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CAMPUS PROTESTSNYPD Says Protesters Had Weapons, Gas Masks and 'Death to America!' Pamphlets
Michael Kemper, a NYPD’s chief of transit, said protesters had weapons including knives and hammers as well as pamphlets with “Death to America!” written on them. “For those romanticizing the protests occurring on college campuses, ‘Death to America!’ is one sentiment that runs counter to what we believe in, what we stand for, and what many have fought for on behalf of this country,” Kemper said.
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GUNSIn A Decade, Firearm Deaths Among Young Black People in Rural America Have Quadrupled
A new analysis of CDC data shows that gun fatality rates among Black children and teens in rural places are on par with cities, and are primarily driven by a rise in homicides.
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NUCLEAR DETERRENCEIs Nuclear Deterrence Ethical and Legal?
To state the obvious the nuclear situation will become more manageable and tolerable when great power relations are relaxed. When and if current tensions ease it would be wise to look for ways to reduce even more the risks of a nuclear calamity. If the weapons cannot be completely eliminated, however, then neither can the risks of the worst imaginable outcomes. Little can be gained by pretending otherwise.
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TRUMP-PROOFING GLOBAL SECURITYTrump-proofing NATO: Why Europe’s Current Nuclear Deterrents May Not Be Enough to Face Biggest Threats Since WWII
NATO’s concerns about Trump’s re-election were heightened by his flippant comment in February that he would encourage Russia to do whatever it wanted, if certain countries didn’t pay up, defying NATO’s principle that an attack on one constituted an attack on all. Trump’s comments represent a seismic departure for US foreign policy. No US president has made these types of threats before about its commitment to NATO, and this has forced Europe to prepare to deal with Russian aggression without US support.
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TRUMP-PROOFING GLOBAL SECURITYTrump's Possible Return Reignites South Korea Nuclear Debate
South Korean calls to acquire nuclear weapons, which were subdued for the past year following steps to strengthen the U.S.-South Korea alliance, are once again bubbling to the surface ahead of the possible return of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
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DECEPTION DETECTIONBeware of AI-based Deception Detection, Warns Scientific Community
Artificial intelligence may soon help to identify lies and deception. If only it were as easy as with Pinocchio: Researchers warn against premature use.
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WILDFIRESDecayed Power Pole Sparked the Largest Wildfire in State History, Texas House Committee Confirms
A decayed utility pole that broke, causing power wires to fall on dry grass in the Texas Panhandle, sparked the state’s largest wildfire in history. A lack of air support and ineffective coordination hurt efforts to contain this year’s Panhandle fires, the committee said.
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GRID RESILIENCEResilient Power Systems in the Context of Climate Change
As extreme weather events increase in frequency and society’s dependence on electricity grows, scientists are focusing on issues at the nexus of water and energy, recognizing that water and energy systems are strongly coupled and already stressed.
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SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVENESSSecuring Competitiveness of Energy-Intensive industries Through Relocation: The Pulling Power of Renewables
Countries with limited potential for renewables could save up to 20 percent of costs for green steel and up to 40 percent for green chemicals from green hydrogen if they relocated their energy-intensive production and would import from countries where renewable energy is cheaper.
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OUR PICKSExtremist Militias on Facebook | From Panic to Policy | An Army of Voice Clones, and more
· Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups
After lying low for years in the aftermath of January 6, exclusive reporting shows, militia extremist groups and profiles have been quietly reorganizing and ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook· Trump Wants to Prosecute Biden. He Also Thinks Presidents Deserve Immunity.
In arguing to the Supreme Court that he cannot be charged for acts while in office, Donald Trump has asked the justices to enforce a norm that he has long threatened to shatter· The End of ‘The Aftermath’
Season 2 of our narrative series on Jan. 6 has come to a close. But the search for accountability is far from over· Why the U.S. Intelligence Community Needs an OSINT Agency
The establishment of a dedicated OSINT agency would be a step towards reconfiguring the IC for the challenges of the information age· From Panic to Policy: The Limits of Foreign Propaganda and the Foundations of an Effective Response
The relationship between people’s attitudes and their media consumption remains murky at best· ElevenLabs Is Building an Army of Voice Clones
A tiny start-up has made some of the most convincing AI voices. Are its creators ready for the chaos they’re unleashing? -
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WORLD ROUNDUPWhen AI Decides Who Lives and Dies | Countering North Korean Cybercrime and Its Enablers | Climate Change and Military Power, and more
· US Accuses Russia of Using Chemical Weapons Against Ukraine
Washington says banned substances including poison gas used during the First World War are being deployed on the battlefield, with one soldier suffocating to death· Britain ‘Must Invest in Iron Dome as World War Looms’
Ex-US security adviser urges UK to spend 4pc of GDP on defence because ‘it’s a lot cheaper to prevent a war than have a fight’· Countering North Korean Cybercrime and Its Enablers
The crackdown on digital platforms that help North Korea launder billions in stolen cryptocurrency has so far achieved only mixed results· The Case for Averting War Between Israel and Hisballah
There are several reasons why a massive Israeli military operation designed to eliminate Hizballah might be counterproductive· Climate Change and Military Power: Hunting for Submarines in the Warming Ocean
Climate change has significant effects on military power, capabilities, effectiveness, and employment – for example, the range of detection of enemy submarines through underwater acoustics is contracting due to climate change· When AI Decides Who Lives and Dies
The Israeli military’s algorithmic targeting has created dangerous new precedents -
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BORDER SECURITYAs Texas' Border Security Efforts Succeed, California is ‘New Epicenter' of Crisis
With the success of Texas’ border security mission Operation Lone Star pushing human trafficking efforts by Mexican cartels further west, southern California is “the new epicenter” of illegal immigration, officials say. California has greatest number of Chinese nationals illegally entering U.S.
