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August 26, 2025

Swimming in the Seine in Paris: an old pastime resurfaces in the age of global warming

Source: The Conversation – France – By Julia Moutiez, Doctorante en Architecture et Enseignante à l’École d’architecture de Paris Val-de-Seine, Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris Lumières

Bathing on a hot day in Paris, 1932. Agence Rol / Gallica / BNF

As the 2024 Olympic Games drew near, the promise of being able to swim in the Seine turned into a media countdown: first as part of the official sporting events and then for the general public. As bids for the Olympic and Paralympic Games have become less and less popular due to the staggering costs involved and the difficulty of justifying them in terms of benefits for local communities, allowing Parisians to swim in the river flowing through Paris was heavily promoted ahead of last summer’s Games.

This kind of media framing, however, has overlooked current and historical realities. River bathing was widely practised over the last few centuries, and in the Seine, it has survived to the present day despite bans on swimming. Additionally, the practice does not only include recreational or sporting dimensions – it is also climate-related, at a time when rising temperatures suggest that compliance with the Paris Agreement will be a difficult, if not impossible task.

A centuries-old bathing tradition

While bathing in the Seine in 2024 was sometimes presented as a novel project, it is key to remember that swimming in Paris is a centuries-old practice. Traces of bathing facilities have been found in the capital dating back to the 13th century. However, the practice is difficult to document in detail as such traces are few, except in cases of major pieces of infrastructure. Over the centuries, swimming continued for hygiene, refreshment and leisure purposes, gradually spreading beyond the city limits.

It was not until the 17th century that the first documented boom in bathing practices in the Seine took place, as evidenced by the introduction of the first prohibitions on bathing and the emergence of the first facilities specifically designed for river bathers. Whether for washing, relaxing or socialising, these facilities were primarily set up to keep bathers safe from the current, and to conceal their nudity on the riverbanks. From the end of the 18th century onwards, these facilities became more complex: additional services were added to improve the comfort of swimmers and the first swimming schools appeared on the Seine.

At the end of the 19th century, floating baths became increasingly popular on the Seine and the Marne outside Paris, while the first-heated swimming pools were built in the capital.

A long-standing practice despite bans

Bans on swimming in the Seine have been numerous over the centuries, though they never completely eradicated the practice.

Historians Isabelle Duhau and Laurence Lestel trace the first restrictions back to the 17th century, when the provosts of merchants and aldermen expressed concern about public nudity on the banks of the river. Until the end of the 19th century, restrictions on swimming in the capital were always based on concerns about nudity. A second reason, that of hindering navigation, appeared in an ordinance of 1840. This was regularly amended until the prefectural decree of 1923, which is still in force today and prohibits bathing in rivers and canals throughout the former département (administrative unit) of the Seine.

However, these bans did not put an end to swimming. After 1923, bathing establishments continued to operate. They even experienced a boom in the interwar period, especially in the suburbs. Photos show that swimming was quite popular during heatwaves.

It was not until the second half of the 20th century that swimming in the Seine became less common, mainly due to the spread of public swimming pools, which offered a more artificial and controlled environment for this form of leisure.

And it was not until 1970, with the ban on swimming in the Marne, that the issue of water quality was raised, even though water quality was already being measured and questioned before then.

Indefatigable bathers

Even today, however, there are still occasional, activist, or even regular swimmers taking to Paris’s waterways. Sporting competitions have brought athletes to the Seine, for example in 2012 for the Paris triathlon, and in a more gradual way in recent years.

In amateur sports, cold-water swimmers also began training in the canals a few years ago, despite the ban. To deal with the risks posed by water temperatures, and possibly police surveillance, these swimmers set their own safety rules: they watch out for each other from the bank and wear life jackets and caps so they are always clearly visible. To date, none of these swimmers has ever been fined by the police.

In recent years, others have also taken a dip for more political reasons. In 2005, members of the Green Party (including its future leader Cécile Duflot) swam in the Seine on World Water Day to raise awareness about how polluted it was.

Diving in the Seine to raise awareness about river pollution also isn’t a new idea. It’s actually the trademark of the NGO European River Network, founded in 1994 and known for its Big Jump events, annual group swims calling for better water quality. Around the same period in the Paris region, the Marne Vive union was created to make the river swimmable again and protect its flora and fauna. In association with local elected officials, it has also been organising Big Jumps since the early 2000s.

In recent times, members of the Bassines Non Merci collective also took dips in Paris to protest against the appropriation of water resources, ahead of planned demonstrations against schemes for large agricultural water reservoirs in the Poitou region.

Other activists have also taken action to make Parisian waterways more suitable for swimming again. The Laboratoire des baignades urbaines expérimentales (Laboratory for Experimental Urban Swimming) organized collective “pirate” swims and shared them on social media and in the press to get local authorities to take up the issue.

Finally, despite the general ban on swimming throughout Paris, it should be noted that swimming is, once again, permitted under certain conditions in the Bassin de la Villette and the Canal Saint-Martin in the summer. For several years, the city has been organising its own collective swimming events, which are supervised and limited in terms of space and time. This is one of the paradoxes of urban swimming in Paris: on the one hand, public authorities are making efforts to improve water quality, in particular by opening sites where people can swim; on the other, they are reinforcing the general ban on swimming in the Seine, for example through more prominent signposting.

The many European versions of urban bathing

Looking at urban swimming practices in Europe, there are many cities where residents already bathe within city limits. These include Basel, Zurich, Bern, Copenhagen, Vienna, Amsterdam, Bruges, Munich and others. That said, putting together a comprehensive list remains tricky because of differences in how urban regulations are applied across Europe, where swimming might be allowed, tolerated, banned, or just accepted.

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In these different cities, the widespread practice of swimming may have been a goal, or it may be a byproduct of water sanitation policies. Copenhagen, for example, isn’t crossed by a river but by an inlet. In the 1990s, the city renovated its aging sanitation system and restored the port, in particular to prevent overflowing. It is also building on national policies, implemented since the 1970s, aimed at preserving water quality and aquatic biodiversity.

These developments, carried out by separate departments and for sometimes different purposes, gradually improved the water quality in the Danish capital, which then sought to highlight the new environmental standards it had achieved. The initial focus was on developing water-based leisure activities. Ideas included areas for fishing and wildlife observation, and plans for an aquarium and the development of canoeing. Ultimately, the focus shifted to a swimming area inaugurated in the early 2000s called Harbour Bath. The site was initially intended as temporary but was made permanent due to its success. Some 20 years later, urban swimming has become an asset that Copenhagen is keen to promote, for example by distributing maps of swimming areas to tourists.

The links between open water swimming and improved water quality are varied. The practice may be used to raise awareness of the need to improve water quality, or to gain support from the general public and elected officials for sanitation projects.

In Europe, numerous directives aimed at preserving biodiversity and water quality have prompted municipalities to clean up the waterways running through areas under their jurisdiction. In this context, then Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac pledged in 1988 to swim in the Seine following reports of the return of numerous fish species, indicating an improvement in the river’s condition. In this video, however, Chirac was not claiming to make the Seine swimmable again for all Parisians. Rather, he was just trying to demonstrate that its water quality had improved.

River bathing in the age of global warming

Another motivation is becoming increasingly important in the creation of urban waterways: providing people with access to cool places in the face of increasingly frequent heatwaves.

