• One Year On: Marking Progress on Biden’s Counter-Domestic Terrorism Strategy

    Early in the Biden administration, the president instructed the intelligence community to evaluate the domestic terrorist threat – and intelligence officials concluded that it’s severe. On 15 June 2021, the Biden administration released the National Strategy to Counter Domestic Terrorism. Ryan B. Greer writes that now that it has been a full year since the launch, there is an opportunity to review the administration’s progress made toward countering the threat of domestic violent extremism.

  • Us vs. Them: Harming the “Outgroup” Linked to Elevated Activity in the Brain's Reward Circuitry

    Humans tend to form groups, which often find themselves in conflict with rival groups. But why do people show such a ready tendency to harm people in opposing groups? A new study used brain imaging to explain why humans are aggressive toward rival groups.

  • NIST Announces First Four Quantum-Resistant Cryptographic Algorithms

    NIST has chosen the first group of encryption tools that are designed to withstand the assault of a future quantum computer, which could potentially crack the security used to protect privacy in the digital systems we rely on every day — such as online banking and email software.

  • Winners Announced in DHS $195K Challenge to Counter Extreme Temperatures

    DHS announced the winners of the Cooling Solutions Challenge prize competition. The winners were each awarded funding, which totaled $195,000, for their innovative and creative ideas that sought climate-friendly cooling solutions to protect people in extreme heat conditions.

  • Americans Feel More Threatened Than Britons by China's Rise

    Americans were more likely than people living in the UK to feel threatened by China’s growth as a world power, a new survey shows.

  • Siege Culture and Accelerationism in the U.K.

    Siege Culture, also referred to as accelerationism, has been on the rise in the U.K. and elsewhere since 2016. Both Siege Culture and accelerationism refer to a violent strategy in which terrorism is used to hasten societal collapse by provoking reactions from authorities and exacerbating existing social tensions.

  • Jan. 6 Hearings Highlight Problems with Certification of Presidential Elections and Potential Ways to Fix Them

    The televised hearings held by the House Jan. 6 Committee highlighted the lack of clarity regarding how Congress counts presidential electoral votes — a lack of clarity which was exploited by former president Donald Trump in his attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election. Members of Congress publicly aired baseless claims that the election results were in doubt, while Vice President Michael Pence was pressured to exercise power he does not have to unilaterally refuse to count electoral votes from some states or indefinitely delay counting. Congress cannot prevent all mischief, but it can reduce the possibility of mischief in the future.

  • Concerns About Google AI Being Sentient

    From virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, to robotic vacuums and self-driving cars, to automated investment portfolio managers and marketing bots, artificial intelligence has become a big part of our everyday lives. No one knows when humans will create an intelligent or sentient AI, but recent revelations about LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, raised concerns.

  • Supreme Court: Biden Can Terminate “Remain in Mexico” Program

    Almost a year after the Supreme Court allowed a federal judge in Texas to order the Biden administration to restart the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policy, also known as the “Remain in Mexico program, the Supreme Court on Thursday, 30 June, ruled in the Biden administration’s favor, allowing President Biden to end MPP.

  • Hate Sites: Using the Broader Abortion Argument to Spread Racism, Extremism

    Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists are using the debate around women’s reproductive rights to promote racist and extremist agendas.

  • Exploring the Role of Place Attachment Following California Wildfires

    Homeowners across the United States are not only experiencing higher mortgage rates and property costs, they’re also at risk of damage from an increasing number of disasters linked to natural hazards, including wildfires. 

  • Controversial Confucius Institutes, Under New Name, Returning to U.S. Schools

    Confucius Institutes, the controversial Beijing-backed language and cultural learning centers, are rebranding and reopening. Most of the 118 Institutes which operated in the U.S. were closed in June 2021 after being designated as a “foreign mission” by the State Department.

  • The Strategic Relevance of Cybersecurity Skills

    Evidence suggests there is a global cybersecurity skills shortage affecting businesses and governments alike, which means that organizations are struggling to fill their cybersecurity vacancies. Tommaso De Zan writes that “the absence of cybersecurity experts protecting national critical infrastructures constitutes a national security threat, a loophole that may be exploited by malicious actors.”

  • U.K. Extremists Sentenced to More Than 30 Years Imprisonment

    A Sheffield, U.K., court sentenced four extremists who advocated racist violence and the manufacture and possession of weapons to more than 30 years imprisonment.

  • Announcing the Electric Resilience Toolkit

    A new Electric Resilience Toolkit aims to support policymakers and stakeholders working on issues around electric sector regulation and climate resilience planning. Such planning is essential to ensure electricity infrastructure is designed and operated in a way that accounts for the impacts of climate change—impacts that are already being felt and which will only intensify in coming years.