Sceptical theism is commonly deployed as a response to evidential arguments from evil by challenging our entitlement to infer, from the evils we observe, what God would or would not be likely to permit. Standard fine-tuning arguments, however, appear to require precisely the sort of expectation-guided reasoning that sceptical theism places under pressure: namely, the claim that a life-permitting universe is not too improbable given theism. Recent discussion has sharpened this tension: Donahue argues that sceptical-theist considerations undercut standard fine-tuning arguments, while Boyce argues that sceptical theists can nevertheless endorse a suitably revised version. I argue that Boyce’s proposal is philosophically important but dialectically costly. Boyce does not replace generic theism with a more specific hypothesis; rather, he keeps generic theism as the target hypothesis while allowing historically mediated background information, D, to generate the relevant theistic expectations. My objection is that once D is admitted for that positive purpose, it cannot be quarantined from adverse evidential assessment. The result is not merely that the problem of evil is formally reopened. Rather, enriched versions of evil, suffering, and divine hiddenness become serious enough to require independent theistic response. Boyce’s strategy therefore preserves coherence only by narrowing sceptical theism’s traditional broad anti-evil role.

The Abortion Counseling Service, a U.S. feminist organization better known as Jane, provided safe, affordable abortions to 12,000 women in Chicago during the pre-Roe era (1969–1973). Remarkably, beginning in 1970, its members, women and non-medical professionals, clandestinely performed the abortions themselves. Yet the group’s distinctive practice of political dissidence has not been carefully theorized. The article argues that Jane’s efforts were exemplary of anarchic direct action and feminist mutual aid. Their approach involved action that was “direct” in the specific sense of being unmediated and reflexive in character. Jane also enacted key mutual aid principles in their attempts to construct a community of care governed by relations of solidarity rather than charity. This account of how Jane “took” the right to abortion opens up a way of thinking about feminist organizing for reproductive justice that focuses on meeting immediate needs rather than seeking legislative change.

Gender data gaps in the United Kingdom are political choices that reflect deeper assumptions about whose labour, lives, and experiences are deemed worth measuring. This paper examines the strengths and limitations of the UK census for bridging these gaps, drawing on feminist participatory action research with 170 participants across 12 workshops in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Participants comprised representatives from local government, women’s and non-profit organisations, academia, and unaffiliated individuals with varying statistical skills. Through co-produced inquiry, participants identified critical gender data gaps and questioned the political and epistemological assumptions embedded in census design. We find that while the UK census provide comprehensive disaggregated multivariate data at the local level, they systematically omit critical dimensions of gendered life, including income, unpaid childcare, and occupational segregation. Drawing on Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice, we argue that these omissions are not incidental but structural: the census lacks the conceptual framework to recognise them as dimensions worth counting. Realising the census’s potential for feminist analysis, therefore, requires deliberate reshaping of data systems and practices.Crucially, we demonstrate that involving those affected by gender data gaps as co-analysts, rather than consultation subjects, surfaces blind spots and analytical priorities that academic or statistical institutions are unlikely to identify from within, making the case for embedding participatory mechanisms in how official statistics are designed, produced, and used. The paper concludes with four user-informed recommendations for census reform and the wider reimagining of UK gender data systems.

Despite the fact that traditional mediation is one of the main dispute resolution mechanisms in Malawi, the country’s formal legal and institutional frameworks pay little attention to its place in enhancing access to justice. This article analyses the extent to which Malawi’s traditional mediation law, practice and institutions promote access to justice. It relies on African mediation theory to argue that the reason why traditional mediation continues to be a favoured dispute resolution mechanism is because of its communitarian nature in its quest to restore harmony in society.

Comparing the redshifts of fast radio burst (FRB) host galaxies to FRB dispersion measures has unlocked a new probe of the cosmological distribution of ionised gas. However, the necessary optical observations to identify FRB hosts and measure their redshifts are becoming increasingly onerous. Here, we analyse the ability of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), being conducted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, to identify FRB host galaxies, and the utility of LSST photometric redshifts for FRB cosmology. By combining a model of FRB host galaxy r-band magnitudes, $m_r$, with predictions for the FRB z–DM distribution, we create a method to predict the $m_r(z)$ distribution for the host galaxies of FRBs detected by radio surveys. We then predict these distributions for the coherent modes of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and MeerKAT. We find that even a single visit with Rubin will be able to identify 65% of FRB host galaxies detected by ASKAP’s coherent upgrade, ‘CRACO’; while the final 10 year co-added images will identify 81% of those from MeerKAT’s tied array beams. We find that estimated photo-z errors result in a decreased precision of only 7% on $H_0$ for ASKAP’s CRACO system. The impact of missing faint FRB hosts, however, will degrade sensitivity to $H_0$ by 47% or 62% when combined with photo-z errors. All told, Rubin’s LSST will be an incredibly powerful survey for facilitating FRB cosmology, although supplemental observations may be useful for particularly faint and distant host galaxies.

