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A breakthrough trial suggests that MDMA-assisted therapy is both safe and effective for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The first Phase 3 trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD replicated and expanded on Phase 2 results indicating MDMA-assisted therapy may be an effective and cost-saving treatment for PTSD resulting from any cause.

Nature Medicine is expected to publish the peer-reviewed paper detailing the results of the study sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and conducted by MAPS Public Benefit Corporation (MAPS PBC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of MAPS. In this first Phase 3 trial of any psychedelic-assisted therapy, participants who received MDMA-assisted therapy reported a significant reduction in PTSD symptoms compared to those who received placebo with therapy (p<0.0001), successfully achieving the prespecified primary endpoint for the trial. In fact, 67% of the group who received MDMA, compared to 32% of the group who received placebo, no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis after three treatment sessions. In addition, participants treated with MDMA-assisted therapy had statistically significant reductions for the key secondary endpoint of functional impairment relative to placebo with therapy (p=0.0116).

Jennifer Mitchell, Ph.D., lead author of the paper, calls attention to the results for those with the dissociative subtype of PTSD, with depression, or who reported a history of alcohol or substance use. People with the most difficult-to-treat diagnoses, often considered intractable, respond just as well to this novel treatment as other study participants. In fact, participants diagnosed with the dissociative subtype of PTSD experienced a greater reduction in symptoms than those without the dissociative subtype.

Mitchell added that MDMA serves as a catalyst to therapy: MDMA is an experiential therapeutic and therefore necessitates the appropriate set and setting to truly guide change and recovery. While many forms of PTSD therapy involve recalling previous trauma, the unique ability of MDMA to raise compassion and understanding while tamping down fear is likely what enables it to be so effective.

The randomized, blinded, Phase 3 trial, designed under a Special Protocol Assessment with the FDA, treated 90 patients with severe, chronic PTSD. Participants were randomized to receive three sessions of either MDMA or placebo with identical talk therapy. Forty-six participants received MDMA therapy and forty-four participants received therapy with placebo. The primary efficacy endpoint was based on the change from baseline in an independently assessed clinical interview of PTSD severity after 18 weeks. The assessors also measured average change in functional impairment in work/school, social, and family life. Among the participants in the MDMA-assisted therapy group, 67% no longer qualified for PTSD diagnosis after three MDMA-assisted therapy sessions and 88% of participants experienced a clinically significant reduction in symptoms, while in the placebo group, 32% no longer qualified for PTSD diagnosis at the two-month follow-up and 60% experienced a clinically significant reduction in symptoms.

In the Phase 3 trial, the investigators observed no serious safety or tolerability issues in the MDMA group. MDMA did not increase the risk of suicidal thoughts or behaviors and did not increase cardiovascular risk or abuse potential relative to therapy with placebo. As expected from previous clinical trials, temporary increases in blood pressure and pulse were observed during MDMA sessions; adverse events such as muscle tightness, decreased appetite, nausea, sweating, and feeling cold were transient.

PTSD is a profoundly challenging condition with unmet medical need. Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., a leading PTSD researcher and author of the foundational book on PTSD, The Body Keeps the Score, served as Principal Investigator for the Boston study site. He explains, The experience of having been traumatized profoundly alters perceptions; self-experience; and capacity to plan, imagine and anticipate. For 88% of people who receive this treatment, we can expect to see a treatment response. This can lead to fundamental shifts in our subjects' perspective on self-capacity, affect regulation, and attitude towards those around them. It takes a great deal of courage to address ones PTSD, particularly when other treatments have failed. These results open the door to a potentially powerful new pathway to healing -- once MDMA-assisted therapy has been approved as a treatment for PTSD.

Listed as a Schedule I drug, MDMA presently is defined as having no medical benefit and, therefore, is not currently accessible as a potential treatment for PTSD or other conditions except as administered in clinical trials. As a result of this study and through the persistent and consistent application of scientific rigor, we have demonstrated that MDMA-assisted therapy is likely to provide relief for people diagnosed with PTSD, noted MAPS Executive Director Rick Doblin, Ph.D. Far from having no medical benefit, MDMA, when combined with talk therapy in this protocol, has the potential to catalyze the therapeutic process and generate positive mental health outcomes.

Michael Mithoefer, M.D., who serves as Senior Medical Director for Medical Affairs, Training, and Supervision, led the team that developed the therapy manual and trained the 70 therapists who provided the treatment in the Phase 3 study. He celebrated their efforts, stating, The therapists and expert research team who have brought us here are at the vanguard of what may be a revolution in mental health care. The success of this pivotal study is a major step toward regulatory approval, and we hope these results will attract many more researchers and clinicians to join the effort to further explore and deliver MDMA-assisted therapy so we can together address our national and global mental health crisis.

MAPS PBC develops and delivers therapy training programs and is responsible for the development of MDMA as a medicine. MAPS PBC CEO Amy Emerson describes its mandate: MAPS Public Benefit Corporation is establishing a new paradigm in drug research, development, and commercialization in which we center our efforts wholly on the beneficiaries of our healing modality rather than shareholders. This approach commits us to open science and open books as we research best practices for psychedelic-assisted therapy. Ultimately, any proceeds from our work will be reinvested to generate more research, more training, and more affordable options for treatment.

A second Phase 3 clinical trial is currently enrolling participants. Prior to the hopeful approval in 2023 of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, the FDA has granted permission for an expanded access program in which 50 patients can receive the treatment prior to FDA approval. MAPS plans to conduct additional studies to explore the potential of the treatment for other mental health conditions and with other treatment protocols such as group therapy and cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy for couples. Additionally, MAPS is funding a formal commitment to health equity: a holistic plan to create more pathways to access MDMA-assisted therapy for those historically marginalized by the mental health field and society at large.

