long been hampered by a fundamental ...

May 30 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • phys.org

Why 'me time' matters for moms’ mental health

Small breaks can make a big difference for moms, and Mass General Brigham psychiatrist Dr. Ash Nadkarni explains why “me time” matters.

May 30 • 12:04 PM EDT • Health • wcvb.com

'I don't want to be hated': Banned youth baseball coach speaks out after viral incident

Michael Ryals, a youth baseball coach banned by a national sports organization after a viral incident, talked with USA TODAY Sports about the matter.

May 30 • 8:30 AM EDT • Sports • usatoday.com

Is JD Vance the 2028 Front Runner? Trump Has Questions.

President Trump appears to see the matter of his heir as unsettled, adding a layer of tension to his relationship with Vice President JD Vance.

May 30 • 5:01 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization fund’ is stalled, and some allies are urging him to scrap it entirely

President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is currently stalled, with some allies urging the White House to scrap it altogether amid an unusually intense backlash from multiple Senate Republicans, sources familiar with the matter said.

May 29 • 8:45 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

This strange new phase of matter could transform quantum technology

By stacking custom-designed silver nanoparticles like nanoscale LEGO bricks, scientists stabilized a mysterious crystal phase that had never been observed before. The material not only solves a longstanding puzzle in materials science but also exhibits promising quantum properties at room temperature.

May 29 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Matt Booty Explains Why Xbox Won't Talk About Project Helix At June's Showcase

It's all about the games

May 29 • 2:15 PM EDT • Technology • purexbox.com

Opinion: State policies matter for taxpayers and the business climate

I start each workday by reviewing the latest economic and government reports for Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming. It doesn’t take long to see a trend. Those states that prioritize

May 29 • 10:00 AM EDT • Business • idahostatejournal.com

Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Time to put Zebby Matthews over 50%

May 29 • 9:47 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Pam Bondi will face a closed-door questioning from House lawmakers over the Epstein files

The transcribed Bondi interview will give lawmakers a chance to dig for information on the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files and other related matters, including the prison sentence of Epstein's former girlfriend and confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell.

May 29 • 8:53 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

NL science teacher earns state, national awards

A Northern Lehigh science teacher has been named a recipient of two highly-esteemed awards. Superintendent Matthew J. Link, Ed.D., recently recognized high school science teacher Gabryella Wilder for ...

May 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • tnonline.com

Berkeley's soda tax success story deserves wider attention across California

After Berkeley voters first passed a soda tax in 2014, the city has invested millions of dollars into impactful health programs.

May 29 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • calmatters.org

First heat-related death of the year brings reminder of safety measures from health officials

State health officials are urging Marylanders to take personal safety measures and check on vulnerable neighbors as temperatures start to rise this summer, following the death of an elderly man in Calvert County due to heat-related illness.

May 29 • 6:31 AM EDT • Health • marylandmatters.org

Opinion | It’s time for a new business plan for Minneapolis

The City Council seems more focused on niche interests and short-term fixes right now than in addressing the significant long-term economic issues the city faces, Matt Hemsley writes.

May 29 • 5:59 AM EDT • Business • startribune.com

International Flavors and Fragrances nears $4 billion deal to sell food ingredients business, WSJ reports

International Flavors & Fragrances was ​nearing a deal to sell its ‌food ingredients business to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for more ​than $4 billion, the Wall Street ​Journal reported, citing people familiar with ⁠the matter.

May 29 • 5:15 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

May 29 • 1:00 AM EDT • Politics • politico.com

“Everybody Loves Raymond”'s Patricia Heaton fires back at critics of her gray hair

"The people in my life love me no matter what color my hair is," she said.

May 28 • 3:32 PM EDT • Entertainment • nz.news.yahoo.com

'Everybody Loves Raymond' star Patricia Heaton fires back at critics of her gray hair

'Everybody Loves Raymond' star Patricia Heaton fired back at critics of her gray hair: 'The people in my life love me no matter what color my hair is.'

May 28 • 3:32 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

ATG Entertainment Expands to 19K SF at GFP’s 630 Ninth Avenue

GFP Real Estate has signed three new deals at its 630 Ninth Avenue office building totaling 24,815 square feet.

