• Unexpected Trends in Gun Violence Revealed by Statistical Analysis

    Only a handful of U.S. states showed a surge in gun violence incidents in mid-2020 during civil unrest at the start of COVID-19 lockdowns and the murder of George Floyd, a new study finds.

  • Cracking the Secrets to Earthquake Safety, One Shake Simulation at a Time

    A new experimental capability, designed to replicate realistic earthquakes in the laboratory, paired with the world’s fastest supercomputers, will help lead to resilient buildings and infrastructure across the U.S.

  • Deep Learning Underlies Geographic Dataset Used in Hurricane Response

    Extreme weather and natural disasters are happening with increasing frequency across the United States and its territories. Accurate and detailed maps are critical in emergency response and recovery. ORNL’s has mapped and characterized all structures within the United States and its territories to aid FEMA in its response to disasters.

  • U.K. Unveils New Counterterror Strategy to Address New Threats

    In the U.K. and overseas, there has been a shift towards self-initiated terrorists operating independently from organized groups with increasingly personal ideologies and warped views used to justify violence. The U.K. is updating its counterterrorism system is so it can continually adapt to new and emerging threats.

  • An Assessment of the Second U.S. Government Domestic Terrorism Assessment

    The recently released intelligence assessment of domestic terrorism is the second iteration of the Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism, and Seamus Hughes, Moshe Klein, and Alexis Jori Shanes write that “From additional granularity in the size and scope of the threat of domestic terrorism to a more forthcoming acknowledgement of its complexity, it should provide a road map for U.S. domestic counterterrorism efforts.”

  • The Business Case for Reducing Gun Violence

    While gun violence in the United States continues to claim lives at an alarming rate, it is also taking a quiet toll on the U.S. economy, according to new research. The research found that the toll of U.S. firearms injuries on the U.S. economy reaches billions of dollars annually.

  • Rare-Earth Processing Must Be a Strategic Priority for Australia

    There are well over 3,000 items of U.S. military equipment requiring rare earth elements (REEs), including crewed and uncrewed aircraft, satellites, nuclear weapons, missiles, surface warships and submarines, advanced radars and combat systems, and army vehicles such as tanks. REEs are also essential to green technology. China’s near global monopoly over the processing of these minerals is becoming increasingly worrisome.

  • Intrusive Surveillance and Interrogation of Portland Demonstrators by DHS Agents

    DHS surveillance of 2020 protestors in Portland, Oregon was broader and more intrusive than had previously been knows. DHS agents created individual dossiers on many of the protestors, dossiers which included lists of friends and family, travel history, social media postings, and other records unrelated to securing federal property or homeland security. Documents also reveal that Trump appointees at DHS endorsed baseless conspiracy theories in justifying what Senator Ron Wyden D-Oregon) called “violations of Oregonians’ civil rights.”

  • U.K. Police Fail to Meet “Legal and Ethical Standards” in Use of Facial Recognition

    Researchers devise an audit tool to test whether police use of facial recognition poses a threat to fundamental human rights, and analyze three deployments of the technology by British forces – with all three failing to meet “minimum ethical and legal standards.”

  • Relaxing Conceal Carry Permit Restrictions Significantly Increases Firearm Assaults

    The average rate of assaults with firearms increased an average of 9.5 percent relative to forecasted trends in the first 10 years after 34 states relaxed restrictions on civilians carrying concealed firearms in public. Researchers say that specific provisions in conceal carry laws may reduce risks associated with civilian gun carrying.

  • Russia: Western Commercial Satellites Could Become 'Legitimate' Targets

    Russian officials have warned that Western commercial satellites could become “legitimate” targets for Moscow if they were involved in the war in Ukraine. Russia is upset about Starlink, a network of more than 2,000 satellites orbiting the Earth and thousands of terminals on the ground. In late February, Elon Musk said his rocket company SpaceX would continue to fund its Starlink Internet service in Ukraine.

  • How China’s Military Plugs into the Global Space Sector

    China is using seemingly civilian and academic Chinese research institutions to advance its military goals in space. International organizations like the International GNSS Service need to be aware that even overtly civilian entities can be intertwined with the Chinese military. Collaboration with high-risk Chinese institutions must be done with extreme care to ensure data and products intended to support international science and commerce are not redirected towards unwanted military uses.

  • Israel Presenting U.S. With Intelligence on Iranian Drones Used in Ukraine

    Israeli President Isaac Herzog shared intelligence about Iranian drones being used by Russian forces in Ukraine when he met Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden.

  • Better Regulating Drone Use Requires Communication, Not Surveillance

    In 2018, Congress gave the DHS and DOJ sweeping new authorities to destroy or commandeer privately-owned drones which pose a “credible threat” to a “covered facility or asset” in the U.S. as well as intercept the data it sends and receives. The definition of “credible threat” was left entirely to the discretion of DOJ and DHS.

  • A Drone Wing That Could Learn How to Sense Danger Faster

    The small domes that you press on your soda’s to-go cup lid may one day save a winged drone from a nosedive. Patterns of these invertible domes on a drone’s wings would give it a way to remember in microseconds what dangerous conditions feel like and react quickly.