Another motivation for allowing swimming in urban waterways is becoming increasingly important: providing people with access to cool places during frequent heatwaves. Paris is particularly vulnerable to climate change due to its dense landscape. A recent scientific study ranks it as one of Europe’s most dangerous cities in the event of a heatwave.

The urban heat-island effect is particularly strong in Paris, and the city’s housing is not well suited to cope with heatwaves. Waterways are seen as a potential solution to the problem of cooling off outside the home. But riverbanks are often very exposed to the sun, which means that only direct contact with water can effectively cool the body – at least to a certain extent. Paris has therefore set up temporary swimming areas, initially in the form of removable pools, before allowing direct access to canals. The Bassin de la Villette, for example, is part of the city council’s Parcours Fraîcheur (Cooling Route) plan, and is also included in its heatwave plan.

Swimming in the Seine was also mentioned in 2015 in the city’s adaptation strategy, in the context of a general overhaul of municipal water policies that was initiated with the decision to take over Eau de Paris, the company responsible for the city’s water supply and wastewater collection.

A decade later, and after the success of the Paris Olympics where swimmers competed in the Seine, the future of swimming in Paris is still uncertain. But one thing is clear: rarely has the subject of urban bathing generated so much discussion, interest, and media coverage.

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

– ref. Swimming in the Seine in Paris: an old pastime resurfaces in the age of global warming – https://theconversation.com/swimming-in-the-seine-in-paris-an-old-pastime-resurfaces-in-the-age-of-global-warming-263386

August 26, 2025

Squash has been played in Philly for 125 years − a sports psychologist explains why it’s one of the city’s best-kept secrets

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Eric Zillmer, Professor of Neuropsychology, Drexel University

Olivia Weaver, in foreground, is an American professional squash player from Philadelphia who is ranked No. 4 in the world. Courtesy US Squash

What sport combines the intensity of a high-wire circus act with the strategic thinking of a grand master chess match?

I’d say the sport of squash, for the first time an Olympic sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Squash has its U.S. epicenter in Philadelphia, which is also considered the birthplace of squash in America. The sport was introduced to the U.S. at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia in 1900, where the first squash doubles court was later established.

James Zug, the preeminent historian of the game, writes about how, in the winter of 1901, 32 men competed at the club in the first squash tournament on American soil. Many other Philadelphia clubs followed, leading to a local squash culture that spread to high schools and colleges.

The United States Squash Racquets Association, now US Squash, was founded in Philadelphia in 1904, later moved to New York City, and in 2021 relocated its offices back to Philly.

I’m a sports psychologist who works with elite professional squash athletes and also writes about the game. As the former athletic director at Drexel University, I helped introduce varsity squash to the school and also assisted in starting a nonprofit community program called SquashSmarts for Philly public school students.

I believe squash is one of Philly’s best-kept secrets, as many Philadelphians do not know our city is host to an Olympic training high-performance center, the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame and youth development programs known as urban squash.

Woman in purple T-shirt and short white skirt stands on squash court as kids play — In this Feb. 11, 2014, photo, squash coach Sakora Miller directs kids at SquashSmarts, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching the sport to Philly kids.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke

A feast for the brain

Squash originated from the older game of racquets, which was played in London’s prisons during the 19th century.

The vulcanization of rubber by Charles Goodyear in 1839 enabled the creation of a squeezable rubber ball that maintained its original shape after being “squashed” against the wall. The British Commonwealth, through its worldwide military, social and political influence, promoted and grew the game internationally and set standardized rules and courts.

Black and white photo of four men in shirts, slacks and shoes holding squash rackets — Racquets doubles players in Philadelphia in January 1900. Squash was introduced to Philadelphia the same year.
The Print Collector/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Watching professional squash today feels like being in gym class and science class at the same time: The sport showcases incredible athleticism and celebrates the laws of mathematics.

Squash is best understood in terms of its form and its essence.

The form of squash includes the ancient proportions of the cella of the Parthenon, which held the sacred statue of Athena holding Nike, the goddess of victory. An international squash court is 32 feet by 21 feet, and this ratio of approximately 1 to 1.5 establishes a sense of geometric order. With all walls and angles in play, and emphasizing elements such as time, velocity and space, squash allows for an amazing spectacle of creativity, elegance and speed. It is a feast for the brain.

Mental aspects of the game

But the essence of squash is mental, and the three aspects I find especially intriguing are mindfulness, playfulness and fairness.

Mindfulness: Mindfulness involves not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. This is easier said than done, especially when a player is exhausted and struggling. The competitive squash player must focus on the moment and anticipate the next. This requires processing information in real time and practicing mindfulness to avoid distractions.

Playfulness: When I was a young athlete, I gave a B effort in practice and an A effort during competition. I had it all wrong.

I now understand that intense, disciplined practices are the foundation for tomorrow’s world-class athlete. There are no shortcuts. Psychologist Angela Duckworth advocates that excellence is 66% grit – which she decribes as a combination of passion, effort and perseverance – with the other 34% being innate talent.

For high-performance athletes, it is beneficial to be a neurotic perfectionist in practice, but not during competition, when they need to be situationally aware. Performance coach Brian Levenson writes about the pro athlete being the opposite of a perfectionist when competing, shifting to being playful, intuitive, confident and adaptable instead.

In other words, practice like a pro, play like a kid.

Two men, one in athletic uniform and one in suit, pose together for photograph — The author, right, with Simon Rösner, Germany’s highest-ever-ranked player at No. 3, in a postmatch cooldown at the U.S. Open Squash Championships in Philadelphia.
Courtesy Eric Zillmer

Fairness: One intriguing aspect of squash is the two competitors share the same space. This requires respect for your opponent as well as the game.

At its best, squash resembles a dance between two foes, with the winner graciously allowing their opponent to leave the court first.

US Squash has made sportsmanship and character a key initiative as the sport grows in popularity at all levels of play. While the art of deception, such as head fakes or varying your swing timing, is a valued tactical skill, blocking the opponent, whether subtle or overt, is not.

Black and white photo of man on court hitting ball with a racket — U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania playing squash in 1985.
Laura Patterson/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images

Philly’s Olympic center

One of Philadelphia’s most passionate amateur players was the longtime U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter. In 2021, the Arlen Specter US Squash Center, located on the campus of Drexel University, opened and was named in his honor.

The Specter Center is a state-of-the-art training facility and home to Team USA, the administrative center for US Squash, the home for the U.S. Open, and a hub for the U.S. junior and senior national teams, as well as urban squash.

The inclusion of squash in the 2028 Olympics is a milestone for the increasingly international sport. Currently, eight nationalities are represented among the top 10 male and female pro players, although in recent years Egypt has dominated both the men’s and women’s game.

Two U.S. women who are ranked in the world Top 10 are Team USA’s best chances to win gold: Amanda Sobhy, who went undefeated at Harvard, and Philly’s own Olivia Weaver.

If you want to catch them in action before the 2028 games, both will compete at the U.S. Open Squash Championship at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center from Oct. 19 to Oct. 25, 2025.

Two women athletes compete on squash court with four transparent walls surrounded by onlookers — US Squash has a major national facility in Philadelphia, the Arlen Specter US Squash Center.
Courtesy US Squash

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.

