The response to COVID-19 has exposed a world that is largely unprepared to deal with emerging and novel biothreats, whether the outbreak is natural or intentional. The Global Health Security Network brought together two biosecurity experts to discuss how current projects to improve global health security can adapt during the pandemic and what changes the world needs to make to improve biosafety and biosecurity.

Anti-Semitism has stained the speeches and statements of Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan for decades. This past 4 July was no different, as Farrakhan delivered an address replete with anti-Semitic lies and stereotypes, and calls for his listeners to speak out against Jews. Farrakhan’s speech has been viewed over 1.2 million times (as of 15 July) on numerous YouTube channels.

From both the right and the left, there have been calls to designate various domestic organizations – the KKK, antifa, white supremacists – as “terrorists.” Anna Meier writes there is no legal mechanism in the United States for labeling purely domestic organizations as terrorist groups, but while there is no purely domestic terrorism statute in the United States, nor is there a domestic terrorism proscription mechanism, the “terrorist” label, even when not a formal legal mechanism, signals what kinds of political behavior cross the line from nonideal to unacceptable. “Trump’s threatened antifa designation, then, may not carry any legal weight, but it does signal to the public—and to law enforcement—an unacceptable form of contention in the eyes of the administration,” she writes.

German security experts warn about the lax, ineffective way in which German security authorities have dealt with the growing presence of extreme far-right elements in police ranks, calling the rejectionist attitude of the police leadership dangerous. This is consistent with findings from Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). On 9 July, Interior Minister Seehofer presented the BfV’s 2019 annual report. He spoke of sharp rises in anti-Semitic, right-wing extremist and racist crimes in Germany, and called right-wing extremism the country’s greatest security threat.

Until recently, the coronavirus had reduced opportunities for terrorism. The lockdown had seen U.K. high streets and public spaces almost deserted, with most non-essential businesses forced to close, lowering the number of potential terrorist targets. However, lockdown and social distancing measures are now being relaxed, and the government is promoting greater use of open public spaces to try to kickstart the economy while keeping transmission of the virus low. While this response is likely to benefit businesses and the economy, there’s a real risk these new outdoor arrangements may become attractive targets for terrorists.

Since 9/11, national counterterrorism strategies have focused largely on foreign terrorist groups—like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda—and federal prosecutors have used specifically tailored criminal statutes to prosecute individuals affiliated with these groups. Emma Broches and Julia Solomon-Strauss write that over the past few years, however, the domestic terrorism landscape has shifted as a result of a growing threat from individuals and groups with racially motivated violent extremist ideologies—including white supremacist and anti-government views. This means that law enforcement groups face a different, and potentially more challenging, set of obstacles to successfully counter this threat.

The U.K. Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) has published a report Thursday, looking at the way in which extremists have sought to exploit the current pandemic. The CCE say that the government needs to ensure that their response to dealing with COVID-19 and future crises takes into account the significant threat of hateful extremism and the dangerous narratives spread by conspiracy theories.

A new report by Germany’s domestic intelligence (BfV) agency says right-wing extremism now poses the greatest threat to security in the country. BfV said that the number of right-wing extremists in Germany has increased from 24,100 in 2018 to 32,000 in 2019. As worrisome, the number of extremists who are prepared to use violence to achieve their aims keeps growing, and now stands at 13,000. The number of left-wing extremists has increased from 32,000 to 33,500 but only 9,000 of them are regarded as committed to violence. Anti-Semitism continues to be central to right-wing extremist movement, and 94 percent of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany in 2019 were committed by members of these movements. Islamist terrorism is still a threat, but it is declining: 28,000 Germans are affiliated with Islamist Jihadist groups, but only 650 are regarded as potentially violent.

The George Washington University on Monday launched its ISIS Files repository. The virtual public repository features a selection of the 15,000 digitized pages from the documents collected in Iraq by New York Times journalist Rukmini Callimachi and a team of Iraqi translators.