• CHINA WATCHWhen Global Trade Is About More Than Money

    By Christy DeSmith

    International trade can yield far more than imports and exports. Economist’s new tool looks at how China is more effective than U.S. in exerting political power through import, export controls

  • FLOODSElon Musk Pushed Back on Our Reporting on His Houston Tunnels Plan. Experts Say His Comments Are Misleading.

    By Yilun Cheng, Houston Chronicle

    Elon Musk is taking issue with a recent investition by the Houston Chronicle and The Texas Newsroom that raised questions about a flood tunnel project he’s pitching to address Houston’s chronic flooding woes. But experts said his response, which he did not explain to the newsrooms, isn’t supported by facts or data.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSSecuring South Korea's Critical Minerals Supply Chains Through Trilateral Cooperation

    South Korea, Japan, and the United States’ trilateral partnership has expanded to include collaboration on economic security, including on critical minerals supply chains (CMSCs). A new report offers analysis, tools, and recommendations to strengthen South Korea’s CMSCs and economic security.

  • CHINA WATCHPentagon Warns Microsoft: Company’s Use of China-Based Engineers Was a “Breach of Trust”

    By Renee Dudley

    The Defense Department is opening an investigation to determine if the tech giant’s use of overseas engineers to maintain sensitive U.S. government computer systems compromised national security.

  • TECHNOLOGY RACEU.S.-China Tech Rivalry: The Geopolitics of Semiconductors

    The United States and China are locked in a high‑stakes contest for dominance in computing power. In response to US sanctions and export controls, China has ramped domestic chip design and manufacturing, aiming to create an all‑Chinese semiconductor supply chain that reduces dependence on foreign technologies.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHFlorida Plans to Scrap Kid Vaccine Mandates as HHS Employees Demand RFK Jr Resignation

    In ongoing upheaval over antivaccine policies espoused by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his allies in Florida today—in a national first—announced plans to scrap requirements for school-based vaccination.

  • FOOD SECURITYThe Rising Threat to New York City’s Food System

    By Ilana Schwartz

    The Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, the largest of its kind in the country, serves as the penultimate stop for 4.5 billion pounds of food that feed the city and surrounding areas each year. Losing access to that hub could be catastrophic for a city that produces almost none of its own food.

  • ENERGY SECURITYStates Fast-Track Wind, Solar Permits and Contracts to Beat Trump’s Deadline

    By Alex Brown

    Since taking office, the Trump administration has pursued a number of policies aimed at dismantling support for renewable energy, particularly targeting wind and solar power, which President Trump described as a “scam.” Federal tax credits have brought project costs down 30-50%, advocates say.

  • ENERGY SECURITYHydroBoost: Increasing Hydropower Revenue with Realistic Forecasting

    By Brandon Hallmark

    Optimizing the revenue and power storage capabilities of hydropower plants is challenging because water flow varies with seasons and weather conditions.To help hydropower operators,researchers developed HydroBoost, an optimization solver.

  • CHINA WATCHMicrosoft Failed to Disclose Key Details About Use of China-Based Engineers in U.S. Defense Work, Record Shows

    By Renee Dudley, with research by Doris Burke

    The tech giant is required to regularly provide U.S. officials with its plan for keeping government data safe from hacking. Yet a copy of Microsoft’s security plan obtained by ProPublica makes no reference to the company’s China-based operations.

  • NUCLEAR POWERNuclear Waste Could Be a Source of Fuel in Future Reactors

    In theory, nuclear fusion —a process that fuses atoms together, releasing heat to turn generators —could provide vast energy supplies with minimal emissions. But nuclear fusion is an expensive prospect because one of its main fuels is a rare version of hydrogen called tritium. Now, researchers are developing new systems to use nuclear waste to make tritium.

  • ENERGY SOURCESTrump’s Bid to Support Coal Could Cost Ratepayers Billions: Report

    By Alex Brown

    The market has spoken: Across the country, coal plants have phased out as they’ve been unable to compete with cheaper renewables and natural gas. A recent report found that 99% of existing U.S. coal plants “are more expensive to run than replacement by local wind, solar, and energy storage resources.” Mandates from the Trump administration to subsidize aging, uncompetitive coal plants would cause taxpayers billions and lead to a massive spike in energy costs.

  • ECONMIC POLICYTariffs Can Improve U.S. Economy, but Global Trade Realities, Retaliation, Could Offset Gains

    By Karen Nikos-Rose

    The United States could achieve modest economic benefits by applying uniform tariffs on all trade partners, but the complicated realities of supply chains, global trade and its downstream effects on people and businesses could offset economic gains and even lead to significant losses. 

  • ECONMIC POLICYTrump Fired BLS Chief, but Skipped Causes of Weak Jobs Report

    By Rebecca Patterson

    While the July U.S. jobs report last week was surprisingly bad—sending U.S. equities, bond yields, and the dollar all sharply lower—the reasons behind the labor-market developments have been pretty easy to see. The incontrovertible facts notwithstanding, Trump has fired a highly regarded, long-term government employee who received bipartisan backing to oversee the country’s labor-market statistics, bizarrely, and falsely, accusing her of “rigging” the figures he found to be inconvenient. Eroding trust in U.S. economic data and policymaking is a recipe for slower economic growth and even more challenging policymaking, whatever the data may say.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSGeological Mapping Project Supports Critical Mineral Explorations, Enhances Public Safety in the Southeast

    A key focus of a new USGS mapping project is to identify where critical minerals vital to the economy and national security might be located. As demand for rare earth elements and other critical minerals grows for use in technology, energy, and defense sectors, this project can provide vital data that helps the U.S. secure domestic sources of critical minerals, thus reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign sources.