Eric Zillmer serves as an unpaid advisor to the following non-profit boards. 2010-present Advisory Board, Philadelphia SquashSmarts; 2019-present PHL Sports Congress, Vice Chair Advisory Board; 2020-present Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau (PHLCVB) Board of Directors; and 2025-present US Squash Board of Directors.

– ref. Squash has been played in Philly for 125 years − a sports psychologist explains why it’s one of the city’s best-kept secrets – https://theconversation.com/squash-has-been-played-in-philly-for-125-years-a-sports-psychologist-explains-why-its-one-of-the-citys-best-kept-secrets-260898

August 26, 2025

College students are bombarded by misinformation, so this professor taught them fact-checking 101 − here’s what happened

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sam Wineburg, Emeritus Professor of Education, Stanford University

Smartphones are a window into a world of misinformation. Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock via Getty Images

Mike Evans knew something had to change.

As the lead instructor for American Government 1101 at Georgia State University in 2021, Evans had watched his students over the years show up with fewer facts and more conspiracy theories. Gone were the days when students arrived on campus with dim memories of high school civics. Now they came armed with bold, often misleading beliefs shaped by hours spent each day on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

One example of misinformation making the rounds back then was an anonymously posted video that more than half of teens in a national survey said provided “strong evidence” of U.S. voter fraud. The video was actually shot in Russia, crucial context that could be gleaned by entering a few choice keywords into a browser.

Ignoring the problem of online gullibility felt irresponsible – even negligent. How could the course deliver on its aim of helping students become “effective and responsible participants in American democracy” if it turned a blind eye to digital misinformation? At the same time, a major overhaul of a course that enrolls more than 4,000 students each year – with 15 instructors teaching 42 sections in person, online and in a hybrid format – would create a logistical nightmare.

That’s when Evans, a political scientist, came across the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, developed by the research group I used to lead at Stanford University. The curriculum, which is freely available to anyone, teaches a set of strategies based on how professional fact-checkers evaluate online information.

In fall 2021, he reached out with a question: Could aspects of the curriculum be incorporated into American Government 1101 without turning the whole course on its head?

My team and I thought so.

Teaching informed citizenship

Evans’ challenge was hardly unique to his campus.

For Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, social media – especially YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat – has become their source of information about the world, eclipsing traditional news outlets. In a survey of more than 1,000 young people ages 13 to 18, 8 in 10 said they encounter conspiracy theories in their social media feeds each week, yet only 39% reported receiving instruction in evaluating the claims they saw there.

We built our Civic Online Reasoning program to address this gap.

When we launched the program in 2018, digital literacy was a catchall that included everything from editing and uploading videos to cyberbullying and sexting. “Checking the credibility of sources” was just one criterion among many buried in a list of desired outcomes.

We narrowed the focus of our program to skills essential to being an informed citizen, such as “lateral reading” − that is, using the full context of the internet to judge the quality of a claim, identify the people or organizations behind it and assess their credibility. Rather than fixate solely on the message, we taught students to vet the messenger: What organizations stand behind the claim? Does the source of the claim have a conflict of interest? What are the source’s credentials or expertise?

We tested our approach in an experiment in 12th grade classrooms teaching government in Lincoln, Nebraska, public schools.

Across six hours of instruction – two hours less than the average teen spends online each day – students nearly doubled in their ability to locate quality information compared to a control group. We thought it wouldn’t be a huge leap to extend our approach to college classrooms.

In a version of this program modified for Evans’ course, we designed six short modules that could be used asynchronously, meaning that students could complete them on their own time, regardless of course format. Unlike information literacy lessons that soar above the particulars of any one discipline, our modules were closely tied to course content.

In a unit on the executive branch, for instance, students examined an Instagram video that falsely claimed President Joe Biden wanted Americans to pay more at the gas pump. In a module on the judiciary, they watched a video on TikTok about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation, posted by a partisan, left-leaning organization.

A look at the program in action.

We created videos that pulled back the curtain by deconstructing tactics common in political campaigns – quotes ripped from context, videos spliced and selectively edited, and corporate-funded websites that masquerade as grassroots efforts.

We also taught students how to check facts like the pros. The main strategy was lateral reading – searching across the internet to see what other, more credible sources say about an organization or influencer. We challenged common assumptions too, such as that Wikipedia is always unreliable. Not true, especially for “protected pages,” indicated by a padlock icon at the top of an article, which prevent editorial changes except those made by established Wikipedians. Another is the belief that a dot-org website has passed rigorous tests that qualify it as a charity, which is never true. Dot-org has always been an “open” domain that anyone can register, no questions asked.

These lessons took just 150 minutes in total over the semester, and instructors didn’t need to change a thing; they just listed the lessons on the course schedule.

Positive outcomes, modest effort

Did this approach work for Evans and his American Government 1101 students?

Across two semesters in one academic year, 3,488 students took a test at the beginning of the course and again at the end. It included items such as one in which students evaluated a website that claimed it “does not represent any industry or political group” but is actually backed by fossil fuel interests.

In June, Evans, two co-authors and I uploaded a preprint of a journal article, which hasn’t yet been peer reviewed, that documents the experiment and its results. We found that from the beginning to the end of the semester, students became a lot smarter at identifying shady sources and more confident in evaluating where information comes from. Students’ scores showing how well they were able to do this improved by 18%. Even better, 80% said they “learned important things” from the modules.

Not bad for an easily adopted addition to the course.

These results add to other studies we’ve conducted, such as one in a college nutrition class and one in a rhetoric and writing intro course, that similarly showed how educators can improve students’ digital literacy – and their awareness of misinformation – without causing a major disruption to the curriculum.

And I believe it’s needed. A chasm separates the approved content that appears on students’ reading lists and the massive amount of unregulated, unverified and unreliable content they consume online.

The good news? This intervention could work in any subject where misinformation runs wild: history, nutrition, economics, biology and politics. Findings similar to ours from other college campuses buoy our confidence in the approach.

These changes don’t require waiting for a big revolution. Small steps can go a long way. And in a world flooded with misinformation, helping students learn to sort fact from fiction might be the most civic thing we can do.

Sam Wineburg received funding from the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation for this research. He is a board member of the not-for-profit Digital Inquiry Group (inquirygroup.org), which now operates the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum.

– ref. College students are bombarded by misinformation, so this professor taught them fact-checking 101 − here’s what happened – https://theconversation.com/college-students-are-bombarded-by-misinformation-so-this-professor-taught-them-fact-checking-101-heres-what-happened-262409

August 26, 2025

Active Clubs are white supremacy’s new, dangerous frontier

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

What looks like a fitness group could actually be a white supremacist training cell. starush/iStock via Getty Images

Small local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.

Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence. The clubs commonly use encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Wire and Matrix to coordinate internally.

For broader propaganda and outreach they rely on alternative social media platforms such as Gab, Odysee, VK and sometimes BitChute. They also selectively use mainstream sites such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, until those sites ban the clubs.

Active Club members have been implicated in orchestrating and distributing neo-Nazi recruitment videos and manifestos. In late 2023, for instance, two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, were arrested and charged with distributing materials for the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and the transnational terrorist group Terrorgram.

Following their arrests, Active Club Canada’s public network went dark, Telegram pages were deleted or rebranded, and the club went virtually silent. Nippak was granted bail under strict conditions, while Althorpe remains in custody.

As a sociologist studying extremism and white supremacy since 1993, I have watched the movement shift from formal organizations to small, decentralized cells – a change embodied most clearly by Active Clubs.

