Daily Archives: October 7, 2021

A study published in the journal Public Understanding of Science suggests that celebrity scientists tend to foster greater acceptance of evolution among the public. However, when scientists are perceived as a threat to religious identity, they may end up lowering acceptance of evolution among religious audiences.

Most scientists are in agreement that humans evolved millions of years ago from primate ancestors. But not all members of the public accept this theory. Study authors Amy Unsworth and David Voas wanted to explore factors that might be associated with changes in public attitudes toward evolution. Given the influence of mass media, the researchers proposed that celebrity scientists likely play a key role in shaping public attitudes about evolution.

To explore this, the researchers recruited a nationally representative sample of the British public and additionally pooled five religious samples Anglicans, Catholics, Muslims, Pentecostal Christians, and Independent Evangelical Christians. All participants completed a survey that assessed their belief in evolution and asked them whether their views on evolution have changed over time.

The questionnaire also assessed familiarity with four celebrity scientists and two celebrity creationists and asked respondents to indicate whether each celebritys attitudes toward religion were very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative or whether they did not know.

In general, respondents who were more familiar with celebrity scientists were more likely to say that their attitudes toward evolution had changed to becoming more accepting of evolution. However, familiarity with the scientists had different effects depending on a persons religious background.

This was particularly true when it came to familiarity with Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and atheist who proclaims that religion and science are incompatible. Among non-religious respondents and Catholics, familiarity with Dawkins was associated with an increased likelihood of becoming more accepting of evolution. But among certain religious respondents (Pentecostals and Muslims), familiarity with Dawkins was instead tied to becoming less accepting of evolution. Importantly, this was only true among respondents who reported that Dawkins had a negative view of religion.

This finding supports the idea that some religious believers views of evolutionary biology may be affected when they perceive Dawkins as identity-threatening, Unsworth and Voas say, adding that, celebrity scientists affirm or threaten peoples non-religious or religious identities may be very much more persuasive with regard to evolution acceptance than whether people understand and are convinced by the scientific evidence the celebrities present.

The findings were not always straightforward. For example, familiarity with David Attenborough, a well-known producer and presenter of natural history documentaries, was linked to becoming more accepting of evolution among Anglicans, Independent Evangelicals, and Pentecostals. But among Muslims who were educated outside the UK, familiarity with Attenborough was tied to becoming both more and less accepting of evolution. The study authors propose that this may be because the topic of evolution was not a salient topic for Muslims who were educated outside the UK and are likely migrants. Both coming to Britain and exposure to Attenborough documentaries likely increased their awareness of evolution and led them to choose a stance on evolution, either rejecting or accepting it.

Overall, the researchers conclude that their findings demonstrate that peoples views on evolution do change. Bringing evolutionary science to religious audiences may be most impactful if threats to religious identity are avoided.

The study, The Dawkins effect? Celebrity scientists, (non)religious publics and changed attitudes to evolution, was authored by Amy Unsworth and David Voas.

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Celebrity scientists tend to sway the public toward greater acceptance of evolution, but not when religious identity is threatened - PsyPost

STOCKHOLM, Oct. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Evolution has announced that it has signed an agreement with Super Group owned Betway for the provision of Evolution's online Live Casino and `First Person' RNG-based casino games in the US states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Betway is a globally recognised online betting and gaming brand and is a long-standing Evolution customer. Betway has entered the US market through an exclusive brand licensing agreement with Digital Gaming Corporation (DGC).

The Evolution-Betway deal will see Evolution online Live Casino games and 'First Person' RNG-casino games made available to Betway players on desktop, tablet and smartphone in the two states. A wide range of classic casino games will be offered live and online, including Roulette, Blackjack, Baccarat and numerous Poker variants.

Betway is already live with Evolution brand NetEnt in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, offering a selection of leading slots titles.

Jeff Millar, Evolution's Commercial Director for North America, said: "Our US rollout continues at pace and, once again, we are delighted to be working with a brand with which we have already built an extremely strong and close relationship in other markets. We very much look forward to helping Betway achieve major success in these first two states, and in other states in the future."

Betway CEO, Anthony Werkman commented: "Through our new US sports sponsorship deals the Betway brand will be seen courtside and rinkside in some of the biggest arenas in North America. Betway customers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will be able to enjoy playing our world-class, Evolution-powered online casino games in their homes and while on the move. Having worked with Evolution for many years, we are confident that players in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will be very excited indeed by our US-focused online games offered in a fair, safe, secure and responsible environment."

