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Lessons From the Ledger
The United States and Canada recently began designating drug cartels and other transnational criminal organizations as terrorist groups, in part to use counterterrorism tools against these organizations. Jessica Davis writes that some “counterterrorist financing tools might yield some results against cartels. But here, the lessons of decades of counterterrorist financing will need to be applied for maximum disruptive effect.”
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Forensic Crime Labs Are Buckling as New Technology Increases Demand
Across the country, state and local crime labs are drowning in evidence. From rape kits to drug samples to vials of blood, delays in forensic testing are stalling prosecutions, stretching court calendars. A major federal funding cut could make labs’ struggles worse.
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Why Drones and AI Can’t Quickly Find Missing Flood Victims, Yet
For search and rescue, AI is not more accurate than humans, but it is far faster.
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Significance of the Targeted Nuclear Scientists in the 12-Day War
The June 2025 war between Israel and Iran, called the 12-Day War, saw the killing y the Israeli military of many Iranian nuclear scientists who participated in or are linked to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. the elimination of these nuclear scientists deprived Iran’s nuclear weapons program of its most capable and experienced personnel. This act weakened Iran’s base for building nuclear weapons, eliminating needed expertise and hard-to-get management experience.
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Why Flash Flood Warnings Will Continue to Go Unheeded
Experts say local education and community support are key to conveying risk.
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Undersea Cables Are Vulnerable to Sabotage – but This Takes Skill and Specialist Equipment
Countries have come to rely on a network of cables and pipes under the sea for their energy and communications. So it has been worrying to read headlines about communications cables being cut and, in one case, an undersea gas pipeline being blown up.
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Can Sirens Help Save Lives in the Next Flood? Yes, but There’s More to It.
While sirens can help in areas with shaky cell service, experts say officials also need to consider alert fatigue and provide education on what to do in an emergency.
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Will Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful’ Defense Spending Last?
Trump’s signature legislation will push defense spending past $1 trillion, with new funding for innovation and other capabilities. But those investments are at risk of becoming one-off acquisitions without sustained follow-on funding.
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Hypersonic Weapons and Contemporary Conflicts
The use of hypersonic weapons in contemporary conflicts marks a turning point in modern warfare as they make defenses vulnerable and expand strategic ambiguity. The US, China and Russia have operational hypersonic weapons. India has recently joined the list by successfully testing a hypersonic missile.
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Weather Warnings Gave Officials a 3 Hour, 21 Minute Window to Save Lives in Kerr County. What Happened Then Remains Unclear.
Federal forecasters issued their first flood warning at 1:14 a.m. on July 4. Local officials haven’t shed light on when they saw the warnings or whether they saw them in time to take action.
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Hills, Rivers and Rocky Terrain: Why the Hill Country Keeps Flooding
When storms roll in, water rushes downhill fast, gaining speed and force as it moves — often with deadly results.
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In Texas Region Prone to Catastrophic Floods, Questions Grow About Lack of Warning
Water rose fast along the Guadalupe River, causing dozens of deaths. Local officials said they couldn’t have seen it coming.
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The National Security Costs of Trump’s Tariffs
Looking at the national security ledger, the costs of President Donald Trump’s tariffs are starting to become clearer than the benefits, especially for the U.S. defense industry, critical infrastructure, and relations with partners and allies.
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Parked Cars Are Now a Leading Source of Stolen Guns, New Report Finds
By 2022, 40% of all reported gun thefts involved a vehicle, and the numbers are rising.
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What Damage Did the U.S. Do to Iran’s Nuclear Program? Why It’s So Hard to Know
Disagreements over the damage the U.S. bombing did to Iran’s nuclear facilities are unsurprising. Battle damage assessment –originally called bomb damage assessment –is notoriously difficult, and past wars have featured intense controversies among military and intelligence professionals.
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The long view
Why Was Pacific Northwest Home to So Many Serial Killers?
Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway, George Russell, Israel Keyes, and Robert Lee Yates were serial killers who grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the shadow of smelters which spewed plumes of lead, arsenic, and cadmium into the air. As a young man, Charles Manson spent ten years at a nearby prison, where lead has seeped into the soil. The idea of a correlation between early exposure to lead and higher crime rates is not new. Fraser doesn’t explicitly support the lead-crime hypothesis, but in a nimble, haunting narrative, she argues that the connections between an unfettered pollution and violent crime warrant scrutiny.
Bookshelf: Smartphones Shape War in Hyperconnected World
The smartphone is helping to shape the conduct and representation of contemporary war. A new book argues that as an operative device, the smartphone is now “being used as a central weapon of war.”