An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tracks down two Ontario-based Active Clubs that recruit and train young men to fight.

White nationalism 3.0

According to private analysts who track far-right extremist activities, the Active Club network has a core membership of 400 to 1,200 white men globally, plus sympathizers, online supporters and passive members. The clubs mainly target young white men in their late teens and twenties.

Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and my own research.

The clubs reportedly operate in at least 25 U.S. states, and potentially as many as 34. Active U.S. chapters reportedly increased from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025.

The clubs’ rise reflects a broader shift in white supremacist strategy, away from formal organizations and social movements. In 2020, American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo introduced the concept of “White Nationalism 3.0” – a decentralized, branded and fitness-based approach to extremist organizing.

Rundo previously founded the Rise Above Movement, which was a violent, far-right extremist group in the U.S. known for promoting white nationalist ideology, organizing street fights and coordinating through social media. The organization carried out attacks at protests and rallies from 2016 through 2018.

Active Clubs embed their ideology within apolitical activities such as martial arts and weightlifting. This model allows them to blend in with mainstream fitness communities. However, their deeper purpose is to prepare members for racial conflict.

An actor reconstructs how British broadcaster ITV News infiltrated and secretly filmed inside Active Club England, documenting its recruiting process, activities and goals.

‘You need to learn how to fight’

Active Club messaging glorifies discipline, masculinity and strength – a “warrior identity” designed to attract young men.

“The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo explained via his Telegram channel.

“They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color.’ It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future,’” a former Active Club member told Vice News in 2023.

These cells are deliberately small – often under a dozen members – and self-contained, which gives them greater operational security and flexibility. Each club operates semi-autonomously while remaining connected to the broader ideology and digital network.

Expanding globally and deepening ties

Active Clubs maintain strategic and ideological connections with formal white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neofascist group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Active Clubs share extremist beliefs with these organizations, including racial hierarchy and the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants. While publicly presenting as fitness groups, they may collaborate with white supremacist groups on recruitment, training, propaganda or public events.

Figures connected to accelerationist groups – organizations that seek to create social chaos and societal collapse that they believe will lead to a race war and the destruction of liberal democracy – played a role in founding the Active Club network. Along with the Rise Above Movement, they include Atomwaffen Division and another neo-Nazi group, The Base – organizations that repackage violent fascism to appeal to disaffected young white men in the U.S.

Brotherhood as a cover

By downplaying explicit hate symbols and emphasizing strength and preparedness, Active Clubs appeal to a new generation of recruits who may not initially identify with overt racism but are drawn to a culture of hypermasculinity and self-improvement.

Anyone can start a local Active Club chapter with minimal oversight. This autonomy makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor the groups and helps the network grow rapidly.

Shared branding and digital propaganda maintain ideological consistency. Through this approach, Active Clubs have built a transnational network of echo chambers, recruitment pipelines and paramilitary-style training in parks and gyms.

Club members engage in activities such as combat sports training, propaganda dissemination and ideological conditioning. Fight sessions are often recorded and shared online as recruitment tools.

Members distribute flyers, stickers and online content to spread white supremacist messages. Active Clubs embed themselves in local communities by hosting events, promoting physical fitness, staging public actions and sharing propaganda.

Potential members first see propaganda on encrypted apps such as Telegram or on social media. The clubs recruit in person at gyms, protests and local events, vetting new members to ensure they share the group’s beliefs and can be trusted to maintain secrecy.

From fringe to functioning network

Based on current information from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, there are 187 active chapters within the Active Club Network across 27 countries – a 25% increase from late 2023. The Crowd Counting Consortium documented 27 protest events involving Active Clubs in 2022-2023.

However, precise membership numbers remain difficult to ascertain. Some groups call themselves “youth clubs” but share similar ideas and aesthetics and engage in similar activities.

Active Club members view themselves as defenders of Western civilization and masculine virtue. From their perspective, their activities represent noble resistance rather than hate. Members are encouraged to stay secretive, prepare for societal collapse and build a network of committed, fit men ready to act through infiltration, activism or violence.

Hiding in plain sight

Law enforcement agencies, researchers and civil society now face a new kind of domestic threat that wears workout clothes instead of uniforms.

Active Clubs work across international borders, bound by shared ideas and tactics and a common purpose. This is the new white nationalism: decentralized, modernized, more agile and disguised as self-improvement. What appears to be a harmless workout group may be a gateway to violent extremism, one pushup at a time.

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

– ref. Active Clubs are white supremacy’s new, dangerous frontier – https://theconversation.com/active-clubs-are-white-supremacys-new-dangerous-frontier-262786

August 26, 2025

Like Reagan, Trump is slashing US environment regulations, but his strategy may have a far deeper impact

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Barbara Kates-Garnick, Professor of Practice in Energy Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

When the Trump administration announced it was moving to eliminate dozens of U.S. climate policies, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said he was sending “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”

That drive – to both repeal environmental regulations and cast doubt on science – reflects the Trump administration’s approach to environment policy.

Deregulation has long been a key theme in Republican environmental policy. The conflict between the obligation to protect public health and the desire to boost markets traces back to Ronald Reagan’s presidential administration. Reagan’s perspective that government is not a solution to problems, but is the problem instead, set the stage for Republican administrations that followed.

Reagan, standing in a reception line, shakes Trump's hand. Trump is wearing a tuxedo. Reagan a suit. — President Ronald Reagan shakes Donald Trump’s hand during a reception that Trump, then a real estate developer, attended at the White House in 1987.
White House Photographic Collection via Wikimedia Commons

Reagan argued that the growth of government spending and business regulation had stymied economic prosperity. Environmental regulations were a prime target.

Forty years later, America is seeing many of the same concepts in the Trump administration. However, its strategy could have a greater effect than Reagan ever envisioned.

Slashing budgets and staffing

There are many ways to kneecap government agencies: Instituting massive budget cuts, cutting staff with critical functions and appointing leadership whose goal is limiting the reach and effectiveness of the very agencies they direct are just a few.

In these efforts, Reagan and Trump had similar approaches to the EPA, although with different levels of intensity.

Trump’s EPA budget plan for 2026 includes a draconian 50% cut from the previous year and the lowest budget proposal, when adjusted for inflation, since Reagan. Staff cuts in just the first six months of the second Trump administration put the agency’s total employment at 12,448, down from 16,155 in January.

Reagan dissolved the EPA Office of Enforcement to limit “unnecessary regulation,” which resulted in a 80% decline in actions to enforce environmental regulations. Trump is also stopping enforcement actions, dismantling the EPA’s Science and Research Office and politicizing the agency’s science by putting political appointees in charge, moves that undermine EPA’s independence and expertise.

Both cut EPA’s budget, but that alone does not reduce an agency’s effectiveness.

Politicizing EPA leadership

When the EPA was founded in 1970 during the Nixon administration, it represented a bipartisan consensus: After decades of auto exhaust, polluted waterways and smog-filled air, environmental protection had become a national policy priority.

But industries that EPA regulated argued that the costs of implementing the agency’s mandates were too high. That created tension between economics and science and enforcement.

As part of his “government is not the solution” approach, Reagan issued an executive order shortly after taking office in 1981 requiring federal agencies to submit all proposed rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget before making them public. In Reagan’s eyes, this approach centralized power in the White House and was a way to eliminate burdensome regulations before the agencies announced them to the public.