May 28 • 1:28 PM EDT • Entertainment • commercialobserver.com

BUSINESS MATTERS: Beauty by Kort brings hair services to Midland

Get to know Kortnea Bloomfield, the face behind Beauty by Kort.

May 28 • 11:03 AM EDT • Business • ourmidland.com

Growing Up With The Villains: Misfits Who Matter To Me

Deemed the most hated team in the NHL, the Vegas Golden Knights have become a league-wide punching bag for a long list of reasons. But beyond the villain narrative, they were simply my team.

May 28 • 10:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Lehigh Valley HVAC Company to Pay $300K and Revise Business Practices After AG Sunday Lawsuit for Aggressive, Deceptive Sales Practices

HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that Curtis Total Service, Inc., and two of its employees – current manager Richard Price and former HVAC field supervisor Matthew Price – have agreed to pay the Commonwealth $300,000 and significantly revise their business practices to comply with the Pennsylvania Consumer Protection Law and Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act.

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • attorneygeneral.gov

Bringing Fans Closer to the Action: Snapchat’s Spring of Sports

Creator-led coverage and immersive AR are bringing fans closer to the moments that matter

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Sports • newsroom.snap.com

Young survivors of gun violence find therapy helps. But will California do more?

In California, about 2,000 youth are killed or hospitalized annually due to gun violence. Advocates and experts say getting timely mental health care to young survivors and witnesses is critical.

May 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • calmatters.org

Sports

The Seattle Times Sports section covers teams and athletes in the Seattle area and Pacific Northwest, including the Seahawks, Mariners, UW Huskies, WSU Cougars, Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Storm, Seattle Reign, high-school teams and coverage of plans for an NBA/NHL arena. Columnists Larry Stone, Matt Calkins and reporters Bob Condotta and Geoff Baker are featured.

May 27 • 9:13 PM EDT • Sports • seattletimes.com

Wheelhouse Acquires Matthew Kelly and Michael Sorensen's Anomaly Entertainment

Unscripted producer Wheelhouse has acquired Matthew Kelly and Michael Sorensen's production company, Anomaly Entertainment.

May 27 • 8:36 PM EDT • Entertainment • thewrap.com

DOJ opens investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the president. CNN’s Paula Reid reports.

May 27 • 8:00 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Exclusive: Justice Department launches a criminal investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

May 27 • 7:05 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

New California law bans law enforcement from interfering in state elections

The law bans law enforcement from interfering in elections. It takes effect just in time for the June 2 primary

May 27 • 6:44 PM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Opinion | When local businesses matter most

At a locally owned business, decisions are made right here, by people who know the customers by name and understand that a business is not just a line on a spreadsheet. It’s part of a community.

May 27 • 5:35 PM EDT • Business • riverheadlocal.com

Beyond the Save: Why Mental Health Matters to URFC’s Mandy McGlynn

By: Isabella Rubis The month of May was chosen by Mental Health America in 1949 as a dedicated time to focus on mental wellness. The month-long spotlight is important to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, educate the public and amplify the voices of athletes like URFC goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn

May 27 • 5:29 PM EDT • Health • rsl.com

Colorado Gov. Polis signs RTD overhaul bill aimed at rebuilding transit ridership

Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday approved a sweeping overhaul of the Regional Transportation District, signing a bill that reshapes the agency’s leadership and seeks to reverse years of stagnant ridership and eroding public trust in metro Denver’s transit system. Senate Bill 150 — sponsored by Sens. Iman Jodeh of Aurora and Matt Ball of Denver, […]

May 27 • 4:10 PM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

Jays Beat Marlins, 2-1

Well, after a one day only engagement, the offence has gone back on hiatus. It didn’t end up mattering, though, as a combination of solid work from Kevin Gausman and the bullpen and questionable Marlins base running held them to only one run in spite of racking up 11 hits. The Jays are back within […]

May 27 • 4:10 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Why a Confusing Job Description Hurts Workers—and Quietly Sabotages Businesses

Not knowing where workplace duties begin and end can lead to long-term issues for workers and their employees.

May 27 • 1:56 PM EDT • Business • inc.com

Scotland Health’s home-based care program earns AHA Rural Hospital Excellence in Innovation Award recognition

Scotland Health at Home began with one goal: Connect patients to treatment, no matter where they were.