For media enquiries, please contact:Amy Riches, Head of Marketing, [emailprotected]

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About Betway Group

Betway Group, owned by Super Group, is a leading provider of innovative, entertaining and exciting entertainment across sports betting, casino and esports betting. Launched in 2006, the company operates across a number of regulated online markets and holds licences in the UK, Malta, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Ireland. Based in Malta and Guernsey, with support from London, Isle of Man and Cape Town, the Betway team comprises over 1,500 people.

Betway prides itself on providing its customers with a bespoke, fun and informed betting experience, supported by a fair, safe and responsible environment. Betway is a member of several prominent industry-related bodies, including International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA), iGaming European Network (iGEN), the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS), and the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), and is ISO 27001 certified through the trusted international testing agency eCOGRA. It is also a partner of the Professional Players Federation (PPF) and is a donor to many responsible gambling charities, including GambleAware.

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Evolution and Betway strengthen partnership in the US - PRNewswire

Artificial intelligence is often thought of as disembodied: a mind like a program, floating in a digital void. But human minds are deeply intertwined with our bodies and an experiment with virtual creatures performing tasks in simulated environments suggests that AI may benefit from having a mind-body setup.

Stanford scientists were curious about the physical-mental interplay in our own evolution from blobs to tool-using apes. Could it be that the brain is influenced by the capabilities of the body and vice versa? It has been suggested before over a century ago, in fact and certainly its obvious that with a grasping hand one learns more quickly to manipulate objects than with a less differentiated appendage.

Its hard to know whether the same could be said for an AI, since their development is more structured. Yet the questions such a concept brings up are compelling: Could an AI better learn and adapt to the world if it has evolved to do so from the start?

The experiment they designed is similar in some ways to simulated environments that have been used for decades to test evolutionary algorithms. You set up a virtual space and drop simple simulated creatures into it, just a few connected geometric shapes that move in random ways. Out of a thousand such writhing shapes, you pick the 10 that writhed the farthest and make a thousand variations on those, and repeat over and over. Pretty soon you have a handful of polygons doing a pretty passable walk across the virtual surface.

Thats all old hat, though: As the researchers explain, they needed to make their simulation more robust and variable. They werent simply trying to make virtual creatures that walk around, but to investigate how those creatures learned to do what they do, and whether some learn better or faster than others.

To find out, the team created a similar simulation to the old ones, dropping their sims, which they called unimals (for universal animals well see if this terminology takes off), into it at first just to learn to walk. The simple shapes had a spherical head and a few branchlike jointed limbs, with which they developed a number of interesting walks. Some stumbled forward, some developed a lizard-like articulated walk and others a flailing but effective style reminiscent of an octopus on land.

Look at them go!. Image Credits: Stanford

So far, so similar to older experiments, but there the similarities more or less end.

Some of these unimals grew up on different home planets, as it were, with undulating hills or low barriers for them to clamber over. And in the next phase unimals from these different terrains competed on more complex tasks to see whether, as is often held, adversity is the mother of adaptability.

Almost all the prior work in this field has evolved agents on a simple flat terrain. Moreover, there is no learning in the sense that the controller and/or behavior of the agent is not learnt via direct sensorimotor interactions with the environment, explained co-author Agrim Gupta to TechCrunch in other words, they evolved by surviving but didnt really learn by doing. This work for the first time does simultaneous evolution and learning in complex environments like terrains with steps, hills, ridges and moves beyond to do manipulation in these complex environments.

The top 10 unimals from each environment were set loose on tasks ranging from new obstacles to moving a ball to a goal, pushing a box up a hill or patrolling between two points. Here it was where these gladiators really showed their virtual mettle. Unimals that had learned to walk on variable terrain learned their new tasks faster and performed them better than their flatlander cousins.

Image Credits: Stanford

In essence, we find that evolution rapidly selects morphologies that learn faster, thereby enabling behaviors learned late in the lifetime of early ancestors to be expressed early in the lifetime of their descendants, write the authors in the paper, published today in the journal Nature.

