Latest news with #UniversityofCalifornia-Berkeley
The Hill
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Deterrent Act addresses foreign interference in higher education
Last week, the chancellor of the University of California-Berkeley appeared before Congress and refused to commit to transparency about foreign funding. When I asked Chancellor Rich Lyons if Berkeley would disclose every dollar it receives from foreign governments, he dodged — repeatedly. ' I'm not ready to make that commitment today,' he said. Even more alarming, he admitted that hostile foreign actors regularly approach the university but claimed he was 'not in a position' to name a single example. The American people deserve to know who is bankrolling our public universities. If Berkeley won't come clean, it raises a serious question: What are universities hiding — and why? This isn't just an academic issue. It's a direct threat to our national security. In January, the University of Michigan cut ties with a Chinese university over concerns that its funding could be linked to Beijing's military-industrial complex. On Tuesday, the Department of Education opened an investigation into the university to assess its compliance with federal law and the accuracy of its foreign funding disclosures. While I welcome the University of Michigan's decision to stop the flow of money from the Chinese Communist Party, serious questions remain. Why were tens of millions in foreign funding reported late — and in some cases, misclassified as coming from 'nongovernmental entities' when the money appears to be directly tied to foreign governments? What are they hiding? That's why I reintroduced the Deterrent Act, legislation designed to bring long-overdue transparency to foreign influence in higher education. The bill does three things: It shines a Light on Foreign Funding — It lowers the foreign gift disclosure threshold from $250,000 to $50,000 and requires faculty and staff at research-heavy institutions to disclose foreign financial ties. It holds Institutions Accountable — It introduces fines and the potential suspension of federal assistance for failing to report foreign funding. Protects National Security — It treats gifts from hostile nations with greater scrutiny, recognizing that foreign money is often used to buy influence and suppress academic freedom. I believe in the power of international education exchange. I have lived it. As the son of a Washington State University forestry professor, I saw firsthand how cultural exchange can enrich learning. As a college student, I studied in France, Jordan, Syria and Kuwait, eager to understand different worldviews. I served with the Jesuits in Mozambique, teaching students and coaching basketball. But there's a big difference between genuine academic collaboration and foreign interference masquerading as philanthropy. The passage of the Deterrent Act with bipartisan support is a significant and hard-won victory in the fight to protect academic integrity from foreign interference. This bill reflects a growing consensus that transparency and accountability are essential in safeguarding American universities from the influence of foreign adversaries, particularly the Chinese Communist Party. It is a crucial step forward, but universities don't have to wait for federal action. Adopting the Deterrent framework now — by disclosing foreign funding, establishing oversight and ensuring no outside power undermines our academic institutions — can help preserve the free exchange of ideas that defines American academia. In April, President Trump signed an executive order to increase transparency and enforce stricter reporting requirements for foreign gifts and funding. I applaud President Trump for taking decisive action by signing an executive order that underscores the critical issues highlighted in the Deterrent Act. This executive order reinforces our commitment to protecting academic integrity and defending our universities from foreign influence, particularly from adversarial regimes like the Chinese Communist Party. While the Deterrent Act is a major step forward — passing the House with strong bipartisan support — I still urge the Senate to act so it becomes the law of the land, not just an executive action that could be reversed. The time to act is now. This issue is bigger than just foreign influence. It's about who our universities serve. For too long, Americans have watched tuition skyrocket, ideological conformity replace rigorous exchange of ideas, and academic institutions drift further from the needs of working people and local communities. The public has every right to question whether our universities are serving the American people — or the highest foreign bidder. It's time for our universities to get back to basics: Keep tuition costs down. Promote the free exchange of ideas. Align degrees with the job market. Help students graduate and get hired. Put students and taxpayers first. The House has acted. The president has acted. Now it's the Senate's turn. Let's make the Deterrent Act the law of the land — ending malign foreign influence in our education system and putting American interests first.