Reference: Mitchell JM, Bogenschutz M, Lilienstein A, et al. MDMA-assisted therapy for severe PTSD: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 study. Nature Medicine. Published online May 10, 2021:1-9. doi:10.1038/s41591-021-01336-3

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MDMA-Assisted Therapy Effective at Treating PTSD, Finds Breakthrough Trial - Technology Networks

A multi-disciplinary team at Teagasc, a state agency providing research, advisory and education in agriculture, horticulture, food, and rural development in Ireland, has held the first online meeting of the technical working group for a new anaerobic digestion (AD) project called FLEET.

FLEET will identify farm-scale, landscape-level and national-level economic and environmental implications of farm supplied alternative feedstock for AD at a regional level. The three-year research will be the first of its kind in Ireland to evaluate the potential for AD to address economic and environmental outcomes at an individual farm level using Teagasc, National Farm Survey data.

Dr Maurice Deasy, a post-doc researcher recently recruited to work on the project, said: The coming together of industry stakeholders in the technical working group will assist in the development and deployment in the Irish marketplace of competitive energy-related products, processes and systems, by identifying farm-scale economic and environmental consequences of alternative feedstock solutions for regional AD supply.

The project will assist in identifying knowledge gaps and provide guidance and support for policymakers.

FLEET is just one of several research projects underway at Teagasc on the topic of AD. Additional research is also taking place in Johnstown Castle and Grange into gaseous emissions for the sustainable production of AD feedstocks, recycling of the resultant digestate, as well as the fertiliser replacement value of the digestate and overall lifecycle assessment of AD systems. A collaborative project with the National University of Ireland Galway is also pursuing the optimisation of the AD process to improve biogas and biomethane yields.

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Research to explore farm-supplied alternative AD feedstock - Bioenergy Insight Magazine

"We are excited to partner with Vanguard Renewables to provide more sustainable and carbon-neutral energy solutions for our communities and customers," said Jason Ketchum, vice president of Commercial Activities for ONE Gas. "RNG is a vital part of a sustainable energy future as it provides a reliable path to reduce emissions."

RNG projects capture methane from organic materials like food waste and animal manure, redirecting it away from the environment and removing harmful contaminants from the atmosphere. Vanguard Renewables' network of farm-based anaerobic digesters across the U.S. offer a circular solution to food waste recycling and decarbonization while supporting the American farmer.

"Our Farm Powered program provides a circular solution diverting greenhouse gas-producing food waste from landfills and incineration and recycling it into renewable energy and low carbon fertilizer using farm-based anaerobic digestion," said John Hanselman, co-founder and chief executive officer for Vanguard Renewables. "The ONE Gas alliance will help us further expand our national network of anaerobic digesters, which will benefit the environment, farm owners, customers and the food industry."

"We are actively participating in the research, development and deployment of new emissions mitigation, delivery and end-use technologies that help both our company and our customers have a positive impact on the environment," said Ketchum.

According to an American Gas Foundation study, prepared by ICF International, renewable natural gas could lead to a 95% reduction in natural gas emissions from the residential sector and dramatically lower emissions from the agricultural sector by 2040.

"Our relationship with ONE Gas can lead to increased RNG availability across Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and beyond as we hope this is the first of many similar relationships with natural gas distribution companies across the United States," Hanselman adds.

About ONE GasONE Gas, Inc. (NYSE: OGS) is a 100-percent regulated natural gas utility, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "OGS." ONE Gas is included in the S&PMidCap400 Index and is one of the largest natural gas utilities in the United States.

Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, ONE Gas provides a reliable and affordable energy choice to more than2.2 million customers in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Its divisions include Kansas Gas Service, the largest natural gas distributor in Kansas; Oklahoma Natural Gas, the largest in Oklahoma; and Texas Gas Service, the third largest in Texas, in terms of customers.

For more information and the latest news about ONE Gas, visit onegas.comand follow its social channels: @ONEGas, Facebook, LinkedInand YouTube.

ONE Gas ContactLeah Harper(918) 947-7123[emailprotected]

About Vanguard RenewablesVanguard Renewables is the U.S. leader in organics to renewable energy. The company collects and recycles food and beverage waste into renewable energy at its farm-based anaerobic digesters. The Farm Poweredprocess significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and provides a diversified income stream for the host farm. Vanguard also operates Organics Recycling Facilities to depackage and pre-process organic waste streams including expired goods and off-spec batches before sending them to an anaerobic digester to be recycled. Alongside Unilever, Starbucks, and Dairy Farmers of America, the Company recently founded the Farm Powered Strategic Alliance, a pre-competitive movement to further a circular solution to food waste reduction and recycling from manufacturing and supply chain and decarbonization strategies.Vanguard received the 2020 Energy Vision Leadership Award and was named 2018 Organics Recycler of the Year by the National Waste & Recycling Association. Please visit http://www.vanguardrenewables.comto learn more.

Vanguard Renewables Contact:Jennifer Forbes (617) 275-8257[emailprotected]

SOURCE ONE Gas, Inc.

http://www.onegas.com

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ONE Gas and Vanguard Renewables Partner to Develop Farm-Based Renewable Natural Gas Solutions - PRNewswire

Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway today announced that Antonio D. Tillis will assume the post of chancellor of Rutgers UniversityCamden on July 1.

Antonio Tillis is a brilliant scholar and gifted administrator whose commitment to the transformative power of higher education presents an exceptional opportunity for both Rutgers and New Jersey. We are proud that he will lead Rutgers UniversityCamden, Holloway said.

Rutgers is deeply invested in bringing opportunity and growth to Camden. Antonio Tillis will be a driving force in helping Rutgers University and the City of Camden reach new heights, Holloway added.

Tillis, 55, will lead Rutgers UniversityCamden, the southernmost campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, with more than 7,200 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in 39 undergraduate and 29 graduate programs. Nationally recognized for its commitment to access for first-generation students, as well as its innovative civic engagement programs, RutgersCamden recently achieved status as a Carnegie National R2 Research University.