Feminist theorists have critiqued the twenty-first-century turn towards self-care as neoliberal, arguing that personal wellness masks the welfare state’s destruction. I clarify an ambiguity in the argument against self-care’s purported neoliberalism, distinguishing three strands of critique: that self-care is too individual, that self-care is too commercial, and that self-care involves a shift in who is responsible for the reproduction of subjects, from the state to the individual. It is in the Foucauldian critique of self-care as responsibilizing that arguments against self-care’s purported neoliberalism are sharpest. Yet, care for the self is more ambivalent than these arguments admit. Self-care has remained important to Black feminists, feminist scholars of disability, and decolonial feminists, including many explicitly critical of neoliberalism. Attending to the particular contexts from which calls for self-care emerge demonstrate how self-care is compatible with a critique of neoliberalism and can serve as a critique of neoliberalism itself. Neoliberalism is borne disproportionately by Black women, disabled people, and the Indigenous. Members of these groups have historical reasons to distrust the state’s claim to care. They have also been tasked with caring for others instead of for themselves. Finally, care for the self can articulate a refusal of optimization that neoliberalism demands.

Phase-space electron holes, recognised as fundamental nonlinear electrostatic structures in space plasmas, have recently been detected near the mantle boundary of the Venusian magnetosheath by both the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO). To understand their origin and characteristics, we develop a hydrodynamic model coupled with reductive perturbation theory that incorporates a small population of non-isothermal trapped electrons together with the dynamical effects of solar-wind ions and electrons. This formulation yields a generalised Schamel–Korteweg de Vries equation supporting two distinct classes of nonlinear electrostatic modes: solitary waves and double layers. Using parameter ranges constrained by in situ measurements – including relative densities, drift velocities and temperature ratios – we conduct a detailed parametric investigation of both structures. For the solitary-wave solutions, the model predicts electric field amplitudes of ${\sim} 20$ mV m–1, temporal scales of ${\sim} (2.5{-}4.5)\,$ms and characteristic frequencies of ${\sim} (0.31{-}5.6)$ kHz. The double-layer solutions exhibit fields of ${\sim} 18$ mV m–1, durations of ${\sim} 4.5\,$ms and frequencies of ${\sim} (0.63{-}1.6)$ kHz. These results are in strong agreement with PSP and PVO observations, which report electrostatic fluctuations near 5.4 kHz with amplitudes of ${\sim} 20$ mV m–1. The present analysis therefore provides a consistent physical interpretation of electron-hole structures in the Venusian magnetosheath and highlights their role in mediating kinetic processes at unmagnetised planetary boundaries.

Excavations in the city center of the ancient city of Doliche in southeast Türkiye have brought to light the remains of a monumental apsidal building. Although the structure is poorly preserved due to looting and spoliation, the results of three seasons of excavation allow for an initial analysis and preliminary reconstruction. This article presents the building for the first time and discusses its importance in improving our understanding of monumental urban architecture in the region. The building is interpreted as a temple, and the article explores its potential links with apsidal temples in southern Syria and the Roman imperial cult.

Strategic autonomy has become a central objective of EU external economic policy, with de-risking serving as a key instrument through which the EU seeks to assert this autonomy by mitigating vulnerabilities amid intensifying trade wars. China has long been viewed as supportive of EU strategic autonomy, yet whether such support extends to the EU’s de-risking agenda remains unclear. Drawing on role theory and perceptual approaches, this article introduces an analytical framework to assess perception gaps between an actor’s self-image and external perceptions and applies it to examine the EU’s role projections and altercasting of China in the context of de-risking, as well as their validation by Chinese perceptions. It shows that, on the one hand, the EU uses de-risking to project itself as an autonomous actor vis-à-vis the United States, a defusing force in Sino–American competition, and a norm broker in economic governance, while implicitly altercasting China as an equal, normatively aligned, and responsible partner expected to act constructively in trade-war dynamics. On the other hand, Chinese perspectives contest these role claims and altercasted images, framing de-risking as a US-led containment strategy, rejecting its stabilising function, and denying its normative legitimacy – revealing clear limits to China’s support for EU strategic autonomy.

