International security

Iranian missiles can hit U.S. ships in Gulf: Guards

A deputy head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said short-range Iranian missiles could reach U.S. warships in the Gulf, and the United States could not afford a new war, the semi-official news agency Fars reported on Friday.

The comments added to days of sabre-rattling between Tehran and Washington, which has tightened sanctions and built up its military presence in the region alleging threats from Iran to its troops and interests.

Iran has accused the United States of “psychological warfare” and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said this week Tehran would not negotiate another deal after Washington quit a 2015 pact over Iran’s nuclear program.

“Even our short-range missiles can easily reach (U.S.) warships in the Persian Gulf,” Mohammad Saleh Jokar, the Guard’s deputy for parliamentary affairs, was quoted by Fars as saying.

Immigration security

Trump unveils plan to ‘transform’ America’s immigration system, focus on high-skilled workers

President Trump on Thursday unveiled a long-awaited immigration overhaul that would dramatically alter how the U.S. accepts people into the country, upending the system in order to favor admissions based on merit rather than family ties.

"If adopted, our plan will transform America's immigration system into the pride of our nation and the envy of the modern world," Trump said from the Rose Garden.

The proposal would judge immigrants with a points-based system that would favor high-skilled workers -- accounting for age, English proficiency, education and whether the applicant has a well-paying job offer.

Currently, only about 12 percent of immigrants are admitted based on employment and skills, while 66 percent are admitted based on family connections inside the U.S. Administration officials estimate that those numbers would flip to 57 and 33 percent, respectively, under the Trump plan.

"Currently 66 percent of legal immigrants come here based on random chance, they're admitted solely because they have a relative in the United States, and it doesn't really matter who that relative is," Trump said.

He said the plan would help recruit "top talent."

Trade wars

What could happen if China uses its 'nuclear option' in the trade war

Chinese scholars are reportedly looking into the so-called nuclear option in the trade war — Beijing dumping US Treasurys. 

"Many Chinese scholars are discussing the possibility of dumping US Treasuries and how to do it specifically," Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the state-aligned Chinese tabloid Global Times, tweeted on Monday, setting off a debate about what the consequences would be if China divested its holdings.

While UBS strategists think it's unlikely China would sell the entirety of its holdings, they looked into what could happen just in case. To do so, they looked at the effect the Fed's tapering had on yields. 

"Through quantitative easing programs, the Fed expanded its balance sheet by about $3.5trn," the strategists wrote. "We estimated that this compressed US term premium by about 110bp. Through its balance sheet unwind of $600bn, we estimated that 10-year term premium had risen by about 20-30bp."

Therefore, they concluded that China unloading all $1.1 trillion of its Treasurys, or about 7% of the entire market, would cause the 10-year yield to climb by 30 to 40 basis points. 

But not everyone agrees that yields would go higher. In Bloomberg's daily markets email, Joe Weisenthal, the executive editor for daily news, suggested Treasury yields could actually fall.

Innovations & technologies

15 commercial products invented by the military include GPS, duct tape and Silly Putty

The U.S. military spent over $42 billion in research and development in 2018. Though much of this funding tends to go to weapons programs, a great deal of military R&D often ends up also having civilian applications.

Military programs that work on new technology, materials, or gadgets have over the years contributed to the development of several consumer end products, materials used in consumer applications, medical devices, and much more. Some of these products are still made in the United States.

In fact, some of the most widely used commercial products today were originally developed for the purpose of defending the country or were a byproduct of military research. 24/7 Wall St. identified 15 commercial products that are a direct result of military research.
The United States is the world's largest economy and it spends by far the most on its military. This includes large investments in R&D, whether through the military's own research agencies or through contracts with private companies – known as the military-industrial complex. This relationship is still going strong, as there are dozens of companies making more than $1 billion from military contracts.

Opinion

US military complex is a ‘malignant virus’ that's evolved to defend itself – Andrew Cockburn

The US military industrial complex has grown into a self-sustaining organism with an immune system that attacks and smothers any threat to its food supply – the taxpayers' money, writes renowned defense analyst Andrew Cockburn.