Tillis recently served as interim president of the University of HoustonDowntown, a comprehensive urban institution offering more than 50 degree-granting programs and serving more than 15,000 students. In this capacity, he worked collaboratively to promote student and faculty development, engage the community, and advance the strategic vision for the second-largest campus in the University of Houston system.

Also at the University of Houston, he served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, the largest of the 15 academic and professional colleges at the university. Under his leadership, the reputation and resources of that school grew significantly. He successfully led a $60 million fundraising campaign while developing new opportunities for student learning experiences and creating partnerships with community organizations in the city and throughout the region. He increased student scholarships, recruited and retained nationally known faculty, created an infrastructure to nurture the research profile of the school, and greatly expanded outreach to the city by launching such programs as the Deans Mayoral Summer Internship and a mobile unit to deliver social and health-related services in the community.

In 2017, the University of Houston named Tillis as the M.D. Anderson Professor in Hispanic Studies. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

Tillis previously served as dean of the School of Languages, Culture, and World Affairs at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, where he instituted numerous initiatives, including the Wells Fargo International Scholarship for Study Abroad for low-income, in-state students; the Deans Collaborative Interdisciplinary Summer Research Award for International Engagement; and the Summer International Internships for students in India, Brazil, and Ghana.

Tillis additionally chaired the Department of African and African American Studies at Dartmouth College and served as the inaugural director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at Purdue University, where he received the 2007 Faculty Scholar Award.

Houston mayor Sylvester Turner declared March 7, 2017, as Dr. Antonio D. Tillis Day. In 2018, Tillis was selected as one of 30 national participants for the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference hosted by the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

A noted scholar in the field of Afro-Hispanic studies, Tillis is the coeditor of several books, including Trayvon Martin in US: An American Tragedy (Peter Lang, 2015), The Afro-Hispanic Reader and Anthology (Randal Publishing, 2018), and Critical Perspectives on Afro-Latin American Literature (Routledge, 2012). He has served as editor of the journal Publication of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association, as coeditor of the Afro-Hispanic Review, and as associate editor of the International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies.

In 2009, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to Brazil. He has presented his scholarship at lectures and conferences across the United States and around the world.

It is an honor to be given the opportunity to lead an institution as engaged, diverse, and student-centered as Rutgers UniversityCamden, he said. This is an outstanding university that clearly demonstrates its commitment to public values and to building upon its tradition as a place of access for first-generation college students seeking a world-class Rutgers degree, and the opportunities that come with that degree.

I am a first-generation college student. I understand what drives RutgersCamden students. Its not just about them their success also is about the elevation of their families and their communities, he said. I look forward to working with these students to help them take full advantage of the opportunities before them and to make sure that they are supported.

It is especially important that RutgersCamden students learn with, and are mentored by, a truly impressive faculty who consistently are at the vanguard of generating new ideas to improve our society, added Tillis. I am very excited to work with the academic enterprise to cultivate the support it needs to thrive as a research institution, which will provide our students with unparalleled learning opportunity while firmly defining both Camden and southern New Jersey as a nexus for innovation.

I am very excited to welcome Dr. Antonio Tillis to the Rutgers-Camden community, said Frank Hundley, chair of the Rutgers UniversityCamden Board of Directors and a member of the Rutgers University Board of Governors. Dr. Tillis is a scholar who brings a wealth of knowledge, talent, and excitement to our campus and will take Rutgers presence in South Jersey and the Philadelphia region to unprecedented heights.

Tillis has served on numerous boards, including Houston Habitat for Humanity, the Houston Arts Alliance, the International African American Museum in Charleston and the Hemispheric Institute for Performance Studies. He is a founding board member of the International Institute of Critical Pedagogy and Transformative Leadership.

Tillis holds a bachelors degree in Spanish from Vanderbilt University and a masters degree in Spanish literature from Howard University. He earned his Ph.D. in Latin American literature (with an Afro-Hispanic emphasis) from the University of Missouri at Columbia.

He enjoys performing as a lyric baritone and collecting contemporary art from West Africa, Cuba, Brazil and the United States.

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Antonio D. Tillis, Noted Scholar and Higher Education Leader, to Become Chancellor of Rutgers UniversityCamden - Rutgers Today

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced during a virtual ceremony today. Among the winners in 14 categories were short story writer Deesha Philyaw, journalist Isabel Wilkerson, poet Victoria Chang, biographer William Souder and French novelist David Diop. Stephen Graham Jones won the second Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction.

For the second consecutive year, the prizes which traditionally kick off The Times weekend-long Festival of Books were awarded without an IRL event due to the pandemic. Times book editor Boris Kachka emceed the virtual awards, and winners gave pre-recorded video speeches.

Philyaw, whose debut short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was a National Book Award finalist and won the PEN/Faulkner award, took home the Art Seidenbaum Award for first fiction. She will join authors Ben Okri, Carribean Fragoza and Shruti Swamy on Friday for a Book Fest panel about short stories.

Judges called the book a remarkable debut collection of stories ... fiercely Black and beautiful, which linger in the mind long after we read them... It announces a powerful new voice on the literary landscape.

In her speech, Philyaw said she wrote the book in hopes that Black women would see and hear themselves in my characters and their stories. I wrote it to be a balm, an affirmation, a celebration and a guidepost for getting free. In what has been a devastation year, were all looking for comfort, solace and healing, all of which we can find in the shelter of each other and in books.

Wilkerson was awarded the current interest prize for Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, a powerful study of Americas age-old caste system that became a bestseller after last years Black Lives Matter protests.

This book was a quest for understanding, Wilkerson said in her speech. It required me to travel between three different continents and to study and to learn and to distill and synthesize the history and the culture of three different countries in order to better understand our own. She called her work a book written by an American, for Americans, about America at a time of existential crisis.

