• Research Shows How Terrorism Affects Our Language and Voting Patterns

    Following the series of terrorist attacks between 2015 and 2017, German twitter users shifted their language towards that of the far right AfD party. Eventually voters rewarded the party at the 2017 election.

  • Benefits of Lead- and Copper-Clean Drinking Water Far Exceed Initial Estimates

    The cost-benefit analysis of the EPA’s Lead and Copper Drinking Water Rule Revision (LCRR) far exceeds the EPA’s public estimates and could help inform improvements to current regulations. (LCRR) costs $335 million to implement while generating $9 billion in health benefits annually, exceeding the EPA’s public statements that the LCRR generates $645 million in annual health benefits.

  • U.S. Unveils New Border Restriction Ahead of Thursday’s Title 42 Expiration

    The Biden administration announced today (Wednesday) new restrictions which affect migrants who attempt to cross into the United States without authorization. The restrictions are part of a plan for the end of Title 42, a 2020 COVID-19 related measure which allowed CBP to quickly expel migrants without giving them the chance to seek U.S. asylum. Title 42 expires on Thursday.

  • Texas House Republicans Revive Border Policing Unit in Early-Morning Vote

    The proposed unit would let those who are not law officers arrest or detain suspected undocumented immigrants in border-region counties.

  • Biden’s Resurrection of Emergency Powers at the Southern Border

    The Biden administration’s decision to send 1,500 active-duty troops to the border shows the striking similarity between Biden’s and Trump’s approach at least in one respect their willingness to use “law (both emergency and non-emergency powers) to sustain the continued deployment of thousands of military personnel at the southern border,” Chris Mirasola writes. “[E]asy access to any component of the Defense Department appears to be turning into a new normal, made available under shifting but substantially similar emergency declarations,” he adds.

  • Nuclear Agency Cannot Continue With “Business as Usual” in the Shifting Supercomputing Landscape: Report

    The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) needs to fundamentally rethink the strategy for its next generation of high-performance computing, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences.

  • Producing Medical Isotopes While Lowering the Risk of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

    Scientists and engineers at Argonne have been working for decades to help medical isotope production facilities around the world change from the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to the use of low-enriched uranium (LEU), which is much more difficult to use in a weapon.

  • China’s Defense Spending Growth Continues Apace

    China, India and Japan are leading a surge in military spending in the Asian region with geopolitical tensions pushing South Korea, Australia and Taiwan, among others, to follow suit. China’s military spending now exceeds the combined outlays of the next 25 biggest nations in the region, for which there are reliable estimates.

  • Pentagon Leak of U.S. Intelligence on Ukraine and Other Allies Shows Failure to Learn from Chelsea Manning Affair

    To ask how someone so young as Jack Teixeira had access to secrets is to ask the wrong questions. It is perfectly reasonable for someone of his age to be security cleared and have access to classified material, but only if they need to know the information. But it is not immediately clear why the Massachusetts Air National Guard needs top-secret intelligence about Ukraine. More baffling is why there were not greater controls in place.

  • First to Respond, Come What May

    Of the emerging threats the U.S. is facing, climate change is particularly prominent. But climate change is just one factor currently impacting the evolving response environment. Human behavior, technology advancement, infrastructure, COVID-19, and protests/civil unrest are all making responders’ jobs more challenging as well.

  • Appeals Court Should Reconsider Letting the FBI Block Twitter’s Surveillance Transparency Report

    Twitter tried to publish a report bringing much-needed transparency to the government’s use of FISA orders and national security letters, including specifying whether it had received any of these types of requests. However, without going to a court, the FBI told Twitter it could not publish the report as written. Twitter sued, and last month the federal Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit upheld the FBI’s gag order.

  • Enhancing Advanced Nuclear Reactor Analysis

    Nuclear power is a significant source of steady carbon-neutral electricity, and advanced reactors can add more of it to the U.S. grid, which is vital for the environment and economy. Sandia Lab researchers have developed a standardized screening method to determine the most important radioactive isotopes that could leave an advanced reactor site in the unlikely event of an accident.

  • U.S. in a Massive Crackdown on Darknet Fentanyl Trafficking

    In a massive global crackdown on fentanyl trafficking on the darknet, U.S. law enforcement agencies and their international partners announced Tuesday the arrests of nearly 300 suspects and seizure of a large cache of drugs, cash, virtual currency and weapons.

  • Lithuania Legalizes Border Pushbacks

    Lithuania enacted the so-called pushbacks in law, which allows border guards to push back border crossers – that is, push them back across the border – if they do not have the right papers. The move has been heavily criticized, but it is not without precedent in the EU.

  • Why the Situation in Cuba Is Deteriorating

    Cuba’s authoritarian regime has failed to avert an economic crisis, repair decaying state institutions, and prevent the country’s largest outflow of migrants since the 1960s.