Cockburn outlines the process that allows US defense contractors to thrive despite repeatedly missing deadlines and producing overpriced, subpar equipment. The system has evolved to be very good at defending itself – while leaving the country, “in reality so poorly defended,” he writes in his latest think piece for Harper's Magazine titled ‘The Military-Industrial Virus: How bloated defense budgets gut our armed forces’.

Cockburn, whose 40+ years of experience include numerous books and publications on the US' military complex, its foreign wars and adversaries, looks at the current state of America's armed force – from the overpriced “disaster” that is the F-35 fighter, to the few “dilapidated” minesweepers, to faulty personal protection and radios American soldiers are equipped with – and compares it to the exorbitant defense bills the taxpayer has to foot.

Military

71% of young people are ineligible for the military — and most careers, too

The numbers are staggering: Seventy-one percent of young people are ineligible to join the military, according to 2017 Pentagon data. The reasons: obesity, no high school diploma or a criminal record.

The problem isn't just a military one, though: It's an issue for businesses as well because the vast majority of that age group isn't eligible for many jobs either, said retired Rear Admiral Thomas Wilson.

That's why Wilson recently raised the issue at a gathering of business and community leaders in York County, Pennsylvania. The 29 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds who are qualified become prime targets for all recruiting: military, college and jobs.

Wilson calls it “a war for the qualified.” Steve Doster, Pennsylvania State director of Military Readiness for Council for a Strong America, agrees it's a problem.

“This is a very real risk to our national security,” Doster said.

Science

Researchers shed new light on atomic 'wave function'

Physicists have demonstrated a new way to obtain the essential details that describe an isolated quantum system, such as a gas of atoms, through direct observation. The new method gives information about the likelihood of finding atoms at specific locations in the system with unprecedented spatial resolution. With this technique, scientists can obtain details on a scale of tens of nanometers—smaller than the width of a virus.

Experiments performed at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a research partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland, use an optical lattice—a web of laser light that suspends thousands of individual atoms—to determine the probability that an atom might be at any given location. Because each individual atom in the lattice behaves like all the others, a measurement on the entire group of atoms reveals the likelihood of an individual atom to be in a particular point in space.

Financial safety

Countdown to zero: Russia continues dumping US debt

Foreign investors have accelerated the reduction of US debt securities, selling $21.7 billion of their holdings in March, according to data released on Wednesday by the US Treasury Department.

Russia, which is no longer a leading creditor of the US, after an unprecedented dumping of the US Treasury bonds in April and May, has slashed its stockpile by almost $800 million in March to $13.716 billion.

Russia has cut nearly 85 percent of its US Treasury holdings from $96.9 billion in January 2018. The drop is even more significant from 2012, when Russia held over $170 billion in US debt bonds.

Criminal investigation

GozNym cyber-crime gang which stole millions busted

An international crime gang which used malware to steal $100m (£77m) from more than 40,000 victims has been dismantled.

A complex police operation conducted investigations in the US, Bulgaria, Germany, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The gang infected computers with GozNym malware, which captured online banking details to access bank accounts.

The gang was put together from criminals who advertised their skills on online forums.

The details of the operation were revealed at the headquarters of the European police agency Europol in The Hague.

It said that the investigation was unprecedented, especially in terms of cross-border co-operation.

Trade wars

Huawei: China threatens to retaliate over US sanctions

China has threatened to retaliate against US sanctions seen as an attempt to restrict international trade by the Chinese technology giant Huawei.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Beijing opposed countries imposing unilateral sanctions on Chinese companies and would take action.

The Trump administration on Wednesday effectively blocked Huawei products from being used in US networks.

The order does not name any company, but is believed to target Huawei.

Huawei denies its products pose a security threat and says it is ready to engage with the US.

Aerospace

Putin SHOWS OFF SU-57 killer fighter jets as UK unveils F-35 warplanes -but who would win?

....But as a video surfaced showing Mr Putin’s ‘Flying Kremlin’ presidential plane being escorted by no less than six of the planes, and with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier now equipped with F-35 jets - which fighter has the upper hand? The footage taken from Mr Putin’s IL-96-300PU, and his escort was reported to be roughly half the total number of these advanced fighter jets currently in Moscow’s air force. The state-of-the-art Su-57 has been slow in development over a decade or so and their appearance alongside the presidential Ilyushin is a sign that they are now fully in service...

