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Privately funded gun buy-back programs proliferate
In the aftermath of the Connecticut mass shooting, private donors have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to cities around the United States to fund gun buy-back programs; thousands of guns – and two rocket launchers – have been collected, but the impact on a gun-saturated society is likely to be small: this year alone the FBI has recorded 16.8 million instant background checks of gun buyers, 400,000 more than last year, which was a record year
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President Obama signs private bill giving Nigerian student U.S. residency
President Barack Obama granted a Nigerian immigrant his wish, signing a rare private bill into law granting the immigrant permanent residency in the United States; Victor Chukwueke came to the United States eleven years ago to undergo treatment for massive facial tumors, and stayed, on an expired visa, to graduate from Wayne State University; he wants to attend medical school, but in order to do so he needed a green card
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Egypt launches investigation of opposition leaders
Three days after President Mohammed Morsi signed a decree to make the new Egyptian constitution the law of the land, the public prosecutor of Egypt has ordered an inquiry of three prominent opposition leaders; the inquiry will look into charges that the three leaders — Mohamed ElBaradei, Amr Mousa, and Hamdeen Sabahi —“incited the overthrow” of President Morsi
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Gun training for teachers gaining in popularity
Two hundred teachers in Utah are set to receive special firearms training — with a plastic gun — in order to carry concealed weapons in their classrooms in the future; in the aftermath of the mass shooting in the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, gun training and gun safety classes for teachers are drawing attention
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Broader background checks, denial criteria may help prevent mass-shooting catastrophes
Garen Wintemute, a leading authority on gun violence prevention and an emergency medicine physician at the University of California, Davis, believes broader criteria for background checks and denials on gun purchases can help prevent future firearm violence, including mass shooting catastrophes such as those that occurred at Sandy Hook, Aurora, Virginia Tech, and Columbine
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Proliferation of license plate readers worry privacy advocates
Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology has taken off in recent years, and the police says it is the greatest innovation since fingerprints and DNA; the technology has changed the way police finds cars connected to crimes, but in the process it has upset many privacy advocates
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Commander of Syria’s military police defects
The disintegration of Presdient Bashar al-Assad’s regime continues, as another high-ranking loyalist — Lt. Gen. Abulaziz al-Shalal, commander of Syria’s military police — has defected; al-Shalal, who is now in Turkey, is one of the highest-ranking officials to join the ranks of the anti-regime rebels
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Fiscal cliff discussions get in way of post-Sandy relief measure
The post-Sandy rebuilding effort in the northeast has been stalled by the debate going on in Congress about a solution to the national debt
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Louisiana parishes to encrypt police radio communication
First-responder agencies in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines parishes in Louisiana will soon be encrypting all emergency radios, keeping emergency response chatter out of the ears of the public; the police says the encrypted communication is needed in order to keep criminals from gaining information on police by listening to scanners, but a police union and crime-prevention groups are worried that the encrypted system would prevent the media from monitoring police activity, and hobble neighborhood watch organizations from keeping their neighborhoods safe
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Morsi signs decree putting new Egypt’s constitution into effect
Egypt’s president Mohamed Morsi signed a decree Monday putting into effect Egypt’s just-approved constitution; Morsi signed the decree after two rounds of a referendum in which the voters approved the document by a nearly 2 to 1 ratio
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Major surveillance law heading toward its own end-of-year cliff
While coverage of the tense negotiations over a resolution to the fiscal cliff threat has dominated the media, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments of 2008 is heading for a cliff of its own, as the provisions of the act are set to expire at the end of the year
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U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilian could face death penalt
A U.S. soldier accused of a mass murder could face the death penalty if he is found guilty; Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of killing sixteen Afghan villagers and injuring another six in a shooting spree near a U.S. base in the Kandahar province last March
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Part Two: NNSA and private contractors’ “nuclear safety culture” responsible for Y-12 security breach?
After Sister Susan Rice, age 82, and two other senior confederates allegedly broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tennessee on 28 July 28th, initial spin on the breach at this highly secured facility focused upon blaming a lone security guard;the security breach at Y-12, however, should be more accurately understood as revealing a more systemic flaw: the breach was not the fault of a single guard, but as a security failure similar to other failures in a number of facilities under the purview of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) experiencing repeated security and safety lapses
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In Oklahoma, even rumors of threat of school violence are taken seriously, and investigated
Threats of violence in schools must be taken seriously, even if the threats are nothing more than rumors; in Tulsa, Oklahoma, police and school officials take every threat seriously, even if it is nothing more than gossip
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Seattle debates use of drones by police
The debate between law enforcement and privacy advocates over the use of UAVs is now taking place in Seattle; since President Obama signed a bill in February pushing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow the use of civilian drones in America by 2015, many law enforcement agencies have been preparing to use drones
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More headlines
The long view
Preventing Another 'Jan. 6' Starts by Changing How Elections Are Certified, Experts Say
The 2024 presidential election may be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, but preventing a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021 — when false claims of a stolen election promoted by Donald Trump and his allies led to an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol —will be top of mind this election year. Research finds broad support among public for nonpartisan certification commissions.
States Rush to Combat AI Threat to Elections
This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes. Congress has done little to address the issue, but states are moving aggressively to respond — though questions remain about how effective any new measures to combat AI-created disinformation will be.
Chinese Government Hackers Targeted Critics of China, U.S. Businesses and Politicians
An indictment was unsealed Monday charging seven nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their involvement in a PRC-based hacking group that spent approximately 14 years targeting U.S. and foreign critics, businesses, and political officials in furtherance of the PRC’s economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.
Don’t Buy Moscow’s Shameless Campaign Tying Biden to Its Terrorist Attack
Russia has offered many different explanations to the ISIS-K’s 22 March 2024 terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, but the most recent explanation offered by Russia is the most audacious yet: Russia now charges that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma financed the attack. Burisma is at the center of an effort by a congressional committee to impeach President Biden, but the case has all but collapsed. Hunter Stoll writes that Russia’s disinformation and propaganda apparatus appears to be searching for ways to keep Burisma in the news ahead of the U.S. presidential election.