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Artificial Intelligence Means Better, Faster and More for First Responders
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) hold tremendous potential to enable first responders to better process information and drive faster and more precise response. However, these capabilities present certain risks.
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Amid Hurricane Milton’s Devastation, a Sliver of Good News
Earlier this month Hurricane Milton caused an estimated $50 billion in damage and claimed the lives of at least 14 people, yet didn’t deliver the scale of destruction some had feared. Cellphone data suggest evacuation mandates, warning systems worked.
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Beefing Up Border Patrol Is a Bipartisan Goal, but the Agency Has a Troubled History of Violence and Impunity
On border policy, Trump and Harris have remarkably similar positions: They want to send more money, Border Patrol agents and technology to the U.S.-Mexico border. Yet, as my research on the history of border enforcement reveals, flooding the zone with funding, law enforcement and technology will not necessarily make the border safer.
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The History of WIPP
In 1975, the nation asked Sandia to investigate the possibility of building a repository in New Mexico for the disposal of radioactive transuranic defense waste. Little did those assigned to the project know that the task would absorb most of their careers and become one of the most controversial and important projects in U.S. history.
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Concerns about Elon Musk, Russia's Putin Not Fading Yet
Reports that billionaire Elon Musk has been talking on a consistent basis with Russian President Vladimir Putin are cause of concern. Musk’s companies are doing work for the Pentagon NASA. Some of that work is so sensitive that Musk has been given high-level security clearances due to his knowledge of the programs, raising concerns among some that top secret U.S. information and capabilities could be at risk.
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Vietnam Expands Strategic Capabilities in South China Sea
Hanoi is building runways, military structures on reclaimed islands at a ‘surprising’ pace, a think tank said.
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Threatening ‘The Enemy Within’ with Force: Military Ethicists Explain the Danger to Important American Traditions
In a time of increasing political polarization, military educational institutions are focusing even more explicitly on the oath military members take to the Constitution, rather than to a person or an office. Military members have a duty to obey orders from superior officers, but the content of an order is not the only factor that determines whether it is a moral one. The political motivation for an order may be equally important, because the military’s obligation to stay out of politics is deeply intertwined with the mutual obligation of civilian officials not to use the military for partisan reasons.
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U.K. Courts Are Getting It Wrong on Eyewitness Evidence: Study
A ‘pivotal shift’ in how UK Courts view eyewitness evidence is needed according to new research. Researchers found an almost unanimous shift in beliefs about the relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy.
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Antisemitic Agitators Aided by UCLA Say Students, Professor, Task Force
Three Jewish students from UCLA, alongside a Jewish professor, have filed an amended complaint regarding their lawsuit against the university, saying it played a role in helping antisemitic agitators exclude them from campus.
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Threats of Political Violence Are Distorting Reality
Mobilizations by extremist groups in 2024 are on track to be at their lowest level since 2020, according to a new report, but public officials — particularly those who work on elections — continue to face hostile threats.
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World War I Was the Crucible of Air Power. Ukraine Looks the Same for Drones
We seem to be seeing a new kind of air battle—lower, slower at close quarters and in a physical environment where fighter aircraft cannot intervene affordably or effectively. Could it be that Ukraine is to small unmanned systems what World War I was to aircraft?
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When Hurricane Evacuation Isn’t an Option
Those who remain to face a hurricane are often labeled brave or stubborn. Sometimes they feel the threat is overblown, the need to leave overstated. But some have no other choice. Not everyone rides out storms like Milton or Helene by choice. Some simply cannot afford to flee.
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Autonomous Disaster Response Technology Successfully Applied to Fire Extinguishing System of a 3,200-ton Vessel
An innovative technology for autonomously responding, without crew intervention, to ruptures to the pipes within the fire extinguishing system of vessels has been successfully verified for the first time in Korea.
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Efforts to Build Wildfire Resilience Are Heating Up
Stanford’s campus has become a living lab for testing innovative fire management techniques, from AI-powered environmental sensors to a firebreak-creating “BurnBot.”
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Extremists Co-Opt Hurricane Response to Blame Israel, Incite a Storm of Hateful Narratives
Right-wing extremists have been exploiting the devastation surrounding Hurricane Helene — a storm that has so far claimed the lives of at least 230 people in the southeast U.S.— and now Hurricane Milton, to advance antisemitic or anti-Israel conspiracy theories that federal disaster assistance has been slow or inadequate because they believe the U.S. is sending funds and personnel to Israel instead.
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The long view
AI-Controlled Fighter Jets May Be Closer Than We Think — and Would Change the Face of Warfare
Could we be on the verge of an era where fighter jets take flight without pilots – and are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI)? US R Adm Michael Donnelly recently said that an upcoming combat jet could be the navy’s last one with a pilot in the cockpit.
What We’ve Learned from Survivors of the Atomic Bombs
Q&A with Dr. Preetha Rajaraman, New Vice Chair for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Need for National Information Clearinghouse for Cybercrime Data, Categorization of Cybercrimes: Report
There is an acute need for the U.S. to address its lack of overall governance and coordination of cybercrime statistics. A new report recommends that relevant federal agencies create or designate a national information clearinghouse to draw information from multiple sources of cybercrime data and establish connections to assist in criminal investigations.
Autonomous Weapon Systems: No Human-in-the-Loop Required, and Other Myths Dispelled
“The United States has a strong policy on autonomy in weapon systems that simultaneously enables their development and deployment and ensures they could be used in an effective manner, meaning the systems work as intended, with the same minimal risk of accidents or errors that all weapon systems have,” Michael Horowitz writes.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
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.”