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Ohio Is Home to About 50 White Extremist Groups, but the State’s Social and Political Landscape Is Undergoing Rapid Racial Change
Rapidly changing social conditions in Ohio have played a significant role in the growth of extremism. Between 1990 and 2019, manufacturing jobs shrank from 21.7% of all employment in the state to 12.5%, mostly affecting white men. For many of these alienated men, extremist ideologies offer easy answers to complex questions that involve their sense of disenfranchisement.
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Evacuating in Disasters Like Hurricane Milton Isn’t Simple – There Are Reasons People Stay in Harm’s Way, and It’s Not Just Stubbornness
Evacuating might seem like the obvious move when a major hurricane is bearing down on your region, but that choice is not always as easy as it may seem. Evacuating from a hurricane requires money, planning, the ability to leave and, importantly, a belief that evacuating is better than staying put.
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The October 7 Attack: An Assessment of the Intelligence Failings
Hours after the Hamas attack of October 7 began, they were widely attributed to an apparent Israeli intelligence failure, with pundits pointing to several possible sources, including a misunderstanding of Hamas’ intentions, cognitive biases, and an overreliance on the country’s technological superiority. Building on previous literature on surprise attacks and intelligence failures to examine both Israel’s political level and intelligence level prior to October 7, 2023, the findings suggest that the attack was likely not the result of a single glaring failure but rather the accumulation of several problems at both levels.
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NNSA Completes and Diamond-Stamps First Plutonium Pit for W87-1 Warhead
During the Cold War, the United States could manufacture hundreds of plutonium pits per year. Pit production ceased in 1989, and NNSA continues to recapitalize production capabilities that atrophied in the post-Cold War era.
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Al Qusayr Destroyed
For years, the Institute for Science and International Security has been following and reporting on the Al Qusayr Underground Facility in Syria, close to the Lebanon border, where construction started as early as 2009 and continued until recently. A few days ago, the site was destroyed in an Israeli attack.
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Colorado Program for Reporting Student Threats Sees Spike in Reports
Safe2Tell saw a 74% increase in reports for September 2024 compared to September 2023, according the Colorado Attorney General’s office. September 2024 saw 4,729 reports, setting a new record for the state.
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Each Year, Landmines Kill Residents of War-Torn Countries. This Innovative Tool Could Save Lives.
Landmines and other explosive remnants of war killed or wounded at least 4,710 people in at least 49 countries in 2022, according to a recent report from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Ukraine reported 608 casualties. Afghanistan documented 303. Colombia recorded 145.
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Crime Is Down, FBI Says, but Politicians Still Choose Statistics to Fit Their Narratives
Violent crime and property crime in the United States dropped in 2023, continuing a downward trend following higher rates of crime during the pandemic. Murder in the United States fell nearly 12% in 2023 compared with 2022.
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In 2019, Congress Finally Funded Gun Violence Research. Here’s How It’s Changed the Field
A Trace analysis of federal data found that the amount of money going to gun violence studies has soared since lawmakers lifted a de facto federal funding ban.
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Taiwan Mobilizes Civil society to Bolster Civil Defense
Most of the island’s people are remarkably ill-prepared for an attack from an increasingly aggressive China. For example, few Taiwanese would know what to do if bombs began shattering nearby streets. Taiwan has taken a big step towards bolstering civil defense, marshalling a range of resources and know-how across society.
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Weak "Guardrails" on Police Face Recognition Use Make Things Worse
Police use of face recognition technology (FRT) poses a particularly massive risk to our civil liberties, particularly for Black men and women and other marginalized communities.
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The Weapons Which Killed Nasrallah
The 83 tons of explosives which were dropped on 28 September 2024 in the heart of the Dahiya district in Beirut destroyed a deeply dug network of tunnels and bunkers which served as Hezbollah headquarters, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and about two dozen of his senior aids. The bombs were BLU-109 type bombs, which were fitted with a JDAM system to turn each “stupid” gravity bomb into a precision-munition smart bomb.
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The Nasrallah Killing Is a Crushing Blow to Hezbollah
Hezbollah leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah possessed a rare set of abilities that made the group a formidable foe to Israel and a power broker in Lebanon. His killing by Israel sharply weakens the threat posed by the group and its patron, Iran.
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The Unthinkable: What Nuclear War in Europe Would Look Like
If Russia were to launch a massive nuclear strike on Ukraine or Western Europe, there is not much the continent could do to stop it. NATO’s internal calculations reportedly predict that in the event of an all-out attack from Russia, the military bloc has “less than 5 percent” of the air defenses needed.
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The World Isn’t Taking Putin’s Nuclear Threats Seriously – the History of Propaganda Suggests I Should
Vladimir Putin has spoken several times about using nuclear weapons since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. To believe that Putin is not serious about using nuclear weapons is a dangerous assumption to make.
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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.”