May 27 • 1:49 PM EDT • Health • aha.org

Wheelhouse Acquires ‘Shark Week’ Powerhouse Anomaly Entertainment

Wheelhouse has acquired Anomaly Entertainment, Variety has learned. Anomaly was orignally founded in 2017 by former Discovery Channell Commissioners Matthew Kelly and Michael Sorensen. With the acquis...

May 27 • 12:45 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Despite new contract, Matthew Stafford’s 2027 return not guaranteed

The Rams are on a year-to-year basis with Matthew Stafford’s contract and that has not changed

May 27 • 12:33 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

U.S. to send Americans exposed to Ebola to makeshift hospital in Kenya

Trump officials have instructed the U.S. military to stand up a quarantine facility within a week, according to two people familiar with the matter.

May 27 • 11:42 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

How AI is Transforming Scientific Discovery While Keeping Humans at the Center

From designing new antibodies to simulating 1,000 years of climate in a day, AI is transforming what's possible—but humans remain the ones deciding what matters.

May 27 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • hai.stanford.edu

The form asked my permission to share my health data. Then it wouldn’t let me say no.

Dark patterns force patients to share their data with big healthcare networks, even when the privacy form they’re signing explicitly says they can opt-out.

May 27 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • calmatters.org

Ebola, chemical plants and health, hantavirus, common colds, heat and more

As they say, bugs have ears. Public health has had a relentless May. Chemical plant (near) explosions, Ebola, hantavirus, and that's before you even get to the usual suspects: common colds, heat, and ticks. Here’s an attempt to keep you up to speed and, more importantly, what it means for you and your community. But first, an announcement: World Cup The World Cup starts in 15 days (not like anyone is counting down), and we are hanging TVs in the Health Security Operations Center. It’s going to be a gorgeous, chaotic celebration of basically every culture on earth. And it’s going to take a team effort—from communities to individuals, from public health to health care—to keep people healthy. That’s where you come in. If you’re going to the games or live within 30 miles of a stadium, we would love to hear from you. Sign up for a weekly survey here. Thanks to the more than 1,280 people who have already signed up…you will be hearing from us soon!! Global disease “weather report” Hantavirus: Two more cases The global count of cruise ship passengers with hantavirus has now increased to 13 cases (11 confirmed), with three deaths. The two new cases are overseas and among people who were already quarantining: A crew member in the Netherlands. A Spanish national passenger who was quarantining at home tested positive through daily monitoring. They are now in a biocontainment unit. In the U.S., everyone remains negative. There may be more cases, given that the incubation period of hantavirus (the time from exposure to infection) is 45 days. But this week, we will reach a major milestone: the median incubation window is 18 days, and that will pass on May 29. What this means for you: Your risk from this cruise ship outbreak remains essentially nil at this point. Ebola rages on in Central Africa Big thanks to Dr. Craig Spencer, a humanitarian physician who has treated and survived Ebola, for jumping in to provide the YLE community with an update. Craig, take it from here… The combined confirmed and suspected Ebola cases in DRC are now more than 1,000. All signs are pointing to a very long and catastrophic outbreak in Central Africa: This is a vast undercount. We know this because the test positivity rate is hovering around 50%, only 20% of contacts are being traced (and in some areas, no contacts at all), and more cases keep popping up with no known connection. This all points to widespread and undetected community transmission. This is in only a week of detection. Compared to previous outbreaks, the growth is very fast, as the huge West Africa outbreak in 2016 was first detected at 49 cases and rose to 208 cases a month later. It took four months for that outbreak to reach the size of the current one in the DR Congo. The cases are spread out across 16 health zones. There are now multiple epicenters, making containment very difficult. Next door in Uganda, the case count is seven. While this number is low compared to DRC, a concerning development is that two health care workers recently tested positive with uncertain exposure histories. If they weren’t treating known Ebola cases, this means it’s spreading undetected in Uganda as well. On the ground, backlash, including the burning of health centers, has emerged, a pattern seen in nearly every outbreak and rooted in deep community distrust. It often stems from outside actors working in communities without fully understanding or addressing local priorities. Affected populations may recognize the severity of Ebola while still holding other concerns as more pressing, such as where their loved ones are buried. Community trust is essential to an effective response, but difficult to build during an active emergency. It is best established long before a crisis begins. U.S. priorities are made clear, and may backfire. The U.S. Administration has shown that its first priority is keeping Ebola out, with helping end the outbreak in the DRC a secondary concern. That's meant travel restrictions broader than anything we've imposed before — covering travelers from across the region, and reportedly some green card holders and permanent residents as well. For example, just these past two days, news broke that high-risk American travelers will be subject to a mandatory quarantine in Kenya before they are allowed to return. If an American is infected, the