• FOOD SECURITYBugs, Beef, and Blame: New World Screwworm is Back

    By Margeaux Malone

    American cattle can’t catch a break. For the first time this year, highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected in Texas dairy cows. And now, the biggest story this week is the confirmed re-introduction of New World Screwworm (NWS) into the United States.  

  • DEPORTATIONS & THE ECONOMYICE Surges Have Triggered Massive Job Losses—Including Among Americans

    By Marcela Escobari, Ian Seyal, and Paul Beach

    The enforcement surge cost 668,000 jobs. Of the 668,000 jobs lost, an estimated 51,000-297,000 would have been held by American-born workers. Losses concentrated in immigrant-intensive sectors but spread well beyond them.

  • FAMILY BUSINESSAn Indian Billionaire Was Targeted by Trump. Then He Poured Money Into a Startup Secretly Backed by Donald Trump Jr.

    By Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski

    America First Refining , an obscure Texas firm secretly connected to the president’s son, received at least $100 million from Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. At the same time, the Ambani family secured major policy wins from the Trump administration. In December, Forbes estimated that Trump Jr.’s net worth had rocketed from roughly $50 million to $300 million since the election. But the Forbes figures were based on the investments that have been publicly disclosed. The America First Refining episode suggests there is much about the family business that remains secret.

  • ENERGY SECURITYFor First Time, Americans Are Getting More of Their Electricity from Solar Than Coal

    By Tik Root

    Solar energy just provided more electricity in the United States than coal for the first time on record — marking a milestone for the rise of renewables in America. Solar provides more than twice the share of electricity it did five years ago.

  • TARIFFSThe Trump Administration’s WTO Filing Exposes the Bad Faith Behind Its Section 122 Tariffs

    By Clark Packard and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon

    On June 2, the Trump administration submitted a document to the World Trade supposedly justifying its Section 122 tariffs. The filing is revealing—not for what it gets right but for what it exposes about the administration’s bad faith legal theory. The administration desperately wants courts and trading partners to believe it is acting within the rules, but its bad faith filing at the WTO demonstrates otherwise.

  • NATIONAL DEBTPutting a Number on How Much Debt U.S. Can Carry

    By Brett Rowland , The Center Square

    The United States has about 20 years to change course on its national debt before it reaches the estimated limits of its debt capacity, which is about 210% of gross domestic product. At that point, even a 100% tax on labor income would not generate enough revenue to cover interest costs. Federal debt currently held by the public equals about 101% of GDP.

  • AI SAFETYFrom Oversight to Coercion: How Authoritarian Governments Are Twisting AI Safety to Get Tech Companies to Fall in Line

    By Michael Gregory

    Authoritarian governance of technology often delegitimizes intended protections, poisoning any external regulation, and even voluntary self-regulation that deviates from the regime’s goals or values. Following the authoritarian playbook, the Trump administration has argued that AI safety standards and user restrictions are ideological impositions rather than sound engineering decisions. In the “Preventing Woke AI” executive order of 23 July 2025, the administration attached the “woke” label to basic ethics protections, making those protections politically costly to maintain.

  • FOOD SECURITYWhat to Know About Screwworm in Texas

    By Stephen Simpson and Berenice Garcia

    The first case of New World screwworm in 60 years has been confirmed in Zavala County, near the Mexican border. The flesh-eating fly poses a threat to the state’s $15 billion cattle industry.

  • SUPPLY CHAINSThe Strait of Hormuz: The Supply Chain Loop That Broke the World

    By Behrouz Bakhtiari

    It took only five days after the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel in late February for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital energy and maritime chokepoints.Understanding why the strait stayed open for so long, and why it’s not open now, requires thinking not in terms of current entities but in terms of loops.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSLow-Cost Technique to Get Lithium Out of Rocks

    By Zach Winn

    Demand for lithium has surged in recent years as lithium-ion batteries power increasingly more of our world. A new low-temperature process could unlock cleaner lithium from America’s abundant hard rock while minimizing waste.

  • IMMIGRATIONDHS Threatens to Halt Customs Processing at Airports in Sanctuary Cities

    By Thérèse Boudreaux, The Center Square

    Major airports across the country could soon freeze customs processing and cancel all international flights if sanctuary cities continue bucking federal immigration enforcement operations.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSEast Texas Could Be the Key to Developing Critical Lithium Supply for the U.S. Military

    By Jess Huff

    Texas lawmakers proposed a bill to allow private-sector lithium mining companies to work on certain military bases.

  • FOOD SECURITYFlesh-Eating Screwworms Head for American Livestock

    By Kevin Hardy

    Southern states are bracing for a potential invasion of the New World screwworm that could disrupt livestock markets and raise already high meat prices. Federal officials eradicated the parasite decades ago, but it’s inching closer to the U.S. border.

  • PERSISTENT SURVEILLANCEThe Open Signal: How Mobile Phone Location Data Can Expose and Endanger American Troops

    By Ben Frankel

    The architecture of the commercial mobile ecosystem favors exposure over concealment. As long as warfighters carry devices designed for convenience inside an economy designed for surveillance, the United States will remain vulnerable to enemies who can turn a phone’s signal into intelligence and intelligence into a strike.

  • CYBERSECURITYAfter the Canvas Breach, Security Takes Center Stage for SaaS Providers

    When a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform fails, it doesn’t just fail one customer; it fails whole sectors. That’s the security problem hiding inside organizations becoming more and more dependent on SaaS providers.