Jane Goodall's final Message

 

Here is the full interview.

Suburban pastor's pilgrimage to New York will highlight plight of immigrants

 

The Rev. Gary Graf, 67, pastor of Our Lady of the Heights in Chicago Heights, said he’s on a walk to mobilize Americans toward compassion.

By  Michael Puente | WBEZ

 

The Rev. Gary Graf will walk more than 800 miles from the south suburbs of Chicago to New York City’s Ellis Island to speak out against the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.

“What is now happening to immigrant families in the United States, and especially to children, is an assault on those fundamental values of people of all faiths. Children taken from parents, little ones weeping in fear, families torn apart again and again. We are left with the same truth. There must be a better way,” Graf said Monday morning.

“To tear families apart is to wound the very heart of God. We must announce these actions for what they are: immoral and un-American policies and enforcement actions that divide families and fracture our nation.”

Graf, 67, is the head pastor of Our Lady of the Heights in south suburban Chicago Heights and a member of the group Priests for Justice for Immigrants.

Before beginning his journey Monday morning, Graf received blessings from a few dozen supporters in front of the boyhood home of Pope Leo XIV in Dolton.

“This pilgrimage is intended to mobilize Americans from every state to demand that compassion, humanity and helping hands be restored to the immigration process. It is about families and children and about walking in faith. Step up, speak out,” Graf said.

Graf’s walk comes as the Trump administration launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in September, rounding up undocumented immigrants and others across the Chicago area and detaining them. Two people have been shot in the operations, one fatally. The immigration operations have sparked many protests.

On Sunday, Gov. JB Pritzker said he was told that troops from Texas would be sent to Illinois, Oregon and other locations. He received word Saturday that 300 troops from Illinois were being mobilized. 

Graf said there’s a reason he’s starting at the home where Pope Leo grew up. He wants to highlight the plight of immigrants. Graf’s great-grandparents came from Ireland and Germany decades ago.

“This country, from Pope Leo’s childhood home right here to Ellis Island in New York, reminds us that immigrants and their families built our nation. They deserve not bullets, night sticks and tear gas, but rather compassion, dignity and respect,” Graf said. “We are speaking the truth because it is not being told.”

Graf said he does not use the phrase “illegal immigrant” to describe folks who come to the United States without the proper documentation.

“Twelve years ago I had the opportunity to cross over from Nogales, Arizona, to Nogales [Mexico] and came into this country illegally without permission. I jumped the fence, and I turned myself into the sheriff in Nogales, Arizona,” Graf said. “I said to the sheriff, I did this to make a statement that an illegal act does not make someone illegal. If that were the case, how many of us who have at any time in our lives offended or violated or broken the law in this nation of laws would be in the same net now and be sent away?”

Graf said he wonders if the country still welcomes immigrants.

“This is the message that we carry to Lady Liberty: the truth that all immigrants are not strangers, but rather our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, and America must welcome people of good will and embrace them and give them a way forward,” Graf said.

Graf’s journey will be documented on social media, including Facebook and TikTok. He said he will be raising funds to be donated to needy immigrant families.

Patricia Martinez, 33, is a member of Graf’s congregation.

“It’s an amazing thing that he’s doing. I mean, I don’t know anybody better for this but Father Gary. He’s an inspiration to all young people and everybody in our community. We are truly blessed to have him in our community,” Martinez said.

Graf said he hopes to reach Ellis Island by Dec. 1, but he will need to walk up to 20 miles per day.

The Rev. Larry Dowling is with the group Priests for Justice for Immigrants. He said Graf will end his walk by holding a church service with people of various religious faiths.

“This journey is not just a journey of Catholics, but it’s a journey of all Christians, of all faiths,” Dowling said. “The culmination of Gary’s walk will be at Ellis Island, where there will be an interfaith service that we will celebrate and raise up awareness of all of this that is happening to our children and to these families in our society.”

Michael Puente is a reporter and weekend anchor for WBEZ.

Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” Discusses What Might Lie Ahead With Ai - Scary -Great Interview with Jon Stewart

 Geoffrey Everest Hinton is a British-Canadian computer scientist, cognitive scientist, and cognitive psychologist known for his work on artificial neural networks, which earned him the title "the Godfather of AI". Hinton is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto.

