• France Fights Disinformation as Olympics, Elections Loom

    With the Paris Olympics and Paralympics approaching — not to mention the European elections in June — France is ramping up its fight against information manipulation. EU officials are also on guard.

  • From Dearborn to NYC, Quds Day Protesters Praise Terrorists, Denounce the U.S. and Call for the Destruction of Israel

    Over the weekend of April 5, 2024, anti-Israel activists in the US and around the world marked Al Quds Day (“Jerusalem Day”) with protests and other events against Zionism and the state of Israel. This annual event, originally conceived by the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, serves as a platform for support for terrorism and other violence against Israel and regularly includes virulent antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric. 

  • Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky Responds to Antisemitic Incident

    Last week, law students supporting Palestinians in Gaza disrupted a dinner Dean Chemerinsky and his wife were holding in their home for first-year students. The disrupting law students insisted they had First Amendment right to disrupt the dinner.

  • Texas Pushes Back Against Widespread Disinformation About Voter Registration

    The Secretary of State and a voter registration expert in Texas have refuted widespread disinformation spread by YouTubers and anonymous social media accounts, which falsely claimed that since January 2024, over 1.2 million people registered to vote in Texas without photo IDs. Voter rolls in Texas have increased by 57,711 voters since the beginning of 2024, and each one of the new registrant did so with either a driver’s license or an SSN, after the state verified that the SSN was authentic.

  • Trump Pushes the Limits of Every Restriction He Faces – Including Threatening Judges and Their Families

    Judicial independence and integrity are bedrock principles of American democracy. By personally attacking the public servants who have dedicated their lives to the American justice system, Trump has severely weakened public trust in our legal institutions. If these attacks continue, I believe they are likely to further undermine the justice system, and American democracy itself.

  • FBI Fears 'Coordinated Attack' on U.S. Homeland

    A surge of confidence by supporters of the Islamic State terror group — reflected in a series of online threats against Europe combined with its deadly attack on a concert hall in Russia — is giving security officials in the United States cause for concern.

  • Chicago Migrant Spending Approaching $300 Million

    With the city’s spending on non-citizen migrants increasing, criticism of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his handling of the ongoing crisis also grows. In the 11 months since Johnson took over at City Hall, data from the “New Arrivals Mission” website pegs such spending at nearly $300 million with more than 38,000 migrants having arrived in the city and around 9,700 still residing in city shelters.

  • Critical Minerals in Africa: Strengthening Security, Supporting Development, and Reducing Conflict amid Geopolitical Competition

    US economic and national security depends on a reliable supply of critical minerals that underlie an array of products and services important to ever-changing modern economies. Yet for many critical minerals (e.g., cobalt, graphite, and manganese), the United States is heavily dependent on imports. Especially concerning is that the United States is at or near 100 percent reliant on “foreign entities of concern”—mainly the People’s Republic of China—for key critical minerals. Africa can play an important role in strengthening US critical minerals supply chain security.

  • IS Growing Stronger in Syria

    Slowly but surely, the Islamic State terror group seems to be regaining its footing in Syria, launching new and brazen attacks against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Intelligence estimates put the number of Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq at about 2,500 — more than double estimates from late January. And a series of new studies is only adding to the concern.

  • Tech War: China Could Face U.S., EU Curbs Over Legacy Chips Dominance

    Legacy chips, used in everything from washing machines to cars and TVs to medical devices, may not be as powerful as the state-of-the-art semiconductors that power artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. But they’re a growing headache for the United States and European Union: After the United States cut China’s access to cutting-edge chips, the EU and the United States are concerned about the country’s dominance of semiconductors used in everyday technology.

  • Unlicensed Dealers Illegally Trafficked 68,000 Guns Over 5 Years

    Unlicensed dealers who aren’t required to perform background checks illegally trafficked more than 68,000 firearms in the United States over a five-year period, according to new data released Thursday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

  • Cyber Safety Review Board Releases Report on Microsoft Online Exchange Incident from Summer 2023

    On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the Cyber Safety Review Board’s (CSRB) findings and recommendations following its independent review of the Summer 2023 Microsoft Exchange Online intrusion. The review detailed operational and strategic decisions that led to the intrusion and recommended specific practices for industry and government to implement to ensure an intrusion of this magnitude does not happen again.

  • Engineers Fortifying Critical Infrastructure

    In a bid to protect the nation’s energy sector against cyber attacks, engineers are creating a digital twin to help weed out threats and fix software and firmware vulnerabilities. If left unchecked, these weaknesses could allow ransomware attacks that could cause severe havoc to critical U.S. energy systems.

  • Where Did All the Water Go? New Study Explores Water Use in the Colorado River Basin.

    The final 100 miles of the Colorado River is a shell of its former self — nearly 10 miles wide at the turn of the century, farmers had more water than they knew what to do with. Now, a weave of concrete canals brings water to sprawling industrial farms situated in the Mexicali Valley, with much of the natural riverbed dry and the wildlife sparse. Where did all the water go?

  • States and Tribes Scramble to Reach Colorado River Deals Before Election

    There are three main forces driving the conflict on the Colorado River. The first is an outdated legal system that guarantees more water to seven Western states than is actually available in the river during most years. The second is the exclusion of Native American tribes from this legal system. The third is climate change, which is heating up the western United States and diminishing the winter snowfall and rainwater that feed the river. Landmark agreements would cut big states’ water usage for decades and deliver water to the Navajo Nation.