U.S. government plans to send them to a hospital it is standing up from scratch in Kenya. (Currently, Americans who were in the area are allowed to return but are diverted to three airports—Houston, Atlanta, and DC—for further screening.) Past administrations have used travel notices and stepped-up screening; this goes much further. At first blush, these strict precautions may sound prudent. But this approach could backfire in three ways: Restrictions this blunt give people every reason to hide where they’ve been and whom they’ve been near — making the people we most need to find harder to track, not easier. They also breed a false sense that this is someone else’s problem. But diseases are humbling. They find the small cracks in even the most impenetrable-seeming defenses. Lives lost. There is no treatment for this Ebola strain, which means survival depends heavily on the quality of the health system. We have that system in the States, but we are choosing not to use it for infected Americans. This is unbelievable and infuriating. (See a deeper dive from me here.) The only real way to lower the risk to Americans — and everyone else — is to end the outbreak in the DRC and across the region. What this means for you: If you have travel plans to this region, it’s time to cancel them. This is a high-risk situation in Central Africa, and CDC released a Level 4 Travel Advisory. There is also great uncertainty if and when the Administration will let you back in. To the general public in the U.S., your risk remains very, very low right now. U.S. disease “weather report” Ticks: past peak season? Good news, especially for people in the Northeast and Midwest: tick numbers continue to decline. Though we are at the peak of the season, this unusually early year is trending favorably. Heat-related illnesses in the North Heat risk is certainly not blanketing the entire country yet, but this week it will be moderate in the Midwest and the Southeast. What this means for you: Be sure to check the CDC HeatRisk tool. A red day isn’t the best day for that soccer game for a kid with asthma, and a stretch of orange days is a great time to check on your elderly neighbor. Common colds surging As far as respiratory viruses go, the only thing really going around right now is the common cold. It is higher this year than last year, but should peak very soon before returning this fall. Spotlight: Chemical plants Over the weekend, YLE California covered the serious situation that unfolded around a chemical plant in Orange County, California. Thankfully, the worst-case scenario (a chemical explosion) was mitigated, but only through luck. The health implications in a densely populated area could have been catastrophic. As the situation was winding down, another chemical explosion struck Washington State. This one was fatal. Health officials say the risk to surrounding residents from chemicals in the air and ground remains low, though the community deserves far greater clarity. Clean air and clean water consistently rank as Americans’ top public health concerns — yet when chemical disasters strike, communities are too often met with reassurances rather than transparency and accountability. Residents near the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, for example, are still waiting to understand the long-term impact on their health, with few clear answers. What this means for you: Many are wondering if facilities processing potentially dangerous materials are in their neighborhoods. This interactive map allows you to enter your ZIP code and see all facilities monitored by the EPA, including any violations. Good news Ebola vaccines and treatment for the Bundibugyo species are in development. Two vaccine platforms are being explored, at least one of which may be deployable in as little as 2 months. One vaccine is being developed by Oxford, and the other uses the same biotechnology as the FDA-approved Zaire species of Ebola. (It may provide cross-protection, but it’s unclear at this point.) On the treatment side, two promising monoclonal antibody cocktails are likely to be deployed, though doses are limited and logistical hurdles remain significant challenges. Anni over at The Biotech Tea had a great explainer about the Ebola vaccine gap, if you want to read more. [ The Biotech Tea The Ebola vaccine gap, reading vessel damage, & the Makary exit 🗝️ Paid subscribers get the Biotech Term of the Week at $30/year (~$2.50/month). I try to keep it intentionally accessible, but if cost is ever a barrier, send me a message. A few people asked about expensing your subscription, so I put together a short email template… Read more 6 days ago · 10 likes · Annicka Evans, PhD ](https://www.thebiotechtea.com/p/the-ebola-vaccine-gap-reading-vessel?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been officially renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), following more than a decade of debate and input from roughly 22,000 clinicians, researchers, and patients worldwide. This is good because the old name was medically misleading, leading to patients without visible cysts being dismissed or overlooked entirely. The WHO estimates that 70% of people with the condition remain undiagnosed. A more accurate name should improve recognition, reduce stigma, and ultimately help the millions of people living with this condition get diagnosed and treated sooner. Poll Loading... Bottom line Public health situations are everywhere right now. Staying healthy takes public health professionals and systems working tirelessly behind the scenes and each of us showing up for our neighbors and communities. Love, YLE Big thanks to Ed Nirenberg for staying on top of the Ebola vaccines, Hannah Totte for all the figures, Dr. Craig Spencer for the Ebola insight, and Dr. Matt Willis for covering the chemical situation in CA. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “Translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

