• DOJ Steps Up Hate Crime Prosecutions

    DOJ says that with hate crimes on the rise, U.S. federal prosecutors have charged more than 40 people with bias-motivated crimes since January 2021, obtaining over 35 convictions.

  • The Buffalo Shooting Suspect Once Threatened a Mass Shooting. Why Wasn’t He Disarmed?

    The Buffalo mass shooter was taken into custody by police last June after he threatened to carry out a shooting at his Western New York high school. He was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, and released a couple of days later. None of that prevented him from buying a gun, or keeping the ones he already owned. New York has a red flag law, but it wasn’t invoked.

  • European Academics Helping China's Military

    European researchers have cooperated with China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). The NUDT’s purpose is to “Strengthen the Armed Forces and the Nation.” An investigation by 10 European news outlets has found nearly 3,000 scientific publications by researchers affiliated with European universities and their counterparts at military-linked institutions in China — most notably the NUDT.

  • FEMA Funding Opportunities for Dam Safety

    There are 90,000 dams in the United States, many of them old and poorly maintained. FEMA will commit $33 million for two funding opportunities to enhance dam safety efforts across the United States.

  • 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.

  • Ukraine War: Will the Islamic State Benefit?

    The terrorist group has said it will take advantage of the fact that the West is distracted by war in Ukraine. But any advantage it will get from the war likely has less to do with terrorism, and more with economics.

  • How to Avoid Extremism on Social Media

    The internet has been a haven for extremists since long before most people even knew it existed. Today, extremists share their likes and tweet their thoughts like everyone else. But they have also spun off into an ever-widening array of social media sites with greater appetites for hateful words and violent images.

  • The Civil-Military Divide over Artificial Intelligence

    What factors influence how comfortable and uncomfortable software engineers feel with potential applications of AI for the U.S. military? Is there a correlation between the degree of trust that software engineers have in societal institutions—specifically, in DoD—and their perception of the acceptability of building AI applications for DoD? Do software engineers perceive the countries that DoD has identified as strategic competitors as a meaningful threat to the United States? What types of news media and other sources of information are software engineers relying on to inform them about events related to DoD?

  • AMLO's Lithium Grab and War on Green Energy Will Hurt North America

    Nationalizing Mexico’s lithium reserves and extending state control over electricity and energy will undermine the region’s prosperity and security.

  • Another Russian Tycoon Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances

    A former top manager of LUKoil has died under strange circumstances, the latest in a series of mysterious deaths of Russian businessmen since Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

  • Global Coalition Readying 'Holistic' Assault on Islamic State in Africa

    The ever-present threat from Islamic State is again being thrust onto the global stage, with the United States voicing hope that it is not too late to prevent the terror group from turning the African continent into a dangerous playground.

  • Strengthening the Nation’s Early Warning System for Health Threats

    The White House hosted the Summit on Strengthening the Nation’s Early Warning System for Health Threats in support of the launch of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA). The launch of the CFA fulfills requirements in National Security Memorandum-1 (NSM-1), which instructed U.S. leadership to strengthen the international COVID-19 response and advance global health security and biological preparedness.

  • Undetected and Dormant: Managing Australia’s Software Security Threat

    At the same time as software has become integral to our prosperity and national security, attacks on software supply chains are on the rise. Software supply chain attacks are popular, can have a big impact and are used to great effect by a range of cyber adversaries.

  • 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.

  • Cornell University Profs Call for School to Halt, Reverse Its Growing Academic, Business Ties with China

    An event at Cornell University, organized by three professors, which called for the university to halt, and then reverse, its growing academic and business ties with China, reflected a broader trend of calls for colleges and universities to cut ties with and divest from Chinese groups linked to human rights abuses.