USA Today
5 days ago
- Science
- USA Today
Here's how your phone could save your life if an earthquake hits
A worldwide Android smartphone-based earthquake detection and early warning system can detect seismic activity in real time Could your smartphone save your life? If an earthquake is occurring, it just might. A worldwide Android smartphone-based earthquake detection and early warning system can detect seismic activity in real time – and deliver life-saving alerts that are just as effective as that of traditional seismic networks, according to a new study published July 17 in the journal Science. The Android Earthquake Alerts (AEA) system, which was developed by engineers at Google and the University of California-Berkeley, uses the phones' sensors to detect seismic activity and deliver early-warning alerts to users before dangerous shaking begins. "Earthquakes are a constant threat to communities around the globe," wrote Google engineer Mark Stogaitis on a Google blog post about the new study. "While we've gotten good at knowing where they're likely to strike, we still face devastating consequences when they do." "What if we could give people a few precious seconds of warning before the shaking starts? Those seconds can be enough time to get off a ladder, move away from dangerous objects and take cover," he wrote. Safety: This is what to do before, during and after an earthquake Indeed, the widespread use of smartphones globally has created a powerful platform for sensing and delivering earthquake alerts, according to a statement from Science. "While the sensors in smartphones are not as precise as those in traditional seismic stations, they are still capable of detecting ground shaking during significant earthquakes." How does it work? According to Google, "the accelerometer in an Android phone, the same sensor that flips the screen when it's turned sideways, can also detect the ground shaking from an earthquake. If a stationary phone detects the initial, faster-moving 'P-wave' of an earthquake, it sends a signal to our earthquake detection server, along with a coarse location of where the shaking occurred." The system then quickly analyzes data from many phones to confirm that an earthquake is happening and estimate its location and magnitude. The goal is to warn as many people as possible before the slower, more damaging "S-wave" of an earthquake reaches them. The system sends out two types of alerts: How successful has it been? According to Google, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Of the more than 1.5 million people who responded to a survey, 85% found the alerts to be "very helpful." Overall, during its first three years of operation (2021-2024), the AEA system detected an average of 312 earthquakes per month, spanning magnitudes from M 1.9 to a maximum of M 7.8 across 98 countries, according to the study. "The system has now detected over 18,000 earthquakes, from small tremors of M1.9 to major quakes reaching M7.8," Stogaitis wrote. "For the events significant enough to warn people, alerts were issued for over 2000 earthquakes, culminating in 790 million alerts being sent to phones worldwide. This included more than half-a-million people in Turkey and Syria who received an alert on February 6, 2023, just before a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck. according to a report. The impact has been a greater than tenfold change in the number of people with access to earthquake early warning systems. "In 2019, only about 250 million people had access. Today, thanks in large part to the Android system, that number has increased to 2.5 billion," he said. As an example, in the magnitude 6.2 earthquake in Turkey in April 2025, the first alert was issued 8 seconds after the earthquake began. People who experienced moderate to strong shaking had a warning time of a few to 20 seconds. In this event, over 16 million alerts were delivered. 'Comparable to established national systems' Stogaitis concluded that "what's most exciting is that our system is constantly learning and improving... In the future, this system could not only provide warnings but also deliver rapid post-earthquake information to emergency responders, helping them to quickly assess the areas most in need." According to the study, "AEA demonstrates that globally distributed smartphones can be used to detect earthquakes and issue warnings at scale with an effectiveness comparable to established national systems. (However,) large earthquakes remain the most important and challenging for all earthquake early warning systems."