May 27 • 7:43 AM EDT • Health • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

One SEC coach perfectly explains flaw in College Football Playoff debate

Mike Elko will tell you the truth about why coaches' opinions on the College Football Playoff shouldn't matter.

May 27 • 5:13 AM EDT • Sports • usatoday.com

Where 8K TVs Flopped, Samsung Hopes 6K Monitors Will Push Screens Forward

It's not really the resolution, but the pixels per inch that matters with 6K monitors.

May 27 • 12:00 AM EDT • Technology • gizmodo.com

Learning Health System holds 7th annual symposium

Co-sponsors of the Learning Health System (LHS) Symposium held May 14 at the Vanderbilt Student Life Center join keynote speaker Kevin High, MD, MS, (second from right), a leader in academic LHS for Charlotte, N.C.-based Advocate Health. From left are Christiane Roumie, MD, MPH, Director of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs VETWISE-LHS Center of Innovation, Cheryl Gatto, PhD, and Matthew Semler, MD, MSCI, from the Center for Learning Healthcare of the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, and, at far right, symposium Chair Sunil Kripalani, MD, MSc, Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research. (photo by Susan Urmy) Recipients of the Operational Partner Award were honored at the May 14 Learning Health System (LHS) Symposium for their efforts, in partnership with the LHS academic initiative, to improve frontline patient care at Vanderbilt Health and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Healthcare System. (photo by Susan Urmy)

May 26 • 1:01 PM EDT • Health • news.vumc.org

'Representation matters': Majority of Florida's DNC members slam Debbie Wasserman Schultz's CD 20 run

Under Gov. DeSantis' new map, Florida's longest-serving Democratic Congresswoman is running in a Black plurality district.

May 26 • 12:40 PM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

Bellows rules trans athlete petition falls short

A judge sent the matter back to Bellows’ office to investigate claims that signature gathers left petitions unattended and in some cases, signed voters’ names without their knowledge.

May 26 • 12:03 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Mental Health Matters: Three Stress Strategies For Women In Leadership

Burnout among women leaders is at a 5-year high. Three stress-management strategies to enhance clarity, confidence and steadiness under increasing pressure.

May 26 • 11:28 AM EDT • Health • forbes.com

Now that we know Jaxson Dart’s politics, let’s just focus on his football

In this forum, the football is the only thing that matters.

May 26 • 10:47 AM EDT • Politics • sports.yahoo.com

Matt Stell Signs With Black River Entertainment

Matt Stell has signed Black River Entertainment. "I knew I wanted to sign with Black River [...]

May 26 • 9:54 AM EDT • Entertainment • musicrow.com

Could a cosmic uncertainty principle help explain dark matter?

The universe may have its own version of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, according to a new theory.

May 26 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • space.com

Silicon Valley’s dream candidate hits the limits of California politics

Matt Mahan was the tech industry’s chosen champion — but his campaign to be the next governor of California has fallen flat.

May 26 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • politico.com

Get up to speed fast on the California election with our guide for the undecided

Californians are voting on a wide-open governor's race in a June 2 primary election. Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton and Tom Steyer are leading in polls.

May 26 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org

Apple To Release iOS 26.5.1 iPhone Update In Coming Days, Report Says

Apple iOS 26.5.1 is on its way, it seems, and is likely to land in a matter of days, while iOS 26.6 may hit first beta soon.

May 26 • 7:50 AM EDT • Technology • forbes.com