• 2022 UFO Report Released by U.S. Intelligence Community

    The 2022 UFO report says that 510 objects were reported – they include 144 objects previously reported and 366 new sightings. Most of both the old and new cases were determined, after analysis, to exhibit “unremarkable characteristics.”

  • Pentagon Overhauls Chem-Bio Defense

    DOD last week said it was overhauling its approach to countering chemical and biological weapons. Rather than continuing to focus on developing countermeasures for a specific list of threat agents, the Pentagon will develop measures that can adapt to a range of evolving biological and chemical threats.

  • Effects of Gun Policies: Evidence Grows to Supports Laws Intended to Restrict Child Access to Guns

    More than 45,000 Americans die annually from deliberate and unintentional gun injuries, just over half of which are suicides. Another 50,000 to 150,000 Americans per year receive care in a hospital for a nonfatal gun injury.

  • How Does a Child Become a Shooter? Research Suggests Easy Access to Guns and Exposure to Screen Violence Increase the Risk

    In the aftermath of a shocking incident in which a first grader shot and seriously injured a teacher at a school in Newport News, Virginia, the city’s mayor asked the question: “How did this happen?” As experts in media use and its connections to violence, we have reported some disturbing findings about how children are influenced by gun violence depicted in media like television, movies and video games. What makes this more troubling is the fact that millions of children in the U.S. have easy access to firearms in their homes, increasing the risk of gun deaths, including suicides.

  • Flooding in California: What Went Wrong, and What Comes Next

    Battered by storm after storm, California is facing intense flooding, with at least 19 lives lost so far and nearly 100,000 people evacuated from their homes. And there’s no sign that the storms will be letting up soon.

  • EV Transition Will Benefit Most U.S. Vehicle Owners, but Lowest-Income Americans Could Get Left Behind

    More than 90% of vehicle-owning households in the United States would see a reduction in the percentage of income spent on transportation energy—the gasoline or electricity that powers their cars, SUVs and pickups—if they switched to electric vehicles. But more than half of the lowest-income U.S. households (an estimated 8.3 million households) would continue to experience high transportation energy burdens.

  • What Does China's Arctic Presence Mean to the United States?

    Researchers looked at where China is operating in the Arctic, what it wants, and what that could mean for regional security. They concluded that China has made only limited inroads in the Arctic, but that’s not for lack of trying.

  • Leveraging U.S. Capital Markets to Support the Future Industrial Network

    $56 trillion is nearly three times the size of the U.S. economy.  This vast pool of capital in U.S. capital markets — $46 trillion in public capitalization and another $10 trillion in private money – dwarfs that of China. Tapping U.S. equity and debt markets would enable the Department of Defense to remedy current capability shortfalls, fund technological advances from leading private-sector innovators, invest in generational transformation efforts across the military services, and upgrade antiquated global infrastructure to sustain U.S. forces.

  • Bringing Manufacturing Back to the U.S. Requires Political Will, but Success Hinges on Training American Workers

    The lack of manufacturing competitiveness in the U.S. leaves the U.S. vulnerable to shortages of critical goods during times of geopolitical disruption and global competition. The strategies the U.S. employs in bringing back manufacturing, along with innovative practices, will be key to ensure national security.

  • U.S. Must Not Overlook Al-Qaida, Islamic State: Officials

    For months the gaze of U.S. counterterrorism officials has been shifting, moving from scrutiny of foreign terrorist organizations to individuals in the United States seeking out ideologies to justify their use of violence. A top U.S. counterterrorism official cautions that jihadi groups, such as al-Qaida and Islamic State, cannot be forgotten.

  • Makiivka and Bakhmut: The Impact of Russian Casualties

    When we step back from the daily news the underlying trends of this war favor Ukraine. It is learning to cope with the repeated Russian attacks on its critical infrastructure, and once spring comes the impact will decline, while it has been getting bolder in its attacks on facilities on Russian territory. Here lies the biggest danger for Putin - more retreats rather than more casualties - and a developing aura of futility. The question of what it takes to get Russia to abandon its war of conquest remains unanswered but that does not mean that no answer will ever be found.

  • Five Key House Republican Investigations

    As they assume their role as the majority party in the House, Republicans are vowing to forge ahead with long-promised investigations of the Biden administration. Republicans say that these investigations are not payback for the Democratic-led investigation of former President Donald Trump, but nothing more than exercising their oversight responsibility to hold the administration accountable.

  • Was George Santos Groomed to be a Russian Agent?

    Among the multitude of lies and falsehoods newly elected Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) has concocted, the most intriguing item – and likely the source of Santos’s most serious potential legal trouble – are his campaign finances. What is especially noticeable, and disturbing, are the generous contributions Santos has received from Viktor Vekselberg, one of Vladimir Putin’s wealthiest and most influential courtiers. “For all we know,” writes one commentator, “some foreign power may have bought itself a congressman. This isn’t outlandish speculation.”

  • Lula Tours Destruction in Brasilia After Riots

    Thousands of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the former right-populist president who lost the 31 October election to the center-left candidate Lula, broke into and ransacked the presidential office building in Brasilia on Sunday. These supporters want Bolsonaro reinstated and have called for the military to stage a coup. Bolsonaro did not attend Lula’s 1 January inauguration. He is now in Florida, where he is staying in order to avoid corruption investigations to which he is exposed now that he is no longer in office.

  • Brazil: "The Content of the Three Powers Is Preserved"

    People who watched an unruly mob — supporters of the candidate who had lost the 31 October 2022 election in Brazil — break into the presidential building in Brasilia on Sunday, would be forgiven for thinking that they have seen this movie before. The similarities between what happened in the U.S. before and after the November 2020 election, and what happened in Brazil before and after the October 2022 election, are unmistaken.