Its not just that they learned to learn faster; the evolutionary process selected body types that would allow them to adapt faster and apply lessons quicker. On flat terrain, an octopus flop might get you to the finish line just as fast, but hills and ridges selected for a body configuration that was fast, stable and adaptable. Bringing this body into the gladiatorial arena gave those unimals coming from the school of hard knocks a leg up on the competition. Their versatile bodies were better able to apply the lessons their minds were putting to the test and soon they left their floppier competition in the dust.

What does this all signify, besides providing a few entertaining GIFs of 3D stick figures galloping over virtual terrain? As the paper puts it, the experiment opens the door to performing large-scale in silico experiments to yield scientific insights into how learning and evolution cooperatively create sophisticated relationships between environmental complexity, morphological intelligence, and the learnability of control tasks.

Say you have a relatively complicated task youd like to automate climbing stairs with a four-legged robot, for instance. You could design the movements manually, or combine custom ones with AI-generated ones, but perhaps the best solution would be to have an agent evolve its own movement from scratch. The experiment shows that there is potentially a real benefit to having the body and the mind controlling it evolve in tandem.

If youre code-savvy, you can get the whole operation up and running on your own hardware: The research group has made all the code and data freely available on GitHub. And make sure youve got your high-end computing cluster or cloud container ready to go, too: The default parameters assume that you are running the code on 16 machines. Please ensure that each machine has a minimum of 72 CPUs.

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Simulated AI creatures demonstrate how mind and body evolve and succeed together - TechCrunch

DEONTAY WILDER PULLED up to Cosmo & Donato on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, California, in a custom-made black-and-bronze Rolls Royce. It was late summer, about six weeks before his highly anticipated trilogy boxing match with Tyson Fury.

The former WBC heavyweight champion stepped out of the lavish vehicle as shoppers on one of Los Angeles' most iconic streets gathered around. Wilder greeted fans, signed autographs and held babies before heading inside the store. There, he tried on some new clothes and did faux runway modeling for the owners, Cosmo Lombino and Donato Crowley.

After about an hour, it was time for Wilder to do what he came for: see for the first time and try on the walkout gear he will be wearing for the third Fury fight.

"We go in the back, open the door and we reveal the costume," Lombino said. "And he's like, 'Oh my god.' He was so grateful. ... He was so happy. He was like the kid in the candy store again."

Wilder is known almost as much for his fashion as he is for being one of the biggest knockout punchers in boxing history. His $40,000, over-the-top entrance outfit for the second Fury fight in February 2020 is the most talked about -- and controversial -- piece of clothing ever worn by a boxer, in part because Wilder blamed the weight of it for his loss.

But "The Bronze Bomber" is undeterred. Lombino and Crowley will dress him for a fight for the fifth straight time Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Wilder wants to continue pushing the boundaries of fashion in boxing.

"Nobody comes out with a better uniform than I," Wilder said last month during a virtual news conference. "We're gonna continue with that. We'll just have to see what I put on. It's gonna be something special."

Wilder's not the only one pushing the boundaries of fashion in boxing. In August, YouTuber-turned-prizefighter Jake Paul wore a scrolling LED screen on the waistband of his boxing shorts for his fight against Tyron Woodley.

Following in the swagger-filled footsteps of boxing fashion icons such as "Prince" Naseem Hamed and Hector "Macho" Camacho, Wilder and Paul are part of a new wave that has created a ton of buzz but also has onlookers questioning if fashion could be detrimental to the main objective of the sport: winning fights.

Lombino and Crowley, who have dressed the likes of Shaquille O'Neal, Claressa Shields and Shawn Porter, created a trilogy fight costume for Wilder that is partly inspired by the fighter's roots, which he says go back to Nigeria's Edo tribe.

"Fashion is how you express yourself," Wilder told ESPN. "That's everyday life. Certain people look at your shoes and they say they can tell everything about you. If you got dirty shoes, they know what type of person you are.

"When I come out, I express myself with certain uniforms and things that I wear. I think I've been the best in the history of boxing to do it."

PAULIE MALIGNAGGI WAS 17 years old in 1997 when he went to see Hamed fight Kevin Kelley at New York's Madison Square Garden. On the undercard that night were two neophyte pro boxers who would go on to become world champions: Ricky Hatton and Joan Guzman.

Years later, Malignaggi vividly recalls watching Guzman fight but cannot remember seeing Hatton at all. The reason? Guzman had bleach blonde hair and wore a flashy outfit.

