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Knives: Rescue tools or edged weapons?
Few agencies have written policies regarding the use of knives as weapons; they need such policies, and they need training, because deploying a knife and cutting or stabbing another human being have significant ramifications to the officer; there are physical, psychological, and legal issues to consider
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DHS announces $1.8 billion in federal preparedness grants
Grants to states and localities aim to protect, prevent, respond, and recover from potential calamities this fiscal year
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Locating VoIP callers in emergencies
Callers who use VoIP to call 999 (the U.K. equivalent of the U.S. 911) run the risk of making it difficult, if not impossible, for the police, paramedics, and fire crews to attend emergencies promptly; a system is being developed to locate Internet phones
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Mystery surrounds detection of North Korea's nuclear test
Detecting radionuclide evidence in the form of radioactive gas is the “smoking gun” — proving that a nuclear explosion has occurred; seismologists say they are comfortable that explosion in North Korea two weeks ago was a nuclear test — but sensors have not been able to pick up radionuclide evidence
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What's past is prologue: Israel's covert campaign against Iran's nuclear program
During the past four-and-a-half decades, Israel has used a combination of ruthless covert operations and overt military means to prevent three Arab countries — Egypt, Iraq, and Syria — from acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons; as Iran approaches the home stretch of its nuclear weapons program, it may want to reflect on this history
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Texas cop uses Taser gun on 72-year old combative granny
Kathryn Winkfein, 72, was stopped for doing 60 mph in a 45 mph zone; when she began to argue with the cop, he tased her
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Motorola: Cellphones could offer a unified disaster alerts broadcasts
Motorola envisages using cellphones for emergency alerts even if most of a cellphone network is down; a new generation of cellphones that can rapidly form a peer-to-peer network when an emergency alert is broadcast
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Technology to prevent police friendly-fire accidents "nonviable"
Following a recent killing of a plain clothes policeman by fellow officers, the NYPD asked the Pacific Northwestern Laboratory to look into the possibility of developing a technology which would prevent such accidents in the future; PNL says such technology is currently nonviable
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Drug traffickers turn to self-propelled semi-submersibles
Trying to stay ahead of U.S. drug interdiction efforts, Colombian drug traffickers are looking to build remote-controlled SPSSs to smuggle drugs risk-free from Colombia into the United States
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Iran increases number of centrifuges to 5,000
Iran’s march toward the bomb accelerates; IAEA released a report on Friday saying that Iran has increased the efficiency of its production of low-enriched uranium, boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months
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IAEA reports more undeclared uranium discovered in Syria
On 7 September 2007 Israel destroyed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor; the IAEA later found uranium particles at the remote desert site, contradicting Syrian claims that the destroyed site was a non-nuclear facility; on Friday, the IAEA reported that “anthropogenic natural uranium particles” were found in a facility in Damascus
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Israel unhappy with IAEA
Israel wants IAEA to condemn Syria over uranium findings; Israel also accuses the IAEA of not using all of the agency’s investigative tools to investigate Syria’s nuclear activities
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U.K. security services acted properly with the information they had
Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee: “we cannot criticize the judgments made by MI5 and the police based on the information that they had and their priorities at the time”
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NYPD looking for technology to prevent friendly fire
The recent accidental shooting of a plain clothes policeman by fellow officers has prompted NYPD to seek technology to prevent friendly fire accidents; the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will help
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U.K. hospitals missing true scope of swine flu infection
An expert says the extent of swine flu infection in the United Kingdom is being underestimated because hospitals are failing to test patients with respiratory illnesses for the virus
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More headlines
The long view
Canada’s Biosecurity Scandal: The Risks of Foreign Interference in Life Sciences
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorized a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah. Then the story seemed to go away—until now.
A Return to U.S. Casualty Aversion
The 9/11 Wars as aberrations: After the extended, tragically costly, and fundamentally absurd aberrations caused by the overreaction to 9/11, a more limited American military approach appears to be back—and perhaps is even more embraced than in the post‐Vietnam decades.
A New Way to Detect Radiation Involving Cheap Ceramics
The radiation detectors used today for applications like inspecting cargo ships for smuggled nuclear materials are expensive and cannot operate in harsh environments, among other disadvantages. Work by MIT engineers could lead to plethora of new applications, including better detectors for nuclear materials at ports.
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.