 Nobel Prize in Physics - 2024

Food Insecurity Linked to Higher Risk of Death After Cancer Diagnosis

 

From CURE Magazine - October 2025

"Food insecurity is linked to a 28% higher risk of death among cancer survivors, according to a new study published in JAMA Health Forum. The research also showed that individuals who do not receive food assistance had even greater mortality risks, highlighting nutrition as a critical factor in survivorship outcomes.

The research evaluated 5,603 cancer survivors, of which, 10.3% reported having experienced food insecurity, which was linked to a 28% higher risk of all-cause mortality. This association was strongest among individuals not receiving food assistance. Notably, food insecurity did not significantly impact mortality for lower-income individuals or those enrolled in food assistance programs, suggesting these support systems may offer benefits.

Dr. John Lin, first study author, sat down for an interview with CURE to discuss his research further, in which he emphasized that, "Food security — meaning reliable access to nutritious food — is critical for cancer survivors because the body needs fuel to recover from cancer and cancer treatment."

In the interview, Lin underscores the urgent need to integrate food security screening and support into cancer care. Lin is a research fellow in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, where he studies value of novel and high-cost oncology therapies and evaluates the impact of payment policies on patients who have cancer.

CURE: Many people may not connect food access with cancer outcomes. Can you help explain why nutrition and food security are so important for cancer survivors, even after treatment ends?

Lin: Food security — meaning reliable access to nutritious food — is critical for cancer survivors because the body needs fuel to recover from cancer and cancer treatment. Having sufficient nutrition is important for immune function, energy levels, and healing, but cancer survivors who are food insecure may struggle to consume the nutrient-rich foods that support healing.

Your study showed that cancer survivors experiencing food insecurity had a significantly higher risk of death. What might be some of the reasons behind this connection?

Cancer survivors include anyone living with a cancer diagnosis, including people undergoing active treatment. Poor nutrition can worsen the body’s ability to heal and increasing vulnerability to other illnesses. Additionally, individuals who are food insecure may delay or forgo follow-up care, medication, or screening because of competing financial demands.

For patients who may be struggling to afford nutritious food, what signs should they look out for, and how can they talk to their care team about getting help?

We should be worried when people start skipping meals, losing weight unintentionally, feeling fatigued, or become anxious about running out of food. These are all incredibly important concerns to bring up. I encourage patients to be open with their care team — they can start by saying something like “I’m not eating as well as I’d like to because of how much my groceries cost.” Many cancer treatment teams have social workers, nutritionists, and case managers who can help connect patients to food assistance programs or food pantries.

What kinds of programs or support systems would you like to see become more common in cancer care?

I would love to see more screening for food insecurity as a routine part of cancer care and clinical care more broadly. We know there are millions of Americans who are food insecure and could qualify for a food assistance program but don't know it. There was also a major clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering that found that providing access to food vouchers and pantries helped food insecure patients complete their treatment. Embedding food pantries in oncology clinics and forming partnerships between cancer centers and food banks can help meet patients where they are.

What steps can survivors, caregivers, or even community members take to advocate for better access to food assistance for people facing cancer?

Survivors and caregivers can start by sharing their stories. Lived experience is so powerful. There are so many advocacy organizations that push to address food insecurity in healthcare settings. On a more systemic level, we can all support local food banks, write to lawmakers about funding for food assistance programs, and help build awareness that nutrition is not optional in cancer care."

Thank you, Jane Goodall

 

NY Times Obit 2 October 2025

"Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most revered conservationists, who earned scientific stature and global celebrity by chronicling the distinctive behavior of wild chimpanzees in East Africa — primates that made and used tools, ate meat, held rain dances and engaged in organized warfare — died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 91.

Her death, while on a speaking tour, was confirmed by the Jane Goodall Institute, whose U.S. headquarters are in Washington, D.C. When not traveling widely, she lived in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, in her childhood home.

Dr. Goodall with one of her research subjects at the Gombe reserve in the 1970s.Credit...

Dr. Goodall was 29 in the summer of 1963 when National Geographic magazine published her 7,500-word, 37-page account of the lives of primates she had observed in the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in what is now Tanzania. The National Geographic Society had been financially supporting her field studies there.