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"It's ironic," said Malignaggi, who went on to headline at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas against Hatton in 2008. "But it still stood out to me that I did not remember Ricky, because he probably didn't stand out in as many ways. ... But Guzman, I paid attention because I remember he had a silly style, really [memorable]. He had this yellow hair. It just stuck out to me."

Inspired by the likes of Hamed, Camacho and even Guzman, Malignaggi was once one of the most flamboyant stars in boxing. He wore leopard print and sequined robes to the ring, and even once wore a lucha libre mask. Before a 2011 fight with Jose Cotto, he wore a black-and-gold painted mask over his eyes and had paints of the same colors on his chest and arms during the weigh-in. He looked like what the WWF's Ultimate Warrior might have looked like if he were born in Brooklyn.

"I wanted to have this extra pizzazz to me and my style," Malignaggi said. "This sort of flair to me. Just become a bigger conversation point. I think knowing how to sell yourself and market yourself is very important."

Malignaggi's affinity for style is also a cautionary tale. In 2008, he wore Lennox Lewis-like braids in his hair, in a bout against Lovemore N'Dou in Manchester, England. The braids were not pulled back well. Malignaggi said they were in his face the entire fight and almost cost him the IBF junior welterweight title. He ended up winning a split decision.

AFTER FURY BEAT Wilder by TKO on Feb. 22, 2020, Wilder said in interviews that the weight of his walkout costume -- which he estimated was upwards of 40 pounds -- caused him fatigue that he never was able to recover from inside the ring. Wilder's costume, which was a tribute to Black History Month, featured a helmet with electronic red eyes, plus a crown and body armor. Lasers were built in to shoot from his hands.

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Malignaggi doesn't necessarily buy that Wilder lost to Fury due to the outfit. But he acknowledges, based on firsthand knowledge, that trying to make a big splash visually isn't always conducive to winning fights.

"Sometimes you can get carried away trying so hard and you lose focus on the main task at hand, which is you have to go in there and win the fight and perform," Malignaggi said. "You're not heading to a party. You're not heading to the Met Gala or a ball where you just get to make fashion statements and that's all that people talk about."

Lombino said he and Crowley were "mortified" by Wilder saying their costume affected his performance. But two days after he left the hospital postfight, Wilder did a FaceTime call with them and they talked it through. Wilder blamed his coach, Mark Breland, the designers said, for creating the heavy costume narrative. Wilder has since fired Breland, who threw in the towel to end the second fight against Fury, and replaced him with another boxer-turned-trainer, Malik Scott, for this third Fury fight.

Lombino said earlier this year they shipped Wilder his costume from Los Angeles and weighed it. The costume was not 40 pounds, he said, and in fact was not much heavier than the previous four costumes he and Crowley had made for Wilder.

"Maybe it was a bit heavier [than the others] because of the battery pack in the head frame and shoulder frame," Crowley said.

Lombino and Crowley had sketches ready for Wilder back in June 2020, for what was expected to be a third fight against Fury. The idea was going to be a USA vs. United Kingdom theme. But the COVID-19 pandemic and Fury moving away from a Wilder rematch and towards a plan to fight Anthony Joshua changed things.

After Wilder won arbitration to uphold the contract for a third Fury fight, the date of the rematch was set for July 2021. Lombino and Crowley said they were only in touch with Wilder and his girlfriend, Telli Swift, weeks before what would have been the July date. But after the fight was delayed again after Fury tested positive for COVID, the extra time allowed them to scramble and have a costume ready for Saturday.

This one, they said, will be considerably lighter. Not that they have any regrets about the last one.

"As many people that hated it loved it, but everybody is talking about it," Crowley said. "You're always going to have those people who are old-school and don't want anything to change, but why shouldn't it? Why can't a boxer walk out like that? They've always worn flags out there or the messages of what they have to say. Why can't they be whoever they want to be at that point? We basically created a new superhero. We brought 'The Bronze Bomber' to life in visual form."

PAUL'S ENTIRE BOXING career has been about pushing the envelope and disruption. He's only 4-0 as a pro, yet he's one of the most talked about fighters in the world, backed by tens of millions of followers on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. It only stands to reason that he would try to stand out from a fashion sense, as well.

For his November 2020 fight against former NBA veteran Nate Robinson, Paul wore shorts made by his designer, Che Young, which were supposed to glow in a certain light. But the lighting used at Staples Center in Los Angeles that night was too dim, and the effect was lost.

