Brain’s structure hangs in ‘a delicate balance’

New finding appears to be universal across insects, mammals and humans

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

EXAMPLES OF A SINGLE NEURON RECONSTRUCTION FROM EACH OF THE FRUIT FLY, MOUSE AND HUMAN DATASETS. (NOT TO SCALE)

view more 

CREDIT: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

When a magnet is heated up, it reaches a critical point where it loses magnetization. Called “criticality,” this point of high complexity is reached when a physical object is transitioning smoothly from one phase into the next. 

Now, a new Northwestern University study has discovered that the brain’s structural features reside in the vicinity of a similar critical point — either at or close to a structural phase transition. Surprisingly, these results are consistent across brains from humans, mice and fruit flies, which suggests the finding might be universal.

Although the researchers don’t know what phases the brain’s structure is transitioning between, they say this new information could enable new designs for computational models of the brain’s complexity and emergent phenomena.

The research was published today (June 10) in Communications Physics, a journal published by Nature Portfolio.

“The human brain is one of the most complex systems known, and many properties of the details governing its structure are not yet understood,” said Northwestern’s István Kovács, the study’s senior author. “Several other researchers have studied brain criticality in terms of neuron dynamics. But we are looking at criticality at the structural level in order to ultimately understand how this underpins the complexity of brain dynamics. That has been a missing piece for how we think about the brain’s complexity. Unlike in a computer where any software can run on the same hardware, in the brain the dynamics and the hardware are strongly related.”

“The structure of the brain at the cellular level appears to be near a phase transition,” said Northwestern’s Helen Ansell, the paper’s first author. “An everyday example of this is when ice melts into water. It’s still water molecules, but they are undergoing a transition from solid to liquid. We certainly are not saying that the brain is near melting. In fact, we don’t have a way of knowing what two phases the brain could be transitioning between. Because if it were on either side of the critical point, it wouldn’t be a brain.”

Kovács is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. At the time of the research, Ansell was a postdoctoral researcher in his laboratory; now she is a Tarbutton Fellow at Emory University.

While researchers have long studied brain dynamics using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalograms (EEG), advances in neuroscience have only recently provided massive datasets for the brain’s cellular structure. These data opened possibilities for Kovács and his team to apply statistical physics techniques to measure the physical structure of neurons.

For the new study, Kovács and Ansell analyzed publicly available data from 3D brain reconstructions from humans, fruit flies and mice. By examining the brain at nanoscale resolution, the researchers found the samples showcased hallmarks of physical properties associated with criticality.

One such property is the well-known, fractal-like structure of neurons. This nontrivial fractal-dimension is an example of a set of observables, called “critical exponents,” that emerge when a system is close to a phase transition. 

Brain cells are arranged in a fractal-like statistical pattern at different scales. When zoomed in, the fractal shapes are “self-similar,” meaning that smaller parts of the sample resemble the whole sample. The sizes of various neuron segments observed also are diverse, which provides another clue. According to Kovács, self-similarity, long-range correlations and broad size distributions are all signatures of a critical state, where features are neither too organized nor too random. These observations lead to a set of critical exponents that characterize these structural features.

“These are things we see in all critical systems in physics,” Kovács said. “It seems the brain is in a delicate balance between two phases.” 

Kovács and Ansell were amazed to find that all brain samples studied — from humans, mice and fruit flies — have consistent critical exponents across organisms, meaning they share the same quantitative features of criticality. The underlying, compatible structures among organisms hint that a universal governing principle might be at play. Their new findings potentially could help explain why brains from different creatures share some of the same fundamental principles.

“Initially, these structures look quite different — a whole fly brain is roughly the size of a small human neuron,” Ansell said. “But then we found emerging properties that are surprisingly similar.”

“Among the many characteristics that are very different across organisms, we relied on the suggestions of statistical physics to check which measures are potentially universal, such as critical exponents. Indeed, those are consistent across organisms,” Kovács said. “As an even deeper sign of criticality, the obtained critical exponents are not independent — from any three, we can calculate the rest, as dictated by statistical physics. This finding opens the way to formulating simple physical models to capture statistical patterns of the brain structure. Such models are useful inputs for dynamical brain models and can be inspirational for artificial neural network architectures.”

Next, the researchers plan to apply their techniques to emerging new datasets, including larger sections of the brain and more organisms. They aim to find if the universality will still apply.

