Our picksRussia Is Helping Elect Trump Again: U.S. Intel | Private Flood Insurance | London Facial Recognition Cameras Fail, and more

Published 21 February 2020

·  Russia Is Helping Elect Trump Again, Intel Official Says

·  Christopher Steele Feared Russian Assassination after Discovering Explosive Trump-Kremlin Claims

·  “The Scientist and the Spy” Review: Agent Running in the Field

·  This Researcher Juggled Five Different Identities to Go Undercover with Far-Right and Islamist Extremists. Here’s What She Found

·  Dozens of Hospitals Targeted by Assad Regime During Latest Phase of Syria’s Bloody War

·  Border Patrol Needs Automated Sensors to Cover Watery Blindspots

·  Florida’s Private Flood Insurance Market Is Growing

·  U.K. Government’s Terror Laws Adviser Raises Fears over Reforms

·  London Facial Recognition Cameras Scan 4,600 Faces but Don’t Find a Single Crook

·  Colombia’s Drug-Funded Rebels Are Back in Action Big-Time

Russia Is Helping Elect Trump Again, Intel Official Says (Spencer Ackerman, Betsy Swan, Erin Banco, Sam Stein, Daily Beas)
“Republicans went nuts” when an intelligence official told Congress that Russia was siding with Trump in the election—again. Then Trump tapped a political ally as his top spy.

Christopher Steele Feared Russian Assassination after Discovering Explosive Trump-Kremlin Claims (Ben Riley-Smith, The Telegraph)
Friends of former MI6 agent believed he was at risk from reprisal attacks

“The Scientist and the Spy” Review: Agent Running in the Field (Howard W. French, Wall Street Journal)
An unusual FBI investigation illustrates the government’s evolving response to China’s stealing American industrial secrets.

This Researcher Juggled Five Different Identities to Go Undercover with Far-Right and Islamist Extremists. Here’s What She Found (Madeline Roache, Time)
The first book of Julia Ebner, an Austrian researcher specialized in online radicalization and cumulative extremism, was The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism, published in 2017. Her new book, Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists, was published on 20 February. She spoke with TIME about what she discovered in her research.

Dozens of Hospitals Targeted by Assad Regime During Latest Phase of Syria’s Bloody War (Sky News)
At least 67 attacks have taken place against hospitals, health facilities and health workers in Syria’s northwest since April last year, Sky News analysis has shown.
Using a combination of information from non-profit organizations, activists and the World Health Organization, we have identified dozens of locations that have been hit where patients were treated or healthcare staff were working.
WHO says there have been 83 attacks on healthcare in Syria as a whole in the same period, but does not make the locations public.

Border Patrol Needs Automated Sensors to Cover Watery Blindspots (Aaron Boyd, Nextgove)
Homeland Security is looking for a technical solution to give border agents situational awareness about illegal watercraft and the potential risks of interdiction.

Florida’s Private Flood Insurance Market Is Growing (Malena Carollo, Tampa Bay Times)
But switching back and forth between private and government-backed coverage carries risks.

U.K. Government’s Terror Laws Adviser Raises Fears over Reforms (Aubrey Allegrettim, Sky News)
Jonathan Hall QC questions if the legislation due to be debated in the House of Lords is really that “effective”.

London Facial Recognition Cameras Scan 4,600 Faces but Don’t Find a Single Crook (Fariha Karim, The Times)
Scotland Yard’s first operational deployment of facial recognition cameras failed to identify a single suspect after hours spent scanning thousands of people.
The Metropolitan Police was accused of wasting taxpayers’ money this month when cameras scanned 4,600 people without success. The operation took five and a half hours.

Colombia’s Drug-Funded Rebels Are Back in Action Big-Time (Jeremy Kryt, Daily Beast)
The nation’s biggest active guerrilla group, the ELN, has carried out more than 100 separate attacks in the last week and its ranks have been growing.