In the fiction category, Diop won for At Night All Blood Is Black: A Novel, translated by Anna Moschovakis.

Stephen Graham Jones, winner of the 2020 Ray Bradbury Prize for his horror novel The Only Good Indians.

(Gary Isaacs)

Dark, gruesome, vivid, utterly compelling, At Night All Blood Is Black, a war story of racism, colonialism, violence, fear, and madness, is ultimately about the power of storytelling and how stories get told (or very often dont), judges said, adding, we have never read anything like him.

Of Changs Obit, winner in the poetry category, Judge Cyrus Cassells said, innovative poetic obituaries speak to us in a startling way about death and loss with surprising, sometimes surreal juxtapositions of image that never let the riveted reader settle into one groove.

Chang devoted some of her speech to decrying recent waves of violence against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. In a time when so many Asian Americans and those from other marginalized communities still face daily violence, racism and misogyny, I feel particularly moved to be nominated, she said. She wrote the book when she felt most alone, she added, traveling on a raft at sea uncertain if I could find my way back. I wrote this book for myself, the book that I most needed during a time of grieving.

The prize for mystery/thriller went to S.A. Cosby for Blacktop Wasteland, the noir tale of a Virginia family man pushed to the edge by poverty, racism and his previous life of crime. Judges said it reflects concerns of the 21st century through a gripping plot accented by fully fleshed-out characters with realistic motives.

In history, Martha S. Jones took the prize for Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.

I wrote Vanguard because its the book that I needed to read in 2020, Jones said in her speech. Mindful of the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment, Jones said she wanted to ensure that Black womens roles in that struggle were not overlooked. What I couldnt have anticipated was the extraordinary range of consequential roles that Black women would play in the 2020 election cycle.

Previously announced winners were also celebrated during the ceremony: the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, which helped many bookstores during the pandemic, won the Innovators Award; Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko took the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. Andrew OHagan was awarded the Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose for his coming-of-age novel Mayflies, the bittersweet tale of a friendship cemented in the New Wave 1980s on an epic trip to Manchester, England.

Robert Kirsch Award winner Leslie Marmon Silko.

(Penguin Classics)

When I set out to write Mayflies, I knew from the start that it would be not only an intimate book but my most autobiographical, OHagan said in a speech recorded in London. My dying friend and I came up with a pact that I would write a novel about our childhood and about the last year of his life. It came from the heart; some books just do.

Diana Wagman, a judge in the category, called Mayflies an easy choice among the many submissions for the award.

The memoirist and novelist Maxine Hong Kingston, who accepted the Robert Kirsch Award on behalf of her good friend Silko, recalled their own epic trip to China alongside the late literary giants Allen Ginsberg and Toni Morrison. Your earring beads were the exact colors and shapes on the columns of temples: red, green, blue and white, Kingston recalled, addressing Silko.

Youre not only a writer, Leslie, you are a sybil. An oracle. A prophet. You suffered from visions of the U.S. military and weapons at the Mexican border. Today, we could see that those omens have come true.

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Winners of the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prizes announced - Los Angeles Times

PARIS A powerful government minister recently condemned it as an organization whose activities are racist and could lead to fascism. Lawmakers accused it of promoting separatism and of aligning with Islamo-leftism before demanding its dissolution.

Frances 114-year-old university student union, Unef, has a long history of drawing the ire of the political establishment most notably over the years when it lobbied for the independence of the countrys most important colony, Algeria, or took to the streets against employment contracts for youths.

But the recent harsh attacks zeroed in on something that resonates just as deeply in a France struggling to adapt to social change: its practice of limiting some meetings to racial minorities to discuss discrimination.

In recent days, the controversy over Unef its French acronym standing for the National Union of Students of France spilled into a third week, melding with larger explosive debates roiling the country.

On Thursday, the Senate endorsed banning the group and others that organize restricted meetings, attaching a Unef amendment to President Emmanuel Macrons law against Islamism, a political ideology the government blames for inspiring recent terrorist attacks. The National Assembly, controlled by Mr. Macrons party, still needs to ratify the bill, expected to be one of the defining pieces of legislation of his presidency.

At the same time, the campaign before coming regional elections was turned upside down when Audrey Pulvar, a Black deputy mayor of Paris and a high-profile candidate, drew widespread condemnation after defending the restricted meetings.

The student unions leaders defend the use of safe space forums, saying they have led to powerful and frank conversation; critics say the exclusion amounts to racism against white people and is an American-inspired betrayal of Frances universalist tradition.

To its critics, Unef is the incarnation of the threat coming from U.S. universities importing ideas that are fundamentally challenging relations between women and men, questioning the role of race and racism in France, and upsetting societys hierarchies of power.

There is no doubt that in recent years the union has undergone the kind of profound and rapid transformation seldom seen in a country where institutions tend to be deeply conservative and some, like the French Academy or literary prize juries, are structured in ways that stifle change.

The unions transformation has reflected widespread changes among French youths who have much more relaxed attitudes toward gender, race, sexual orientation and, as recent polls have shown, religion and Frances strict secularism, known as lacit.

Unefs change some hope and others fear may portend larger social change.

We scare people because we represent the future, said Mlanie Luce, 24, Unefs president and the daughter of a Black woman from Guadeloupe and a Jewish man from southern France.

In an organization dominated by white men until just a few years ago, Unefs current leadership shows a diversity rarely seen in France. Ms. Luce is only its fifth female president and the first who is not white. Its four other top leaders include two white men, a woman whose parents converted to Islam, and a Muslim man whose parents immigrated from Tunisia.

Unef is a microcosm that reveals the debates in the society, said Lil Le Bas, a former president. That debate in France is just starting to address issues like discrimination in earnest, she said, and thats why it crystallizes so many tensions and pressures.

