GunsRising Trends in Suicide by Firearms in Young Americans Published 15 June 2021 Deaths from suicide are rising in the United States. These rising trends are especially alarming because global trends in suicide are on a downward trajectory. Moreover, in the U.S., the major mode of suicide among young Americans is by firearms. Deaths from suicide

Nuclear weaponsGlobal Nuclear Arsenals Grow as States Continue to Modernize Published 14 June 2021 A new report finds that despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2020, more have been deployed with operational forces. The nine nuclear-armed states together possessed an estimated 13 080 nuclear weapons at the start of 2021,

CybersecurityCyber Regulation Could Be Coming Following Spate of Hacks, Ransomware Attacks By Jeff Seldin Published 11 June 2021 The United States may soon look to regulate private companies, mandating higher standards for cybersecurity following a series of damaging hacks and ransomware attacks against key firms and critical infrastructure. Cybersecurity experts say that malign actors are

BOOKSHELF: The Anthrax attackInvisible Scourge: The Investigation, Legacy, and Lessons of the 2001 Anthrax Attacks By Al Mauroni Published 11 June 2021 The anthrax incidents of 2001 represented a major milestone for the national security community, in that they highlighted the vulnerabilities of the United States to a very unique domestic threat. While the number

GunsWhat Are “Ghost Guns,” a Target of Biden’s Anti-Crime Effort? By Garen Wintemute Published 11 June 2021 It’s not expensive or difficult to produce large numbers of untraceable firearms in the United States. Whether for private use, sale on the criminal market or arming violent extremists, it’s actually startlingly cheap and easy to mass-produce firearms

RansomwareU.S. Attorney General Warns Ransomware “Getting Worse and Worse” By Masood Farivar Published 10 June 2021 U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland warned Wednesday that ransom-motivated cyberattacks are “getting worse and worse,” echoing other top Biden administration officials who have sounded the alarm about the problem in recent weeks.  “We have to do everything we possibly

Cloak & daggerPoisoning of Russian Writer Bykov Linked with FSB Agents Suspected in Navalny Case Published 10 June 2021 Investigative journalists say a detailed investigation shows Russian writer and poet Dmitry Bykov, a critic of the government, suffered a poisoning attack two years ago at the hands of the same agents suspected of being involved

Internet outageFastly’s Global Internet Meltdown Could Be a Sign of Things to Come By David S. Wall Published 10 June 2021 For an hour on the morning of June, dozens of the world’s most-visited websites went offline. Together, these websites handle hundreds of millions of users. This case illustrates the fragility of an internet that’s

ExtremismThe Evolution of Extremist Groups Published 10 June 2021 Early online support for the Boogaloos, one of the groups implicated in the January 2021 attack on the Capitol, followed the same mathematical pattern as ISIS—despite the stark ideological, geographical and cultural differences between their forms of extremism, a new study finds. The findings of the

ExtremismFrankfurt Police Unit to Be Disbanded over Far-Right Chats Published 10 June 2021 The city of Frankfurt am Main and the leaders of the state of Hesse have announced they were disbanding the Frankfurt police’s Special Task Force (SEK) following the discovery of the participation of SEK officers in far-right extremist chat rooms. German police