After Paul knocked out Ben Askren in April, he and Young sat down and came up with the idea of a different form of lighting: LED. Paul said he was partly inspired by the lights on his Problem Bot mascot and Young said he took his idea from the video billboards in Times Square in his native New York City.

Paul wore a paper-thin band of what is called LED Matrix screen sewn beneath the waistband of his shorts for the Aug. 29 fight with Woodley. There also was a small battery pack in the shorts, which had a kind of plastic, waterproof window that allowed for everyone to see what was scrolling on the LED screen. Paul said the shorts cost him about $15,000. He said the gear wasn't any heavier or warmer than his previous fight shorts, though he's not sure what would have happened if Woodley landed any blows to the LED area.

"It could potentially break the screen, for sure," Paul said with a laugh. "We actually didn't test that. Maybe for the next one, we should test that. .... I guess if I got hit there with a good punch, then yeah, it might have turned off or something. But it wouldn't hurt. It's literally like LED paper. It's honestly crazy technology. It's super light."

The LED only scrolled the words "Jake Paul" throughout the fight, but that wasn't the plan. Young was controlling the LED with an app on his smartphone, but the phone lost Bluetooth connectivity with Paul's shorts because of all the people using the Wi-Fi inside Cleveland's Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. The idea was to change what the shorts said throughout the fight. As to what they had planned for messaging, Young isn't saying.

"We have to keep that a secret for the next time," Young said.

For Paul's walkout gear, Young ordered about a dozen jerseys and gear from Ohio sports teams, cut them up and sewed them together -- "like a puzzle," he said -- into a robe.

"I truly want to be the future of boxing and I think I'm doing all of the things to line that up," Paul said. "My fight shorts just speak to that."

Regis Prograis, a former WBA junior welterweight champion, said he felt like Paul's shorts were very on-brand for what he is trying to accomplish. LED shorts made sense for a 24-year-old Paul the same way a ski mask made sense for Floyd Mayweather's walkout against Conor McGregor, a fight Mayweather described as a sanctioned bank robbery.

"[Paul] is in this new era right now -- the social media, YouTube era," Prograis said. "That's who he is; he's a part of that whole culture. For him to do that, it was kind of cool. I think if, like, me or another boxer did it, I think it would be kind of corny. But for him, it was kind of fire.

"You've got to be authentic. That's the main thing. You can't do what other people are doing. For him, that's authentic. That's his lane."

PROGRAIS' NICKNAME IS "Rougarou," the name of a werewolf-like creature from Creole myth. Prograis is from New Orleans and it was his team's idea after his fourth career fight to give him that nickname. Since his 10th fight, Prograis has walked out to the ring wearing a "Rougarou" mask, which he has since upgraded to a $1,000 custom piece. He has added Native American garb to honor his indigenous grandfather, who died last year.

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Shields has walked out clad in themes of Beyonc and Kobe Bryant. Adrien Broner and Gervonta "Tank" Davis always have eye-catching walkout garb. Fury has been carried to the ring on a throne. Joshua's walkouts in the United Kingdom are particularly spectacular. The spectacle has become a big -- and, for some, necessary -- part of boxing.

"At the end of the day, boxing is a show," Prograis said. "It's a sport, but it's a show like anything on TV."

But no other boxers are known for their walkout gear quite like Wilder -- and that's the way he wants it. Wilder said in a TikTok video on the Cosmo and Donato account that his costume for Saturday will be "topping" everything else he has worn to this point.

Lombino and Crowley worked with an African studies specialist and had fabric shipped from Africa to make the outfit, which will heavily utilize the colors black and red. Wilder called the piece a "beautiful masterpiece."

"It runs through my bloodline," Wilder said. "I just want to bring that out more, the tribe I'm with and where I'm from. We're all a part of something, we're all from something."

On Saturday, Wilder will be looking to get back the WBC belt Fury took from him. And after more than a year of fashion statements from others in boxing, Wilder's designers are eager to make another statement of their own.

"We're coming back for our title, too," Crowley said.

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Deontay Wilder, Jake Paul and the evolution of boxing fashion - ESPN

An average of 380 out of every 100,000 Black adults became new entrepreneurs during the 2020 pandemic, up from 240 in each of the prior two years, according to U.S. census data.

