• Sea-Level Rise Linked to Higher Water Tables Along California Coast

    In the first comprehensive study of the link between rising sea levels and inland water tables along the California coast, researchers found an increased threat to populated areas already at risk from rising water tables, and the possibility of flooding in unexpected inland areas.

  • Russian Opposition Leader in Coma after Being Poisoned

    Outspoken Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital intensive-care unit in Siberia after falling ill in a manner similar to that of many of the critics of Vladimir Putin who were poisoned by agents of the FSB, the domestic intelligence service and heir to the KGB. This is he Kremlin’s third attempt to silence one of Putin’s more persistent critics. In 2017, Navalny suffered serious damage to one of his eyes after he was attacked with antiseptic dye. In July 2019, while in prison for 30 days for participating in a demonstration against the regime, he was poisoned with TCDD dioxin, the same poison Russian FSB agents used, in September 2004, against Viktor Yushchenko, then the leader of the Ukrainian opposition. Yushchenko survived, but his face was permanently disfigured by the poison. The quantity of prison used against Navalny in July 2019 was too small to kill him or leave permanent marks, but he had to be treated in a hospital for more than a week for a swollen face and a severe rash all over his body.

  • Brother of Manchester Bomber Given 55-years Jail Sentence

    A court in Britain on Thursday sentenced Hashem Abedi, the younger brother of the suicide bomber who set off an explosion on 22 May 2017 at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, to a minimum of 55 years in jail. Among the 22 killed were seven children, the youngest aged eight. The blast injured 237 people while hundreds more were reported to have suffered from psychological trauma.

  • Steve Bannon Charged with Defrauding Donors to “We Build the Wall” Campaign

    Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former top political adviser, was charged today (Thursday) in New York with defrauding donors in a scheme related to an initiative called “We Build the Wall,” an online crowdfunding effort which collected more than $25 million from citizens who wished to help Trump’s border wall project for the U.S.-Mexico border. “As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Audrey Strauss, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan, said in statement Thursday.

  • COVID-19 Outcomes in Female-Led Countries “Systematically and Significantly Better”

    Female national leaders locked down earlier and suffered half as many COVID deaths on average as male leaders, according to analysis across 194 countries. The researchers say that the analysis holds even if outliers – the effective responses by Angela Merkel-led Germany and Jacinda Arden-led New Zealand, and the botched, inompetent response by the Trump administration – are removed from the statistics. The researchers note that “While this [early lockdown] may have longer-term economic implications, it has certainly helped these countries to save lives, as evidenced by the significantly lower number of deaths in these countries.”

  • Better Control of What Mobile Apps Do with Your Data

    Every year, mobile app developers make billions of dollars selling data they collect from the mobile apps on your cell phone, and they aren’t making it easy for you to prevent that. While both Apple iOS and Android have introduced a growing collection of privacy permission settings that, in theory, give you more control over your data, studies have shown that users are still overwhelmed and are unable to take advantage of them. In particular, the privacy controls fail to distinguish between different purposes for which data is collected.

  • Demographics Data Helps Predict N.Y. Flood Insurance Claims

    In flood-prone areas of the Hudson River valley in New York state, census areas with more white and affluent home owners tend to file a higher percentage of flood insurance claims than lower-income, minority residents, raising the issue of developing more nuanced, need-based federal flood insurance subsidies in these floodplains, according to a new study.

  • “We Must Do Better in 2020”: Bipartisan Senate Panel Releases Final Report on Russian 2016 Election Interference

    “The Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence” the “outcome of the 2016 presidential election.” This is the key, bipartisan finding of the fifth and final report of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The committee’s investigation into the massive intervention campaign waged by Russian government agencies and operatives on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump was thorough, totaling more than three years of investigative activity, more than 200 witness interviews, and more than a million pages of reviewed documents. All five volumes total more than 1300 pages. “We must do better in 2020,” said Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) the committee’s chairman. “This cannot happen again,” said Senator Marc Warner (D-Virginia), the committee’s ranking member.