He also appointed an EPA administrator who shared his anti-government perspective. Anne Gorsuch Burford was a lawyer and state legislator from Colorado, where she routinely voted against toxic waste cleanup and auto pollution controls.

A woman sits in a chair next to the president's desk. Reagan is smiling as he talks with her. — President Ronald Reagan meets with EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch in the Oval Office in May 1982.
HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Once in Washington, she appointed several people to the EPA’s leadership team with direct ties to industries the EPA regulated. An example was Rita Lavelle, head of the EPA’s toxic waste programs, who was later convicted of perjury for lying to Congress about when she knew her former employer, a defense contractor, was disposing of toxic waste at a now notorious dump site.

These appointments were an example of regulatory capture by the industries EPA was in charge of overseeing. Anne Gorsuch Burford was held in contempt of Congress for not turning over records related to the Superfund cleanup of the same hazardous waste site, which led to her resignation. The Superfund program to clean up toxic waste dumps was new and one of EPA’s largest programs at the time.

The scandals, broken staff morale, stripped budgets and fights over policy discredited the agency.

Going after government scientists

Anne Gorsuch Burford’s deregulation efforts weren’t fully successful, in part because EPA staff experts rallied to preserve science and regulatory functions. They leaked materials about delays in the Superfund site cleanup to sympathetic congressional staff, who in turn found support from Republican and Democratic senators.

That history may have influenced the Trump administration’s strategy toward the federal bureaucracy’s staff experts, who Trump calls “the Deep State.”

The Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial group Trump set up in early 2025 headed by Elon Musk, directed the firing of tens of thousands of government scientists and other staff with expertise that government agencies rely on. Thousands more have resigned amid intimidation tactics such as surveillance.

A group of people hold science reading 'EPA protects you, protect EPA' and 'Science saves' — EPA employees and supporters held a rally in Philadelphia on March 25, 2025, to call attention to the impact of the Trump administration’s job cuts.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has been clear about targeting bureaucrats. He said in 2023: “We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”

There is a clear focus today on EPA programs that don’t align with the administration’s views. Programs related to environmental justice for low-income communities are in the line of fire. The appointment of people from the chemical, fossil fuel and corporate industries to high-level regulatory and legal positions raises questions about regulatory capture – whether their focus will be more on the health of the industries they oversee than on the health of the public.

The first Trump administration had a focus on reforming permitting and bureaucracy. While appearing radical at the time, the revamping of scientific boards to include more industry representatives, the undoing of power plant rules and the lessening of enforcement hobbled but did not completely undo the agency.

The second Trump administration, in actively supporting fossil fuel “energy dominance,” is taking steps to not just eliminate regulations but to ensure future administrations can’t bring the regulations back, by using a complex set of legal arguments related to the regulation of greenhouse gases.

At the same time, the administration is trying to discredit scientific research to downplay the risks of a warming planet.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announces plans in March 2025 to reconsider dozens of regulations that affect the fossil fuel industry and human health.

The Reagan administration, while it also pushed for deregulation and expanded permitting of oil, gas and coal leases, embraced some elements of environmental protection. Reagan designated more than 10 million acres as protected wilderness and signed the Coastal Barriers Resources Act, which helped protect 3.5 million acres of shoreline from development. When Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol in 1988 to help protect the ozone layer, he cited scientific data showing the growing risks of ozone-depleting substances.

When Congress doesn’t push back

There is another critical difference between the first and second Trump administrations: The current Republican-controlled Congress is consenting to almost every request the president makes.

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be a check on the executive branch, and a bipartisan Congress has long taken an active role in oversight and investigation involving environmental issues.

In 2025, however, Congress has approved most of Trump’s demands, including voting to repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act, a package of pro-environment spending it had just passed two years earlier and that included many projects in Republican districts.

The administration’s effort to eliminate U.S. climate policies will take time and face lawsuits.

In an irony of history, Anne Gorsuch Burford’s son Neil Gorsuch now sits on the Supreme Court. His vote when those cases come before the court may be the ultimate Reagan legacy on the Trump EPA.

Barbara Kates-Garnick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Like Reagan, Trump is slashing US environment regulations, but his strategy may have a far deeper impact – https://theconversation.com/like-reagan-trump-is-slashing-us-environment-regulations-but-his-strategy-may-have-a-far-deeper-impact-262929

August 26, 2025

Are ultramarathon runners really at increased risk of bowel cancer?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

Exercise is a cornerstone of good health and evidence shows it can even help prevent cancers returning following treatment. But new findings are raising an unexpected question: could very high-volume endurance training carry its own risks?

At the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, researchers from Inova Schar Cancer Institute reported that a surprising number of dedicated marathon and ultramarathon runners had precancerous growths in their colons. Among 100 athletes aged 35 to 50, 15% had advanced adenomas – lesions that can develop into bowel cancer – while 41% had at least one adenoma.

The study is small and not yet peer-reviewed, but the signal is strong enough to have captured global attention. Here’s what the findings really mean, why experts urge caution in interpreting the results, and what runners should watch for.

At first glance, it seems counterintuitive. Decades of evidence show regular exercise lowers cancer risks, including bowel cancer, and improves outcomes after a cancer diagnosis. This study doesn’t overturn that science. Instead, it suggests a narrow group of young, very high–volume endurance athletes might face unique bowel stress that could increase their odds of developing precancerous changes over time.

Young people with colon cancer has been called a new epidemic, and we don’t really understand why it’s increasing so much.

The Inova study deliberately excluded people with known genetic conditions or bowel disease to focus on runners who otherwise seemed low risk. Yet their screening found more advanced lesions than expected for that age group – a pattern outside experts, commenting in the New York Times, described as worth investigating, not a final answer.

How might heavy endurance training contribute to bowel changes? One theory focuses on temporary blood flow reductions to the gut during prolonged, intense exercise. Distance runners are familiar with runner’s colitis – cramping and occasional bleeding after long runs. Repeated cycles of low–oxygen stress, inflammation and tissue repair in the bowel could, theoretically, encourage adenoma development in susceptible people.

The Inova team highlighted this mechanism based on observations and runners’ reports of gut symptoms, though the study didn’t directly measure blood flow, oxygen or inflammation markers. It also didn’t isolate other lifestyle factors that might matter, such as dehydration strategies, anti–inflammatory drug use, specific nutrition practices, or very low body fat levels.

Just as important is what this study doesn’t establish. It doesn’t prove marathons or ultramarathons cause bowel cancer. It doesn’t show most young–onset bowel cancers occur in runners – doctors not involved in the study emphasised that most younger patients with these cancers aren’t endurance athletes. And it doesn’t address whether more moderate exercise carries similar risks.

The comparison point – the expected rate of advanced adenomas in the late 40s – comes from broader population studies, not from a matched control group. That makes the observed difference notable but still preliminary.

The research is clinically grounded, but its size and design mean it should be seen as a starting point for larger studies rather than a basis for changing general exercise guidance.

Still, there are practical lessons for endurance athletes and doctors. First, persistent blood in stool, changes in bowel habits, unexplained stomach pain, or iron–deficiency anaemia shouldn’t be dismissed as “just running”.