2020 was also the first year the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce (GLAAACC) increased the number of participants in its Business Evolution Program from one to 13 and held classes virtually. At 35, GLAAACCs 2021-22 BEP cohort is almost triple the number of participants from the previous year.

The newest cohort comes from a variety of industries: film production, trucking, retail, personal care, real estate management, marketing, janitorial, technology, psychology, environmental and construction. Their time in business also varies greatly: from a first year startup to a family-owned operation thats been in business for 71 years.

2020 was a game-changer in many ways, said GLAAACC Chairman Gene Hale, who launched G & C Corporation, a construction equipment leasing business in 1993. Many Black people lost their jobs and decided to go for it and become their own boss. Others decided now is the time to take their business to the next level.

Over the past decade, GLAAACCs BEP has evolved into a renowned boot camp for serious entrepreneurs. Over the course of nine months, business owners attend classes taught by subject matter experts on business assessment, back-office business set-up and management, business certification, access to capital and to other financial products, Branding & digital marketing, contracting with the government and e-marketing & technology.

At the second virtual meeting in September, the BEP cohort heard from speakers about the role of an entrepreneur, the impact businesses can have on the community and the three stages of business the early, growth and mature.

BEP Chairperson and Director for Supply Chain and Diverse Business Enterprises for Southern California Gas Lily Otieno, spoke about planning for future success in the early years of a business. Having a clear vision, developing a five-year roadmap and getting the proper financing is critical for any new business according to Otieno. Next, hiring staff that have diverse and complementary skill sets and building the appropriate company culture is important. Hiring people whose strengths are your weaknesses will give you the best team possible said. Otieno. She also listed process and operations, marketing and sales, networking and having an exit plan as necessary steps to ensure business owners stay on track during the early stages.

Hale recounted a business tip he received from former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley to get there before the deal is made. Hale said in the competitive world of construction, he lives by that rule. You have to get out there and find the business deals before your competitor finds it.

Rambo House founder, business consultant, advisor and thought leader Dion Rambo spoke to the cohort about the importance of relationships and networking in the growth phase of a business. During the pandemic, Rambo spotted a niche market and opened a mobile telehealth van service. Putting this timely endeavor into operation enabled him to create a multi-million dollar company in less than a year.

Prior to the pandemic, Rambo organized thirty events per year for city officials through his public relations and marketing firm. He said developing key relationships with local officials is underrated, especially in the Black community. My relationships with public officials is definitely what made my companies grow, said Rambo.

The meetings final speaker was Walter Hill, founder of Icon Blue, a distribution company for branded merchandise and promotional products. Hill recently sold his company and wrote a book for entrepreneurs entitled, Think Red Flags: A Proactive and Profitable Approach for your Small Business. Hill cited the ability to mitigate or avoid business pitfalls as crucial to business success and profitability.

Whatever youre going to do for your community, you have to first develop a business that is profitable. That is the catalyst that allows you to move forward. Hill said. In order to do things for others, we first have to be in position ourselves where we are able to do it.GLAAACCs Business Evolution Program is made possible by T Mobile, Wells Fargo, Southern California Edison, Union Bank, Chase for Business and Southern California Gas.

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GLAAACCS Business Evolution Program Takes Businesses to the Next Level - Lasentinel

Twenty years after 9/11, nonstate armed actors remain powerful forces in world politics, and are increasingly tied to regional and geopolitical power competition. In various parts of the Middle East, they have become deeply entrenched not only in local political systems, but also in national government structures. Nor are they a recent phenomenon in the Middle East. As early as the 1960s, the United States and Jordan adopted coordinated responses to nonstate armed actors, such as various Palestinian movements, some of which engaged in spectacular terrorism and posed a significant threat to Jordan. Since then, various insurgent, terrorist, and militia groups have become a major feature of countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Libya.

On October 14, the Brookings Institutions Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors will convene a panel exploring the evolution of nonstate armed actors in the Middle East over the past several decades, and of U.S. and international policy responses toward them. With a focus on Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya, the panel will explore among other issues changes in the balances of power between governments and nonstate armed actors, the incorporation of nonstate armed actors into state structures, the role of Iran, the adoption of new technology by nonstate armed actors, and U.S. policy approaches, constraints, and innovations. After their remarks, panelists will take questions from the audience.

Viewers can submit questions via email to events@brookings.edu or Twitter using #NonstateArmedActors.

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The evolution of nonstate armed actors in the Middle East - Brookings Institution