At the end of last year the Russian air force boasted around a dozen of the planes.

The comparison is particularly timely because Turkey is facing the prospect of being barred from purchasing a US-built fleet of F-35s over its decision to purchase Russia’s S-400 missile system - a move Washington has grave concerns about.

Election security

Obama spymasters point fingers amid Russia probe review: ‘Throwing each other under the bus’

The launch of a formal inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation -- being led by one of the Justice Department’s toughest prosecutors -- has touched off a new round of behind-the-scenes finger-pointing among Obama administration officials who could have some explaining to do about efforts to surveil the Trump campaign.

A key dispute that flared this week concerns whether then-FBI Director James Comey or then-CIA Director John Brennan -- or both of them -- pushed the unverified Steele dossier containing claims about President Trump and his relationship to Russia. The dossier’s more sensational claims were never substantiated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team.

“Amazing—James Comey says that in 2016, John Brennan insisted on including the dossier in their IC assessment. But Brennan says: no no, COMEY wanted to use the dossier,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a Republican who has long demanded answers about the origins of the probe, tweeted Thursday in reference to a prior Fox News report.

Meadows added: “They know the truth is coming. And now they're all throwing each other under the bus.”

Sources familiar with the records told Fox News that a late-2016 email chain indicated Comey told bureau subordinates that Brennan insisted the dossier be included in the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference, known as the ICA. That email chain has not been made public.

Deep state

Rand Paul: Bolton is a 'malign influence'

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a close ally of President Trump who has supported the president’s desire to pull U.S. troops out of the Middle East, says national security adviser John Bolton is a “malign influence.”

Paul, who believes the U.S. should reduce its military presence in Syria and Afghanistan, says he is alarmed by the recent mobilization of U.S. combat troops to counter what some Trump officials see as a rising threat posed by Iran.

Asked about Bolton’s role in the recent deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group and an Air Force bomber task force, Paul said, “I fear that he’s a malignancy, a malignant influence on the administration."

Paul believes that Bolton is in a camp of hawks who may be pushing Trump in the direction of war.

The New York Times reported Monday that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented a military plan to Trump at a meeting last week calling for the deployment of 120,000 troops to the Middle East, at Bolton's request.

Corruption

The Mastermind Behind The College Admissions Scandal Used To Be A Crazy Middle School Basketball Coach

Singer is now widely known as the mastermind behind the sprawling college admissions scandal that the FBI uncovered earlier this year. Singer founded The Key, a company that spent years using bribes, fraudulent test scores, and phony athletic recruiting profiles to get the children of some of the wealthiest people in the country accepted into the colleges of their choice. Singer eventually became a cooperating witness for the FBI, and the resulting investigation entangled dozens of people, including coaches, administrators, and various Hollywood stars.

A November 2000 article in the Omaha World Herald says Singer had come to Omaha to work for a major telemarketing firm, West Corporation. He had come from Sacramento, where in 1992 he had made his first entry into the college admissions industry, founding Future Stars College & Career Counseling, a company he sold in 1998.

According to those who remember Singer from his coaching days, he was very focused on winning middle school basketball games, as he later would be on getting Lori Loughlin’s daughter into USC.

Innovations & technologies

In-Q-Tel President Chris Darby on the intelligence community's innovation challenges

Rapid technological shifts have had a profound impact on the traditional capabilities — and competitive advantages — of the U.S. intelligence and defense communities, according to Chris Darby, the president and CEO of In-Q-Tel (IQT). Created in 1999, IQT functions as a strategic investment arm of the CIA and broader national security community.

Technology "underpins society today in a way it never has before," Darby said. "I think if you look at everything from projection of power to pre-deployment of capability, it's about technology. It's about your nation's technology and the way it is deployed around the world. And we're seeing adversaries leverage that, I think, quite successfully."

