• Long-Term Coastal Cliff Loss Due to Climate Change

    By Anne M. Stark

    The dangers of coastal erosion are an all-too-familiar reality for the modern residents of California’s iconic mountainous coastal communities. New tool brings historical perspective to the topic of how to manage these disappearing coastlines.

  • Montana first U.S. state to ban TikTok

    Starting next year, Montana will prohibit app stores from offering the video-sharing platform to users. The state’s governor said the ban protects people from Chinese surveillance.

  • Get Ready to Meet the Next President of Taiwan

    By Mark Harrison

    In Taiwan, the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), has announced that Hou You-yi is its candidate for the January 2024 presidential election. The KMT declined to hold a vote of its membership and instead party chairman Chu Li-lun chose the party’s candidate directly. Hou’s rival is Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, from the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

  • Labor Trafficking in the United States

    In 2020, DHS developed a strategy to guide its efforts to curb trafficking worldwide. Principally, the strategy calls for improving the identification and reporting of suspected trafficking. Questions about the current state of research on U.S. labor trafficking and future research needs need to be answered as the initial step in building a research agenda focused on labor trafficking.

  • European Countries Would Be Wise to Assist Each Other with Regard to Energy

    By Fabio Bergamin

    If European countries collaborate, they can avoid severe energy scarcity due to a gas shortage. If the European countries act selfishly in times of gas shortage, Eastern Europe in particular will suffer. Eastern Europe is vulnerable because the entry points for natural gas are now in the west of the continent.

  • PEGA Committee Votes on Spyware Recommendations

    In July 2021, the Pegasus Project—a consortium of 80 journalists from 17 media organizations in 10 countries—broke the story that several governments were using the Israel-made Pegasus spyware against journalists, activists, politicians, academics, and even heads of state. Responding to the public backlash, the European Parliament set up a committee of inquiry (PEGA committee) to investigate the allegations concerning misuse of spyware on the continent.

  • DOJ: Charges Related to Efforts by Russia, China, Iran to Steal American Technology

    By Masood Farivar

    DOJ announced five criminal cases exposing the relentless efforts by Russia, China and Iran to steal sensitive U.S. technologies. The cases were brought by a new “strike force” created earlier this year to deter foreign adversaries from obtaining advanced U.S. innovation.

  • Colorado Law Will Require Homes to Be More Wildfire Resistant

    By Jennifer Oldham

    The state will develop building standards for homes in high-risk areas after ProPublica’s reporting showed previous efforts to require fire-resistant housing materials had been repeatedly stymied by developers and municipalities.

  • Title 42 Ends as Migrants Lined Up and Border Cities Braced for the Unknown

    By Uriel J. García

    Long lines formed again next to the border wall in El Paso — a scene repeated in other parts of the southern border — as migrants anticipated the end of a policy that has allowed immigration agents to quickly expel them.

  • Seeking Protection: How the U.S. Asylum Process Works

    By Diana Roy

    Record numbers of migrants seeking to cross the southern U.S. border are challenging the Biden administration’s attempts to restore asylum protections. Here’s how the asylum process works.

  • Is Taiwan Prepared for a Potential Chinese Attack?

    By William Yang

    Leaked U.S. documents cast doubt on Taiwan’s air defense capability against potential attacks. Experts, however, say that the island has some robust defense systems.

  • We Could Easily Make Risky Virological Research Safer

    Lab Accidents happen, and they aren’t especially rare. A new book — appropriately titled Pandora’s Gamble — offers a shocking accounting of the problem, identifying more than a thousand accidents reported to federal regulators from 2008 to 2012. David Wallace-Wells, referring to the recommendations from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity on how to minimize the risks from research biolabs, writes: “These suggestions would not eliminate the risk of lab accidents, but they would reduce the risk — and fairly simply.”

  • Confusion Reigns at US-Mexico Border as Title 42 Expires

    By Aline Barros

    Title 42, the emergency health order used during the COVID-19 pandemic at the U.S.-Mexico border to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico or to their home country, ends Thursday night at midnight. Some border analysts say about 150,000 people are waiting to enter the U.S., but DHS says the majority of them will be expelled if they cross into the United States.

  • All-Time Record: 71 Million People Internally Displaced Worldwide

    The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) around the world reached 71.1 million as of the end of 2022, an increase of 20 per cent from the previous year. Internal displacement is a global phenomenon, but nearly three-quarters of the world’s IDPs live in just 10 countries.

  • Japan: Public Reluctant to Defend Taiwan Should China Invade

    By Julian Ryall

    A new opinion poll has found that over half of the Japanese population is of the opinion that the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) should not become involved in fighting if China invades Taiwan. Tokyo has not explicitly stated that it would commit ground, air or maritime units to help fend off any Chinese attack; but soaring defense spending and the upgrading of Japan’s naval and air capabilities, in particular, indicate that the military is preparing itself.