The study, “Unveiling universal aspects of the cellular anatomy of the brain,” was partially supported through the computational resources at the Quest high-performance computing facility at Northwestern.

Snapshot of select neurons from the human cortex dataset, viewed using the online neuroglancer platform.

3D reconstruction of select neurons in a small region of the human cortex dataset.

CREDIT

Harvard University/Google

---

JOURNAL

Communications Physics

DOI

10.1038/s42005-024-01665-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Unveiling universal aspects of the cellularanatomy of the brain

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2024

 

Two can play that game: juvenile dolphins who play together are more successful as adults

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

 

VIDEO: 

JUVENILE MALE DOLPHINS ENGAGING IN JOINT ACTION WHILE PLAYING TOGETHER 

view more 

CREDIT: SHARK BAY DOLPHIN RESEARCH

 

Juvenile social play predicts adult reproductive success in male bottlenose dolphins, a new study has found.

Fresh findings published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences led by researchers from the University of Bristol and University of Western Australia, show that juvenile male dolphins with strong social bonds practice adult-like reproductive behaviours when playing together, and those juvenile males who spend more time practicing will father more offspring as adults. The study provides rare evidence for a link between juvenile social play and reproductive success in a wild animal.

In collaboration with international colleagues, the scientists spent years observing the behavior of juvenile male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, and using long-term behavioral and genetic data from this population, they investigated the role of juvenile social play in developing adult male reproductive behavior.

Lead author Dr Katy Holmes, who completed this work as part of her doctoral research at the University of Western Australia, said: “We found that juvenile play involves immature versions of adult reproductive behaviors that are crucial for males to access and mate with estrous females, and the time spent doing these play behaviors predicts how many offspring males eventually sire as adults.”

Adult male dolphins in Shark Bay form long-term alliances to help each other secure access to females and these alliances are formed between males who were closely bonded as juveniles. As adults, pairs or trios of allied males will coordinate their behavior to consort individual females, and this work shows that young males practice this coordination with their likely future allies, years before they become sexually mature. “Our work is exciting because historically it has been notoriously difficult to link play behavior to reproductive success, in this case the number of sired offspring, in wild animals,” Holmes noted.

Senior author Dr Stephanie King, Associate Professor from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences added: “Play behavior is widespread in humans and other animals, but the reasons that animals play together have long remained a mystery. This study provides compelling support for the idea that animals in the wild play together to practice behaviors that will be important for them as adults, and that if they practice enough, they will be more successful as adults.”

Paper

‘Juvenile social play predicts adult reproductive success in male bottlenose dolphins’ Kathryn G. Holmes, Michael Krützen, Amanda R. Ridley, Simon J. Allen, Richard C. Connor, Livia Gerber, Cindy Flaherty Stamm and Stephanie L. King in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fig 2 [VIDEO] |   Juvenile male dolphins engaging in joint action while playing together in subgroups

Three adult male dolphins engaging in joint action

Juvenile male dolphin

Dolphins playing together

Synchronous dolphins

CREDIT

Shark Bay Dolphin Research

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Juvenile social play predicts adult reproductive success in male bottlenose dolphins

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2024

Wire-cut forensic examinations currently too unreliable for court, new study says

Analysis has implications for other forensic examinations that rely on large databases and algorithms for comparisons

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN

A research article published June 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the importance of careful application of high-tech forensic science to avoid wrongful convictions.

In a study with implications for an array of forensic examinations that rely on “vast databases and efficient algorithms,” researchers found the odds of a false match significantly increase when examiners make millions of comparisons in a quest to match wires found at a crime scene with the tools allegedly used to cut them.

The rate of mistaken identifications could be as high as one in 10 or more, concluded the researchers, who are affiliated with the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence (CSAFE), based in Ames, Iowa.

“It is somewhat of a counterintuition,” said co-author Susan VanderPlas, an assistant professor of statistics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “You are more likely to find the right match – but you’re also more likely to find the wrong match.”

VanderPlas worked as a research professor at CSAFE before moving to Nebraska in 2020. Co-authors of the study, “Hidden Multiple Comparisons Increase Forensic Error Rates,” were Heike Hoffmann and Alicia Carriquiry, both affiliated with CSAFE and Iowa State University’s Department of Statistics.

Wire cuts and tool marks are used frequently as evidence in robberies, bombings, and other crimes. In the case of wire cuts, tiny striations on the cut ends of a wire may be matched to one of many available tools in a toolbox or garage. Comparing the evidence to more tools increases the chances that similar striations may be found on unrelated tools, resulting in a false accusation and conviction.