In a community where gut complaints are common and often normalised, it’s easy to miss warning signs. The lead oncologist argued that young runners with bleeding after long runs should be offered screening – a stance grounded in the fact that colonoscopy can remove precancerous lesions and prevent cancers developing. This is more cautious than current guidelines for average–risk adults but aligns with individualised, symptom–driven care.

Second, the study reinforces the difference between exercise as medicine and exercise as extreme sport. For cancer prevention and overall health, the strongest evidence supports regular, moderate–to–vigorous activity, not necessarily repeated ultra–endurance feats.

A yellow arrow pointing to a polyp in the large intestine. — Polyps can be removed during colonoscopy.
WendyJo/Shutterstock.com

Careful attention needed – not panic

Recent conferences highlighted data showing structured exercise after bowel cancer treatment improves long–term outcomes, underlining that physical activity remains one of the most powerful, low–cost tools in cancer prevention and care. This runner study doesn’t contradict that larger story. It flags a potential exception at the extreme end of training that needs careful attention, not panic.

If future research confirms a link, what might change? Screening recommendations could evolve for a clearly defined group of high–volume endurance athletes, perhaps starting colonoscopy earlier than the current age–45 threshold for average–risk adults.

Athletes and coaches might adapt training, nutrition and recovery to protect gut health – paying attention to hydration, heat stress, gradual progression, and avoiding unnecessary anti–inflammatory medication around long efforts.

Sports medicine and gastroenterology clinics might work together on protocols for evaluating gut bleeding in runners, narrowing the gap between “common” and “concerning” symptoms. But these steps depend on replication in larger, diverse groups and understanding which components of endurance life – intensity, duration, heat, altitude, nutrition – matter most.

For now, a balanced message serves the public best. Endurance running is a profound source of meaning and health for many people, and quitting running isn’t the lesson from a single small study.

The key is keeping the proven benefits of exercise in view while being clear–eyed about potential risks at extremes. Listen to your body’s signals, especially bleeding. Treat red–flag symptoms as medical, not merely athletic. And discuss personal risk factors and family history with your doctor.

As science probes this signal further, the likely outcome isn’t a blanket warning but more nuanced guidance: who might need earlier screening, when to investigate symptoms, and how to train hard with the gut in mind.

The study’s real contribution may be cultural as much as clinical: it gives runners and doctors permission to ask a question they’ve too often waved away, and to catch dangerous lesions before they become cancers.

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

– ref. Are ultramarathon runners really at increased risk of bowel cancer? – https://theconversation.com/are-ultramarathon-runners-really-at-increased-risk-of-bowel-cancer-263564

August 26, 2025

Brain chemistry reveals psychiatry’s false divisions – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sameer Jauhar, Clinical Associate Professor, Imperial College London

For decades, psychiatrists have treated psychosis as if it were separate conditions. People experiencing hallucinations and delusions might be diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression and related diagnoses, and receive completely different treatments based on diagnosis. But new research suggests this approach may be fundamentally flawed.

Our latest study, published in Jama Psychiatry, reveals that the brain changes driving psychotic symptoms are remarkably similar across these supposedly distinct mental health conditions. The findings could change how doctors choose treatments for the millions of people worldwide who experience psychosis.

Psychosis itself is not a disease, but rather a collection of generally deeply distressing symptoms, where people may struggle to distinguish reality from normal perception. They might hear voices that are not there, hold false beliefs with unshakeable conviction, or find their thoughts becoming jumbled and incoherent. These symptoms are new in onset, and terrifying – regardless of whether they occur alongside depression, mania, or without these mood symptoms.

We studied 38 people experiencing their first episode of psychosis with mood symptoms, comparing them with healthy volunteers. Using sophisticated brain scanning technology, we measured the synthesis of dopamine – a brain chemical tied to motivation and reward – in different regions of the brain.

We found that while most people with manic episodes showed higher dopamine synthesis in emotion-processing areas of the brain compared to those with depression, there was a common pattern across all participants: higher dopamine synthesis in thinking and planning regions were consistently linked to more severe psychosis symptoms (hallucinations and delusions), regardless of their official diagnosis.

This discovery challenges some aspects of modern psychiatric practice. Currently, treatment decisions rely heavily on diagnostic categories that may not reflect what is actually happening in people’s brains. Two people with identical symptoms might receive entirely different drugs simply because one was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and another with depression.

Our study shows dopamine dysfunction is not uniform in psychosis. Moving beyond trial-and-error prescribing requires matching treatments to underlying biology rather than diagnostic categories alone.

A psychiatrist and his patient. — These findings could help us move away from one-size-fits-all prescribing.
Yurii Maslak/Shutterstock.com

Towards precision psychiatry

The implications could be profound. Rather than basing treatment solely on psychiatric categories, doctors might soon use biological markers to identify which drugs will work best for individual people. This approach, known as precision psychiatry, mirrors how oncologists already tailor cancer treatments to the genetic makeup of specific tumours.

For people with psychosis, this could mean faster recovery and fewer side-effects, by switching from drugs that do not work. Finding the right treatment often involves months of trying different drugs while people continue to suffer from debilitating symptoms.

Our research suggests people whose psychosis involves strong mood symptoms might benefit from drugs that target emotion-processing brain circuits, while those without mood disorders might need drugs that work differently on thinking and planning regions. Some people might even benefit from treatments that address cognitive problems alongside hallucinations and delusions.

This does not mean psychiatric diagnoses are worthless. They remain crucial for organising healthcare services, facilitating communication between professionals, and determining access to treatment. But they may no longer be the best guide for choosing medications.

The study involved a relatively small number of people, and the findings need to be replicated in larger groups before changing clinical practice. Still, this research represents a significant step towards a more scientific, biology-based approach to treating one of psychiatry’s most challenging symptoms.

As our understanding of the brain advances, the rigid categories that have dominated psychiatry for decades are beginning to blur. If the brain (and mother nature) does not respect diagnostic boundaries, neither should our treatments.

Dr Jauhar reported personal fees from Recordati, LB Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim, Wellcome Trust, Lundbeck, Janssen, and Sunovion and nonfinancial support from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, British Association for Psychopharmacology, and Royal College of Psychiatrists outside the submitted work.

Robert McCutcheon receives personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, Karuna, Lundbeck, Newron, Otsuka, and Viatris outside the submitted work.

– ref. Brain chemistry reveals psychiatry’s false divisions – new study – https://theconversation.com/brain-chemistry-reveals-psychiatrys-false-divisions-new-study-263319

August 26, 2025

How a church row over a pre-Christian ritual reflects an ancient Italian village’s battle for survival

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aurora Moxon, Postdoctoral Fellow, University College Cork

High in the Aspromonte mountains in the toe of Italy’s boot lies the ancient Calabrian village of Bova. Over the last two millennia, a series of invaders and settlers have left their mark on the Aspromonte, including the ancient Greeks – influencing a way of life from farming to language.

Protected by the absence of roads until the mid-20th century, remnants of this Greek culture survive in Bova. The Greco-Calabro language, spoken day-to-day only by local goatherders and the elderly, includes words and phrases from ancient Greek. And for centuries, locals have created “Persephoni” – woven symbols of Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring, to celebrate the season’s arrival and invoke an abundant agricultural year.

Made from olive leaves woven onto canes and decorated with local wildflowers, fruit and goat’s cheese, these figures represent an important ritual to mountain people whose lives have depended on the land for centuries. Gradually, as Christianity was adopted by the Romans, these figures were absorbed into Catholic rituals by these local people.

