• What We Know about the Gunman

    Tobias R., the 43-year of gunman who killed nine people in Hanau was active online: He published a 24-page “manifesto” on his Facebook page, and posted a video on his YouTube channel (his postings have been removed from the web). His postings repeat many of the conspiracy theories popular in far-right circles, but experts say that unlike other far-right terrorists – most recently at Christchurch, Poway, El Paso, and Halle – he was probably not part of the 8chan and 4chan image board radical right scene. In the hours after the attack, many users on these boards complained that because he failed to run a live video of his attack, there would be few imitators who would follow him, and complained that the fact that he shot into two crowded restaurants but managed to kill only nine people would make white terrorists look like idiots. Tobias R. appears to be obsessed with the idea that an unknown, all-knowing secret service is not only spying on his every move: that secret service can also read his mind.

  • German Rampage Confirms Worst Fears of Security Chiefs

    Wednesday’s massacre in the German town of Hanau, 25 kilometers east of Frankfurt confirmed the worst fears of Germany’s top security officials. They have been preparing for months for more far-right violence, and the shooting by a lone wolf gunman in Hanau, leaving nine dead at two hookah bars, is the type of attack that’s been preoccupying them. From Germany to Britain, alarm has been rising across Europe about the terror threat from fringe far-right groups and their supporters. Analysts and intelligence officials say the groups have been studying the tactics of jihadist factions, such as the Islamic State terror group, and copying their bomb-making methods and social-media propaganda techniques, using YouTube and messaging platforms to radicalize others and to shape their own lone wolf killers.

  • Macron: Islamist Separatism Incompatible with Freedom, Equality, Indivisibility of France

    Fighting “Islamist separatism” in France, but without stigmatizing the Muslims of France: These were the two themes in a major speech given by President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, 18 February. “Islamist separatism is incompatible with freedom and equality, incompatible with the indivisibility of the Republic and the necessary unity of the nation,” Macron said, adding: “In the Republic, we cannot accept the refusal to shake a woman’s hand because she is a woman; in the Republic, we cannot accept that someone refuses to be treated or educated by someone else;… in the Republic, certificates of virginity cannot be required [as a condition for] marriage; in the Republic, one should never accept that the laws of religion are superior to the laws of the Republic. It’s that simple.”

  • WWI Helmets Protect Against Shock Waves as Well as or Better than Modern Designs

    Biomedical engineers have demonstrated that, despite significant advancements in protection from ballistics and blunt impacts, modern military helmets are no better at protecting the brain from shock waves created by nearby blasts than their First World War counterparts. And one model in particular, the French Adrian helmet, actually performed better than modern designs in protecting from overhead blasts.

  • Police Use of Lethal Force Tied to Statewide Prevalence of Gun Ownership

    Police use of lethal force in the United States has triggered public scrutiny of violent interactions between police and citizens. Past research has focused on whether race and levels of violence contribute to this phenomenon. A new study expands on prior research by examining the impact of the availability of firearms. It finds a pronounced positive relationship between statewide prevalence of gun ownership by citizens and police use of lethal force.

  • A Military Perspective on Climate Change Could Bridge the Gap Between Believers and Doubters

    As experts warn that the world is running out of time to head off severe climate change, discussions of what the U.S. should do about it are split into opposing camps. The scientific-environmental perspective says global warming will cause the planet severe harm without action to slow fossil fuel burning. Those who reject mainstream climate science insist either that warming is not occurring or that it’s not clear human actions are driving it. With these two extremes polarizing the American political arena, climate policy has come to a near standstill. But as I argue in my new book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, the U.S. armed forces offer a third perspective that could help bridge the gap.

  • Germany: Members of Extreme-Right Terror Network Arrested

    German police said a group of far-right plotters were planning attacks against politicians, asylum seekers, and Muslims. The ultimate goal of the group, of which several members were arrested, was to instigate a civil war in the country.

  • Out of Africa: U.S. Pulling Out Combat Troops Operating on Continent

    The United States is starting to change its force posture in Africa, announcing it is bringing home part of an infantry brigade and replacing them with specialized military trainers. Pentagon officials described the move as “the first of many” that will impact the way the U.S. military operates on the continent, as it shifts its focus from counterterrorism to the great power competition. The shift comes as a new U.S. report warns the danger from terrorist groups in Africa is spreading and that many African forces are not ready to take on the terror threat alone.

  • Forensic Proteomics: Going Beyond DNA Profiling

    A new book details an emerging forensic method that could become as widespread and trustworthy as DNA profiling. The method is called mass-spectrometry-based proteomics, which examines the proteins that make up many parts of living things. These proteins exist in unique combinations in everything from blood cells and clothing fibers to certain types of medicine and the diseases they fight. Because proteomics analyzes these proteins directly, forensic proteomics can fill in when DNA is missing, ambiguous, or was never present to begin with.

  • We Once Fought Jihadists. Now We Battle White Supremacists.

    The truth about so-called domestic terrorism? There is nothing domestic about it. The old distinction between two types of terrorism – Islamist terrorism being regarded as “international” terrorism, while far-right terrorism is considered to be “domestic” terrorism – is not only no longer relevant: it obscures an emerging reality of an international far-right terrorism, thus hobbling efforts to fight it effectively, Max Rose and Ali H. Soufan write. “The truth about so-called domestic terrorism? There is nothing domestic about it.”

  • White Supremacist Propaganda Distribution Hit All-Time High in 2019

    White supremacist propaganda distribution more than doubled in 2019 over the previous year, making it the highest year on record for such activity in the United States. The data in a new report shows a substantial increase of incidents both on- and off-campus. A total of 2,713 cases of literature distribution – an average of more than four per day – were reported nationwide, compared to 1,214 in 2018. This is nearly 160 percent increase in U.S. campus propaganda incidents during the fall semester.

  • Materials Currently Used to Store Nuclear Waste Accelerate Corrosion

    The materials the United States and other countries plan to use to store high-level nuclear waste will likely degrade faster than anyone previously knew because of the way those materials interact, new research shows. The findings show that corrosion of nuclear waste storage materials accelerates because of changes in the chemistry of the nuclear waste solution, and because of the way the materials interact with one another.

  • Mass Shootings: Trends, Effective Prevention, Policy Recommendations

    In the last decade, thousands have been killed or injured as a result of mass violence in the United States. Such acts take many forms, including family massacres, terrorist attacks, shootings, and gang violence. Yet it is indiscriminate mass public shootings, often directed at strangers, that has generated the most public alarm. Now, 41 scholars have contributed 16 articles on the topic to a special issue of Criminology & Public Policy.

  • Glaciers May Offer Safe Sites for Nuclear Waste Storage

    New insights into rates of bedrock erosion by glaciers around the world will help to identify better sites for the safe storage of nuclear waste. The findings of a new research overturn earlier research, showing that erosion rates do not increase with the speed of glacier flow as quickly as previously anticipated.

  • The Iraq War Has Cost the U.S. Nearly $2 Trillion

    Even if the U.S. administration decided to leave — or was evicted from — Iraq immediately, the bill of war to the U.S. to date would be an estimated $1,922 billion in current dollars. This figure includes not only funding appropriated to the Pentagon explicitly for the war, but spending on Iraq by the State Department, the care of Iraq War veterans and interest on debt incurred to fund 16 years of U.S. military involvement in the country.