OUR PICKSAI Just Created a Working Virus. The U.S. Isn’t Prepared for That. | Gabbard Ends Intelligence Report on Future Threats to U.S. | From Grievance to Gunfire, and more

Trump Targets Domestic Terrorists —but Only Mentions the “Radical Left”  (Jonathan Edwards, Washington Post)
The administration on Thursday vowed a focus on “left-wing terrorism,” as Trump publicly suggested that two prominent, wealthy donors to liberal causes should be investigated for possibly funding domestic terrorism, escalating his efforts to use the power of the presidency to punish people and institutions that have challenged him.
The administration’s has intensified its focus on domestic terrorism — albeit only from the left — in a dramatic shift from the early days of Trump’s second term. Since the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the administration’s focus has shifted to homegrown political violence.
He and top administration officials alleged a sinister conspiracy of wealthy elites is funding a vast network of domestic terrorists wreaking havoc across the country.
But the biggest terrorist threat to Americans in recent decades has come from far-right extremists, particularly white supremacists and anti-government extremists, said Michael Jensen, research director at the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism consortium at the University of Maryland.
“And really, it’s not close. It’s something like 5-to-1 in terms of the number of attacks and deaths that can be attributed to far-right actors as opposed to far-left actors,” Jensen said.

Gabbard Ends Intelligence Report on Future Threats to U.S.  (Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper, New York Times)
Some issues in the document, which is issued every four years, had become politically inconvenient, former officials said.

AI Just Created a Working Virus. The U.S. Isn’t Prepared for That.  (Tal Feldman and Jonathan Feldmanm, Washington Post)
A stunning scientific accomplishment brings both great promise and great risk.

Regulating AI Hastens the Antichrist, Says Palantir’s Peter Thiel (James Hurley, The Times)
Tech billionaire claims in a lecture about religion that the devil promises peace and safety by strangling technological progress with regulation.

When Child Death Was Everywhere  (Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic)
RFK Jr.’s health policies stem from the idea that the past holds the secret to health and happiness.

Heritage Foundation Uses Bogus Stat to Push a Trans Terrorism Classification  (Dell Cameron and Andrew Couts, Wired)
By inflating numbers and narrowing definitions, Heritage promotes a false link between transgender identity and violence in its push for the FBI to create a new terrorism category.

From Grievance to Gunfire: Lessons from the Charlie Kirk Assassination  (Mubin Shaikh, HSToday)
What the Charlie Kirk assassination reveals about behavioral threat assessment, intervention, and preventing violence before it happens

Lessons From an Evaluation of Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Efforts in Wood County, Ohio  (Megan K McBride and Lauren K Hagy, HSToday)
In 2014, the US government selected three major cities in which to pilot a local approach to terrorism and targeted violence prevention, predicated on the idea that local community involvement can improve the design of such approaches. Since then, these efforts have become more common as local actors—states, cities, and counties—have passed legislation related to behavioral threat assessment and management, adopted strategies aimed at preventing terrorism and targeted violence, and implemented programming to address such violence.  
In one such example, in 2021, Ohio’s General Assembly enacted House Bill 123, the “Safety and Violence Education Students (SAVE Students) Act.” The bill mandates a range of interventions, including a requirement that every school building in the state have a behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM) team, and that each team member complete a state-approved threat assessment training program.  
Before the SAVE Students Act, stakeholders in Wood County, Ohio, had been working for years to increase their capacity to prevent terrorism and targeted violence through behavioral threat assessment, case management, and community-based wraparound services, counseling, and other mental health supports. As a result of these efforts, Wood County was identified as a potential model for other counties across the state.  
Thus, at the request of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate, CNA conducted a year-long evaluation of Wood County’s efforts targeting juveniles. In this article, we present eight key findings with implications for other local actors building their own violence prevention networks.