Like other student unions, Unef operates on government subsidies, about $540,000 a year in its case. Among its tasks, it addresses student living conditions, recently organizing, for example, food banks for students hit hard by the coronavirus epidemic.

But its increasingly outspoken social positions have drawn criticism from the political establishment, the conservative news media and even some past members.

In interviews with more than a dozen current and former Unef leaders, including all seven presidents in the past 20 years, not even they were uniformly comfortable with Unefs recent stances, which have placed combating discrimination at the heart of its mission.

Its new focus, critics say, has led to a decline in the unions influence and membership it was once the largest but is now the second-largest in France. Supporters say that, unlike many other struggling left-leaning organizations in France, the union has a clear new vision.

In 2019, in a protest against blackface, Unef leaders helped stop the staging of a play by Aeschylus at the Sorbonne to denounce the wearing of masks and dark makeup by white actors, leading to accusations of infringing on freedom of expression.

More recently, local officials in Grenoble posted on social media anonymous campus posters that included the names of two professors accused of Islamophobia; Ms. Luce later called it a mistake, but many politicians brandished it as evidence of Unefs Islamo-leftism or sympathies with Islamism.

The attacks rose to a new level last month after Ms. Luce was challenged in a radio interview about Unefs practice of holding meetings limited to racial minorities.

A decade ago, Unefs leaders started women-only meetings where members for the first time talked about sexism and sexual harassment in the organization. The discussions have since extended to racism and other forms of discrimination internally.

Ms. Luce explained to her radio host that no decisions were made at the restricted meetings, which were used instead to allow women and racial minorities to share common experiences of discrimination. But the interview led to a flood of sexist and racist death threats.

In a subsequent radio interview of his own, the national education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, agreed with the hosts characterization of the restricted meetings as racist.

People who claim to be progressive and who, in claiming to be progressive, distinguish people by the color of their skin are leading us to things that resemble fascism, Mr. Blanquer said.

Mr. Blanquer has led the governments broader pushback against what he and conservative intellectuals describe as the threat from progressive American ideas on race, gender and postcolonialism.

Frances culture wars have heated up as Mr. Macron shifts to the right to fend off a looming challenge from the far right before elections next year. His government recently announced that it would investigate universities for Islamo-leftist tendencies that corrupt society.

Now even relatively obscure social theory terms like intersectionality an analysis of multiple and reinforcing forms of discriminations are drawing fierce attacks by politicians.

There is a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix that comes from American universities and from intersectional theories set on essentializing communities and identities, Mr. Blanquer said in an interview with a French newspaper.

Mr. Blanquer declined interview requests, as did Frdrique Vidal, the minister of higher education.

Aurore Berg, a lawmaker from Mr. Macrons party, said that Unefs actions lead to identity politics that, instead of uniting people in a common cause, excludes all but those who suffer from discrimination.

Were driving out the others as if they dont have the right of expression, said Ms. Berg, who recently unsuccessfully submitted an amendment that would have barred Muslim minors from wearing the veil in public.

Unefs current top leaders say that in focusing on discrimination, they are fighting for Frances ideals of liberty, equality and human rights.

They view the recent attacks as rear-guard moves by an establishment that refuses to squarely face deep-rooted discrimination in France, cannot come to terms with the growing diversity of its society, and brandishes universalism to silence new ideas and voices, out of fear.

Its a problem that, in our society, in the country of the Enlightenment, we restrict ourselves from speaking about certain subjects, said Majdi Chaarana, Unefs treasurer and the son of Tunisian immigrants.

As the student union has spoken out more boldly, Unefs influence, like that of other left-leaning organizations including the Socialist Party, with which it was long allied, and labor unions has diminished, said Julie Le Mazier, an expert on student unions at the European Center of Sociology and Political Science.

Its a major crisis, but its not at all specific to Unef, she said.

Bruno Julliard headed the union when it forced a sitting president, Jacques Chirac, to drop a contested youth employment contract in 2006. Back then, the union was more concerned with issues like tuition and access to jobs, said Mr. Julliard, the first openly gay president of the union.

Mr. Julliard said that the unions restricted meetings and its opposition to the Aeschylus play left him uncomfortable, but that young people were now much more sensitive, in the good sense of the word, to all forms of discrimination.

We have to let each generation lead its battles and respect the way it does it, though it doesnt prevent me from having an opinion, he said.

William Martinet, a former president, said that the focus on gender had eventually led to an examination of racism. While Unefs top leaders tended to be economically comfortable white men from Frances grandes coles, or prestigious universities, many of its grass-roots activists were of working-class, immigrant and nonwhite backgrounds.

Once you put on glasses that allow you to see discrimination, in fact, theres a multitude that appears before you, Mr. Martinet said.

Once started, change happened fast. More women became leaders. Abdoulaye Diarra said that he became Unefs first Black vice president in 2017. That same year, the union recruited a hijab-wearing woman whose parents had converted to Islam, Maryam Pougetoux, now one of the unions two vice presidents.

I dont think that if Id arrived 10 years earlier I would have been felt as welcome as in 2017, Ms. Pougetoux said.

But the reception was far different on the outside.

Last fall, when a hijab-wearing Ms. Pougetoux appeared in the National Assembly to testify on the Covid epidemics impact on students, four lawmakers, including one from Mr. Macrons party, walked out in protest.

The wearing of the Muslim veil has fueled divisions in France for more than a generation. But for Unef, the issue was now settled.

Its leaders had long considered the veil a symbol of female oppression. Now they saw it simply as a choice left to women.

To really defend the condition of women, said Adrien Linard, the other vice president, is, in fact, giving them the right to do what they want.

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France's Outspoken Student Union Positions Itself at the Vanguard of Change - The New York Times

Just days before a scheduled trial date, Columbia University has struck a deal with plaintiffs in an excessive fee suit involving the universitys 403(b) plan.

