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American law enforcement has experienced historic changes over the past several decades - particularly in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 events. In the past, community policing and problem solving were popular policing strategies used in many jurisdictions, but now police departments frequently institute "zerotolerance" policies. This shift incorporates the use of military equipment and weaponry that has flooded into law enforcement agencies across the United States. In many cases/situations law enforcement has also adopted military strategies and tactics - tactics designed for use against foreign enemies. One popularly broadcast and subsequently perceived mission of American law enforcement was to protect and serve the public. Today, the progress of that mission statement is in question. Another issue related to law enforcement performance is clearance rates. In 1971, the clearance rate for violent crimes was 46.5 percent. That percentage increased to 47.7 percent by 2011 - reflecting a 1.2 percent improvement over 40 years. Amidst this inferior performance in police activity we seem to have entered into a period where law enforcement has become militarized. Today's law enforcement mission reflects a bypassing of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricted the use of the military in civilian issues/circumstances. Today, the militarization of law enforcement provides an exception to that law through the creation of an ad hock military presence. Thus, protect and serve has been replaced with defeat and conquer. This paper examines short and long-term implications of defeat and conquer mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Native Americans are the most economically impoverished ethnic group in the United States. Fewer educational opportunities, high unemployment, permanent residency issues, homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, and geographic isolation are realities and challenges that contribute to the proliferation of social problems experienced by Native Americans. For example, twenty-seven percent (27%) of Indian families live below the poverty level (compared to approximately eleven percent (11.6%) among whites nationwide. Also, Native Americans are subject to more violent crime than any other U.S. ethnic group, these crimes include murder, assault, drug trafficking, human trafficking, gang violence, and illegal immigration through tribal lands along with the experiencing highest rate of incarceration in the nation. To compound these realities is the fact that Native Americans experience a lack of cultural respect (competency) by members of other ethnic groups and the white community in particular. This lack of cultural respect or cultural incompetency is rooted, in part, in racial discrimination imposed on Native Americans. Application of discrimination theory provides an understanding of how racial discrimination is the foundation of the social challenges Native Americans face. One solution to lessen the challenges that Native Americans experience is the restoration of their core cultural competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular biology methods and technologies have advanced substantially over the past decade. These new molecular methods should be incorporated among the standard tools of planetary protection (PP) and could be validated for incorporation by 2026. To address the feasibility of applying modern molecular techniques to such an application, NASA conducted a technology workshop with private industry partners, academics, and government agency stakeholders, along with NASA staff and contractors. The technical discussions and presentations of the Multi-Mission Metagenomics Technology Development Workshop focused on modernizing and supplementing the current PP assays. The goals of the workshop were to assess the state of metagenomics and other advanced molecular techniques in the context of providing a validated framework to supplement the bacterial endospore-based NASA Standard Assay and to identify knowledge and technology gaps. In particular, workshop participants were tasked with discussing metagenomics as a stand-alone technology to provide rapid and comprehensive analysis of total nucleic acids and viable microorganisms on spacecraft surfaces, thereby allowing for the development of tailored and cost-effective microbial reduction plans for each hardware item on a spacecraft. Workshop participants recommended metagenomics approaches as the only data source that can adequately feed into quantitative microbial risk assessment models for evaluating the risk of forward (exploring extraterrestrial planet) and back (Earth harmful biological) contamination. Participants were unanimous that a metagenomics workflow, in tandem with rapid targeted quantitative (digital) PCR, represents a revolutionary advance over existing methods for the assessment of microbial bioburden on spacecraft surfaces. The workshop highlighted low biomass sampling, reagent contamination, and inconsistent bioinformatics data analysis as key areas for technology development. Finally, it was concluded that implementing metagenomics as an additional workflow for addressing concerns of NASA's robotic mission will represent a dramatic improvement in technology advancement for PP and will benefit future missions where mission success is affected by backward and forward contamination.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented need for rapid diagnostic testing. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a standard assay that includes an RNA extraction step from a nasopharyngeal (NP) swab followed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to detect the purified SARS-CoV-2 RNA. The current global shortage of RNA extraction kits has caused a severe bottleneck to COVID-19 testing. The goal of this study was to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 RNA could be detected from NP samples via a direct RT-qPCR assay that omits the RNA extraction step altogether. The direct RT-qPCR approach correctly identified 92% of a reference set of blinded NP samples (n = 155) demonstrated to be positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA by traditional clinical diagnostic RT-qPCR that included an RNA extraction. Importantly, the direct method had sufficient sensitivity to reliably detect those patients with viral loads that correlate with the presence of infectious virus. Thus, this strategy has the potential to ease supply choke points to substantially expand COVID-19 testing and screening capacity and should be applicable throughout the world., Competing Interests: I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have no competing interests. While DJS was employed at IXIS LLC at the time of this study, his employment there did not create a competing interest. Further, IXIS LLC had no involvement in this study.