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IRAN’S THREATU.S. Sanctions on Iranian Hackers Highlight Growing Concern About the Islamic Republic’s Cyberwarriors
A feature of the simmering tensions between the US, Israel and Iran has been not just the tit-for-tat missile and drone strikes and assassinations, but accusations of cyberwarfare waged by Iran.
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CHIP WARWhat Is the CHIPS Act?
Extraordinary U.S. government incentives are proving popular with many large chipmakers, but it is too early to tell how much of the semiconductor industry can be lured back to the United States.
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CHIP WARWhy Japan Is Investing in Semiconductors Once More
Japan was once the world’s leading chip manufacturer. Now, concerns over supply chains and geopolitical tensions have prompted the government to provide funding for foreign firms and domestic manufacturers.
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TERRORISMOn the Horizon: The Future of the Jihadi Movement
Factors of continuity, such as anti-regime grievances, the appeal of religious ideology, and the ability to hurt, are likely to maintain jihadism as a viable resistance ideology. Jihadism is still a powerful force and is making inroads in various regions, and a more modest jihadi strategy with a regional focus is offering jihadis a new path forward, but also suggests that a sustainable jihadi success would require moderation that is simply antithetical to the nature of the ideology.
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ENERGY SECURITYHow Artificial Intelligence Can Transform U.S. Energy Infrastructure
Groundbreaking report provides ambitious framework for accelerating clean energy deployment while minimizing risks and costs in the face of climate change.
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OUR PICKSThe Menace of Nuclear Annihilation | America’s Infectious-Disease Barometer Is Off | The Push to Ban TikTok Spurred a New Washington Influence Machine, and more
· Voters, Please Think About the Menace of Nuclear Annihilation
The speed at which nuclear war will unfold, and then escalate, all but guarantees that it will end in civilizational collapse· How the Push to Ban TikTok Spurred a New Washington Influence Machine
The tech moguls and defense contractors behind the Hill and Valley Forum aim to expand their impact, prepping an executive order that would dismantle the Biden administration’s rules on artificial intelligence· America’s Infectious-Disease Barometer Is Off
Somehow, the U.S. is both over- and under-reacting to bird flu and other pressing infectious threats· Donald Trump Vows to Prosecute Biden ‘for All His Crimes’
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee pledges to appoint ‘real special prosecutor’ to investigate president, who he says is at center of a ‘crime family’· Bill Would Alert Immigration When Non-citizen Tries to Buy Guns
Nearly 15 million people living in or entering the country illegally are on an FBI list prohibiting purchase of firearms· Without Indonesia’s Nickel, EVs Have No Future in America
The IRA and Senate opposition to a free trade deal with Jakarta are undermining the United States’ green transition· New York Woman Gets 18 Years for Funding Terrorism with Cryptocurrency
Prosecutors said Victoria Jacobs sent funds to Bitcoin wallets controlled by a terrorist training group that operated in Syria -
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WORLD ROUNDUPWhy China Is So Bad at Disinformation | How Globalization Rose and Fell with Nord Stream | Most Americans See TikTok as a Chinese Influence Tool, and more
· China’s Electric Cars Keep Improving, a Worry for Rivals Elsewhere
More capable autonomous driving is just one way Chinese automakers are threatening to pull ahead — their E.V.s are also becoming bigger and roomier· Elon Musk Can’t Solve Tesla’s China Crisis with His Desperate Asia Visit
Tesla’s deal with Baidu isn’t new, the mapping data Tesla will collect likely can’t leave China, and Full Self-Driving can’t compete with the more advanced Chinese alternatives· Why China Is So Bad at Disinformation
China’s state-sponsored disinformation campaign has been running at a massive scale for seven years—but no one is looking at it· How Globalization Rose and Fell with Nord Stream
The pipeline bringing Russian gas to Europe was once seen as a triumph for borderless business—but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine put an end to that fantasy· As South Korea Comes Knocking — Will AUKUS Become the Asian NATO?
