By a Biometrica staffer Earlier this month, officials released the 2020 edition of the annual audit of the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC) that is jointly run by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice (DOJ). According...
By a Biometrica staffer Widely considered to be one of the least polarizing issues in politics, infrastructure has become the key priority of the Biden-Harris Administration’s agenda. Currently, there are three bills being discussed in the U.S. Congress — two in the...
By a Biometrica staffer On Wednesday, July 14, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Cory Booker, and Sen. Ron Wyden unveiled a draft of their bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level. The proposal seeks to remove the drug from the Controlled...
By a Biometrica staffer Multiple news sites began reporting on Tuesday, July 13, that REvil, the Russia-based group responsible for one of the largest ransomware attacks in history, had gone dark. There is no indication as of yet as to why the...
By a Biometrica staffer An undercover investigation in middle Tennessee ended in the arrests of 18 men accused of seeking illicit sex from minors, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday, July 12. The operation began on July 8 and...
By a Biometrica staffer A triple threat of record high temperatures, wildfires, and drought have set ablaze large swathes of the western United States, leading to electricity shortages, mass evacuations, smoke warnings, and the deaths of at least two firefighters. According to...
By a Biometrica staffer In a big win for those arguing for greater autonomy for consumers on how companies collect and use their personal data, this week, Colorado became the third state, after Virginia and California, to implement a sweeping piece of...
By Aara Ramesh According to a study released by the Mozilla Foundation on Wednesday, July 7, the video platform giant YouTube is continuing to push to users “disturbing and hateful” content that violates its own Community Guidelines, continuing the long-standing controversy over...
By Aara Ramesh On Tuesday, July 6, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a first-of-its-kind executive order declaring the escalating gun violence in New York a disaster emergency. The new edict is just the first step in a broader seven-step plan outlined by the...
By a Biometrica staffer There were over 400 shootings across the country during the Fourth of July weekend, which ended up claiming the lives of at least 150 people, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a CNN report said....
By Aara Ramesh On Thursday, July 1, Attorney General (AG) Merrick B. Garland issued an order staying all federal executions until a comprehensive review of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) policies and procedures can be completed. This is a sharp about-turn from...
By Aara Ramesh On Wednesday, June 30, California’s Department of Justice (DOJ) released a recently compiled report on hate crime events and offenses throughout the state in 2020, alongside a series of recommendations, resources, and guidelines directed at the public and at...
By Aara Ramesh The nation’s continued struggle with the opioid epidemic and its fallout entered a new phase on Tuesday, June 29, when a dozen companies faced in court, for the first time, a six-member jury in a case brought by the...
By a Biometrica staffer It's been four days since round-the-clock search-and-rescue (SAR) operations began amid the concrete and steel rubble of a partially collapsed condominium near Miami, Florida. So far no survivors have been pulled out of the ruins of the ocean-front...
By a Biometrica staffer In a move likely may have a far-reaching ripple effect, on Friday, June 25, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Facebook can be held responsible for its users engaging in illegal sex trafficking activities on the site, regardless...
By Aara Ramesh A landmark law intended to radically alter the landscape of sex trafficking online has had a limited impact in the three years since it was enacted, according to a recent report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)....
By Aara Ramesh In the late evening of Wednesday, June 23, John David McAfee, whose name is virtually synonymous with anti-virus software world over, was found unresponsive in his cell in a prison near Barcelona. He was being held there pending extradition...
By Aara Ramesh On Tuesday, June 22, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) released a report showing that Black and Indigenous people are disproportionately dying in traffic accidents, according to an analysis of federal data. This comes on the heels of a...
By a Biometrica staffer On Monday, June 21, a federal appeals court decided to put a judge's decision to overturn California's 30-year-old ban on assaults weapons on hold. However, the legal battle is expected to continue for months and could eventually end...
By a Biometrica staffer On Saturday, June 19, celebrations were underway across the country to commemorate Juneteenth, the date that marks the unofficial end of slavery. Events over the weekend ranged from festivals and celebrations, to rallies and memorials. But it also...
By a Biometrica staffer On Thursday, June 17, Europol said 1,203 tons of illegal pesticides were taken off the market by it in a joint operation that involved law enforcement authorities from 35 countries. The amount of pesticides seized during the operation...
By a Biometrica staffer On Wednesday, June 16, the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) released an audit report about the U.S. Marshals (USMS) judicial security activities, concluding that the department “does not have the resources or proactive threat detection capabilities” needed to...
By Aara Ramesh On Tuesday, June 15, the White House published the first-ever “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” an all-government framework devised to combat what President Joe Biden deemed “the most urgent terrorism threat the United States faces today.” The National...
By a Biometrica staffer It was in April that cybersecurity firm FireEye said on its Threat Research Blog that Chinese hackers suspected to be state-backed had exploited widely used networking devices for months to spy on dozens of high-value government, defense industry,...
By Deepti Govind Typically, it is the summer months that are the bloodiest in terms of mass shootings across the U.S. But what's worrying law enforcement officers (LEOs) particularly this year is the unrelenting surge in gun violence that began well before...