Hallyu, or the “Korean Wave,” has evolved from a regional phenomenon into a global force shaping media, consumption, and international perceptions of South Korea. As Korean cultural products circulate worldwide, they operate as instruments of soft power while being reinterpreted through local histories of race, gender, class, and nation. Moving beyond media and cultural studies approaches, this special issue foregrounds language and semiotics as central to processes of circulation, advancing a sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological perspective on how Korean popular culture is localized, resemiotized, and negotiated across transnational digital networks. The contributions examine how mediatized discourse and diverse engagements with Korean genres shape the global circulation of Korean popular culture across linguistic, cultural, and ideological boundaries. Rather than treating hallyu as a homogenous export, the issue conceptualizes it as an ongoing set of projects in which various actors negotiate authenticity, modernity, and belonging, underscoring how language mediates global cultural flows.

Polarimetric observations at sub-GHz frequencies offer unique access to the magnetised universe through Faraday rotation and depolarization studies, but achieving reliable polarization calibration at these frequencies remains challenging. We report the identification and resolution of a systematic polarization calibration instability in the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) Band 4 (550–750 MHz). Through diagnostic observations of multiple calibrators, we discovered that the cross-hand phase response varies with the fractional polarization of the observed source, violating the fundamental assumption of calibration transferability in radio interferometry. Systematic engineering tests traced this behaviour to the quadrature hybrid (QH) polariser in the frontend signal chain. We conducted a controlled experiment in which the QH was bypassed in seven antennas, converting them to linear polarization feeds. The bypassed system shows dramatically improved performance: instrumental leakage reduced from 10–15% to 2–5%, residual leakage after calibration reduced from $\sim$0.5% to less than $0.2\%$, and stable cross-hand phases independent of source polarization. For the polarised source DA 240 (RM $=$ 3.3 rad m$^{-2}$), the QH-bypassed system accurately recovers the expected $25^\circ$ polarization angle rotation across the band, which the with QH system fails to reproduce. These results establish that the QH polariser is the dominant source of polarimetric instability in uGMRT Band 4 and demonstrate that its removal enables reliable sub-GHz polarimetry. We recommend the linear feed configuration for science cases requiring accurate polarization angle and rotation measure measurements.

International actors working to implement the UN’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda emphasize the importance of partnership with local women’s organizations and activists. Building on data from Myanmar, this study examines how and when women in conflict contexts are understood as ideal participants in – and vehicles for – the WPS agenda. Drawing on interviews with international donors, gender experts, and Myanmar women activists, the analysis demonstrates how both desirable and undesirable participant subject positions are produced through the discourses and funding choices of WPS donors. In particular, we identify and discuss three undesirable subject positions prominent in donor-driven discourses: the oppositional woman, the fearful woman, and the apolitical woman. We also find that how (un)desirability is framed depends on changing factors that include shifts in local political context and in the foreign policy goals of international donors – shifts that may be particularly dramatic and abrupt in conflict-affected contexts. Critically examining the production of these three undesirable subject positions, we discuss what kinds of local women can be recognized as desirable participants in the implementation of the WPS agenda and draw attention to persistent power relations that shape political space and inclusion in peacebuilding.

Family businesses play an important role in philanthropic responses to disasters due to their distinctive combination of business, family, and community logics. Drawing on an institutional logics perspective and based on interviews with family business owners, we assess how three key logic features—collective identities, resources, and governing practices—affect the philanthropic responses of family businesses following the Beirut port explosion in 2020. The findings demonstrate the importance of non-financial contributions and reveal the inventiveness of family businesses in mobilizing a variety of assets distinctive to their business. This creativity, coupled with their knowledge of and embeddedness in community, resolves the paradox of how family businesses can respond so effectively to disasters with seemingly limited financial resources. Socioemotional wealth serves as a building block in the creation of civic wealth and is a key factor in explaining the enduring engagement of family businesses in later stages of disaster response. While family businesses pay significant attention to integrating institutional logics in their governance of disaster philanthropy, they often struggle with striking an appropriate balance between a personal, family-held approach and a more professionalized one. Practical implications for family businesses in Lebanon point to the challenges of resilience of philanthropic efforts in the context of a weak state and recurring crises.

Decentralization sought to bring effective, people-centric local governance to post-colonial societies that were predominantly centrally planned. Tamil Nadu has been an emblem of effective decentralization, ranking in the top three of India’s Panchayat Devolution Index 2024–2025. It thus stands to reason that the state would be useful in telling us the story of how decentralization could manifest in the global South. However, bringing the CAGE (cultural, administrative, geographic, economic) framework into dialogue with interviews conducted with farmers in Tamil Nadu reveals that decentralization has not bridged the gap between governments and farmers and has instead created distance between them. The paper contributes to the rich corpus of scholarship on policy studies by examining the Tamil Nadu example and its implementation of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (national micro-irrigation policy) as a case study of agricultural decentralization in the Global South. It draws on fieldwork over three years in the districts of Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, and Tiruvallur in Tamil Nadu.