The article, with photographs by Hugo van Lawick, a Dutch wildlife photographer whom she later married, also described Dr. Goodall’s struggles to overcome disease, predators and frustration as she tried to get close to the chimps, working from a primitive research station along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika.

On the scientific merits alone, her discoveries about how wild chimpanzees raised their young, established leadership, socialized and communicated broke new ground and attracted immense attention and respect among researchers. Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary biologist and science historian, said her work with chimpanzees “represents one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.”

On learning of Dr. Goodall’s documented evidence that humans were not the only creatures capable of making and using tools, Louis Leakey, the paleoanthropologist and Dr. Goodall’s mentor, famously remarked, “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

Long before focus groups, message discipline and communications plans became crucial tools in advancing high-profile careers and alerting the world to significant discoveries in and outside of science, Dr. Goodall understood the benefits of being the principal narrator and star of her own story of discovery.

In articles and books, her lucid prose carried vivid descriptions, some lighthearted, of the numerous perils she encountered in the African rainforest — malaria, leopards, crocodiles, spitting cobras and deadly giant centipedes, to name a few. Her writing gained its widest attention in three more long articles in National Geographic in the 1960s and ’70s and in three well-received books, “My Friends, the Wild Chimpanzees” (1967), “In the Shadow of Man” (1971) and “Through a Window” (1990).

Dr. Goodall’s willingness to challenge scientific convention and shape the details of her research into a riveting adventure narrative about two primary subjects — the chimps and herself — turned her into a household name, in no small part thanks to the power of television.

Dr. Goodall’s gentle, knowledgeable demeanor and telegenic presence — set against the beautiful yet dangerous Gombe preserve and its playful and unpredictable primates — proved irresistible to the broadcast networks. In December 1965, CBS News aired a documentary of her work in prime time, the first in a long string of nationally and internationally televised special reports about the chimpanzees of Gombe and the courageous woman steadfastly chronicling what she called their “rich emotional life.”

Dr. Goodall, Mr. van Lawick and their son, Hugo Eric Louis van Lawick, in the ABC special “Jane Goodall and the World of Animal Behavior: The Lions of the Serengeti.”Credit...ABC, 

In becoming one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, Dr. Goodall also opened the door for more women in her largely male field as well as across all of science. Women, including Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas, Cheryl Knott and Penny Patterson, came to dominate the field of primate behavior research.

Most of Dr. Goodall’s observations focused on several generations of a troop of 30 to 40 chimpanzees, the species genetically closest to humans. She named some of them — Flo, Fifi, David Greybeard — and grew to know each of them personally. She was particularly interested in their courtship, mating rituals, births and parenting.

Dr. Goodall was the first scientist to explain to the world that chimpanzee mothers are capable of giving birth only once every four and a half to six years, and that only one or two babies were produced each year by the Gombe Stream troop. She found that first-time mothers generally hid their babies from the adult males, prompting frantic displays by the males — leaping and hooting that could last five minutes. An experienced mother, however, she discovered, freely allowed males and other females to view her infant, satisfying their curiosity, in a far calmer introduction.

In her many articles, books and documentaries, Dr. Goodall explored similar signal moments in her own life. In March 1964, after a nearly yearlong courtship, she married Mr. van Lawick. Three years later, she gave birth to Hugo Eric Louis van Lawick, her only child, whom she nicknamed Grub.

But even there she drew connections to her work in the field. She explained that her parenting philosophy and strategy were based on skills and values that she had learned from the chimpanzees, particularly the sure-handed matriarch of the troop, whom she named Flo. Nevertheless, she kept Grub in a protective cage while she was in the forest with him: She feared that he might be killed and eaten by the chimps.

Dr. Goodall’s ability to weave scientific observation with the story of her own life produced a powerful drama filled with characters of all ages, sexes and species. She once told a scientific meeting that her work would have had far less resonance scientifically or emotionally if she had just referred to the proud and confident chimp known as David Greybeard by a number, as was the usual practice.

In the 1970s, Dr. Goodall began to spend less time observing chimpanzees and far more time seeking to protect them and their disappearing habitat. She made known her opposition to capturing wild chimpanzees for display in zoos or for medical research. And she traveled the world, drawing large audiences with a message of hope and confidence that the world would recognize the importance of preserving its natural resources.

