• US Arrests 1988 Lockerbie Passenger Jet Bombing Suspect

    A Libyan intelligence operative suspected of making the bomb that blew up a U.S. passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 has been arrested by the FBI and is being extradited to the United States to stand trial.

  • Oath Keepers Leaders Were Found Guilty, but the Threat of Antigovernment Extremism Remains

    With Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes convicted of seditious conspiracy, the group he founded is at a crossroads. Sam Jackson writes that the conviction is creating disarray in the group’s ranks, but that other so-called Patriot movements might benefit, and that the overall cause will remain strong.

  • Threats to Jewish Institutions on the Rise

    Incidents of antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions remain at historic levels in the United States, jumping 61 percent from 2020 to 2021. There has also been an uptick in threats to Jewish community and religious spaces, including synagogues, JCCs and Jewish day schools.

  • Congress Aims to Close Off Presidential Election Mischief and Fraud with Simple and Bipartisan Solutions

    There are known weaknesses in these rules for how we administer presidential elections and tabulate results in Congress. That’s why a bipartisan group of congressional leaders now aims to pass reforms to the 1887 law governing this process, the Electoral Count Act, before the end of 2022.

  • The Global Race to Secure Critical Minerals Heats Up

    The World Trade Organization last week ruled that Indonesia had no right to ban the export of nickel or to require that raw nickel ore be refined in Indonesia. Handing a comprehensive victory to the complainant, the European Union, the WTO decision highlights the clash between national security and global trade rules over critical minerals.

  • More Suspects Sought in Foiled German Coup Plot

    Police are searching for more people connected to the far-right Reichsbürger movement after Germany-wide raids revealed the advanced scale of a plot to overthrow the government.

  • What Is the Reichsbürger Movement Accused of Trying to Overthrow the German Government?

    Police have arrested 25 people of the Reichsbürger movement, accusing them of planning to overthrow the German government in a series of raids across the country. Reichsbürger adherents have been stopped from attempting violent action before, but this latest incident and its alleged members have caused greater concern.

  • Content Moderation Sacrificed in Left-Right Deals on Tech Reform

    With time running out on the lame-duck Congress, tech reformers are pushing for votes on a package of bills that stalled over the summer. Three bills—the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), the Open App Markets Act (OAMA), and the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA)—would write special competition rules for large tech companies in ways that could fundamentally change how tech platforms moderate content like hate speech, disinformation, and incitement to violence.

  • Smart AI Tools Could Protect Social Media Users’ Privacy

    Digital assistants could help prevent users from unknowingly revealing their views on social, political and religious issues by fighting AI with AI, researchers say.

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Program Is Funded by Stolen Cryptocurrency. Could It Collapse Now That FTX Has?

    Kim Jong-un’s military operation hackers have been stealing cryptocurrency to support North Korea’s nuclear and missile program for several years. But with the general downturn in the crypto market, coupled with the recent FTX collapse and myriad other pitfalls, analysts estimate North Korea has probably lost most of its crypto haul. Can we expect its nuclear weapons development to come to a halt, or slow down? It seems unlikely.

  • Stanford’s David A. Sklansky on Oath Keepers’ Seditious Conspiracy Convictions

    “Seditious conspiracy is a very serious crime. It means, basically, plotting to use force against the government of the United States, says Professor David A. Sklansky, criminal justice expert at Stanford Law School. These convictions “represented the jury’s unanimous conclusion, beyond a reasonable doubt, that what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, wasn’t an innocent protest, but a criminal attack on the authority of the United States government.”

  • Iran Building Nuclear Weapons

    Rather than a traditional nuclear weapons program, Iran threatens the world with a program ready to produce nuclear weapons “on-demand.” Its readiness program poses a difficult challenge to the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Understanding the pace of Iran building nuclear weapons matters, in particular, for designing strategies against Iran moving to construct them.

  • S&T Makes Headway on Infrastructure Investment

    Critical infrastructure is the backbone of life as we know it here in the U.S.—there are, of course, the roads and highways we travel, but also the electric grids that power our lives and livelihoods, the public transit systems that facilitate connection, the cyber networks that enable commerce and communication, and much, much more.

  • Is Industrial Policy Making a Comeback?

    Industrial policy refers to government efforts to support particular industries that are considered strategically important, such as manufacturing. It has been employed in many countries, including the United States, though it fell out of favor in the 1980s. The Biden administration has pushed to support advanced manufacturing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tumult in global supply chains, and the rise of China., in the process renewing the debate about the U.S. government’s role in shaping the economy.

  • Major Global Security Challenges

    What are the major threats the world is facing? Researchers highlight five such threats: The growing role of disinformation; attacks on the idea of democracy; environmental challenges; economic instability; and terrorism – both domestic and foreign.