Justice and Public Safety

When an elderly man with dementia wandered from his home in Pennsylvania, it had the makings of a long day for the police and fire department crews, but officials say a drone was instrumental in finding him quickly.

The chief of the Española Police Department in New Mexico says automated license plate readers can help detect stolen cars and license plates, but watchdogs have voiced concerns about possible misuses of the tech.

The Western Fire Chiefs Association, a nonprofit that started in California during the 1800s, sees much potential in a new tool that can save substantial time and manpower in wildfire recovery missions.

The fully electric Chevrolet Bolt has a defect that can cause its battery to burst into flames. General Motors has issued a recall and developed a fix, but some customers are giving up on EVs for now.

A drone program has launched to give officers a vantage they don't have from the ground — whether it's getting eyes on a hostage situation, conducting a search and rescue operation, or tracking a fleeing suspect from the air.

Federal regulators have embarked on a new era of relicensing that could eventually enable Washington's Columbia Generating Station and many other U.S. nuclear power plants to operate for as long as 80 years.

Ohio has announced a new pilot that involves using mass spectrometers to increase efficiency and safety around drug testing to increase officer safety, aid in investigations and help connect individuals to treatment.

After the accidental firing of a weapon, the Virginia Beach Police Department has recalled all of its gun holsters. The special holster makes a body cam automatically turn on when an officer withdraws a gun.

The bill, which passed the Ohio Senate earlier this year, passed the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee yesterday. The legislation would make telecommunications fraud a fourth-degree felony.

Next year, officers from four Pennsylvania police departments will be entering virtual reality to help deal with possible, real-life scenarios where they have to de-escalate a situation to make sure everyone is safe.

Microsoft suspects that Nobelium, the group of state-sponsored Russian cyber criminals responsible for the SolarWinds fiasco, is taking aim at suppliers and resellers of tech products, including cloud-based solutions.

Genealogy information helped Cook County, Ill., investigators in the Chicago area identify a young North Carolina native as one of the long unidentified victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

The idea behind killware, a new type of cyber attack, is to disable or manipulate the electronic or computer equipment that humans depend on, resulting in potential harm or death to individuals.

Since the pandemic prompted Minnesota courts to find ways to conduct proceedings without meeting in person, judicial officials have gained experience with using video conferencing, leading to benefits and drawbacks.

As users turn to Facebook to share info about crimes ranging from petty theft to murder, police are struggling to follow false leads on the website — and, sometimes, to protect people wrongly accused of serious crimes.

Starting Friday, all Rockford Police Department officers and detectives are expected to be trained on body-worn camera operations as well as on an 18-page policy report on how the cameras are to be used.

On Wednesday, the Kentucky Supreme Court was asked to decide whether police should be allowed to track people in the community by pinging their cellphones without a court-issued search warrant.

Police and city officials on Tuesday unveiled the department’s $3 million Real Time Crime Center, which features all-seeing live technology nestled in a hub on the fourth floor of police headquarters.