Safer Nuke Shipments | Blackouts to Prevent Wildfires | Digital Sleuths & Fake News, and more

This reveals an uneasy situation within cyber cooperation: Allies do not agree on the appropriate procedures and boundaries for offensive cyber operations. More specifically, there is no agreement on when military cyber organizations can gain access to systems and networks in allied territory to disrupt adversarial activity. As I have arguedpreviously, this issue may end up causing significant loss in allies’ trust and confidence. My proposed solution: NATO allies should establish memoranda of understanding on offensive cyber effects operations in systems or networks based in allied territory.

U.S., Critics Split on Whether Tech Made Nuke Shipments Safer (Scott Sonner, AP)
The plutonium core for the first atomic weapon detonated in 1945 was taken from Los Alamos National Laboratory to a test site in the New Mexico desert in the backseat of a U.S. Army sedan.
Officials put other bomb parts inside a metal container, packed it into a wooden crate and secured it in the steel bed of a truck under a tarp, the U.S. Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration says in a historical account.
Grainy black-and-white photos show special agents and armed military police accompanying the shipment nearly 75 years ago.
“Nuclear materials transportation has evolved since then,” the department posted online last year.
Today, radioactive shipments are hauled in double-walled steel containers inside specialized trailers that undergo extensive testing and are tracked by GPS and real-time apps.
But whether shipping technology has evolved enough to be deemed safe depends on whom you ask.

Are California Blackouts the New Normal for the State? (Laurent Banguet, AFP)
Millions of people lost electricity this week in California as the state’s utility giant PG&E sought to prevent catastrophic wildfires, leading many to question whether such power shutoffs will become the new normal.
The unprecedented outages plunged large swaths of Northern California in the dark, forcing the closure of schools and businesses and prompting backlash and questions on how this could happen in a state that boasts the world’s fifth largest economy.
“This can’t be, respectfully, the new normal,” fumed Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday as he spoke with reporters. “And it is a false choice to say it’s hardship or safety.”

With Warming, Get Used to Blackouts to Prevent Wildfires (Seth Borenstein, AP)
Expect more preventative power blackouts in California as the climate gets hotter and drier and the wildfire season gets nastier and longer, scientists say.
The Golden State already is fire-prone with lots of dry plants and woodlands—but add high winds that can knock down psboreower lines or cause them to spark, then watch out, wildfire experts say.
The darker outlook hits close to home for Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, who like so many others had his electricity cut off Thursday by Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

No-Deal Brexit Could Lead to Increased Terrorism in Northern Ireland, Police Say (Cristina Gallardo, Politico)
‘It is really important for us to emphasize that we are currently operating within severe threat,’ says assistant chief constable.