Trae Stephens’ origin story begins like the first volume of a spy thriller series. Galvanized by 9/11, he vowed as a high schooler to find a career that would let him defend his country. He applied to colleges with programs that could prep him for that heroic role. None were …
Read More »Suspected Trump Gunman Was Once Charged With Possession of a Weapon of Mass Destruction
Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspected gunman involved in an apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida on Sunday, was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction more than 20 years ago. “I figured he was either dead or in …
Read More »The Japanese Robot Controversy Lurking in Israel’s Military Supply Chain
Activists in Japan earlier this year accused one of the country’s largest robotics manufacturers of profiting off the war in Gaza, accusing it of violating its own company policies in aiding the Israeli defense industry. At a protest outside the headquarters of FANUC Corporation earlier this summer, the Boycott, Divestment, …
Read More »The US Has Unleashed the Age of the Laser Weapon
The age of the laser weapon is finally upon us. The United States Army has officially sent a pair of high-energy laser weapons overseas to defend American troops and US allies against enemy drones, the service recently revealed, marking the first publicly known deployment of a directed-energy system for air …
Read More »The Danger Lurking Just Below Ukraine's Surface
Oleksandr Kryvtsov had enough. The owner of an agricultural company in Hrakove, near Kharkiv, Kryvtsov found his land littered with land mines. That region of Ukraine, occupied by Russian forces for nearly eight months, had been pockmarked with explosive ordinances. The threat meant that farmers like Kryvtsov had to let …
Read More »The US Wants China to Start Talking About AI Weapons
When US president Joe Biden meets with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the San Francisco Bay Area this week, the pair will have a long list of matters to discuss, including the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Behind the scenes at the APEC summit, however, US …
Read More »The Dangerous Mystery of Hamas’ Missing ‘Suicide Drones’
When Hamas launched its attacks against Israel on October 7, it unleashed a flood of rockets as cover, while militants streamed through holes in the fence surrounding the Gaza strip. One particular clip released by Hamas, played on news stations the world over, provoked a particular bit of paranoia: video …
Read More »Turtles Carry Signs of Humanity’s Nuclear History in Their Shells
On a spring day in 1978, a fisherman caught a tiger shark in the lagoon surrounding Enewetak Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the north Pacific. That shark, along with the remains of a green sea turtle it had swallowed, wound up in a natural history museum. Today, scientists …
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