Law and society scholars have examined how nonlegal actors, or “legal intermediaries,” construct the meaning of compliance as they translate law into organizational practice and policy. This article applies the legal intermediaries framework to analyze how higher education professionals navigate federal and state immigration law to mitigate the impact of illegality on undocumented students at the institutional level. We find that staff work within the underdefined, flexible, and often complex dimensions of immigration law by developing “creative solutions,” or university-specific policies and practices that interpret and apply existing legal frameworks in ways that broaden access to opportunities for undocumented students. Staff proceed through four steps within this process: developing an understanding of one’s legal and professional context, implementing and troubleshooting solutions, raising awareness and mobilizing support across and beyond the institution, and institutionalizing workarounds. In the process, staff shape broader understandings and organizational treatment of (il)legality at their respective institutions. Through this analysis, we extend the literature on legal intermediaries to the immigration context. We also refine the processes involved in the organizational intermediation of compliance and identify the set of contextual factors that may facilitate or hinder the creative solutions process within and beyond higher education.

The article examines the Slovenization of public space in the Habsburg crownland of Gorizia and Gradisca from the late nineteenth century to the outbreak of the First World War. As in other ethnically mixed regions of the empire, public space became a contested arena shaped by the rise of nationalism, with competing national groups seeking to inscribe their ideologies onto the urban landscape. The Slovene national movement aimed to assert its identity and political aspirations through symbolic spatial interventions. However, owing to the specific circumstances of the Slovene community in the region—characterized by a predominantly rural population and internal divisions between liberal and conservative currents—Slovene spatial politics exhibited distinctive features compared to other nationally driven spatial strategies. The article traces the gradual assertion of a Slovene presence in local public space, from the first nationally inspired monument erected in 1898 to the construction of the national hall in the center of the provincial capital, Gorizia.

Ruination studies allow one to see the past not as a fixed “thing” but as living landscapes. Over the past two decades, Mesoamerican scholars have increasingly recognized that ruins were an integral part of ancient Mesoamerican peoples’ experiences in and with the world and not just a modern invention of cultural heritage. Any understanding of ancient Maya ruins must consider the Indigenous ontologies, cosmologies, and myths of peoples of that region. Indigenous approaches highlight the affective and dynamic nature of ruins, perspectives that can be put in conversation with metaphysical or posthumanist ideas more generally. One particularity of ruins in the Maya area is that they often were, and in many cases still are, entangled with forest beings that are both feared and revered. This article reviews some of the ways in which ancient Maya peoples lived with ruins, drawing a number of case examples from the Maya site of Ucanal in Petén, Guatemala, and then contextualizes these findings with the darker side of ruins. This darker side of ruins was part of the making of moral communities that were—and are—in a constant state of motion.

Using data on interbank relationships and note holdings in Pennsylvania, I estimate the probability that a bank will redeem the notes of other banks by the distance separating them. If two banks were separated by 50 miles, there was a 40 percent probability that a bank would hold the notes of another at a given time. At 200 miles, the estimated probability is virtually zero. My analysis of notes discounted by a small-town, Connecticut banknote broker reveals that distant notes were offered by travelers and traders who moved along the era’s principal waterways.

The author presents a commentary on the trilogy of papers by Damien Morris entitled ‘Behavioral Genetics and Human Agency: How Selectively Deterministic Theories of Free Will Drive Unwarranted Opposition to Behavioral Genetic Research and Undermine Our Moral and Legal Conventions’, published recently in this journal [PMID 40457806, 40963213, 41107251]. In addition to commenting on this specific set of papers, the author offers a broader perspective and defense of the field of behavioral genetics.

By 2022, 96% of U.S. acute care hospitals reported having water management programs (WMPs). Hospitals with more ICU beds and greater infection prevention expertise were more likely to conduct water infection control risk assessments (WICRAs). Smaller, rural hospitals showed lower adoption of both WMPs and WICRAs, suggesting resource-based disparities in WMP implementation.

Chinese orchestras have been active in Toronto since 1969, yet have been seldom documented. Even scarcer are studies of how Chinese-Canadian diasporic musicians navigate the musical and cultural spaces within their orchestras. Incorporating my personal experiences as a performer, this article offers an auto-ethnographic analysis of internal negotiations within two Toronto-based Chinese orchestras. Expressing identities and self-positioning through choices relating to musical notation, competence, membership, and social interaction, orchestra members negotiate, compromise, and cooperate in meeting the challenges they encounter in the orchestras. Detailed participant-observer analysis shows how Toronto Chinese orchestras serve as microcosms of social and cultural practices in diasporic communities.

Vegetable rennet (VR) has a long history in Mediterranean cheese-making, and in response to the growing demand for vegetarian-friendly cheeses, enzymes extracted from the thistle Cynara humilis have become a promising substitute for calf rennet. This study investigated consumer acceptance and willingness to pay (WTP) for artisanal cheeses produced with thistle rennet in three Mediterranean countries: Italy, Spain and Tunisia. Sensory evaluations focused on feta cheese in all three countries, while queso de Murcia al vino was additionally tested in Italy and Spain. The research was conducted in three stages. First, focus groups explored consumers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards thistle rennet. Second, hedonic tests were carried out under three conditions: blind liking (tasting without information), expected liking (only information, no tasting) and actual liking (tasting with information). Finally, an experimental auction was conducted for feta cheese to assess consumers’ WTP. In general, consumers showed positive perceptions of thistle-curdled cheeses, despite some cross-country differences. Both intrinsic factors (e.g., taste and fat content) and extrinsic cues (e.g., information, price and origin) influenced acceptance. Overall, results highlight the potential of VR for traditional cheeses, with specific emphasis on targeted marketing strategies and transparent labelling to support their adoption as high-value artisanal products.

An ideological divide between commodification and wildlife protection continues to undermine efficient and effective conservation in Southern Africa. This Perspective challenges the ‘either–or’ debate, arguing that it creates a governance impasse that is detrimental to the region. Drawing on the Madikwe elephant crisis and the UK’s trophy ban proposal, this analysis traces the roots of this tension to colonial doctrines and current conflicts in international environmental law. Revenue-driven conservation becomes ecologically precarious when financial incentives misalign with biodiversity goals. Conversely, externally imposed protectionist mandates, often rooted in Western ethical sensibilities, systematically undermine community-based conservation by severing vital funding and disregarding local realities. The resolution lies in championing adaptive, hybrid governance models, as exemplified by Namibia’s communal conservancies. Multilateral frameworks, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), must shift towards performance-based, differentiated regulation. Further recommendations include robust sustainable-use certification to bridge consumer and range-state interests, as well as strengthened community tenure and benefit-sharing. Ultimately, conservation success hinges on integrating economic viability, ecological integrity and social equity, reconciling global policy with local realities.