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Even When a Cop Is Killed with an Illegally Purchased Weapon, the Gun Store’s Name Is Kept Secret
A 2003 law pushed by the gun industry limits the information shared by federal agents and shields gun shops from public scrutiny, but ProPublica was able to identify the store that sold the gun used in the shooting of a Chicago police officer.
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Terrorist Watch List Apprehensions at Northern Border Continue to Break Records
The number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) apprehended at the northern border in the first six months of fiscal 2024 continue to outpace those apprehended at the southwest border.
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Feds Should Leave Campus Unrest to Others
The federal government should not inject itself into debates largely occurring in civil—free—society. It is not the proper federal role, and it threatens to reduce rather than promote harmony. Some of the things said during the pro-Palestine protests might well be horrible, inaccurate things to say. Those who say them might have antisemitic motives. But it is extremely dangerous to put such speech off limits.
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NYPD Says Protesters Had Weapons, Gas Masks and 'Death to America!' Pamphlets
Michael Kemper, a NYPD’s chief of transit, said protesters had weapons including knives and hammers as well as pamphlets with “Death to America!” written on them. “For those romanticizing the protests occurring on college campuses, ‘Death to America!’ is one sentiment that runs counter to what we believe in, what we stand for, and what many have fought for on behalf of this country,” Kemper said.
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In A Decade, Firearm Deaths Among Young Black People in Rural America Have Quadrupled
A new analysis of CDC data shows that gun fatality rates among Black children and teens in rural places are on par with cities, and are primarily driven by a rise in homicides.
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Lawmakers Call for Accountability Over Pro-Hamas Campus Violence
Pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses have become increasingly intense, and even violent in recent days, pushing lawmakers to call for a change. Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) has, along with Tim Scott (R-S.C.), introduced the Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act, which would end federal funding for colleges and universities “that support, authorize, or facilitate events that promote antisemitism.”
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Campus Antisemitism Surges Amid Encampments and Related Protests at Columbia and Other U.S. Colleges
College campuses have been the site of many tense anti-Israel protests and antisemitic incidents since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. Anti-Zionist student groups on over a dozen U.S. college and university campuses have established “encampments” in recent days to ostensibly protest Israel’s actions in Gaza and their academic institutions’ alleged “complicity” in those actions.
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Tennessee Is Ramping Up Penalties for Student Threats. Research Shows That’s Not the Best Way to Keep Schools Safe.
After a former student killed six people last year at the private Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, state leaders have been looking for ways to make schools safer. Their focus so far has been to ramp up penalties against current students who make mass threats against schools. Months after the killings, legislators passed a law requiring students who make such threats to be expelled for a year. But a large body of research shows these zero-tolerance measures are not the most effective way to prevent violence in schools.
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Crime Rates, Not the Number of Crimes, Are a Better Way to Judge Immigrant Criminality
Focusing on crime rates rather than the number of crimes is essential to compare criminality between populations such as immigrants and native‐born Americans. Otherwise, there is no basis for arguing that one or the other is more criminally inclined, which really matters when discussing public safety.
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Far-Right Extremism in Europe: From Margins to Mainstream
The influx of migrants over the decades has festered resentment within the local European population, who fear the undermining of ethno-national identities and access to adequate social and economic opportunities.
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FBI Fears 'Coordinated Attack' on U.S. Homeland
A surge of confidence by supporters of the Islamic State terror group — reflected in a series of online threats against Europe combined with its deadly attack on a concert hall in Russia — is giving security officials in the United States cause for concern.
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New Geo-Tracking Buoys Make a Splash During Live Test Events
New rugged buoy technologies equipped with Automatic Identification Systems aim to help the U.S. Coast Guard mark and track objects in the water.
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Unlicensed Dealers Illegally Trafficked 68,000 Guns Over 5 Years
Unlicensed dealers who aren’t required to perform background checks illegally trafficked more than 68,000 firearms in the United States over a five-year period, according to new data released Thursday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
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Canada’s Biosecurity Scandal: The Risks of Foreign Interference in Life Sciences
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorized a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah. Then the story seemed to go away—until now.
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How Firearms Move from Legal Purchase to Criminal Use
Between 1996 and 2021, more than 5.2 million handguns and almost 2.9 million long guns were legally purchased in California. During 11 years of that time frame, 2010-2021, California law enforcement officers recovered 45,247 of these guns from crime scenes. New study of California gun data identifies risk factors for weapons used in crimes.
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The long view
Need for National Information Clearinghouse for Cybercrime Data, Categorization of Cybercrimes: Report
There is an acute need for the U.S. to address its lack of overall governance and coordination of cybercrime statistics. A new report recommends that relevant federal agencies create or designate a national information clearinghouse to draw information from multiple sources of cybercrime data and establish connections to assist in criminal investigations.
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.”
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”
How DHS Laid the Groundwork for More Intelligence Abuse
I&A, the lead intelligence unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) —long plagued by politicized targeting, permissive rules, and a toxic culture —has undergone a transformation over the last two years. Spencer Reynolds writes that this effort falls short. “Ultimately, Congress must rein in I&A,” he adds.