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With drought easing, California rolls back water conservation rules
California announced on Wednesday that it was rolling back mandatory water conservation rules which were put in place at the height of a 4-year drought. The decision to roll back the restrictions came after water conditions in many parts of the state have improved as a result of a wet winter.
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Senate approves bill allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia
The Senate has approved a bill which would allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi officials for damages. A 1976 law granting states sovereign immunity form such law suits has thwarted efforts by the families of 9/11 victims to use the courts, but the bill just approved by the Senate would circumvent the 1976 law by allowing lawsuits against governments of countries found to be involved in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. President Barack Obama has said he will veto the legislation.
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Assad's forces use sarin gas for first time since 2013 killing of 1,400 civilians
The Assad regime has used sarin gas for the first time since 2013, dropping a sarin-filled bombs on ISIS fighters outside Damascus, a senior Israeli official has said. On 21 August 2013 the Syrian military used sarin and VX to kill 1,400 Sunni civilians in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus. In the wake of the attack, Russia and the United States pressured Assad to give up his chemical weapons arsenal and dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons manufacturing capabilities. Western intelligence services say that Assad likely disposed of his mustard and VX, in accordance with the deal, but that he chose to keep the sarin, the most lethal agent at his disposal.
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House temporarily halts sale of Plum Island
New York and Connecticut lawmakers who have been campaigning against the sale of Plum Island by the federal government, have won an impressive victory as the U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously on Monday to halt efforts to sell the property, at least temporarily. Plum Island, located of the north-eastern tip of Long Island, has for decades housed a high-security biolab in which research into deadly animal diseases pathogens. The aging lab is closing, and its operations will be moved to a modern high-security lab being built in the campus of Kansas State University.
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DHS S&T launches interactive Year in Review
Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) has launched its annual Year in Review — an interactive, Web-based report providing a guided tour of S&T’s successes and developments in 2015.S&T’s Year in Review includes highlights from thirty-seven of S&T’s projects.The review includes an introduction on programs and initiatives and further discusses how S&T meets its mission and fits into the larger mission of the department.
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Telephone metadata can reveal surprisingly sensitive personal information
Most people might not give telephone metadata – the numbers you dial, the length of your calls – a second thought. Some government officials probably view it as similarly trivial, which is why this information can be obtained without a warrant. Researchers show, however, that telephone metadata – information about calls and text messages, such as time and length – can alone reveal a surprising amount of personal detail. The work could help inform future policies for government surveillance and consumer data privacy.
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Giving Turks visa-free access to EU would be “storing gasoline next to the fire”: Ex-MI6 chief
Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, has said that for the EU to offer visa-free access to the EU zone to millions of Turks would be like “storing gasoline next to the fire.” He said that the impact of mass migration is “eating away at the willingness of EU states to act together.” He added that this is making the EU “impotent in the face of the most serious social and humanitarian problem” it has had to face. He also said that the failure by the “present configuration of twenty-eight vastly differing national interests” to meet the challenge of migration may well be an indication that the EU has outlived its historical role.
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FARC to free last child soldiers
The FARC, Colombia’s largest rebel group, has said it will release all child soldiers under 15 years of age, thus ending an especially poignant chapter in the country’s 5-decade conflict. The FARC announcement comes as the negotiations between the rebel group and the Colombian government are continuing in Havana under the auspices of the UN. FARC made extensive use of children between 8 and 16 – what the organization called “pisa suaves” – to sneak into military camps, police stations, and other government facilities to set bombs and other types of booby traps.
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Active shooter exercise evaluates tactics, technologies
The New York Police Department (NYPD), the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) took part in an active shooter exercise early Sunday at a Brooklyn high school to evaluate tactics and technologies for responding to and containing rapidly escalating shooting incidents.
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Newly declassified documents reveal “chilling” details about 9/11 Saudi connection
Investigators describe the details revealed in a series of declassified memos relating to the 9/11 attacks as “chilling”: These details offer information about Saudi support for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A former 9/11 Commission staff member said the newly released material largely duplicates the classified 28-section of the 9/11 Commission report, a section which has not been made public. Former Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, who was a member of the 9/11 Commission, said that as many as six Saudi officials could have supported the 9/11 hijackers
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Man who forcibly pulled off woman's hijab during flight pleads guilty
Gill Payne, 37, on Friday pled guilty to using force to obstruct the religious freedom of a Muslim woman, who was identified in court by the letters KA. In December 2015, Payne was on a SouthWest Airlines plane flying from Chicago to Albuquerque. He noticed a woman sitting a few rows ahead of him, wearing a hijab. Witnesses said that he got out of his seat, walked down the aisle toward her, grabbed the hijab to expose her head, and shouted, “Take this off. This is America.”
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Boko Haram sending fighters to help ISIS in Libya: U.S.
U.S. officials said on Friday that there is evidence that Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamists are sending fighters to join ISIS in Libya. This is only the latest manifestation of the growing cooperation between the two groups. Nigeria has been asking the United States for military gear, including aircraft, to fight Boko Haram. Congress, however, has restricted the sale of U.S. military equipment to Nigeria because of rampant corruption in the Nigerian armed forces and government, and because the Nigerian military has been engaged in systematic violations of basic human rights of Nigerian civilians.
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Mapping Louisiana’s water flow interactions to preserve state’s fresh water
As part of an effort to preserve Louisiana’s fresh water resources, RTI International worked with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to develop two online tools, released today, that offer a first-of-their-kind look at how Louisiana’s waters interact with each other. These tools will help fishermen, oystermen, planners, decision makers, and all Louisianans understand the state’s unique water flow patterns.
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Saudi government officials supported 9/11 hijackers: John Lehman
John F Lehman, who sat on the 9/11 Commission from 2003 to 2004 which investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has said that Saudi government officials supported the hijackers. There was an “awful lot of circumstantial evidence” implicating several employees in the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Lehman claimed. “There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government,” he said. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.”
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Copenhagen’s bar owners ask government to prevent local Muslims from imposing “Sharia zone”
Bar owners in the Nørrebro suburb of Copenhagen say they are being harassed by Muslim youth activists in the area, many of them immigrants, who are trying to impose a “Sharia zone” in the neighborhood. The bar owners have asked for government help. The bar owners say they have received demands for money, and that stones have been thrown through the bars’ windows.
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More headlines
The long view
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”
A Brief History of Federal Funding for Basic Science
Biomedical science in the United States is at a crossroads. For 75 years, the federal government has partnered with academic institutions, fueling discoveries that have transformed medicine and saved lives. Recent moves by the Trump administration — including funding cuts and proposed changes to how research support is allocated — now threaten this legacy.
“The Federal Government Is Gone”: Under Trump, the Fight Against Extremist Violence Is Left Up to the States
As President Donald Trump guts the main federal office dedicated to preventing terrorism, states say they’re left to take the lead in spotlighting threats. Some state efforts are robust, others are fledgling, and yet other states are still formalizing strategies for addressing extremism. With the federal government largely retreating from focusing on extremist dangers, prevention advocates say the threat of violent extremism is likely to increase.
The “Invasion” Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy
The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”
How DHS Laid the Groundwork for More Intelligence Abuse
I&A, the lead intelligence unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) —long plagued by politicized targeting, permissive rules, and a toxic culture —has undergone a transformation over the last two years. Spencer Reynolds writes that this effort falls short. “Ultimately, Congress must rein in I&A,” he adds.