The U.S. has been successful in reducing the threat of terrorism, but it has wildly overspent in a futile attempt to achieve the goal of eliminating it. “After 9/11 we put our national security apparatus on steroids and decided that we were going to try to stop another attack from ever taking place,” says Stephen […]

Researchers at Northeastern University in Boston formed a 10-person social-media research team to run a similar project, scheduled to launch Thursday, which would allow people to upload photos from the attack and tag clues. They said they plan to continue their project even if a suspect is found.

The annual marathon alone generates nearly $140 million in revenues for local hotels, shops, restaurants, and other businesses, according to the Boston Athletic Association, which sponsors the race. “This won’t be just affecting the marathon, it’s likely to affect events that will happen outdoors this summer,” said Alan Clayton-Matthews, a Northeastern University professor who focuses […]

Tension has bubbled between Boston and New York since the 17th century, when the Puritans, who founded Boston, and the Dutch, who founded New York, squabbled over Long Island. “We’re so small compared to New York, but we’re so powerful,” said Northeastern University historian Bill Fowler, acknowledging that Boston, with just over 600,000 residents, is […]

The horrible events in Boston yesterday certainly weren’t the first tragedy of recent years. There have been many since 9/11: Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook. And those, of course, are only a sampling. If we expand our view outside the United States, that list only multiplies, and exponentially. Personally, though, yesterday’s events resonated in a […]

Editor’s note: Dan Kennedy is an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston and the author of the forthcoming book “The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life in the Post-Newspaper Age” (University of Massachusetts). He blogs at Media Nation. I was going through my Twitter feed Monday morning when I came across this: “Happy greatest day […]

Stephen Flynn, a veteran homeland security expert and political scientist at Northeastern University in Boston, gave the president “high marks” for his statements, which on Tuesday included this: “Boston is a tough and resilient town. So are its people. I’m supremely confident that Bostonians will pull together, take care of each other, and move forward […]

In All Things Considered, WBUR’s Sacha Pfeiffer spoke with Stephen Flynn, co-director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security at Northeastern University, about the nature of terror threats today and what the Boston Marathon is likely to look and feel like next year.

Stephen Flynn, founding co-director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security at Northeastern University, talks about the investigation into the explosions at the Boston Marathon yesterday. Flynn speaks with Adam Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Lunch Money.”

To Jeffery Born, a professor of finance at the D’Amore McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, gold’s big decline didn’t come as much of a surprise. Born said he decided two years ago stocks were the best long-term investment. The problem with gold? It pays no dividends, costs money to store and includes the […]

“What we saw today was a relatively small-scale set of explosions,” says Stephen Flynn, co-director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security at Northeastern University, in Boston. “The challenge with these smaller-scale attacks is that they are much harder to detect in the early stages – precisely because they don’t require much sophistication, planning, […]

Monday was Patriots Day in Massachusetts , when the city bursts to life with a Red Sox home game and the world-renowned marathon. Patriots Day is a state holiday commemorating the battles that launched the beginning of the American Revolution. “This is the day Boston shines in the spotlight,  and that puts this event in […]