From the 1990s, the Persephoni figures attracted attention as interest in the Greek cultural influences of the area grew. Then, in 2013, the local bishop refused to allow Persephoni to enter Bova’s cathedral after being informed these structures were folkloric puppets (pupazze) – a move that threatened this longstanding tradition with pre-Christian roots.

The procession of the Persephoni into Bova’s cathedral.

Challenging ideas of what is ‘modern’

As well as researching food, farming and ecotourism in the Aspromonte mountains, I investigate the negative effects of stereotypes of this area – and how contemporary local practices challenge ideas of what is “modern”. As part of this study, I visited Bova and spoke to villagers about their way of life.

Some told me how, in 2014, they successfully put pressure on the church to restore their cherished Persephoni tradition. They explained to the bishop the importance of the Persephoni, and the church’s blessing for this ancient tradition – which prompted him to relent and allow the figures back into Bova’s cathedral.

A decorated woven symbol of Persephone made of leaves, flowers and red ribbon. — A decorated Persephone figure ready for the procession.
Aurora Moxon, Fourni par l’auteur

However, as I witnessed earlier this year, the current priest’s message reiterated the church’s distance from what it calls “folklore” – despite the thousands of visitors the Persephoni attract to Bova, a village that is losing its young people every year to other towns and cities. Journalists and anthropologists continue use the term “puppets” to describe the Persephoni, which puts emphasis on a more pagan intepretation.

In nearby Locri, archaeologists have unearthed terracotta reliefs called pinakes (depicting the goddess of spring and the agricultural seasons) at the site of a shrine to Persephone. Referred to as the “flower-faced maiden” in the Homeric Hymns – a collection of 34 Greek poems addressed to the ancient gods – it’s not hard to understand why locals believe their celebration of Persephone has Ancient Greek origins.

Carrying their Persephoni around Bova on Palm Sunday and receiving the priest’s blessing before taking them into mass is one of the most important moments of the religious year for locals here. It’s the culmination of a month of long evenings spent plaiting pairs of olive leaves from local trees and attaching them to cane skeletons. Two metres tall, the largest Persephone is carried by Bova’s mayor.

On the eve of Palm Sunday, people decorate their Persephoni with fruits and flowers picked from local hillsides, and the following morning, goat’s cheeses called musulupu are added on. Some of these cheeses take the form of men and women, others are circular with “teats”. Like Persephone, they symbolise fertility and new birth.

Every year, thousands of people visit Bova to watch the procession, after which the local people hand out chunks of musulupu and ’nguta (a biscuity cake with hard-boiled eggs baked into the mix) in the town’s main square.

Population decline, cultural loss

Like much of Italy’s south, especially its mountainous areas, Bova has long suffered the effects of emigration. Today, inhabitants are attracted to jobs and the lifestyle in towns along Calabria’s built-up coast. In the 1970s, Bova’s population numbered 1,401; today it hovers around just 400.

Young Bovese feel compelled to leave the region once they have finished school. Agropastoralism, a form of subsistence farming involving the cultivation of crops and raising livestock, does not appeal to many youngsters, and yet a number of villagers continue to work as goatherders and small-scale farmers. Once landless, they now find themselves in a position to buy up abandoned land.

Goatherders milk their capre Aspromontane, an indigenous breed of goat, to make the cheeses attached to the Persephoni, pressing them into intricately carved wooden moulds. These goatherders use words from Greco-Calabro to describe their goats: zzarì means “grey coat”, for example, and zzerògasto means “hard to milk”.

While the Greco-Calabro language is a source of pride, the historic association of this language with herders and landless peasants has contributed to its decline.

Today’s grandparents discouraged their children from speaking it, as the language had become a marker of shame and perceived backwardness. This is part of a wider problem that sees the denigration of southerners in Italy – particularly in rural areas – as backward terroni, meaning “people who are the dirt beneath our feet”.

But herders and small-scale farmers in the mountains are also often called backward by middle-class Calabrians in cities and coastal towns. The relentless association of Calabria – and the Aspromonte in particular – with organised crime exacerbates the marginalisation of this area.

Through their symbolic figures of Persephone, inhabitants of Bova assert the value of their deeply rooted rural identity and ancient agropastoral spirituality, insisting the Catholic church recognises this hybrid religious practice. The determination to preserve it speaks of resistance in the face of population decline and cultural loss.

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Aurora Moxon receives funding from the Irish Research Council. Aurora Moxon previously received funding from the South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership.

– ref. How a church row over a pre-Christian ritual reflects an ancient Italian village’s battle for survival – https://theconversation.com/how-a-church-row-over-a-pre-christian-ritual-reflects-an-ancient-italian-villages-battle-for-survival-258852

August 26, 2025

Why I had to become a murder detective for my book about an 18th-century Jewish pedlar

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tony Kushner, James Parkes Professor of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton

An illustration of the crime from 1771. London Jewish Museum

This article contains details of antisemitism and violence that some readers may find upsetting.

It’s evening at a remote Sussex pub in 1734 and a vicious triple murder has just taken place. Jacob Harris – a Jewish pedlar, smuggler and possible highwayman – stands accused of slitting the throats of the publican, his ill wife and a female servant.

I’ve studied the case for my latest book, The Jewish Pedlar: An Untold Criminal History. The point of interest for me was not whether Harris was guilty (he probably was). Or even whether – despite the seriousness of the crime – he was a victim of English antisemitism in everything from the newspaper coverage to the way he was later remembered. I was more interested in a series of questions about Harris’s background and motivations.

Harris had many aliases including Hirshal Hirsh and James Daves, reflecting both his criminal tendencies and complex identity that was both continental Jewish and very local. How on earth did someone of German-Jewish origin manage to integrate himself into the close-knit smuggling fraternity of Sussex?

What was Harris even doing in Ditchling Common, many decades before there was anything approximating to a Jewish community in Sussex? And what motivated him to commit the murders?

Despite the potential for prejudice against Jewish people at the time, I concluded that in the criminal world, as long as someone was trusted and useful, their background did not matter. It was only when Harris fell out with a fellow smuggler leading to a fatal fight that his life fell apart. The quandary for me as a social and cultural historian was how to write anything like a biography of Harris when there are no direct quotes from him in the surviving archive.

Completing my 340-page study therefore felt like somewhat of an achievement. To do so required intricate detective work (and indeed the advice of a real retired detective) to interrogate every piece of contemporary evidence.

This included the sparse legal record of the murders, the first Sussex assizes (court) record to be kept in the National Archives at Kew; a contemporary diary from a local landholder; and copious reports in British newspapers which “borrowed” heavily from one another.

There was also a bill sent to the Treasury by the county of Sussex for the catching, imprisonment, trial, hanging and gibbeting of Harris (gibbeting involves placing a hanged body in a specially constructed iron cage at the scene of the crime). And there was a ballad which would have been written and sold at the gibbeting and has survived in various forms ever since.

Not one of these sources is straightforward, and this is also true of most of the authors and major players in contemporary responses to the murders.

The complexities of the case

Harris was not the only person in the case who had multiple names. There was also his first victim, the publican Richard Miles. His many names strongly suggest that he was on the wrong side of the law and almost certainly a fellow smuggler.

The lead justice of peace in the case, who later became an MP and major landowner, had also changed his name. As did the newspaper entrepreneur who was the only one who made explicit Harris’s Jewishness when reporting in his new title, Walker’s Weekly Post.