The notice (Cates v. Trs. of Columbia Univ., S.D.N.Y., No. 1:16-cv-06524, notice of settlement 4/7/21) that the parties had come to terms comes one week after Judge George B. Daniels ordered all designated witnesses[i]to testify in personand less than a week before the April 12 start date of that trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

While particulars of the settlement were not disclosed, the letteraddressed to Judge Danielsasks for a 45 day pause so that they can prepare the settlement paperwork.

Case(s) History

The suit was one of the first wave of 403(b) university suits filed by the law firm of Schlichter Bogard & Denton in August 2016. The plan offered 116 options, with two recordkeepers (TIAA-CREF and Vanguard), and the plaintiffs had alleged that, By failing to monitor and control the compensation paid to TIAA-CREF and Vanguard for recordkeeping and administrative services, Defendants caused the Plans to pay unreasonable expenses for administration, resulting in Plan losses of at least $15$20 million.

While at least 20 universities have been sued over the fees and investment options in their retirement plans since 2016, settlements have been struck with the University of Pennsylvania,Brown University,Vanderbilt Universityand theUniversity of Chicago. On the other hand, St. Louis-basedWashington University,New York UniversityandNorthwestern Universityhave prevailed in making their cases in court.

What this Means

Theres only so much you can learn from a settlementwhere the parties seem to basically agree to disagree, conceding that the outcomefor good or ill (depending on your perspective)under a full adjudication (much less appeal) is uncertain at best, and as likely to wind up costing twice as much (in time and expense, if not settlement amount) as to be tossed out by a judge (though those time and expense costs remain).

However, we will (and should) wait until the particulars of the settlement are shared to see if there are, in fact, lessons to be learned from this one.

[i]More than a dozen of Columbias witnesses expressed discomfort about testifying in person during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Judge Daniels said the virus does not alone constitute good cause or compelling circumstances to allow witnesses to testify remotely rather than personally in court.

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Schlichter Strikes Another Excessive Fee Suit Settlement - National Association of Plan Advisors

Learn more about the Security Vanguard Awards and submit an entry at http://www.securityinfowatch.com/vanguard

SecurityInfoWatch Media which includes Security Business, as well as print magazines Security Technology Executive (STE) and Locksmith Ledger, and our flagship website SecurityInfoWatch.com introduced a new program last year designed to give the entire security ecosystem the recognition it deserves: The Security Vanguard Awards.

To say the first year was a success was an understatement. The 100% cost-free program attracted a huge amount of interest from integrators and vendors alike - all intent on telling us more about their most successful and collaborative security projects.

For the inaugural awards, Stone Security's project at ARUP Laboratories earned top honors, a spot on the cover of our November issue (read it at http://www.securityinfowatch.com/21158680), and the huge industry-wide recognition that the project and the team involved deserved.Will your firm be next?

Regardless of where it stands within the security ecosystem (vendor, integrator, consultant, engineering firm, or end-user), if your company has an innovative story to tell about a recent project, you stand a great chance of being recognized on a national scale.

As it was for the ARUP Laboratories project, the top selection will appear on the cover of each respective magazine (or on the front page, in the case of SecurityInfoWatch.com). The major stakeholders for the top project will also be invited to a panel at the Security Industry Association's Securing New Ground event.

We are looking for enterprise-level collaborative security projects that exemplify the best working partnerships among security solutions providers, security systems integrators and the end-user clients they serve. For integrators in particular, we would love to see projects that changed the trajectory of your entire business, broke you into a new vertical market or otherwise impacted the business.

Participation in this program which has been endorsed by SIA is 100% cost-free. Additionally, the submission process is easy, and we PLEDGE that it will take five minutes or less. Simply tell us (via web-based form) the name and location of the project, all the stakeholders involved (vendors, integrators, consultants, etc.), and a paragraph or two as to why this particular project is innovative or special, and/or the impact it had on your business. It is important to be 100% sure that each stakeholder will want to go public with the projects details.

Helped by a few industry experts, our editorial team will take it from there. If the project is chosen as a Vanguard Award winner, we will follow up with interviews and to set up photo shoots. Again, be sure all stakeholders in the project are willing to be publicized.

Submissions are open right now at http://www.securityinfowatch.com/vanguard and will remain open until August 9, 2021. Visit that page for the submission form, additional details, and links to the winning entries from last year.

Feel free to email me or any of our editorial team with questionsit will be terrific to see innovation and collaboration on such a grand scale.

Paul Rothman is Editor-in-Chief of Security Business magazine. Email him your comments and questions atprothman@securitybusinessmag.com. Access the current issue, full archives and apply for a free subscription atwww.securitybusinessmag.com.

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Innovative and Collaborative Security Projects Wanted - SecurityInfoWatch

Charlie Christianson and I spent a morning looking at ducks last week. Our best sightings were at the Grand Forks Air Force base lagoons. We climbed onto the end gate of my pickup to see over the levee. The wind nearly blew us into the pond, but we persevered, and we were rewarded.

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Ring-necked ducks were the prize. We had a bit of hesitation. Ring-necked ducks are not among the most common of ducks in the Red River Valley, even in migration. Whats more, they closely resemble the scaup, which are among the most numerous of ducks around here in spring migration. So, odds were against our identification.

We cinched it, however, by a close examination of a beautiful drake that presented himself within easy viewing distance. All the field marks were there: a large head, somewhat iridescent and somewhat tufted, a white blaze Christianson called it a spur behind the dark breast and ahead of the dark upper part of the belly.

The neck played no part in the identification; the ring is effectively invisible.

The bill, however, is distinctively ringed. The bill pattern put all of our doubts to rest.

The ring-necked duck is the least abundant of the so-called diving ducks that frequent North Dakota. One of these, the lesser scaup, is fairly common. Its close relative, the greater scaup, migrates through the state. It can be abundant in late fall.