Int'l Business Times
11-07-2025
- General
- Int'l Business Times
Camp Mystic Owner Killed By Horrific Floods Was Warning Officials About the River For Decades
The owner of Texas Christian summer camp Camp Mystic died during the state's horrific floods last week, despite repeatedly warning officials about the volatility of the nearby Guadalupe River. Camp owner Dick Eastland ran the youth camp for decades, advocating for a new flood warning system in the area following a flooding incident in 1987 that killed 10 children who had been attending another camp nearby. "The river is beautiful," Eastland told the Austin American-Statesman in 1990. "But you have to respect it." However, the system Eastland had fought for was shut down in 1999, a decade after being installed, due to antiquated technology, reported CNN. Last week, during the disastrous downpour in Texas, the Guadalupe River overflowed and flooded Camp Mystic, leading to the deaths of 27 people at the camp. Eastland was one of the victims, as he was swept away while attempting to rescue campers. Eastland had made attempts to support the implementation of a more modern flood warning system, which would include sirens to warn nearby campers of incoming floods. However, a lack of funding, some local opposition and the absence of adequate state support prevented these measures from coming to fruition. Many of the cabins worst-affected by the flooding last week sat in areas identified by the federal government as most likely to be severely inundated by an overflow from the Guadalupe River. "Camp officials might have not been aware of flood risk when they first built the cabins," before the county even had flood maps, said Anna Serra-Llobet, a University of California-Berkeley researcher who studies flood risk. She further added that officials should have understood that the cabins were in "severe hazard" areas due to recent additional construction. Eastland, who was a figure beloved by his community, has been praised as a hero following his death. "If he wasn't going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way, saving the girls that he so loved and cared for. That's the man my grandfather was. A husband, father, grandfather, and mentor to thousands of young women, he no longer walks this earth, but his impact will never leave the lives he touched," his grandson George Eastland wrote in an Instagram tribute. Originally published on Latin Times
CNN
11-07-2025
- General
- CNN
Camp Mystic's owner warned of floods for decades. Then the river killed him
Dick Eastland warned for decades about the hidden dangers of the beautiful but volatile Guadalupe River, a peril he saw firsthand while running his family's youth camp alongside its banks. Eastland saw floods damage Camp Mystic again and again – and his pregnant wife was even airlifted to a hospital while the camp in central Texas was cut off by floodwaters. He successfully pushed for a new flood warning system after 10 children at a nearby camp were swept to their deaths in 1987, and in recent years served on the board of the local river authority as it supported renewed efforts to improve warnings on the Guadalupe. 'The river is beautiful,' Eastland told the Austin American-Statesman in 1990. 'But you have to respect it.' But after 27 people were killed at Camp Mystic in last week's cataclysmic flooding – along with Eastland himself, who died while trying to rescue his young campers – the scale of the tragedy highlights potential missed opportunities by Camp Mystic's owners and government officials to better mitigate those risks. About a decade after it was installed, the warning system Eastland had championed in the late '80s became antiquated and broken. The river authority ultimately shut it down in 1999, saying it was 'unreliable with some of the system's stations not reporting information,' according to an article in the Kerrville Daily Times. Yet periodic attempts to adopt a more modern flood-monitoring system, including one with warning sirens that might have alerted campers last week, repeatedly failed to gain traction – stalled by low budgets, some local opposition and a lack of state support. At Camp Mystic, meanwhile, several of the cabins that were hit hardest in the flooding were in an area identified by the federal government as the highest-risk location for inundations from the Guadalupe. Even as the camp built new cabins in a less-risky flood zone elsewhere on its property, nothing was done to relocate the buildings in the most danger. 'Camp officials might have not been aware of flood risk when they first built the cabins,' before the county even had flood maps, said Anna Serra-Llobet, a University of California-Berkeley researcher who studies flood risk. But after the recent construction, she said, officials should have realized they were in an area of 'severe hazard.' Eastland has been praised as a hero for his efforts to save campers on Friday and remembered as a beloved figure by generations who spent their summers in the idyllic riverside refuge. His legacy is less clear as a public steward of the sometimes deadly river that ultimately took his life. 