• 2021 Hate Crime Statistics: 20-Year High

    The number of hate crimes in the United States jumped to a 20-year high in 2021, the FBI said in an updated report released Monday. The FBI initially issued its annual hate crimes report in December showing 7,262 incidents for 2021.

  • Physicians Get Trained on Gun Safety

    For the past three years, Winslow and Julie Parsonnet, MD, professor of medicine and of epidemiology, have worked on an online, self-paced course called Clinicians and Firearms. The aim is to promote education for clinicians, teaching how to reduce firearm injuries and deaths, including tips on how to talk to patients about safe storage and temporary removal of firearms from the home during times of high risk.

  • Preventing Violence in Schools: Encouraging Students to Report Threats

    One of the most consistent findings in research on school shootings is that someone knew an attack was possible and didn’t report it. A recent RAND study looked at how schools can better encourage students to come forward when they see or hear something that should concern them. Its top recommendations: tip lines, training, and a lot more trust.

  • Lawmakers: “Clean Reauthorization” of Surveillance Authorities a “Nonstarter”

    Key U.S. lawmakers are warning the country’s top intelligence officials that they could soon find themselves without a much-talked-about surveillance authority unless their agencies are able to prove they can be trusted.

  • “Prevent” Review: Why We Need a New – and Clearer – Definition of Islamist Extremism

    An independent review of the UK counter-terrorism strategy, Prevent, has recommended that the government increase its efforts to tackle Islamist extremism. One fundamental question this review poses is what exactly “Islamist extremism” is. This matters because many professionals (including teachers, lecturers, social workers, health workers and prison guards) are now legally obliged to watch out for it. A clearer definition is possible.

  • Extremist Propaganda Soars to All-Time High in 2022

    In 2022, there has been a significant increase in racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist (RMVE) propaganda efforts, which included the distribution of racist and antisemitic fliers, stickers, banners, graffiti, and posters, as well as laser projections - with a total of 6,751 cases reported in 2022, compared to 4,876 in 2021.

  • Why Police Resist Reforms to Militarization

    Issues revolve around culture of viewing civilians as potential threats, concerns about self-protection in departments equipped with military-grade arms.

  • Understanding Plants Improves Wildland-Fire Modeling in Uncertain Future

    Drought and warmer temperatures make vegetation dynamics crucial to fire behavior and effects. A new conceptual framework for incorporating the way plants use carbon and water into fine-scale computer models of wildland fire provides a critical first step toward improved global fire forecasting.

  • High-Fidelity Simulation Offers Insight into 2013 Chelyabinsk Meteor

    On the morning of Feb. 15, 2013, a small asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, sending a loud shockwave and sonic boom across the region, damaging buildings and leaving around 1,200 people injured. Meteoric events are natural disasters and, just like any other natural disaster, we can do more to be prepared. “They are not high-probability events, but we shouldn’t dismiss them as science fiction either,” says one scientist.

  • Spy Balloon Controversy Focuses Attention on Western Nuclear Missile Facilities

    Experts believe the Chinese balloon downed over the Atlantic coast this month was snooping on U.S. missile defenses. Part of the landscape for a half-century, they are headed for a costly refresh in an era of rising global tensions.

  • Places of Worship Linked with More Neighborhood Crime in Washington, D.C.

    A statistical analysis of areas near more than 700 houses of worship in Washington, D.C. found that these areas are associated with higher levels of violent and property crime—even after accounting for other factors commonly linked with crime.

  • Australian Government Needs to Go ack to Basics to Build an Australian Rare-Earths Industry

    China has moved well beyond an aspiration to monopolize the production of rare earths. It aims for leadership in the production of the full range of goods making use of rare earths—from electric cars to wind turbines, MRI scanners, lasers and rocket motors.

  • Next Generation 911 Interoperability

    An estimated 240 million calls are routed to first responders every year via our country’s 911 system. It is critical that responders and operators have access to the best tools and resources available so that they can effectively answer these calls quickly and accurately and keep our communities safe. New testing and certification program, laboratory will improve the functionality of our national 911 system.

  • 12 Days: The Time Iran Needs to Produce Enough Weapon-Grade Uranium for a Nuclear Weapon

    Iran can now break out and produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon in 12 days, using only three advanced centrifuge cascades and half of its existing stock of 60 percent enriched uranium. This breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access.

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Tests Expose Neighbors to Radiation Risks

    Tens of thousands of North Koreans and people in South Korea, Japan, and China could be exposed to radioactive materials spread through groundwater from an underground nuclear test site. North Korea secretly conducted six tests of nuclear weapons at the Punggye-ri site in the mountainous North Hamgyong Province between 2006 and 2017.