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Happy Birthday to the Bomb (William J. Perry, Defense One)
If we want to avoid nuclear destruction for the next 75 years, we must take the president’s finger off the button.

Time Running Out to Protect U.S. November Elections (Cynthia Brumfield, CSO)
Experts say it’s too late for significant legislative action to better protect voting this fall, but meaningful changes are still possible.

Big Increase of Palestinian Terrorist Members, Supporters in Germany (Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post)
Support for the PFLP has risen, which was founded in 1967 and is animated by a Marxist-Leninist doctrine coupled with radical Arab nationalism.

Exposé: 28 Missile Launching Sites in Beirut – Hezbollah’s Use of Civilians as Human Shield (Tal Beery, Alma)
As part of its modus operandi, Hezbollah stores its weapons in civilian structures and in the proximity of densely populated areas throughout Lebanon, with the highest concentration in the capital city of Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, and southern Lebanon. Hezbollah plans to launch these weapons toward civilian targets and population concentrations in Israel from within or adjacent to residential buildings. Hezbollah believes that this tactic will grant it immunity against IDF’s attacks. This tactic is known as the “human shield”.

The EU’s Role in Fighting Disinformation: Taking Back the Initiative(James Pamment, Carnegie Endowment)
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Europe and the West are grappling with a host of thorny dilemmas posed by disinformation and foreign influence operations. While these problems predate the viral outbreak, the public health crisis has certainly exacerbated them. Brussels has taken some steps to meet this set of challenges, some of which are already paying dividends.
But there is more that Europe can do to make its response more effective. Specifically, the EU should formulate shared terminology for combating disinformation, assertively deter adversaries who are spreading disinformation and conducting influence operations, craft sensible nonregulatory interventions to protect online users, and establish an independent, transparent auditing regimen for certain online platform functions.

Russians are Trying to Sway Trusted Institutions, Says Center for Strategic and International Studies (Elijah Labby, Broadband Breakfast)
Russia is actively attempting to shift trusted institutions both in the United States and abroad, said participants in a Center for Strategic and International Studies webinar Tuesday. Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, said that when institutions are swayed or dismantled, it allows countries like Russia to get away with human rights abuses. When bad actors are injecting Russian talking points into US politics, she continued, they attempt to distance themselves. “The more plausible deniability Russia can get… that makes Russia’s job easier because we’re not going to silence authentic American voices because of the First Amendment,” she said.

Deepfake Used to Attack Activist Couple Shows New Disinformation Frontier (Raphael Satter, Reuters)
Oliver Taylor, a student at England’s University of Birmingham, is a twenty-something with brown eyes, light stubble, and a slightly stiff smile. Online profiles describe him as a coffee lover and politics junkie who was raised in a traditional Jewish home. His half dozen freelance editorials and blog posts reveal an active interest in anti-Semitism and Jewish affairs, with bylines in the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel. The catch? Oliver Taylor seems to be an elaborate fiction.

Your Coping and Resilience Strategies Might Need to Shift as the COVID-19 Crisis Continues (Craig Polizzi and Steven Jay Lynn, The Conversation)
As the pandemic drags on, uncertainty and fears about health and safety mix with confusion and challenges tied to re-opening society. You need flexibility when picking your coping strategies.

Sound of the Police: How U.S. Law Enforcement Uses Noise as a Weapon (Luke Ottenhof, Guardian)
Potentially harmful military-grade weapons such as flashbangs are being utilized with accelerating regularity at U.S. protests

Trump’s Latest Assault on Asylum Has Nothing to Do with National Security or Public Health (Scott Roehm, Just Security)
Last Thursday the Trump administration issued the latest in a long line of administrative rules that unlawfully ban and punish asylum seekers and others pursuing related humanitarian protections in the United States. The proposed rule, titled “Security Bars and Processing” (and separate from another harmful asylum-related rule from early June), marries two of the president’s favored pretexts: national security and public health. But it has nothing to do with either. Rather, this is the president leaning hard into his anti-immigrant agenda as November approaches and his political prospects wane.