Other diving ducks that nest in the state dont pose any possible confusion with ring-necked ducks, apart from the common features that all duck species share broad bills and webbed feet. The divers, in order of abundance, are lesser scaup, redhead, canvasback, ruddy duck, a unique species with a stiff tail thats often held erect, and the ring-necked duck.

Most other ducks in the state are dabblers. In order of abundance these are the blue-winged teal, mallard, gadwall, northern shoveler, American wigeon and green-winged teal.

Within the city of Grand Forks, mallards are probably most abundant, with wood ducks in second place. Wood ducks are tree nesters, unlike most other ducks.

Ring-necked ducks are fussy about habitat. They are not so fond of prairie potholes as most of the states other nesting species. Instead, they like wooded lakes. This habitat preference makes them more numerous in the Turtle Mountains than elsewhere in the state, although they nest as far west as Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge northwest of Minot.

On Monday, April 5, Suezette and I made a day trip to the International Peace Garden. A drive through the park produced a red-necked grebe but no ring-necked ducks. We werent concentrating on bird finding in any case. Wed made the drive to see the cactuses in bloom. The Peace Garden has one of the worlds largest collections of cactus species.

The red-necked grebe is another of those finicky nesters. Other grebes are found on prairie wetlands but the red-necked insists on wooded lakes, like the ring-necked duck.

Elsewhere in the bird world, sharp-tailed grouse have shown up at the lek I wrote about several weeks ago. Clearly, the extraordinarily warm weather lured me to look for grouse earlier than the grouse were ready to dance. The birds at the lek this week were nervous and easily spooked. I made a quick estimate of their number about 20 and left them to their business.

Feeder activity has fallen off dramatically; Im expecting an upturn as migrating sparrows begin moving northward. So far, Ive had only American tree sparrows and fox sparrows, always the vanguard of sparrow migration.

Mourning doves are back. So are grackles and blackbirds the latter in large numbers. And the house sparrows are still hanging out at my feeder array.

Later this spring, Ill make my meadowlark survey hoping that numbers remain steady, at least. Im not optimistic. The long, dry fall allowed tilling and burning, both of which reduce the cover that meadowlarks need for successful nesting.

Jacobs is a retired publisher and editor of the Herald. Reach him at mjacobs@polarcomm.com.

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Always in Season/ Mike Jacobs: Spring and ducks go well together - Grand Forks Herald

WASHINGTON In September 2009, then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. traveled to a defunct General Motors plant near his hometown, Wilmington, Del., to announce a $528.7 million government loan for Fisker Automotive to make hybrid and electric vehicles.

The funding for Fisker, a small luxury automaker, came out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a $787 billion economic stimulus plan secured by President Barack Obama to lift the nation out of the Great Recession, in part by creating green jobs with $90 billion for wind and solar energy, a smart power grid, weatherized homes and the electric vehicle industry.

Fisker went bankrupt in 2013 before the Wilmington factory produced a single car. Mr. Biden also personally announced a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, a California solar panel company that then went bankrupt, leaving taxpayers on the hook. An advanced battery maker called A123 Systems, which Mr. Obama extolled as part of a vanguard of a new American electric car industry, received a $249 million stimulus grant, then filed for bankruptcy in 2012, the vanguard that wasnt.

Now, 12 years later, President Biden is preparing the details of a new, vastly larger, economic stimulus plan that again would use government spending to unite the goals of fighting climate change and restoring the economy. While clean energy spending was just a fraction of the Obama stimulus, Mr. Biden wants to make it the centerpiece of his proposal for trillions of dollars, not billions, on government grants, loans, and tax incentives to spark renewable power, energy efficiency and electric car production.

But the failures of the Obama stimulus, and Mr. Bidens role in them he oversaw recovery-act spending could haunt the plan as it makes its way through Congress. The risk to taxpayers could be orders of magnitude more this time around, and Republicans for years have proven adept at citing Solyndra to criticize federal intervention in industrial planning.

Mr. Bidens advisers, many of whom worked on the Obama stimulus, say the situation is very different. The market demand for electric vehicles is much higher, and the cost of the cars much lower than in 2009, the year after Tesla Motors produced its first roadster. Solar power is more economically competitive. Wind is entrenched and expanding rapidly.

Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, will oversee the same clean energy loan program that backed Fisker and Solyndra. Ms. Granholm knows the program well: As governor of Michigan during the Obama years, she helped her state secure money from it to help auto battery manufacturers including some that failed.

You have to step up to the plate and take a swing in order to hit the ball, and sometimes you swing and you miss, she said of those failures. But if you never swing, you will never hit the ball, and youll never get a run. So the overall benefits of the Obama-era clean energy investments were overwhelmingly a net positive.

Still, she said her team was studying the lessons of 2009: When you invest in innovation sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. But you learn from the losses more often than you do from the wins, just like any human, right? She said that the clean energy loan program would be retooled and invigorated for its second round.

Other advisers to Mr. Obama concede they fell short, especially on electric cars. The recovery act was supposed to put a million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015 but mustered fewer than 200,000. Even today, fewer than 1 percent of vehicles on the road are electric.

There was high ambition, but getting some of those projects off the drawing board and onto the ground was an area where it certainly proved to be a challenge, said Heather Zichal, who served as Mr. Obamas top clean energy and climate change adviser in his first term.

Republicans are already weaponizing the losses of the Obama green stimulus in their political attacks against the Biden plan.

When President Biden was vice president, the Obama administration promised thousands of green energy jobs, said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee. These jobs never materialized. Millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted on green energy companies that went belly up. Now, the Solyndra Syndrome has returned.

Most economists say that, on balance, the Obama green stimulus spending did lift the economy, and had a long-lasting impact. Clean energy spending created nearly a million jobs between 2013 and 2017, according to a 2020 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It also made money for taxpayers: Despite the losses from companies like Fisker, the Energy Departments loan guarantee program ultimately made $2 billion more in returns than it paid out.

