• German Court to Rule About Phone Searches of Asylum-Seekers

    Judges could announce this week if authorities broke the law when they combed an asylum-seeker’s phone to find out where she was from. The searches are common practice — and the ruling could have major consequences.

  • Public Awareness of “Nuclear Winter” Too Low Given Current Risks

    The scientific theory of nuclear winter sees detonations from nuclear exchanges throw vast amounts of debris into the stratosphere, which ultimately blocks out much of the sun for up to a decade, causing global drops in temperature, mass crop failure and widespread famine. The combined nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia have about 1,450 megatons. The use of only 0.1% of this joint arsenal would cause a nuclear winter which will claim 225 million lives.

  • Five Years After Parkland, School Shootings Haven’t Stopped, and Kill More People

    Since the 2018 Parkland attack, there have been over 900 shootings in K-12 school settings. Thirty-two were indiscriminate attacks apparently driven by the intent to kill as many people as possible, including mass casualty events.

  • Studying Gun Violence Is Hard. But Intervention Programs Need Research to Survive.

    Critics say there isn’t enough traditional academic evidence to justify government investment in community violence interruption. But the programs are varied and neighborhoods aren’t laboratories, complicating ordinary evaluation.

  • “The Most Dangerous Possibility”: U.S. Fears of a Russia-Ukraine War, 30 Years Ago

    On January 5, 1993, just days before Bill Clinton was inaugurated as U.S. president, the outgoing secretary of state, Lawrence Eagleburger, finished a 23-page memo to his successor, Warren Christopher, who would be taking over in a few weeks. The memo was a rundown of global hot spots “Ukraine not the most likely but certainly the most dangerous possibility,” he wrote.

  • U.S., China Compete for Africa's Rare Earth Minerals

    African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have some of the largest deposits of these resources, but China currently dominates the supply chain as well as their refinement and the U.S. wants to reduce its reliance on the Asian giant.

  • Are Mass Shootings Contagious?

    High-fatality shootings are becoming more frequent, raising the question of whether or not mass shootings are contagious, that is, whether or not one mass shooter copycats the actions of an earlier shooter. These questions arise especially when several mass shooting events are clustered in time. The evidence is not clear-cut either way.

  • Studying Gun Violence

    Otto Meisenheimer was a 21-year old college student when he was killed in 1977 in random shooting at a bowling alley outside of Chicago. His family has committed significant funds to establish the Center for the Prevention of Gun Violence in his name at Indiana University School of Public Health.

  • Few Island Nations with Potential to Produce Enough Food in a Nuclear Winter

    New Zealand is one of only a few island nations that could continue to produce enough food to feed its population in a nuclear winter, researchers have found. The term “nuclear winter” refers to reduced sunlight and cooler temperatures caused by soot in the atmosphere following a nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere.

  • What China’s Surveillance Balloon Says About U.S.-China Relations

    The question of what information the Chinese were trying to uncover using a balloon – when China’s many satellites could glean this same information – is intriguing. A far more important issue, however, is what this episode says about the ability, or more accurately inability, of Washington and Beijing to manage a future crisis. Worryingly, it appears that neither the United States nor China is prepared for a serious crisis.

  • Extremist Couple Charged in Plot to Destroy Baltimore’s Power Grid

    Two extremists have been charged Monday with conspiracy to attack and destroy energy facilities around Baltimore in a plot to “completely destroy” the city. The man, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen, and his accomplice appear to be part of trend among domestic violent extremists to target the U.S. electrical grid. In recent years, DHS and the FBI have discovered several such conspiracies to take down the power system, with the most recent attacks taking place in North Carolina and Washington State.

  • Chinese Spy Balloon Over the U.S.: An Aerospace Expert Explains How the Balloons Work and What They Can See

    Balloons are much closer to the ground than any satellites, so they can see even more clearly. And balloons are moving relatively slowly, so they also have a degree of persistence. However, spying is not usually done these days with balloons because they are a relatively easy target and are not completely controllable.

  • EFF Files Amicus Briefs in Two Important Geofence Search Warrant Cases

    Unlike traditional warrants for electronic records, a geofence warrant doesn’t start with a particular suspect or even a device or account; instead police request data on every device in a given geographic area during a designated time period, regardless of whether the device owner has any connection to the crime under investigation. The EFF argues these warrants are unconstitutional “general warrants” because they don’t require police to show probable cause to believe any one device was somehow linked to the crime under investigation.

  • China 'Spy Balloon:' Why Doesn't the Pentagon Shoot It Down?

    Espionage is all about secrets — keeping and revealing them. But here’s what we can say about the alleged spy balloon.

  • Suspected Israeli Drone Strike in Iran Part of New 'Containment Strategy'

    Four Israeli kamikaze quadcopters hit and destroyed an Iranian military facility in Isfahan on January 28. The production facility, located inside a military base, was used to produce drones and mid-range missiles. In the last months, Israel has expanded its attacks on Iran’s military, targeting not only nuclear weapons-related targets but also production facilities for advanced arms.