Wire-cutting evidence has been at issue in at least two cases that garnered national attention, including one where the accused was linked to a bombing based on a small piece of wire, a tiny fraction of an inch in diameter, that was matched to a tool found among the suspect’s belongings.

“Wire-cutting evidence is used in court and, based on our findings, it shouldn’t be – at least not without presenting additional information about how many comparisons were made,” VanderPlas said.

Wire cutting evidence is evaluated by comparing the striations found on the cut end of a piece of wire against the cutting blades of tools suspected to have been used in the crime. In a manual test, the examiner slides the end of the wire along the path created along another piece of material cut by the same tool to see where the pattern of striations match.

An automated process uses a comparison microscope and pattern-matching algorithms, to find possible matches pixel by pixel.

This can result in thousands upon thousands of individual comparisons, depending upon the length of the cutting blade, diameter of the wire, and even the number of tools checked.

For example, VanderPlas said she and her husband tallied the various tin snips, wire cutters, pliers and similar tools stored in their garage and came up with a total of 7 meters in blade length.

Examiners may not even be aware of the number of comparisons they are making as they search for a matching pattern, because those comparisons are hidden in the algorithms.

“This often-ignored issue increases the false discovery rate, and can contribute to the erosion of public trust in the justice system through conviction of innocent individuals,” the study authors wrote.

Forensic examiners typically testify based upon subjective rules about how much similarity is required to make an identification, the study explained. The researchers could not obtain error rate studies for wire-cut examinations and used published error rates for ballistics examinations to estimate possible false discovery rates for wire-cut examinations.

Before wire-cut examinations are used as evidence in court, the researchers recommended that:

• Examiners report the overall length or area of materials used in the examination process, including blade length and wire diameter. This would enable examination-wide error rates to be calculated.

• Studies be conducted to assess both false discovery and false elimination error rates when examiners are making difficult comparisons. Studies should link the length and area of comparison to error rates.

• The number of items searched, comparisons made and results returned should be reported when a database is used at any stage of the forensic evidence evaluation process.

The VanderPlas article joins other reports calling for improvements in forensic science in America. The National Academies Press, publisher of the PNAS journal and other publications of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, also published the landmark 2009 report “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.”

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2401326121 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Hidden multiple comparisons increase forensic error rates

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2024

NTU Singapore-led study estimates that between 1980 and 2020, 135 million premature deaths could be linked to fine particulate matter pollution

 NEWS RELEASE 10-JUN-2024

NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

(L-R): DIRECTOR OF EARTH OBSERVATORY OF SINGAPORE (EOS) AND PROFESSOR IN EARTH SCIENCE AT NTU’S ASIAN SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT (ASE) PROFESSOR BENJAMIN HORTON, NTU’S ASE AND LKCMEDICINE ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR STEVE YIM, WHO IS ALSO PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AT NTU’S EOS, AND NTU’S SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT (HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES) AND DEAN OF NTU’S KONG CHIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE (LKCMEDICINE) DISTINGUISHED UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR JOSEPH SUNG, PRESENTING A PAIR OF PLASTINATED HUMAN LUNGS.

view more 

CREDIT: NTU SINGAPORE

A study led by researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) revealed that fine particulate matter from 1980 to 2020 was associated with approximately 135 million premature deaths globally.

 

In the study, premature deaths refer to fatalities that occur earlier than expected based on average life expectancy, resulting from preventable or treatable causes such as diseases or environmental factors.

 

The study found that the impact of pollution from fine particulate matter was worsened by climate variability phenomena such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the North Atlantic Oscillation, and led to a 14 per cent rise in premature deaths.

 

The researchers explain that during such weather events, the increased temperature, changes in wind patterns, and reduced precipitation can lead to stagnant air conditions and the accumulation of pollutants in the atmosphere. These result in higher concentrations of PM2.5 particles that are particularly harmful to human health when inhaled.

 

Fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, refers to particulate matter 2.5 micrometres in diameter or smaller. These tiny particles come from vehicle emissions, industrial processes, and natural sources such as wildfires and dust storms.

 

As they are so small, PM2.5 particles can easily get into the air we breathe and penetrate deep into our lungs, leading to a range of health problems, especially for vulnerable groups like children, the elderly, and people with respiratory conditions.