Wind power more than tripled in the last decade, and now generates nearly 8 percent of the nations electricity. Solar power, which generated less than 1 percent of the nations electricity in 2010, now generates about 2 percent, and is growing fast. Economists generally agree that the Obama stimulus, which pumped about $40 billion in loans and tax incentives to those industries, deserves partial credit.

But experts also point to a fundamental problem with throwing money at climate change: It is not a particularly effective way to lower emissions of planet-warming pollution. While the Obama green spending created new construction jobs in weatherization and helped turn a handful of boutique wind and solar companies into a thriving industry, U.S. emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases have stayed about the same, five billion tons a year since 2010, and are projected to continue at the same level for the coming decades, absent new policies to force reductions, such as taxes or regulations.

Mr. Obama had hoped to pair the recovery act money with a new law that would cap planet-warming emissions, but that effort died in Congress. His administration then enacted regulations on emissions, but they were blocked by the courts and rolled back by the Trump administration.

The recovery act was a success at creating jobs, but it did not meet emissions-cutting goals, said David Popp, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University and the lead author of the National Bureau of Economics study on the green stimulus money. And this new stimulus, on its own, will not be enough to reduce emissions.

Unless they can pair it with a policy that forces people to reduce emissions, a big spending bill doesnt have a big impact, Mr. Popp said.

Thestimuluspayments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below. To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number. Read more.

Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become a lot cheaper. COBRA, for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, generally lets someone who loses a job buy coverage via the former employer. But its expensive: Under normal circumstances, a person may have to pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the entire COBRA premium from April 1 through Sept. 30. A person who qualified for new, employer-based health insurance someplace else before Sept. 30 would lose eligibility for the no-cost coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would not be eligible, either. Read more

This credit, which helps working families offset the cost of care for children under 13 and other dependents, would be significantly expanded for a single year. More people would be eligible, and many recipients would get a bigger break. The bill would also make the credit fully refundable, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill was zero. That will be helpful to people at the lower end of the income scale, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Read more.

There would be a big one for people who already have debt. You wouldnt have to pay income taxes on forgiven debt if you qualify for loan forgiveness or cancellation for example, if youve been in an income-driven repayment plan for the requisite number of years, if your school defrauded you or if Congress or the president wipes away $10,000 of debt for large numbers of people. This would be the case for debt forgiven between Jan. 1, 2021, and the end of 2025. Read more.

The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes. About $27 billion would go toward emergency rental assistance. The vast majority of it would replenish the so-called Coronavirus Relief Fund, created by the CARES Act and distributed through state, local and tribal governments,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Thats on top of the $25 billion in assistance provided by the relief package passed in December. To receive financial assistance which could be used for rent, utilities and other housing expenses households would have to meet severalconditions. Household income could not exceed 80 percent of the area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability, and individuals would have to qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship (directly or indirectly) because of the pandemic. Assistance could be provided for up to 18 months,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Lower-income families that have been unemployed for three months or more would be given priority for assistance. Read more.

But, he added, spending money is politically easier than passing policies to cut emissions. If that sets up the energy economy in a way that its eventually cheaper to reduce emissions, it could create more political support for doing that down the road by making legislation or regulations less painful, he said.

Mr. Biden has a long way to go on that front. Wind and solar power remain more expensive than fossil fuels in most parts of the country. While it gave a jolt to electric vehicle manufacturing, including a successful loan guarantee to Tesla, those cars still have higher price tags than the ones with old-fashioned internal combustion engines.

That is why Democrats say that one of the biggest lessons from the Obama stimulus is to go bigger much bigger.

The short-term tax credits for renewable energy and advanced battery plants werent big enough. They werent long enough, said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which will play a key role in shaping Mr. Bidens bill in Congress.

If you were somebody who was very much committed in the area of clean manufacturing and energy, you didnt have an idea of what was coming next, he said.

Mr. Wyden has said he wants to use the Biden stimulus plan to create permanent tax credits that electric utilities could receive for generating zero-carbon electricity, regardless of the source.

Electric vehicles also present a challenge, even as companies like General Motors and Volkswagen promise to shift their fleets to electricity. With the current price of oil hovering around $65 per barrel, electric vehicle batteries would have to cost about $57 per kilowatt-hour of electricity to be cost-competitive down from their current cost of about $156 per kilowatt-hour, according to an analysis by Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of Chicago who served as the chief economist for Mr. Obamas Council of Economic Advisers.

Electric vehicles are still far out of the money, said Mr. Greenstone. But a stimulus that was targeted at reducing the cost of these batteries absolutely could help.

Ms. Zichal, the former Obama climate adviser, who now works for the wind and solar lobby, said that this time around, electric vehicle battery technology is far more well developed than it was a decade ago. She compared the industrys readiness to leverage new government spending with that of the wind industry a decade ago when, she said, after years of stops and starts, it was at last at the cusp of a boom. It took wind power a while to get going, but in 2009 it was ready, she said, suggesting that electric vehicles could now be at the same inflection point, with some help from the federal government.

Mr. Bidens plan is expected to call for funding at least half a million electric vehicle charging stations.

One element of climate change spending in Mr. Bidens bill that was not in the Obama plan could draw bipartisan support: At his news conference last week, Mr. Biden spoke explicitly of the need to adapt the nations roads and bridges to a changing climate, which will bring stronger storms, higher floods and more intense heat and drought.

We cant build back to what they used to be, he said of the nations creaking infrastructure. The roads that used to be above the water level, didnt have to worry about where the drainage ditch was, now you got to rebuild them three feet higher. Because its not going to go back to what it was before; it will only get worse, unless we stop it.

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Despite Problems In the Past, Biden to Try Again with 'Green' Stimulus - The New York Times