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How Secure Is Gene Synthesizing Research?
Critics warn that the benefits of gene synthesizing research are undermined by security measures which are not sufficiently tight to prevent such research form being used by bad actors to do harm. One expert writes: “The problem is that governments don’t mandate security across the industry — and even though it’s a crime to ship DNA sufficient to generate the entire infectious 1918 influenza, there’s no law against shipping pieces of it.” The International Gene Synthesis Consortium disagrees.
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Beyond The ‘Incel Attacker’: Media Reporting on Cases of Misogynist Violence
Incidents of misogynist violence are often tenuously linked to the wider incel community in media reports, most notably in the immediate aftermath of attacks carried out by lone male perpetrators. But it is important clearly to separate cases of misogynist violence from the wider incel community. and offers recommendations to journalists who report on such violence.
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Texas Tells Local Election Officials to Stop Releasing Information That Exposes How Some People Vote
Texas’ top election official issued emergency guidance to counties aimed at protecting ballot privacy. The emergency guidance from the secretary of state comes after reports in Votebeat and The Texas Tribune confirmed the choices some voters make can later be identified through legally available records.
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New Voter Registration Rules Threaten Hefty Fines, Criminal Penalties for Groups
Lawmakers in several states have enacted a variety of voter registration laws over the past four years. The measures add new requirements around registering and communicating with voters and threaten hefty penalties for violations. The stated goal of the new laws is to prevent fraud, but some voting rights groups contend their real purpose is to dampen participation by likely Democratic voters.
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China’s Control and Coercion in Critical Minerals
Markets for critical minerals are no longer shaping up to be the next components of the global economy to be dominated by China. They already are. While Western nations were sleeping, China built vertically integrated supply chains for several critical minerals vital to the energy transition and high technology applications, including defense equipment.
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Feds Send Millions of Taxpayer Dollars to the Taliban
After two decades at war with the Taliban, the U.S. government is now sending millions of taxpayer dollars to the terrorist group. A recently released federal watchdog report shows that the U.S. government has sent at least $11 million to the Taliban since the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops. But experts and even the federal watchdog estimate the number is much higher.
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Rising Threats to Public Officials: A Review of 10 Years of Federal Data
A review of federal charges for the past decade highlights that the number of threats to public officials is growing. While 2013-2016 had an average of 38 federal charges per year, that number sharply increased to an average of 62 charges per year between 2017-2022. Across the time series, ideologically motivated threats, on average, accounted for almost half of the cases, and the portion steadily increased year over year. A preliminary review of cases from 2023 and 2024 shows that the number of federal prosecutions is on pace to hit new record highs. The rising threat level may produce significant consequences for the U.S. democratic system of governance.
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The U.S. and China Need an AI Incidents Hotline
The United States and China have been talking about AI security, but Christian Ruhl writes that this is not enough. Given the rapid rate of progress of frontier AI research, “diplomats will need to be quick to come up with risk-mitigation measures if they want to be more than a talk shop. Moreover, these measures will need to be ‘future proof,’ meaning they can’t focus solely on current capabilities that will remain relevant for no more than a few months; risk mitigation needs to be flexible to respond to ever-more capable models.”
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The Homeowner Mutiny Leaving Florida Cities Defenseless Against Hurricanes
The only protection the town of Hendrickson, Florida, has from the Gulf of Mexico’s increasingly erratic storms is a pristine beach that draws millions of tourists every year — but that beach is disappearing fast. A series of storms have eroded most of the sand that protects Redington Shores and the towns around it, leaving residents just one big wave away from water overtaking their homes. The federal government is refusing to restore eroded beaches in Pinellas County unless homeowners agree to one condition: public access.
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U.S., Allies Warn China Aggressively ‘Headhunting’ Western Fighter Pilots
China’s military appears to be intensifying its efforts to recruit current and former Western fighter pilots, employing new and more intricate tactics to snare Western expertise. The end goal, according to the U.S. and its allies, is for China to better train its own fighter pilots while gaining insights into how Western air forces operate, something that could erode Western advantages or even give Chinese fighter jets a boost in case of a conflict.
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Removing Cuba from List of Countries ‘Not Fully Cooperating’ Over Terrorism May Presage Wider Rapprochement – If Politics Allows
The U.S. State Department removed Cuba from its list of countries “not fully cooperating” with anti-terrorism efforts in mid-May 2024, but you would be forgiven for not noticing. Despite the low-key nature of the announcement, taking Cuba off the list is a big deal. The move is a potential step toward a rapprochement between Washington and Havana.
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Biden’s Unlawful Border Executive Order Is Bad Policy
President Biden should not be ignoring US laws. He should not be seeking to stop people from coming to the United States. Instead, he should be working to let them enter this country legally and orderly so they can contribute to it. America is a great country, and people want to join it. That’s a good thing. We should let them do so legally.
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Europe’s Migration Dilemma
Hundreds of thousands of migrants made the dangerous journey to Europe in 2023, fleeing war, poverty, and natural disasters. The increase in arrivals has fueled support for far-right political parties.
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Why Did the U.S. Open Up Banking to Cuba's Private Sector?
As Cuba faces a social and economic crisis, the United States has enabled more financial support for private businesses in the country in a boost to Internet-based services and financial services.
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“Fight Until Victory”: Speakers & Guests Declare Full Support for Terrorism at “People’s Conference for Palestine”
The “People’s Conference for Palestine,” held in Detroit, MI on 24-26 May, offered insight into the strategies and goals of the most influential forces driving a movement that has gained increasingly widespread and mainstream support as the Israel-Hamas war has dragged on.
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More headlines
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.