In a recent interview, Darby, who took the helm at IQT in 2006, told "Intelligence Matters" host and CBS News senior national security contributor Michael Morell that a "democratization" of technologies like satellites and geolocation services had served to close the capabilities gap between the United States and other nations.

Drug smuggling

Mexican cartels using border migrant crisis to distract agents from drug smuggling, Carroll says

Mexican cartels are using the migrant crisis at the southern border to overwhelm U.S. agents stationed there so they can smuggle drugs across with greater ease, said James Carroll, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"These drug traffickers, they're smart, they know what they're doing," said Carroll during an appearance Wednesday on "Fox & Friends." "They send the immigrants through, they wait until Customs and Border Protection is manned up, dealing with [the migrants], then it's an open border and they sail the drugs in, they flood the zone with drugs."

Central American families have reached the border in growing numbers since October, creating what is widely considered a humanitarian crisis.

In some cities, days pass without anyone being processed. In San Diego, up to 80 are handled each day, but the line in Tijuana, across the border, is the longest anywhere — about 4,800 people.

Carroll noted that more than 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2017, much of it illicit substances such as illicit fentanyl and heroin.

Deep state

Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster: Some Trump Advisers Are a ‘Danger to the Constitution’

Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster has accused some unnamed White House advisers of being “a danger to the Constitution” by trying to manipulate President Trump to achieve their own ulterior motives.

McMaster, who was rumored to be at loggerheads with Trump for months before his departure in March 2018, stopped short of offering his own assessment of the president while making the remarks Wednesday at an event hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. But he suggested that at least two distinct groups of advisers to the president are secretly running point on agendas that are at odds with those of Trump himself.

One group, he said, consists of those “who are not there to give the president options—they’re there to try to manipulate the situation based on their own agenda, not the president’s agenda.”

The other group “cast themselves in the role of saving the country, even the world, from the president,” he said.

“I think those latter two categories of people are actually a danger to the Constitution of the United States,” he said.

Deep state

If You Fear the Deep State, History Explains Why

In july 1987, Oliver North was living proof of what could happen when obscure government staffers exercise power on their own. North, a Marine lieutenant colonel who’d been assigned to work on Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council staff, sat upright in his olive-green uniform before a joint congressional committee. As television cameras rolled, the staffer recounted his role in the scheme to sell weapons to Iran and funnel the proceeds to Contras battling a socialist government in Nicaragua.

On paper, North and others at the NSC were supposed to support the president’s policy-making process, but Reagan staffers had cooked up their own plans and then carried them out. Amid what became known as the Iran-Contra affair, North and the rest of the NSC looked to many like, in the words of one observer, “reckless cowboys, off on their own on a wild ride.” Today conspiracy theorists would have simply called them part of a “deep state”—shadowy, unelected officials controlling government even as presidents come and go.

Communication security

Trump signs executive order banning use of technology posing a national security risk

President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday banning the purchase or use of technology that poses a national security risk. The order did not specifically mention any countries or companies, but it would especially affect the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei.

"This Executive Order declares a national emergency with respect to the threats against information and communications technology and services in the United States and delegates authority to the Secretary of Commerce to prohibit transactions posing an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. The order lands amid intensifying concern among U.S. intelligence about the vulnerability of networks that rely on Huawei components.

Forensics

New Program Detects Chemical Threats

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is now testing new chemical sensors that can assist easily detecting nuclear, biological, chemical, radioactive, and explosive threats on a regional sized scale.
The effort has come from the SIGMA program spinoff, SIGMA+. In the past, the program has already managed to demonstrate the ability to detect nuclear and radiological threats at a city sized scale. Today, the new initiative reports wind readings and real time chemical information with the help of chemical and wind sensors, as well as a communications board. The information is then uploaded to a central cloud where the data is processed by certain algorithms. Homelandprepnews.com reports that the effort has already been tested at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last year.
The algorithms fuse multiple detector inputs to get a broader understanding of the situation. The algorithms were built based on simulant releases in a large metropolitan area, so the network’s algorithms were built based on that existing data. With the additional help of the chemical sensor outputs and wind measurements, it is possible to look at chemical threat dynamics in real time, how they evolve over time, and how concentrated the threat may be as it moves throughout an area.