 

The study estimated that a third of the premature deaths from 1980 to 2020 were associated with stroke (33.3 per cent); another third with ischemic heart disease (32.7 per cent), while chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections, and lung cancer made up the rest of premature deaths.

 

To understand how PM2.5 pollution affects mortality rates, the researchers studied satellite data from NASA on the levels of fine particulate matter in the Earth's atmosphere. They also analysed statistics on the incidence and mortality of diseases linked to pollution from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, based in the US. Additionally, they considered information on climate patterns from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

While previous studies have explored aspects of air quality and climate, this study had a global scope and analysed over 40 years of data. By examining how specific climate patterns affect air pollution in different regions, it offers fresh insights into the complex relationship between climate and air quality.

 

First author of the study, Associate Professor Steve Yim of NTU’s Asian School of the Environment and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine), who led the study, said: “Our findings show that changes in climate patterns can make air pollution worse. When certain climate events happen, like El Niño, pollution levels can go up, which means more people might die prematurely because of PM2.5 pollution. This highlights the need to understand and account for these climate patterns when tackling air pollution to protect the health of the global population.” Assoc Prof Yim is also a Principal Investigator at NTU’s Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS).

 

Study co-author Distinguished University Professor Joseph Sung, NTU’s Senior Vice President (Health and Life Sciences), and Dean of NTU’s LKCMedicine, said: “Our study highlights how climate patterns affect air pollution, and this is crucial for healthcare professionals because it directly impacts public health. The effects of climate change and the environment on human health are not lesser than those of genomics and lifestyle patterns, and they have been increasing over the past decades. By recognising these patterns, healthcare providers can better prepare for potential increases in patients seeking treatment for pollution-related ailments. Additionally, this knowledge underscores the importance of proactive measures to reduce pollution and mitigate its health impacts, ultimately helping healthcare systems manage and alleviate the burden of pollution-related illnesses on communities.”

 

The findings from this study, which represents an advance in understanding how environmental challenges affect the health of the global population, reflect NTU's commitment to responding to the needs and challenges of healthy living and ageing, one of humanity’s grand challenges that the University seeks to address through its NTU 2025 strategic plan.

 

The study is also part of NTU’s S$50 million interdisciplinary climate research programme, the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP). Hosted by EOS and funded by Singapore’s Ministry of Education, the CTP aims to investigate climate change, develop, inspire, and accelerate knowledge-based solutions, and educate future leaders to establish the stable climate and environment necessary for a resilient and sustainable Southeast Asia.

 

Co-author of the study Professor Benjamin Horton, Director of Earth Observatory of Singapore, said: "Our study aligns seamlessly with NTU Singapore's ambitious Climate Transformation Programme (CTP), which aims to tackle the pressing challenges of climate change through interdisciplinary research and collaboration. By investigating the intricate relationship between weather patterns and deadly air pollution, we contribute valuable insights that will inform evidence-based solutions and policies to safeguard public health and promote environmental resilience in Southeast Asia and beyond.” Prof Horton is also Professor in Earth Science at NTU’s Asian School of the Environment.

 

This study was also funded by several awards and a grant from the Ministry of Education, Singapore. It is also part of The Prudential EOS Climate Impacts Initiative, for which Prudential Services Singapore funded NTU’s EOS to conduct a two-year, two-phase study to understand better the impacts of climate change on air quality and its associated health impacts.

 

The study also saw participation from NTU President's Chair in Genomics Professor Stephan Schuster, who is also Deputy Director at the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE). Healthcare professionals and researchers from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Imperial College London, UK, Sun Yat-sen University, China, and Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore were also involved. The findings were published in April in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International.

 

 

Assessing the interplay between climate phenomena, pollution, and deaths

 

This study used data from a dataset managed by NASA called MERRA-2 (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2). The dataset provides monthly information about the concentration of fine particulate matter on the Earth's surface.

 

The PM2.5 data analysed for this 40-year study spans from January 1980 to December 2020 and gives detailed information about air pollution levels in specific areas.

 

The study looked at how changes in air quality are affected by climate patterns, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole, and North Atlantic Oscillation weather patterns, obtained from indices assessed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

The researchers also used data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation based in the United States on global deaths and occurrences of pollution-linked diseases, which include lower respiratory infections, tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, and ischemic heart disease.