  • In COVID’s Shadow, Global Terrorism Goes Quiet. But We Have Seen This Before, and Should Be Wary

    Have we flattened the curve of global terrorism? In our COVID-19-obsessed news cycle, stories about terrorism and terrorist attacks have largely disappeared. But as is the case with epidemics, terrorism works as a phenomenon that depends on social contact and exchange, and expands rapidly in an opportunistic fashion when defenses are lowered. In fact, we have contributed, through military campaigns, to weakening the body politic of host countries in which groups like al-Qaeda, IS and other violent extremist groups have a parasitic presence. We now need to face the inconvenient truth that toxic identity politics and the tribal dynamics of hate have infected Western democracies. Limiting the scope for terrorist attacks is difficult. Eliminating the viral spread of hateful extremism is much harder, but ultimately even more important.

  • Tick Tock for TikTok

    Every company in China works for the Chinese Communist Party. They are required, by law, to turn over any information they can access, whenever the Party asks for it. It’s not just a matter of cooperating with the regime or being friendly to it. They must take and obey all orders from the regime, and that includes handing over any American data they touch, regardless of privacy commitments, legal concerns or respect for intellectual property. The administration is rightly concerned about any company that can deliver the keys to the information kingdom to Beijing. That’s what motivated the White House campaigns against letting the Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE build out the 5G telecom infrastructure for our nation and our allies.

  • Insider Threat at Twitter Is a Risk to Everyone

    Elected officials currently announce policies and spar with one another on Twitter. An unauthorized individual appearing to tweet from a world leader’s account could crash markets, spark conflicts, or create other catastrophic global consequences. Hacking the accounts of media companies could create similarly far-reaching effects. A well-respected news outlet tweeting out “breaking news” of impending war, or a local journalist warning of an active shooter on the loose could generate chaos.

  • Hack-and-Leak Operations and U.S. Cyber Policy

    The On 27 November 2019, Jeremy Corbyn, then-leader of the U.K. Labour Party, held a press conference in which he held up a hefty, official-looking, heavily redacted document – it was a heavy tome of about 400 pages. the documents Crobyn held in his hand were purported to show the details of discussions between the U.K. and U.S. governments on a post-Brexit trade deal, including demands by U.S. representatives to open access to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) for American companies — an inflammatory issue for many voters. James Shires writes that “This is one example of a hack-and-leak operation where malicious actors use cyber tools to gain access to sensitive or secret material and then release it in the public domain.” He argues that “hack-and-leak operations should be seen as the ‘simulation of scandal’: strategic attempts to direct public moral judgement against the operation’s target.”

  • DHS Should Refocus Its Mission: Report

    A new report from the Atlantic Council about the future of DHS says that the Department of Homeland Security needs to refocus its mission to lead the defense of the United States against major nonmilitary threats. “Infectious diseases, cyber threats from hostile nation-states, threats to election security, foreign disinformation, threats to critical infrastructure from climate change, vulnerabilities from new technologies, and growing white supremacism present serious risks to homeland security,” the report argues.

  • Schools’ Facial Recognition Technology Problematic, Should Be Banned: Experts

    Facial recognition technology should be banned for use in schools, according to a new study. The research reveals inaccuracy, racial inequity, and increased surveillance are the touchstones of a flawed technology.

  • How a New Administration Might Better Fight White Supremacist Violence

    In the last four years, violence linked to white supremacy has eclipsed jihadi violence as the predominant form of terrorism in the United States, the Brookings Institution’s Dan Byman writes. “U.S. bureaucracies are slowly moving forward despite discouragement or indifference from on high,” he writes, noting that DHS has elevated the importance of white supremacist violence, and that the State Department has designated the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), an ultranationalist white supremacist group, as a terrorist organization — the first time the State Department ever designated a white supremacist group as such. What might a new administration do to more effectively target white supremacist violence? Byman highlight seven areas in which the new administration may want to take action