Several Pacific nations are interested in joining Britain, America and Australia’s security pact to work on weapons and tech. Is it worth China’s wrath?· Global Elections in the Shadow of Neoliberalism
The neoliberal orthodoxy – government downsizing, tax cuts, deregulation – that took hold some 40 years ago in the West was supposed to strengthen democracy, not weaken it. What went wrong?· Reuters/Ipsos Poll: Most Americans See TikTok as a Chinese Influence Tool
Americans believe that the Chinese government uses TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, to “influence American public opinion”·Rwanda Gen Zs Combat Lingering Hate Speech
Over 100 days in 1994, Hutu extremists massacred some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus· Negative Views of China Persist in US, Report Finds
81% of Americans have an unfavorable view of China, including 43% who hold a very unfavorable view of the country -
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DISINFORMATIONX's Crowdsourced Tool to Counter COVID Untruths mainly accurate, credible: Researchers
Community Notes, a crowdsourced COVID-19 vaccine misinformation countermeasure on X (formerly Twitter), generally corrected false posts accurately and pointed readers to more credible sources, according to researchers who evaluated the posts.
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CYBERSECURITYComputer Scientists Unveil Novel Attacks on Cybersecurity
Researchers have found two novel types of attacks that target the conditional branch predictor found in high-end Intel processors, which could be exploited to compromise billions of processors currently in use. Intel and AMD issued security alerts based on the findings.
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GRID SECURITYNew Cybersecurity Center to Protect Grids Integrated with Renewables, Microgrids
Bringing renewable energy to the power grid raises all kinds of “internet-of-things” issues because “everything is connected,” says an expert. Solar inverters are connected to the internet. Wind farm controllers are connected to the internet. And with each internet connection, energy resources distributed across the countryside are potentially vulnerable to cyberattacks.
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The long view
DEMOCRACY WATCHPreventing Another 'Jan. 6' Starts by Changing How Elections Are Certified, Experts Say
By Sara Savat
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.
ELECTION SECURITYStates Rush to Combat AI Threat to Elections
By Zachary Roth
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.
RANSOMWARERansomware Attacks: Death Threats, Endangered Patients and Millions of Dollars in Damages
By Dino Jahic
A ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a company that processes 15 billion health care transactions annually and deals with 1 in 3 patient records in the United States, is continuing to cause massive disruptions nearly three weeks later. The incident, which started on February 21, has been called the “most significant cyberattack on the U.S. health care system” by the American Hospital Association. It is just the latest example of an increasing trend.
CHINA WATCHChinese 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.
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLESAutonomous Vehicle Technology Vulnerable to Road Object Spoofing and Vanishing Attacks
Researchers have demonstrated the potentially hazardous vulnerabilities associated with the technology called LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, many autonomous vehicles use to navigate streets, roads and highways. The researchers have shown how to use lasers to fool LiDAR into “seeing” objects that are not present and missing those that are – deficiencies that can cause unwarranted and unsafe braking or collisions.
CYBERDETERRENCETantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
By Trina West
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
AIRPORT SECURITYPrototype Self-Service Screening System Unveiled
TSA and DHS S&T unveiled a prototype checkpoint technology, the self-service screening system, at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas, NV. The aim is to provide a near self-sufficient passenger screening process while enabling passengers to directly receive on-person alarm information and allow for the passenger self-resolution of those alarms.
SPACE DEBRISFalling Space Debris: How High Is the Risk I'll Get Hit?
By Zulfikar Abbany, Julia Vergin, and Katja Sterzik
An International Space Station battery fell back to Earth and, luckily, splashed down harmlessly in the Atlantic. Should we have worried? Space debris reenters our atmosphere every week.
WILDFIRESUsing Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
DRONESTesting Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
IMMIGRATIONSocial Acceptance of Immigrants Working as Politicians or Judges Is Low
Often, the dominant society develops negative attitudes towards immigrants and their descendants because their integration is too successful – and not because they are unwilling to integrate. A possible explanation for negative attitudes towards successful immigrants could be the dominant society’s fear of immigrants occupying influential and value-based occupations. This applies, for example, for immigrants working in local politics or law.
ENERGY SECURITYStrengthening the Grid’s ‘Backbone’ with Hydropower
By Michael Matz
Argonne-led studies investigate how hydropower could help add more clean energy to the grid, how it generates value as grids add more renewable energy, and how liner technology can improve hydropower efficiency.
ARMS TRADEEuropean 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.
ENERGY SECURITYLNG 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.
CLIMATE CHANGE & NATIONAL SECURITYHow Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
By Doug Irving
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
TECH APOCALYPSEThe Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
By Matthew Guariglia
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.