• California Church Shooting Exposes Little-Known Tension Between Two Groups of Taiwanese

    Americans of Taiwanese descent belong to two distinct groups: Members of the first group come from families which had lived in Taiwan for hundreds of years. Members of the second group descend from families who were part of a wave of people from China who were exiled to Taiwan in the 1940s under the Chinese Nationalist government as the Communists took over mainland China. Members of the first group vehemently oppose China, while members of the second group are more conciliatory toward China and its regional ambitions. The two groups’ historical differences and ongoing tensions became evident on Sunday in a shootout at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church gathering in Southern California.

  • More Mass Shootings Are Happening at Grocery Stores – 13% of Shooters Are Motivated by Racial Hatred, Criminologists Find

    Mass public shootings in which four or more people are killed have become more frequent, and deadly, in the last decade. And the tragedy in Buffalo is the latest in a recent trend of mass public shootings taking place in retail establishments.

  • AI and Policing: What a Queensland Case Study Tells Us

    Law enforcement agencies consider artificial intelligence a force multiplier because it can rapidly process more data than human brains and yield insights to help solve complex analytical problems. Our limited understanding of how AI algorithms make decisions and produce their insights, however, presents a significant challenge to ethically and safely implementing AI policing solutions.

  • What Went Wrong with Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine – and Why?

    Why has the Russian campaign in Ukraine, at least so far, not gone Putin’s way? Experts who have examined Russia’s failures in Ukraine found that of the flaws in planning and execution identified by experts, several categories of failure stand out: a) Underestimating the Ukrainian leaders’, military’s and public’s will and ability to resist; b) underestimating the collective West’s will and capability to aid Ukraine; c) poor planning of the military campaign, calling for simultaneous achievement of multiple objectives along several axes, unachievable with resources committed to attaining these objectives; and d) failure to establish a single chain of command for the operation, to ensure that advancing units have adequate and timely protection and supplies and to achieve air superiority.

  • U.S. Gun Homicides Spiked 35% From 2019 to 2020: CDC Report

    The U.S. firearm homicide rate spiked 35 percent in 2020, the first full year of the coronavirus pandemic, rising to the highest level in almost three decades of record-keeping. The CDC reported 19,350 firearm homicides in the U.S. in 2020, and 24,245 cases of suicide by gun during the same period.

  • Wildfires Are Still Catching Us Off-Guard. Congress’ Plan to Fix That Isn’t Going Anywhere.

    Last year, during a Congressional hearing on the state of wildfire research, researchers and fire managers said that coordination among federal agencies to improve wildfire research would be tremendously helpful to prepare for future fires. But the proposal to connect federal research agencies and improve wildfire research crashed and burned.

  • Spain Sacks Intelligence Chief in Wake of Pegasus Scandal

    Paz Esteban was replaced after a controversy over the use of the Pegasus spyware to hack top Spanish officials’ cellphones, as well as spying on Catalan separatists.

  • California's 2020 Wildfire Season

    2020 was a record-breaking fire year for California. Nearly 9,900 wildfires burned 4.3 million acres in California 2020, twice the previous record. 2020 was the first year acres burned came close to burn rates before Euro-American settlement. A new study calls for management shift to reduce fire severity, not acres burned.

  • The Movement to Ban Government Use of Face Recognition

    Our faces are unique identifiers that can’t be left at home, or replaced like a stolen ID or compromised password. Facial recognition technology facilitates covert mass surveillance of the places we frequent, people we associate with, and, purportedly, our emotional state. Communities across the country are fighting back.

  • Strengthening First Responder Communications

    A critical element of protecting the U.S. is securing the ability of first responders to communicate. A DHS-run exercise aimed to help responders prepare to mitigate potential jamming incidents.

  • Guidance for Holistic Home and Community Wildfire Protection

    Once they have a foothold, severe wildfires can quickly overwhelm a community, particularly one that is densely packed. To shield houses against such a fierce threat, a thorough defense is key.

  • How Our Bushfire-Proof House Design Could Help People Flee Rather Than Risk Fighting the Flames

    Building houses better at withstanding the impacts of climate change is one way we can protect ourselves in the face of future catastrophic conditions. I’m part of a research team that developed a novel, bushfire-resistant house design, which won an international award last month.

  • Russia's Claims of Ukrainian Biological Weapons: A Propaganda Ploy?

    Since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has claimed Kyiv is developing biological weapons with support from the US and Germany. Experts familiar with laboratories in Ukraine say the accusations are groundless.

  • Russia’s Hybrid War in Ukraine

    Microsoft last week released a report which details a broad cyberattacks campaign by Russia in Ukraine, a campaign conducted in concert with kinetic military action. At least six Russian Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors and other unattributed threats, have conducted destructive attacks, espionage operations, or both, while Russian military forces attack the country by land, air, and sea.

  • News Media Heeding Call to Limit Naming Perpetrators in Mass Shootings

    Is reducing the number of times the perpetrator’s name is used in news coverage in the public interest? It certainly diminishes the notoriety of the perpetrator and reduces any incentive to become famous. Yet when the name is not used, other more relevant details, such as the person’s motives and background, may also not be reported.