OUR PICKSPentagon Snaps Up Ownership Stake in America's Only Rare Earths Mine | Tinker Tailor Soldier MAGA | Animal Liberation Front Hits Again, and more

Tinker Tailor Soldier MAGA  (Tom Nichols, The Atlantic)
Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel are turning their agencies against their own staff.

When the Threat Is Inside the White House  (Tim Weiner, Foreign Policy)
What CIA insiders make of the MAGA moles and toadies now in charge of U.S. national security.

Anti-Government Militia Targets Weather Radars: What to Know  (Emma Marsden, Newsweek
An “anti-government militia” called Veterans on Patrol has declared that it is targeting weather radar installations in Oklahoma. In an interview with News 9 on Tuesday, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, the founder of VOP, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an anti-government militia, confirmed the group’s intentions. When asked whether they were targeting the radars, Meyer replied, “Absolutely.”

Pentagon Snaps Up Ownership Stake in America’s Only Rare Earths Mine  (iconBrandon Vigliarolo, The Register)
Rare earth metals are vital to electronics, and most of them are mined in China.

Datacenters Feeling the Heat as Climate Risk Boils Over  (iconDan Robinson, The Register)
A warmer world will affect bit barn resilience, warn consultants.

Bibliography: Counter-terrorism Cooperation  (Perspectives on Terrorism)
This bibliography contains journal articles, book chapters, books, edited volumes, theses, grey literature, bibliographies and other resources on counterterrorism cooperation. It covers contributions on collaborative efforts of multiple actors in the field of countering terrorism and violent extremism on international, national, and regional level. The bibliography focuses on recent publications (up to May 2025) and should not be considered as being exhaustive. The literature has been retrieved by manually browsing more than 200 core and periphery sources in the field of Terrorism Studies. Additionally, full-text as well as reference retrieval systems have been employed to broaden the search.

AI-powered Translation: How AI Tools Could Shape a New Frontier of IS Propaganda Dissemination  (Alessandro Bolpagni and Eleonora Ristuccia, GNET)
Terrorists have always adopted and employed emerging technologies to organize acts of terror, radicalize, and produce propaganda to mobilise recruits. Among them, the Salafi-Jihadi groups and, in particular, the Islamic State (IS), have proved to be consistently ahead of the curve in the adoption of new, cutting-edge technology, creating a consistent and persistent online presence. Despite theological quibbles, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is among the technologies that IS supporters are employing to produce and disseminate propaganda. By analyzing previous uses of AI within the IS online ecosystem, this Insight will discuss a case in which a pro-IS user adopted an open-source AI tool to spread IS-English translated propaganda. The Insight will also explore how these models can facilitate and promote the dissemination of propaganda materials.
IS sympathizers and supporters’ interest in AI systems became apparent in 2023, when a pro-IS non-institutional media house released a guide on using these tools while protecting users’ privacy. In the same year, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) issued AI-powered courses to train propagandists. Then, in March 2024, the first widespread use of AI was detected on the pro-IS server, TechHaven, on Rocket.Chat. Indeed, following the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, a video news bulletin with AI-generated characters was published on the platform. Subsequently, on 17 May 2024, ISKP produced a propaganda bulletin generated with AI tools to claim responsibility for the public market attack in the Afghan Bamiyan Province. Later that month, another AI video announcing a bombing in the city of Kandahar was released. Finally, in April 2025, the non-institutional media house Qimam Electronic Foundation (QEF) shared a guide to AI tools and the risks related to them, particularly in terms of security and privacy, also on Rocket.Chat.

Elon Musk Updated Grok. Guess What It Said?  (Matteo Wong, The Atlantic)
After praising Hitler earlier this week, the chatbot is now listing the “good races.”

Disinformation 2.0: Deepfakes Hit the Frontlines of Global Influence Ops  (Tom Sefton-Collins, HSToday)
State-backed actors and disinformation-for-hire networks are already using deepfakes in real operations. The tools are public, the threat is active and we are not ready.

Animal Liberation Front Claims Responsibility for Releasing Mink from Farm in Stark County  (The Repository)
The Counter Extremism Project describes the Animal Liberation Front as “a far-left extremist group focused on animal rights” that was formed in the 1970s in the United Kingdom. It now operates in 40 countries and has “claimed responsibility for arson and vandalism against animal research facilities, farms, restaurants, and other businesses,” the group says.