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Protecting Voters and Election Workers from Armed Intimidation
Although the United States is no stranger to political violence, our elections in the 21st century have been safe and secure. Rare events of violence closely covered by the media, but in reality, voter suppression by intimidation is much more likely to occur. While guns have rarely been used in elections to commit violent acts, they are increasingly being wielded as tools of intimidation.
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The Accelerationists’ App: How Telegram Became the “Center of Gravity” for a New Breed of Domestic Terrorists
From attempting to incite racially motivated violence to encouraging attacks on critical infrastructure, the alleged crimes planned and advertised by extremists on Telegram go far beyond the charges facing CEO Pavel Durov.
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The Country’s Biggest Ghost Gun Manufacturer Has Shuttered
As its products increasingly turned up at crime scenes, Polymer80 drew scrutiny from law enforcement and policymakers.
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Defense Department Should Secure Access to Advanced Semiconductor Technologies
A new, multipronged strategy is needed for the U.S. Department of Defense to secure access to advanced semiconductor technologies, one of the agency’s defining challenges, says a new report. DOD should invest in leap-ahead semiconductor technologies, work to reshore production capabilities, and strengthen industry and interagency engagement, says a new report.
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AI Technology and Self-Coordinating Drones to Detect and Investigate Wildfires
Engineers have developed a swarm of self-coordinating drones for firefighting, as part of an effort to develop cost-effective early mitigation strategies for wildfires.
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The Israel-Hezbollah Conflict: Where It Stands
Cross-border fighting has returned to a lower intensity following Israel’s preemptive strike in Lebanon, but the conflict could escalate again, and a reprisal from Iran remains likely.
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New Gels Could Protect Buildings During Wildfires
Researchers have developed a sprayable gel that creates a shield to protect buildings from wildfire damage. It lasts longer and is more effective than existing commercial options.
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Solingen Knife Attack Prompts Tough Security Measures
The German government is taking action in response to the fatal knife attack in Solingen, banning knives in public places and putting pressure on rejected asylum seekers and criminal offenders.
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The History and Future of the Nordic Resistance Movement
In June 2024, the United States designated Scandinavia’s largest National Socialist organization, the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), as a terrorist entity. NRM has grown into a pan-Nordic organization with a rigid hierarchy and has expanded with chapters throughout Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Finland. The designation is a disruption to NRM’s ability to operate, but it is unlikely to dismantle the network that makes up its far-right membership.
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Global AI Adoption Is Outpacing Risk Understanding, Warns MIT CSAIL
As organizations rush to implement artificial intelligence (AI), a new analysis of AI-related risks finds significant gaps in our understanding, highlighting an urgent need for a more comprehensive approach.
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The Danger of AI in War: It Doesn’t Care About Self-Preservation
Recent wargames using artificial-intelligence models from OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic revealed a troubling trend: AI models are more likely than humans to escalate conflicts to kinetic, even nuclear, war.
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How U.S. Military Planning Has Shifted Away from Fighting Terrorism to Readying for Tensions and Conflict with China and Russia
As changes emerge in the types of threats facing the U.S., the American military adjusts its strategic focus, budgets and planning. For instance, after 9/11, the U.S. military refocused away from its Cold War emphasis on preparing for combat against a powerful nation – the Soviet Union – and toward fighting small terrorist and insurgent groups instead. Over the past decade, the Pentagon’s efforts have shifted back to preparing for what officials call “great power competition” among the U.S., Russia and China.
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Yacht Crew’s Decisions Questioned as Investigation Continues
Investigators continue to piece together the events which led to the sinking of the superyacht Bayesian on 19 August. They focus on two issues: whether the yacht’s keel was lowered to provide stability as the storm raged, and whether large quantities of water managed to flood the yacht and sink it. The crew’s decisions may have contributed to problems with both issues. The captain n and two crew members are being investigated for manslaughter by the Italian police.
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Floating Piers and Sinking Hopes: China’s Logistics Challenge in Invading Taiwan
Last month the United States disassembled and removed the floating pier it had assembled at a Gaza beach to take aid deliveries. It took almost a month to assemble, waves damaged it and almost destroyed it, and waves drove ashore boats that serviced it. And all that was nothing compared with the challenges that China’s armed forces would face in trying to deliver a mountain of personnel, equipment and supplies in an invasion of Taiwan.
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UC Berkeley Making Several Changes to Combat Antisemitism This School Year
The University of California Berkeley is expanding its antisemitism education in the 2024-25 school year as well as banning encampments and prohibiting masking to conceal one’s identity. University leaders say that Berkeley aims to ‘address the campus culture’.
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The long view
Why Was Pacific Northwest Home to So Many Serial Killers?
Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway, George Russell, Israel Keyes, and Robert Lee Yates were serial killers who grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the shadow of smelters which spewed plumes of lead, arsenic, and cadmium into the air. As a young man, Charles Manson spent ten years at a nearby prison, where lead has seeped into the soil. The idea of a correlation between early exposure to lead and higher crime rates is not new. Fraser doesn’t explicitly support the lead-crime hypothesis, but in a nimble, haunting narrative, she argues that the connections between an unfettered pollution and violent crime warrant scrutiny.
Bookshelf: Smartphones Shape War in Hyperconnected World
The smartphone is helping to shape the conduct and representation of contemporary war. A new book argues that as an operative device, the smartphone is now “being used as a central weapon of war.”