 

The researchers found that 363 major air pollution episodes happened worldwide over the past four decades, with an average of nine episodes yearly. The duration of an air pollution episode ranged from two to nine months, with 2002 being the year with the highest number of air pollution episodes (15 episodes), followed by 2004 and 2006 (14 episodes each year).

 

The study estimated that Asia had the highest number of premature deaths attributable to PM2.5 pollution between 1980 and 2020, at 98.1 million, with China and India reaching 49.0 million and 26.1 million deaths, respectively. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Japan also had significant numbers of PM2.5-attributable premature deaths, ranging from 2 to 5 million each.

 

The researchers estimate that the three weather phenomena simultaneously caused approximately 7,000 more global premature deaths annually, with the Indian Ocean Dipole phenomena having the largest impact on the number of deaths, followed by North Atlantic Oscillation, and then El Niño.

 

All three weather patterns coincided in 1994, 1997, 2002, and 2015, with the Southeast Asian region being the most vulnerable. Around 3,100 more deaths occurred in that region each year due to the higher impact of pollution worsened by the weather patterns.

 

Assoc Prof Yim added: “This study underscores the importance of prioritising public health when developing air quality strategies. Instead of solely focusing on pollutant levels, governments should also consider the health effects of air pollution. This means evaluating policies based on their impact on reducing pollution-related health issues, especially highlighting the need for targeted interventions to mitigate pollution during specific weather conditions.”

 

Prof Sung added: “As our study has shown that PM2.5 pollution could have significant health consequences, health agencies need to allocate resources accordingly. This includes ensuring that healthcare services are equipped to handle the demands related to PM2.5 pollution-related illnesses. By emphasising health outcomes in air quality management, governments can better protect public health and improve overall well-being."

 

The team of researchers will be conducting more detailed studies for a deeper understanding of local air pollution patterns and further detailing the mechanisms behind how climate patterns influence the formation and reduction of PM2.5.

---

JOURNAL

Environment International

DOI

10.1016/j.envint.2024.108578 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Global health impacts of ambient fine particulate pollution associated with climate variability

 

Interventions against misinformation also increase skepticism toward reliable sources

UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

Efforts to tackle false information through fact-checking or media literacy initiatives increases the public’s skepticism toward “fake news”. However, they also breed distrust in genuine, fact-based news sources, a UZH-led study using online survey experiments in the US, Poland and Hong Kong shows.

Studies have shown that few people actually come across false information in their day-to-day lives. And yet, concerns about the harm “fake news” may do have increased in recent years. High-profile events such as the Capitol Riots, vaccine-hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have fueled these concerns. At the same time, fact-checking initiatives are on the rise. Major news platforms like BBC and CNN have incorporated fact-checking into their regular offerings, while media literacy campaigns have flourished, with programs designed to educate the public on how to make sense of what is true and false.

A study conducted by the Universities of Zurich, California and Warsaw now shows that these efforts have given rise to an unintended paradox: the very tools used to combat misinformation are fomenting distrust in all news, including from reliable sources.

Interventions foster a broader sense of doubt

The researchers conducted three online survey experiments involving 6,127 participants in the US, Poland and Hong Kong to test the effectiveness of three corrective strategies currently used to combat misinformation – fact-checking, media literacy initiatives and dedicated news reporting – and compared them with three alternative strategies. The idea of the redesigned strategies was to foster a critical, yet not overly skeptical, engagement with information. For instance, rather than focusing on whether news is either true or false, one of the redesigned strategies emphasized understanding political biases in news reporting.

The study revealed that the traditional tools as well as the alternative strategies used to debunk myths foster a broader sense of doubt among the public, even toward legitimate information. The redesigned strategies did not significantly outperform traditional tactics in improving the public’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction, although they were slightly better at doing so.

Weighing up potential gains and harms

“Public discourse on fake news not only increases skepticism toward false information but also erodes trust in reliable news sources, which play a key role in functioning democracies,” says first author Emma Hoes. According to the UZH political scientist, the potential gains from reducing misperceptions must be carefully weighed against the broader implications of heightened skepticism. “This is particularly the case in many Western democracies, where reliable, fact-based news is fortunately still much more common than misinformation,” she says.

Hoes and her fellow researchers therefore call for a deeper overhaul of current approaches to misinformation and the need to develop nuanced strategies. “The path forward is to educate the public on discerning facts with a critical eye, but without leading them to dismiss otherwise reliable information and sources outright.”