'If he wasn't going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way—saving the girls that he so loved and cared for,' his grandson George Eastland wrote in an Instagram tribute. 'Although he no longer walks this earth, his impact will never fade in the lives he touched.' Camp Mystic did not respond to a request for comment. Camp Mystic has a long history with flooding, going back to just a few years after it was established 99 years ago. In 1932, flood waters 'swept away' several cabins at the camp and led campers to evacuate across the river by canoe, according to an article in the Abilene Daily Reporter. A counselor told the Austin American-Statesman at the time that campers might 'have drowned if we had gone out the front door and walked face-into a sheet of water!' In 1978, an article in the Kerrville Mountain Sun reported that Camp Mystic was 'the most severely damaged' of local summer camps affected by a flood that year. A separate article reported that five Camp Mystic counselors 'had their automobiles swept into the Guadalupe River' by flood waters that year. And in 1985, Eastland's wife Tweety, then pregnant with their fourth child, had to be airlifted from Camp Mystic to a hospital due to floodwaters, local news reported. One of the region's most devastating floods – until last week's Fourth of July disaster – came in 1987, when 10 children attending a different camp in the area were killed by floodwaters during a rushed evacuation. Eastland, who at the time was serving on the board of the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which manages the river, pushed for a new flood warning system. In newspaper articles, he described a computer-powered system that would lead to automatic alerts if water levels on the Guadalupe rose beyond a set limit. The proposal was delayed, but officials eventually created a system of 21 gauges up and down the Guadalupe and its tributaries. Even as Eastland voiced pride in the new system, he was quick to remind the public of the Guadalupe's deadly power. 'I'm sure there will be other drownings,' Eastland said in a 1990 interview with the Austin American-Statesman. 'People don't heed the warnings.' In the following years, the early flood warning system that Eastland advocated for – and was once considered state-of-the-art – started to suffer problems. In April 1998, the company that maintained the system 'closed its doors without notice,' and the gauge system soon stopped functioning because of lack of maintenance, the Kerrville Daily Times reported. In February 1999, the river authority shut the system down because it had become 'unreliable with some of the system's stations not reporting information,' and board members worried about 'liability concerns that the system would send 'false signals,'' according to an article in the Times. A handful of river gauges remain in service on the Guadalupe today, but the county lacks a full-scale warning system to broadcast public alerts when floodwaters rise. Kerr County officials, along with the river authority that Eastland periodically served on, worked to change that over the last decade, searching for funding for a flood warning system that included more river gauges and a network of sirens. But they found themselves struggling to overcome funding deficits and opposition from some skeptical residents. Grant applications for the system were denied by the state in 2016 and 2017, and the authority later decided not to pursue a separate grant after realizing that it would only cover five percent of the system's cost. Around the same time, Camp Mystic was embarking on an expansion project. As the number of girls attending the camp grew over the years – leading to waitlists to get in each summer – the camp built more than a dozen new cabins farther south of the Guadalupe River alongside the smaller Cypress Creek. Some of those cabins were located in an area that the federal government has determined has a 1% chance of flooding each year, which would have required officials to get special approval from the county government to build there. But the risk was even higher at some of Camp Mystic's cabins closest to the Guadalupe, several of which are located inside the river's 'regulatory floodways' – the areas that flood first and are most dangerous – according to federal flood maps. Those cabins have been around for decades, historical aerial photos show, apparently before the Federal Emergency Management Agency's first floodzone maps were developed. Dealing with preexisting structures like these inside risky floodzones is especially challenging, said Serra-Llobet, the UC Berkeley flood expert. 