A look at the geography of Ukraine and what the country was like prior to the Russian invasion. Hopefully things will return to a semblance of normalcy in as short of time as possible.

Teacher Appreciation Week is celebrated in the first full week of May, from May 1 through May 8 in 2022, and is when teachers get the extra credit they deserve. The big day is Teacher Appreciation Day on May 5, but teachers are just so great that they get a whole week to savor our appreciation. Whether you have a teacher, know a teacher, or are a teacher, there are endless ways to give a little extra support to teachers and teachers organizations. Teaching is known to be a time-consuming and challenging profession, so this week is our chance to say thank you to those that play or have played such a huge role in our lives. Who doesn’t have a fond memory of a teacher who inspired us in some way?

Teaching is one of the oldest professions – in 561BC, the first private teacher in history was one of the most learned men of all time, Confucius. In Ancient Greece, there was huge value placed on educating children, and in the 1600s the Pilgrims also placed a similar emphasis on the practice.

By the 19th century, politicians began to believe that education was needed for political order, and elementary through college education was widespread and public, and the need for teachers has been growing ever since!

Secretary — Secretary Cardona, thank you. And — and I want to thank Jill. Jill is the nation’s first First Lady to work full time as a professor — as a teacher. She taught high school and she teaches at a community college for a long time now.

We made a deal that — she was so — teaching is not what Jill does, it’s who she is, like most of you — who you are, what you believe. And so when we got elected — the presidency and as Vice President, as well — I suggested and she agreed fully that she should continue to teach. And people said, “What?” (Laughter.)

Well, she teaches 14 credits a semester at community college full time, and she does her job.

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. Her latest article, "There Is No Liberal World Order," argues that unless democracies defend themselves together, the forces of autocracy will destroy them. She joins Michel Martin to discuss this existential struggle.

hen Facebook removed dozens of groups dedicated to Canada’s anti-government “Freedom Convoy” protests earlier this month, it didn’t do so because of extremism or conspiracies rife within the protests. It was because the groups were being run by scam artists.

Networks of spammers and profiteers, some based as far afield as Vietnam or Romania, had set up the groups using fake or hacked Facebook accounts in an attempt to make money off of the political turmoil.

That foreign networks of social media scammers had seized on a divisive political issue may feel like somewhat of a throwback. Before investigations into Russian troll factories’ operations during the US presidential election and culture war conflicts over content moderation, one of the biggest challenges facing social media platforms was profiteers pushing fake news articles and spam for easy money. Hundreds of websites mimicking US news outlets pushed their content on social media, reaping ad revenue from the traffic they generated.
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Disinformation for profit

It is hard to know the exact scale of the for-profit misinformation industry, researchers say, since it functions as part of an underground economy and comes in various forms. In addition to content mills and ad revenue schemes, there are also private firms across the globe that are hired to create fake engagement or push political propaganda. In 2021 alone, Facebook said it removed 52 coordinated influence networks across 32 countries that attempted to direct or corrupt the public debate for strategic goals, according to a company report on inauthentic behavior.

You probably remember being taught about the cell in your high school biology class—learning the cell structure, labeling the membrane, the nucleus, and the cytoplasm.

But it turns out, what we’ve learned from our biology textbooks is likely an oversimplification, and biologists at research organizations like the Allen Institute for Cell Science are working to take a more integrated and holistic view to better understand the cell and all its complexities.

We are in a new era of cell biology. For centuries, microscopes have illuminated previously invisible worlds, and the recent advancements in microscopy are no different. Breakthrough laser microscopes are not only allowing biologists to image a cell in three dimensions, but also providing the opportunity to reveal hidden patterns inside of living cells.

Find out more about this new microscopy technology capturing cells like never before and what this could mean for the next decade of cell biology on this episode of Focal Point.