By a Biometrica staffer In what was supposed to be the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, a joint report published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has sounded an urgent alarm over...
By a Biometrica staffer INTERPOL announced on June 8 that it had succeeded in taking down a “record number” of fraudulent online pharmacies and arresting 277 people worldwide with the help of law enforcement, customs and health regulatory authorities in 92 countries....
By Aara Ramesh In what is being called the “largest and most sophisticated” operation ever against encrypted criminal activities, Europol, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and law enforcement agencies in 16 countries across the world have managed to take down hundreds...
By a Biometrica staffer On Monday, June 7, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued model legislation for states to use as a blueprint to create their own extreme risk protection order (or ERPO) gun removal laws — sometimes called "red flag" laws...
By Aara Ramesh As of June 1, downtown Vegas is completely open for the first time in over twelve months and the buzz is almost palpable. Already, live music has returned to the Strip. Casinos are taking down plexiglass dividers and are...
By a Biometrica staffer On Thursday, June 3, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that preliminary data seems to indicate that U.S. traffic deaths shot up by 7.2% in 2020 (as compared to 2019), despite the pandemic and associated lockdowns...
By Aara Ramesh The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week ruled decisively in favor of tribal law enforcement, reaffirming their authority over federal crimes on their land. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer, the land’s highest court on June...
By a Biometrica staffer On Tuesday, June 1, Pope Francis made a long-awaited change to the criminal section of the Code of Canon Law, or Catholic Church law: The changes explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who misuse their...
By a Biometrica staffer On Monday, May 31, the Center for The Defense of Children’s Rights, published a report in which it said it had uncovered a “disturbing pattern” of child sexual abuse at as many as 18 schools and childcare centers...
By Aara Ramesh As the dust settles, more details are emerging about the past of the gunman who killed nine people and then himself in San Jose on Wednesday, May 26, in what is the Bay Area’s deadliest mass shooting. Samuel Cassidy,...
By a Biometrica staffer Early morning on Wednesday, May 26, a gunman — identified as Sam Cassidy by media reports — opened fire at a public transit rail yard in San Jose, California. He ended up killing at least eight of his...
By a Biometrica staffer Americans appear to be preparing to flock to Las Vegas this Memorial Day Weekend to kickstart the summer in true pre-Covid style. Authorities in the City of Lights are expecting to have their busiest weekend yet since the...
By Aara Ramesh The Gordian knot that is the gun control debate in America has flared up in recent weeks, as the number of mass shootings has surged and as the National Rifle Association (NRA) is battling bankruptcy and corruption charges in...
By a Biometrica staffer There were at least 12 mass shootings that took place between Friday night, May 21, and Sunday, May 23, in the U.S., CNN reported. According to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), the country has had 230 mass shootings in...
By Aara Ramesh On May 18, Governor Doug Ducey signed into law a bill that excludes narcotic drug testing products from an existing law that classifies them as illegal drug paraphernalia. The particular target of this action are fentanyl test strips (FTS),...
By a Biometrica staffer On Wednesday, 24 hours after the Florida Senate overwhelmingly voted to approve a potentially precedent-setting gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe, the ayes in the Florida House also held sway in a bipartisan vote, sending the measure negotiated...
By a Biometrica staffer The US House of Representatives on Tuesday, May 18, passed the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act in a 364–62 vote, sending it to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The initiative to pass the bill was led...
By Aara Ramesh Four months later, America is just starting to grapple with the iceberg that is the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. While the political debate over the nature of the insurrection rages on, federal law enforcement...
By Aara Ramesh It might be tempting to think that child sexual abuse is a phenomenon of the digital age, a purely modern trend. While it is true that the epidemic has worsened with the advent of the internet, it has been...
By Aara Ramesh The fallout of last week’s ransomware cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline continues. On Wednesday, May 12, the Biden–Harris administration announced that it was implementing an all-of-government plan to combat fuel shortages resulting from the attack, with the president also issuing...
By Aara Ramesh In a heartening sign, the commercial gaming industry posted record revenues in Q1 2021, the American Gaming Association (AGA), the casino industry’s national trade group, announced on Tuesday, May 11. With intakes soaring above $11 billion and a 21.1%...
By Charlotte Spencer On Tuesday May 11, 2021 a Texas Judge granted a motion to dismiss the National Rifle Association's (NRA) attempt to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reasoning that “the NRA did not file the bankruptcy petition in good faith because...
By Aara Ramesh On Monday, May 10, Europol released a new batch of photos as part of its “Trace an Object” program, an ongoing effort to solve child sexual abuse cold cases across the continent. In their public appeal, the agency said that they are particularly looking for details...
By a Biometrica Staffer On April 8, speaking from the Rose Garden less than 24 hours after another mass shooting, President Joe Biden announced an initial set of measures to take on what he called “an epidemic” of gun violence. He stated that...
By a Biometrica staffer Moises Alexis Reyes-Canales of Maryland pled guilty on May 6 to charges of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise that involved the murder of one person and the attempted murder of two others in Annapolis. Reyes-Canales, 23, aka...