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Support Dwindles for Cracking Down on Nonprofit Terror Financing
The overwhelming bipartisan support a plan to revoke tax exemptions for nonprofits deemed supportive of terrorist organizations once enjoyed has dwindled as critics worry about constitutional overreach.
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Extensive Review of Champlain Towers Collapse Completed
A NIST team completed its extensive review, measurement and testing of critical building evidence extracted from the site of the 2021 partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida.
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Denver Will Stand in the Way of Mass Deportation
“More than us having DPD stationed at the county line to keep [National Guard units from other states] out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said. “It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right? You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.”
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Texas Offers Land for Use for Trump Deportations
Trump has said he plans to declare a national emergency on his first day in office, citing the border crisis. In an effort to aid the administration, Texas offered state property in Starr County, where more than 1,400 acres could be used to construct deportation facilities and staging areas.
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Even Blue States Are Embracing a Tougher Approach to Crime
A nationwide shift toward more conservative policies continues in 3 more states. The outcomes of seven ballot measures in Arizona, California and Colorado reflect the stricter approach to crime that’s been seen across much of the country recently.
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Chinese Vessel Suspected of Severing Submarine Cables Still Anchored in Baltic Sea
European allies in the Baltic region are investigating how two fiber-optic data cables were severed earlier this week, with suspicion falling on a Chinese vessel in the area. Germany has said the incident was clearly sabotage.
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Despite Back-to-Back Deals on Water from Mexico, Relief for South Texas Farmers Is Far from Certain
Texas agreed to take 120,000 acre-feet of water from Mexico this month, only after the U.S. and Mexico agreed to an updated treaty.
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Bipartisan Effort to Make Plum Island a National Monument Advances in Congress
Plum Island, off the north-eastern coast of Long Island, has been, since 1954, home to a high-security biolab researching pathogens threatening humans and animals. The lab has been relocated to Manhattan, Kansas. A bill calling on the Department of the Interior to consider adding Plum Island to the National Park system is advancing in Congress.
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Senator Slams Gun Industry’s “Invasive and Dangerous” Sharing of Customer Data with Political Operatives
In response to a ProPublica investigation, Sen. Richard Blumenthal demanded answers from the gun industry about its “covert program” to collect information on gun owners for political purposes.
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U.S. Domestic Terrorism Is Increasingly Motivated by Partisan Politics
One of the most alarming trends in terrorism is the growth in anti-government extremism. “The heightened risk of terrorist attacks motivated by partisan beliefs does not just endanger individual lives but also threatens the democratic process itself, casting a shadow over open discourse and discouraging civic engagement,” Riley McCabe writes.
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Downsides of China’s Port Investments Go Beyond Immediate Security Risks
Chinese companies own or operate at least one port on every continent. These investments present more than immediate security concerns; they position China to fully exploit the economic potential of ports at the expense of other countries.
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Ranked Choice Voting Faces Cloudy Future After Election Setbacks
Voters in 5 states rejected the voting system, while DC voters approved it. The rejection clouds the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.
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Misinformation Really Does Spread Like a Virus, Suggest Mathematical Models Drawn from Epidemiology
When it comes to misinformation, “going viral” appears to be more than a simple catchphrase. Scientists have found a close analogy between the spread of misinformation and the spread of viruses: how misinformation gets around can be effectively described using mathematical models designed to simulate the spread of pathogens.
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An Immigration Debate Worth Having
The best immigration policy is one that helps developing countries hold on to their best.
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The Past, Present, and Future of Homeland Defense
Homeland defense issues my be referred to as seams of ambiguity which doesn’t clearly define itself as either a defense or a law enforcement issue, and our adversaries have discovered the seam and they’re playing along that seam. And that’s what thrusts us into the gray areas that we’ve been talking about for at least two decades now.
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The long view
Kinetic Operations Bring Authoritarian Violence to Democratic Streets
Foreign interference in democracies has a multifaceted toolkit. In addition to information manipulation, the tactical tools authoritarian actors use to undermine democracy include cyber operations, economic coercion, malign finance, and civil society subversion.
Patriots’ Day: How Far-Right Groups Hijack History and Patriotic Symbols to Advance Their Cause, According to an Expert on Extremism
Extremist groups have attempted to change the meaning of freedom and liberty embedded in Patriots’ Day — a commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord – to serve their far-right rhetoric, recruitment, and radicalization. Understanding how patriotic symbols can be exploited offers important insights into how historical narratives may be manipulated, potentially leading to harmful consequences in American society.
Trump Aims to Shut Down State Climate Policies
President Donald Trump has launched an all-out legal attack on states’ authority to set climate change policy. Climate-focused state leaders say his administration has no legal basis to unravel their efforts.
Vaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules on COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack of Consensus, Clarity
Sidestepping both the FDA’s own Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two Trump-appointed FDA leaders penned an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to announce new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Critics say that not seeking broad input into the new policy, which would help FDA to understand its implications, feasibility, and the potential for unintended consequences, amounts to policy by proclamation.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”