Even Sir Robert Eyre, the judge from London who sentenced Harris to be hanged and gibbeted, had a reputation for corruption, though I’m not saying it affected the decision in this case. I don’t doubt that Harris was guilty of the horrendous crimes he was charged with.

The gibbeted body

Having been found guilty in the county assizes at Horsham and hanged in that town, Harris’ body was then carted to the scene of the crime a good 15 miles away to be placed in the gibbet cage.

Illustration of a post surrounded by a crude wooden fence — Remnants of the gibbet post, illustration from Thomas Blaker, Burgess Hill as a Health Resort (1883).
Author provided

A history of a local Sussex family compiled over many generations suggests that his skull remained in the cage some decades later. The post from which the gibbet cage was hung remained in position for much longer and soon became known as “Jacob’s Post”. Despite his crimes and his Jewish origins, he became a local folk hero.

To this day there is a heritage display on Ditchling Common to mark this momentous event in the district’s history.

Later Jewish criminals who were hanged became prized for their body parts by surgeons such as William Hunter (of the Hunterian museum in London) for racialised display. I didn’t want to treat Harris as this kind of object of study, but as a human being with family and friends (and no doubt enemies).

To discover more about Harris, his occupations and identity, I covered the period up to the second world war and followed Jewish pedlars and criminals in many different places from China to South America, from Sierra Leone to the Hebrides and from South Africa to the Caribbean. I also charted how the memory of Harris altered through time, from the Victorians who saw him as racially different and “naturally” criminal, through to a growing sensitivity towards his Jewishness in a post-Holocaust world.

It might be argued that at a time of growing hostility towards those of migrant origin and increasing racism, including antisemitism, what we don’t need now is a book on a Jewish criminal. I would argue that by trying to understand the individuality of these often remarkable – if often controversial – figures, it emphasises their fundamental humanity.

We cannot – and must not – expect any group of people to be perfect. As an asylum seeker (a former professional in Yemen) in an Essex hotel which has been subject to constant demonstrations in summer 2025 told The Guardian: “Yes, there are some refugees who do not behave respectfully or who do not follow the rules of the host society.” He added that this should not mean that all are regarded as such and that “every refugee has a story, and every human deserves dignity”.

In this respect in my book I certainly do not glorify Harris or downplay his crimes. I do, however, insist that he is not demonised as a “Jew murderer” as the Victorians would have it, and that see him instead as part and parcel of 18th century English rural life – a world far more diverse than we often assume.

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

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

– ref. Why I had to become a murder detective for my book about an 18th-century Jewish pedlar – https://theconversation.com/why-i-had-to-become-a-murder-detective-for-my-book-about-an-18th-century-jewish-pedlar-262671

August 26, 2025

Winners and losers in a hotter ocean

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Will de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

Meet your winners. E. PUIG / shutterstock

The ocean is heating up – in some places, faster than scientists once thought possible. For the fish, crustaceans and plankton that underpin life in the sea, this means habitats will shift, food supplies will change, and predators may suddenly find their prey has vanished. This isn’t a simple story of loss, but of winners and losers in a lottery weighted by climate change.

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage comes from our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed.

Fish are already threatened by polluted seas and overfishing by humans. Climate change adds another threat by reshaping the very waters they depend on – testing their ability to adapt.

Sevrine Sailley, a marine ecosystem modeller at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, explains:

“As the ocean heats up, fish try to stay in the conditions they’re best suited to. Some species will move, but others can’t relocate so easily – for example, if they need to live in a certain habitat at a particular life-stage, such as in kelp that offers shelter for breeding fish.”

Sailley and her colleagues used a computer programme to simulate the oceans around the UK over the rest of this century. They looked at 17 key commercial species and identified some winners and losers:

“While sardines may thrive, with a 10% boost in Atlantic abundance, our model suggests mackerel could decline by 10% in the Atlantic and 20% in the North Sea.”

Warm-water species like bluefin tuna could do well, she writes, but “bottom-dwelling species like cod and saithe (pollock) face a tougher future. These fish prefer colder, deeper waters and have fewer options to escape warming seas due to depth limitations.”

Sudden changes

Those fish are typically responding to what’s happening below them in the food web. And these shifts don’t just play out slowly. They can unfold dramatically during events such as marine heatwaves, when the sea itself becomes layered in ways that choke the food web.

Ocean scientist Tom Rippeth of Bangor University described this process during an “unprecedented” heatwave in the seas around the UK two years ago. That summer, the already-warm surface was heating up faster than ever.

Smiley cod fish — This cod has nothing to smile about.
Miroslav Halama / shutterstock

“Those stratified seas”, Rippeth writes, “on the continental shelf around Britain and Ireland are some of the most biologically productive on the planet. They have long been an important area for fishing cod, haddock, mackerel and other species. Those fish eat smaller fish and crustaceans, which in turn feed on microscopic plants known as plankton.”

Those plankton depend on nutrients mixed up from the deep water into the surface layer. However, during the marine heatwave, Rippeth feared the high surface temperatures would mean stronger stratification, less mixing, and a diminished supply of nutrients.

Bad news for the plankton. And bad news that will ripple up the food web.

What the jellyfish tell us

Few creatures illustrate these shifts more clearly than jellyfish. Marine conservation expert Abigail McQuatters-Gollop of the University of Plymouth says jellyfish numbers are increasing in certain regions, including the UK. For her, this is a signal of dramatic changes in the ocean food web.

Jellyfish tend to feed directly on plankton, so they’re pretty low in the food web. In fact, since they drift rather than swim, they’re technically plankton themselves. Yet they’re big enough (and scary enough, in some eyes) for humans to notice when their numbers rise, which makes them an eye-catching indicator that waters are warming.

“Warmer sea temperatures”, McQuatters-Gollop writes, “mean that jellyfish can now inhabit a wider range of habitats, with some species moving polewards into waters that were once too cold for them.”

This has changed how energy moves through the food web:

“The warmer-water zooplankton species which now dominate northern European waters are generally smaller and less nutritious than the cold-water species they have replaced.”

It also contributes to what scientists call a predator-prey mismatch.

“While the seasonal cycle of phytoplankton [tiny plants] is driven by sunlight and so hasn’t changed, the point in the year when some zooplankton species [tiny animals] are most abundant now arrives earlier, as shorter and warmer winters cause the eggs of some species to hatch sooner. This has meant a mismatch between the spring phytoplankton bloom and the annual peak abundance of the zooplankton that gorge on it.”

These shifts cascade upwards through the food web – one reason why those warm-water bluefin tuna are likely to prosper in UK waters, while cold-water cod and herring are set to struggle.

Post-carbon

Last week, we asked if severe heatwaves have affected your holiday plans. Several readers said they had given up on summer holidays in hot countries entirely.

For instance Andrew Strong said: “We are not holidaying in Europe between June and September, not even in the UK! It’s too much.”

Next week, we’d like your thoughts on air conditioning at home. Do you have it? Do you want it? Do you see it as an unnecessary and frivolous waste of energy, or an inevitable response to increasing summer heat? (If you’re American or Australian, do you laugh at us backwards Europeans for even having this debate?).

– ref. Winners and losers in a hotter ocean – https://theconversation.com/winners-and-losers-in-a-hotter-ocean-263556