• How conspiracy theories can kill

    Conspiracy theories, rampant in the United States, have an unusual power to motivate people to action. Some conspiracy theories are associated with various right-wing or left-wing ideologies, while others transcend ideology, like those surrounding the 9/11 attacks or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Under the right circumstances, such theories can motivate people to violence, especially if the conspiracy theories single out specific people or organizations as the villains. Most extremist movements develop or depend on conspiracy theories to some degree. In the United States, extreme right-wing movements have a particularly close relationship to conspiracy theories.

  • Iran planned to build five 10-Kt bombs by 2003: Nuclear experts

    The Institute for Science and International Security published a paper Tuesday containing new details about Iran’s nuclear weapons program and demanding that the International Atomic Energy Agency ensure that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is “ended in an irretrievable permanent manner.” According to the report, Iranian documents show that Iran had specific plans to build five 10-kiloton nuclear devices by 2003. The plans from the archive show that Iran’s planning for these weapons was very detailed, including expected costs and a timetable.

  • Bolstering extended deterrence in a complex world

    A variety of threats from Russia, China and North Korea makes it critical that U.S. policymakers take a fresh look at what constitutes an effective strategy to deter interstate aggression, a new RAND report finds. The authors argue that growing opportunism in aggression seems less common than desperation through paranoia about growing threats to security or status. Large-scale aggression tends to emerge as a last resort, they find.

  • Virginia bill would let cities ban guns from protests

    The city of Charlottesville, Virginia, was powerless to prevent attendees from carrying guns at last year’s Unite the Right rally. But one of the state’s top officials, Attorney General Mark Herring, thinks he can prevent a similar situation from unfolding in the future.

  • Women’s March founder asks co-chairs to resign over anti-Semitism, bigotry

    The founder of the Women’s March has called on the movement’s current co-chairs to resign over anti-Semitic rhetoric and bigotry, just days after Linda Sarsour suggested American Jews have dual loyalties. Teresa Shook, a retired lawyer based in Hawaii, who first called for a women’s march after the election of United States President Donald Trump, said that board members“ have steered the Movement away from its true course,” as a result of “their refusal to separate themselves” from groups and individuals with “anti-Semitic and homophobic sentiments.”

  • Bishop Richard Williamson reiterates Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism

    In an email to supporters three weeks after the October 2018 death of Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, English traditionalist Catholic bishop Richard Williamson reconfirmed his belief that the Holocaust is a hoax perpetrated by Jews. In his email, Williamson describes Faurisson, who was one of the world’s foremost Holocaust deniers, as a “real hero” who “stood with unfailing courage and scrupulous accuracy for truth.”

     

  • Levitating particles could lift nuclear detective work

    Laser-based ‘optical tweezers’ could levitate uranium and plutonium particles, thus allowing the measurement of nuclear recoil during radioactive decay. This technique, proposed by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, provides a new method for conducting the radioactive particle analysis essential to nuclear forensics.

  • U.S. considering adding Venezuela to state-sponsors of terrorism list

    The United States is reportedly considering adding Venezuela to the list of terrorism-sponsoring states. The move would impose further financial punishment on the already-collapsing Venezuelan economy, which is staggering under the combined weight of hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, and a mass exodus of citizens.

  • Better forest management won’t end wildfires, but it can reduce the risks – here’s how

    President Donald Trump’s recent comments blaming forest managers for catastrophic California wildfires have been met with outrage and ridicule from the wildland fire and forestry community. Not only were these remarks insensitive to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in California – they also reflected a muddled understanding of the interactions between wildfire and forest management. As scientists who study forest policy and community-based collaboration, here is how we understand this relationship.

  • Bannon's Brexit connection

    A recent report in the New Yorker revealed emails show Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica played a role in pushing Brexit. Their Leave.EU support may have been an incubator for tactics deployed to propel the Trump presidential campaign.

  • U.S. counterterror official: Iran spends $1 billion annually supporting terrorism

    The United States Coordinator for Counterterrorism said that Iran spends nearly $1 billion annually supporting terrorist groups across the Middle East. Of the total, Ambassador Nathan Sales said that Iran gives $700 million to the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah; $100 million to Hamas and other “Palestinian terrorist groups;” and unspecified sums to other terrorist organizations.

  • U.S. documents suggest charges filed against WikiLeaks founder Assange

    U.S. court documents suggest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been criminally charged by prosecutors in a case that could be related to the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the U.S. elections. News outlets report that the disclosure was included as part of a court filing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, in a case unrelated to Assange.

  • Using social media to weaken impact of terrorist attacks

    Governments and police forces around the world need to beware of the harm caused by mass and social media following terror events. In a new report, leading counter-terrorism experts from around the world offer guidance to authorities to better manage the impacts of terror attacks by harnessing media communication. “People only know what they see or read, so the immediate panic social media – and then on the news – perpetuates rumors and creates fear. This is exactly what terrorists want,” says one expert.

  • Preventing chemical weapons as sciences advance and converge

    Revolutionary advances in science and technology are threatening the ability of the Chemical Weapons Convention to prevent the development, possession and potential use of chemical weapons. Scientists warn of this increased chemical weapons risk, which is the result of rapid scientific change. Alarming examples of the dangers from chemical weapons have been seen recently in the use of industrial chemicals and the nerve agent sarin against civilians in Syria, and in the targeted assassination operations using VX nerve agent in Malaysia and novichok nerve agent in the U.K.

  • Houston's urban sprawl dramatically increased rainfall, flooding damage during Hurricane Harvey

    Houston’s urban landscape directly contributed to the torrential rainfall and deadly flooding experienced during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, according to Princeton and University of Iowa researchers. The researchers report that Houston’s risk for extreme flooding during the hurricane — a category 4 storm that caused an estimated $125 billion in damage and killed 68 people — was 21 times greater due to urbanization.