OUR PICKSThe New Economics of Immigration | A New Era of Attacks on Encryption | Do Aliens Exist?, and more

Misunderstanding McKinley  (Aroop Mukharji, Foreign Affairs)
Why the Gilded Age tariff model won’t work for Trump.

The New Economics of Immigration  (Economist)
A fresh critique of migration is gaining ground. Liberals must take it seriously.

Illegal Border Crossings Drop to Lowest Levels in February in U.S. History  (Bethany Blankley, The Center Square)
CBP closes temporary processing centers, launches new phone app.

Southport-Style Attacks Don’t Need a New Terrorism Definition  (Liam Duffy, Unherd)
To call something “terrorism” is no longer to merely describe a tactic, but instead issues the most severe form of moral condemnation. This was evident in last year’s announcement that the UK Government would treat misogyny as a form of extremist terrorism and consequently mobilize a raft of anti-terror resources to tackle it. Meanwhile, many called for the Southport murders perpetrated by Axel Rudakubana in July to be labelled as terrorism. Some on the Right wanted to pin them on Islamic terrorism, citing the fact that the killer had previously downloaded an al-Qaeda manual. On the other hand, those on the Left wanted to brand the stabbings as terrorism on the basis that the act had terrorized.

Ministries Warn: Right-Wing Extremist Rock Music as a Threat to Internal Security  (ZDF Heute)
Music from the extreme right is not only brute, but also very sweet with a plucked wandering guitar. “We’re getting more and more, and we’re fighting back”, sings Palatinate singer-songwriter Julia Juls in her song “Come out, come out”. It is against the politicians who are supposedly “betraying” the country, against migrants, against all those who are not “the people”. And again and again in the chorus: “We fight for our country. Hand in hand for the resistance.” Right-wing extremist music - often called “right-wing rock” - is booming in Germany, says musicologist Thorsten Hindrichs from Mainz. The music, with various styles ranging from heavy metal to rap and singer-songwriters, serves to reassure and network the right-wing scene in Germany and throughout Europe. Their creators want to incite people to hate with racist and xenophobic lyrics, says the right-wing rock expert. Last year, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution was aware of around 130 active right-wing extremist music groups and around 60 right-wing extremist singer-songwriters or solo performers, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior’s response to a minor interpellation by Left Party MPs.

Arrests of Young Terror Suspects Hits Seven-Year High  (Anahita Hossein-Pour, Independent)
Arrests of young terror suspects across Britain have reached their highest level since 2017, new data shows. Some 71 youths under 21 were arrested for terrorist-related activity in 2024, up from 69 the previous year and 60 in 2022. It is the highest annual number since 77 arrests in 2017, the year of the Manchester Arena suicide bombing, which left 22 dead and more than a thousand injured, along with other terror attacks that claimed lives in Westminster, London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Parsons Green in London.

China Highlights Imbalance in U.S. Economic Security Strategy  (Adam Tong, Lawfare)
Stringent measures that offer partial protection leave supply chains exposed to pointed retaliation.

A New Era of Attacks on Encryption Is Starting to Heat Up  (Matt Burgess, Wired)
The UK, France, Sweden, and EU have made fresh attacks on end-to-end encryption. Some of the attacks are more “crude” than those in recent years, experts say.

RFK Jr. Has Already Broken His Vaccine Promise  (Nicholas Florko, The Atlantic)
The health secretary is quietly undermining America’s vaccination infrastructure.

Do Aliens Exist? We Studied What Scientists Really Think  (Peter Vickers, The Conversation)
News stories about the likely existence of extraterrestrial life, and our chances of detecting it, tend to be positive. We are often told that we might discover it any time now. Finding life beyond Earth is “only a matter of time”, we were told in September 2023. “We are close” was a headline from September 2024.
It’s easy to see why. Headlines such as “We’re probably not close” or “Nobody knows” aren’t very clickable. But what does the relevant community of experts actually think when considered as a whole? Are optimistic predictions common or rare? Is there even a consensus?