The 1970s were also a period of upheaval in her personal life. In 1974, she divorced Mr. van Lawick and soon afterward married Derek Bryceson, the director of national parks in Tanzania. He died of cancer in 1980, a time she later said was perhaps the most difficult of her life.

She established the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977. It evolved into one of the world’s largest nonprofit global research and conservation organizations, with offices in the United States and 24 other nations. Its Roots and Shoots program, launched in 1991, teaches young people about conservation in 75 countries.

In honor of her work, Tanzania in 1978 designated the Gombe Stream Reserve a national park. Dr. Goodall’s institute maintains a research station there that attracts students and scientists from around the world. In 2002, the United Nations named Dr. Goodall a Messenger of Peace, the U.N.’s highest honor for global citizenship.

Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in London on April 4, 1934, and grew up in Bournemouth as the older of two girls of Margaret Myfanwe (Joseph) Goodall, who was known as Vanne, and Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall.

Her mother was an author and novelist who wrote under the name Vanne Morris-Goodall. Her father was an engineer who raced cars for a time. The couple divorced after World War II. Vanne Goodall accompanied her daughter to the Gombe reserve at the start of Dr. Goodall’s famous study in 1960 and was a leading character in much of her daughter’s writing.

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Dr. Goodall was a child when her father gave her a stuffed monkey doll that she named Jubilee. Credit...Jane Goodall Institute

As a little girl, Jane adored Tarzan’s Jane, Dr. Doolittle and a little stuffed monkey doll, a gift from her father that she named Jubilee. Indeed, in her public appearances, Dr. Goodall almost always described her scientific findings and her international renown as a fortunate convergence of her childhood love of animals and Africa with her inquisitive and adventurous nature.

In 1956, after finishing a course in secretarial school and taking several jobs in London, she received a letter from a friend whose family owned a farm near Nairobi, Kenya. The friend invited her to join her.

Dr. Goodall jumped at the opportunity. Booking passage on a freighter to Africa, she arrived in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, on her 23rd birthday. She was soon introduced to other expatriate Englishmen and women in Nairobi as well as to Dr. Leakey, at the time a prominent but not yet internationally renowned archaeologist.

Seven weeks after her arrival, she began work as Dr. Leakey’s secretary and assistant. Dr. Goodall accompanied him that summer to the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, a three-day trip over trackless wilderness, where he was in the early phases of excavating early human remains. He often talked about his interest in stationing a researcher on Lake Tanganyika to study a troop of wild chimpanzees that lived there.

“He was squatting beside the red earth mound of a termite nest, and as I watched I saw him carefully push a long grass stem down into a hole in the mound,” she wrote. “After a moment he withdrew it and picked something from the end of it with his mouth. It was obvious that he was actually using a grass stem as a tool.”

Recognizing the contributions she was making to science, the University of Cambridge accepted her into its doctoral program in 1961 without an undergraduate degree. She was awarded her doctorate in 1965.

Dr. Goodall wrote 32 books, 15 of them for children. In her last book, “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times” (2021, with Douglas Abrams and Gail Hudson), she wrote of her optimism about the future of humankind.

It was a message she continued to spread in her frequent public speaking engagements around the world, traveling some 300 days a year into her last decades, according to her institute. When she died on Wednesday, she had been scheduled to speak to students in Pasadena, Calif., and to participate in a tree-planting ceremony in an area that had been ravaged by wildfires.

Her many awards include the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, presented in 1995, and the Templeton Prize, given in 2021. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II named her a dame of the British Empire. In January, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

She is survived by her son; her sister, Judy Waters; and three grandchildren.

In July 2022, Mattel released a Jane Goodall doll as part of its Barbie-branded Inspiring Women series. The doll, with blond hair and dressed in a tan field shirt and shorts, is made of recycled plastic. It honored the 62nd anniversary of Dr. Goodall’s first visit to the Gombe reserve.

“Since young girls began reading about my early life and my career with the chimps, many, many, many of them have told me that they went into conservation or animal behavior because of me,” Ms. Goodall once said in a CBS News interview. “I sincerely hope that it will help to create more interest and fascination in the natural world.”

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