---

JOURNAL

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-024-01884-x 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Prominent Misinformation Interventions Reduce Misperceptions but Increase Skepticism

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2024

Senior Alberta NDP MLA Shannon Phillips to resign her seat in the legislature

Alberta New Democrat MLA Shannon Phillips is expected to detail why she's stepping down before finishing her third term in office. Phillips speaks during an announcement in Calgary, Alta., Monday, March 15, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh© The Canadian Press

EDMONTON — Alberta New Democrat legislature member Shannon Phillips is expected to detail today why she's stepping down before finishing her third term in office.

The former environment minister plans to leave her Lethbridge-West seat on July 1.

The decision comes after the province’s law enforcement watchdog determined two police officers broke the rules surveilling Phillips in 2017.

UCP INFLUENCED?!

In May, Crown prosecutors decided not to charge the Lethbridge police over the surveillance.

An investigation determined Phillips was targeted over her environmental policies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2024.

The Canadian Press

Paris mayor slams Macron's election call before Olympics

Agence France-Presse
June 10, 2024 

Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower (Ludovic MARIN/AFP)

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo described the prospect of French parliamentary elections just weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics as "extremely unsettling", while the International Olympic Committee played down any direct impact on the event.

"Like a lot of people I was stunned to hear the president decide to do a dissolution (of parliament)," she said of Macron's surprise address to the nation after European parliament elections on Sunday.

Hidalgo said she was "worried" by the election results -- which saw the far-right National Rally party inflict a heavy defeat on Macron's centrist allies -- and said that Macron "could not continue as before".

"But all the same, a dissolution just before the Games, it's really something that is extremely unsettling," the 64-year-old Socialist, a domestic political rival of the president, added during a visit to a Paris school.

The two-round parliamentary elections have been called for June 30 and July 7, with the Paris Olympics set to begin less than three weeks later on July 26.

The vote could lead to political instability in the event of another hung parliament in which no party wins a majority, or a seismic change if the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen makes major gains.

Hidalgo stressed that from an operational perspective the election would not change the Olympics, a message echoed by the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, who was with her during the school visit.

"I think that all the work of installing, of preparing the Games, the infrastructure, is behind us and what remains is to welcome the entire world and we will do it with the joy that we have to host these Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris," Hidalgo said.

Bach said the elections are "a democratic process which will not disturb the Olympics".

"France is used to doing elections and they are going to do them once again. We will have a new government and a new parliament and everyone is going to support the Olympics," Bach said.

The Paris Olympics open with an unprecedented ceremony on the river Seine on July 26, the first time the opening festivities for a Summer Olympics have taken place outside the main stadium.

South Dakota political leaders condemn Nazi march at Capitol

Staff, South Dakota Searchlight
June 9, 2024

South Dakota's Governor Kristi Noem (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

South Dakota political leaders are condemning a Nazi demonstration that happened Saturday on the Capitol grounds in Pierre.

The state Department of Public Safety said in a news release that a group attempted an unscheduled protest on the Capitol grounds, without a permit. The Highway Patrol asked the group to leave and the march “ended without incident,” according to the news release.

Images and video circulated online of about a dozen people dressed in red and black, with black masks covering their faces, carrying a Nazi flag and unfurling it on the steps of the Capitol. Images also surfaced of a similar march in Deadwood.

On her personal X (formerly Twitter) account, Gov. Kristi Noem wrote, “Nazis are not welcome here in South Dakota.

“We stand for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” she wrote. “We reject all hatred and Nazis.”

A known neo-Nazi leader, Christopher Pohlhaus, appeared to claim responsibility for the march when he shared Noem’s post on his own X account and said “we occupied your steps for the entire time we intended to be there.” According to the Anti-Defamation League, Pohlhaus is a former Marine turned tattoo artist and leader of the neo-Nazi “Blood Tribe.”

Other South Dakota political leaders also condemned the marches. U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds tweeted, “This is disgusting. This racist behavior has no place in South Dakota or anywhere.” U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson tweeted of the incident, “This is atrocious.”

The activity is part of a resurgence of in-person demonstrations among white nationalist, neo-Nazi and far-right reactionary groups throughout the country, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest annual report on hate and extremism.

“For the first time since 2018, these racist activists, who together make up what is known as the white power movement, turned out in droves, holding 191 demonstrations in 2022 and 143 in 2023,” the report says.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated with additional information several times since its initial publication.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on Facebook and Twitter.