OUR PICKSThe Technological Transformation of Emergency Management | America Throws Big Money at a Small Rare-Earths Mine | Deepfakes and the Erosion of Trust in Homeland Security, and more

U.S. Moves Decisively to Avoid Dependence on China’s Rare Earths  (David Uren, The Strategists)
The Pentagon’s package of support for rare earths company MP Minerals, announced on 10 July, should free the US military and eventually much of US industry from dependence on Chinese supply chains for rare earth magnets.
It resembles the decisive Japanese government support for Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths in 2010, which included a guaranteed offtake agreement and patient capital.

The Technological Transformation of Emergency Management: Part I  (Austin Seivold, HSToday)
In an era marked by a surge in devastating disasters and an often-shifting landscape of federal emergency management priorities, we must examine how best to position emergency managers, reviewing their core responsibilities to ensure we’re maximizing their impact . Emergency managers often spend significant time working with outdated, fragmented technology systems – the result of years of underinvestment – that undermine their ability to deliver timely, effective, and compassionate support to survivors. These legacy systems have meant agencies reliant on manual processes and inconsistent data across all phases of emergency management. As an example, a 2019 Office of Inspector General study found that FEMA’s longstanding IT deficiencies hindered their 2017 response and recovery operations, specifically noting that FEMA’s fragmented data infrastructure led to delayed response times, miscommunication, and greater survivor frustration. 
While emergency management agencies, such as FEMA have made significant changes to disaster assistance programs aimed at improving the survivor experience, challenges persist. Emergency management agencies continue to feel the impacts of these long standing issues, from internal barriers to efficiency, to the erosion of public trust in emergency management institutions. 

Deepfakes and the Erosion of Trust in Homeland Security  (Claire Moravec, HSToday)
The speed at which deepfake technology is advancing is alarming and should be deeply unsettling to anyone charged with protecting public safety, ensuring continuity of government, or leading during a crisis. What was once the stuff of science fiction is now an operational reality: AI-generated audio and video so convincing that it can derail emergency response, incite panic, and corrode institutional trust in seconds.
We must stop treating deepfakes as a future threat. They’re here and already being used to manipulate, deceive, and destabilize. This goes beyond cybersecurity or digital ethics; it seriously threatens crisis leadership and homeland security. A fake video of a mayor announcing an evacuation, a phony emergency alert about military activity, or a synthetic voice impersonating a trusted official isn’t science fiction. These are real tactics we have to be ready for. These aren’t far-off hypotheticals—they’re real risks we’re already beginning to face. These are plausible attack vectors in the modern information battlespace.

“You Could Throw Out the Results of All These Papers”  (Tom Bartlett, The Atlantic)
RFK Jr.’s vaccine-safety investigator has previously used government vaccine data to publish research with glaring flaws.

How Trump Killed Cancer Research  (Elisa Muyl and Anthony Lydgate, Wired)
Attempting to eliminate funding for certain kinds of “woke” studies, the Trump administration erased hundreds of millions of dollars being used for cancer research.

America Throws Big Money at a Small Rare-Earths Mine  (Economist)
Challenging China’s dominance will be a tall order.