'When they did the construction of the recent buildings, they should have seen the FEMA maps,' Serra-Llobet said. That, she said, was a 'window of opportunity' where camp officials could have realized their decades-old dorms were in a high-hazard zone and acted to address it. Camp Mystic could have relocated the buildings to higher ground, or just turned them into structures for recreational activities and made sure that campers were sleeping in safer areas, she said. Still, Serra-Llobet argued that Kerr County should move past the 'blame game' that comes after any disaster and focus on the lessons that could be learned for protecting people from floods going forward. It's not clear whether Eastland personally grappled with the high-risk flood zone running through his own campground. But in recent years, he was part of continued efforts for an improved flood warning system for the region. Eastland returned to the river authority's board in 2022 after being appointed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. After the previous setbacks, the board this year moved forward with a proposal to create a new 'centralized dashboard' of rainfall, river depth and other data sources 'to support local flood monitoring and emergency response,' according to the county government. In April, the river authority voted to hire a firm to develop the data system and had planned to begin work this month. That was postponed after last week's disastrous flooding. After Eastland was found dead, tributes have rolled in from his colleagues, community members and former campers whose lives he touched over the decades at Camp Mystic. 'Although I am devastated, I can't say I'm surprised that you sacrificed your life with the hopes of someone else's being saved,' Eastland's grandson wrote in his Instagram post. April Ancira spent summers from the age of 8 to 14 at Camp Mystic. In an interview, she remembered Eastland helping her catch a big fish – and being just as thrilled as she was when she successfully reeled it in. 'My memories of him wrapping his arms around so many campers and being so excited to see them excel is incredible,' she said. Austin Dickson, who served on the river authority board along with Eastland and sat next to him at board meetings, remembered him as a 'pillar in our county and our community' who had championed a recent effort to create a new park along the river. 'So many people say, 'Mystic is my heaven,' or 'Mystic is a dreamland,' and I think that's true,' he said. 'That's Dick and Tweety's life's work to make that true.' CNN's Allison Gordon and Lauren Mascarenhas contributed reporting.
Newsweek
25-06-2025
- Sport
- Newsweek
Collin Morikawa Sacks Another Caddie After Only 5 Events on The Bag
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Collin Morikawa is on the verge of carrying his own bag at a PGA Tour tournament. Okay, maybe it won't come to that, but the truth is, he is having an increasingly difficult time finding a caddie. The two-time major champion went from JJ Jakovac, a seasoned caddie who had accompanied him to all of his professional victories to date, to having to entrust his bag to a former college teammate for a weekend because he fired Joe Greiner after only five tournaments. Not looking good. At all. Collin Morikawa of the United States talks to caddie Joe Greiner during a practice round prior to the 125th U.S. OPEN at Oakmont Country Club on June 09, 2025 in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. Collin Morikawa of the United States talks to caddie Joe Greiner during a practice round prior to the 125th U.S. OPEN at Oakmont Country Club on June 09, 2025 in Oakmont, justified his decision by saying that his relationship with Joe Greiner did not work out as he had hoped. "The way I put it is just because two people are great at what they do doesn't mean they're going to be great together," he said. "I think Joe is an amazing caddie, but just the way we kind of saw things, or just day to day, how we went about it, we were a little bit on a different page. That doesn't mean it's right or wrong, but for me it just didn't feel right." Morikawa's caddie at the Rocket Classic will be KK Limbhasut, a former teammate from the University of California-Berkeley. However, according to Golfweek, they made it clear that this is a one-time deal, as Limbhasut has no intention of abandoning his professional golf career. Limbhasut currently plays on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he has made five cuts in nine tournaments this season. Collin Morikawa fired JJ Jakovac in April after the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The two had worked together since the beginning of Morikawa's professional career, during which the PGA Tour star achieved six victories, including two major championships. The 28-year-old then hired Greiner, who had just finished taking care of Max Homa's bag for six years. Greiner debuted with Morikawa at the Truist Championship but lasted only five tournaments. Although Morikawa made the cut in all of these tournaments, he is clearly not happy with his results. He finished T17 at the Truist Championship, T50 at the PGA Championship, T20 at the Memorial Tournament, T23 at the U.S. Open, and T42 at the Travelers Championship. More Golf: PGA Tour pro goes straight from ambulance to 1st tee to earn $540K
