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

    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. 

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

    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.

  • ICE Has a New Courthouse Tactic: Get Immigrants’ Cases Tossed, Then Arrest Them Outside

    Inside immigration courts around the country, immigrants who crossed the border illegally and were caught and released are required to appear before a judge for a preliminary hearing. But in a new twist, the Trump administration has begun using an unexpected legal tactic in its deportation efforts. Rather than pursue a deportation case, it is convincing judges to dismiss immigrants’cases —thus depriving the immigrants of protection from arrest and detention —then taking them into custody.

  • HHS Scraps Further Work on Life-Saving mRNA Vaccine Platform

    In what experts say will hobble pandemic preparedness, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the dismantling of the country’s mRNA vaccine-development programs—the same innovation that allowed rapid scale-up of COVID-19 vaccines during the public health emergency.

  • RFK Jr Is Wrong About mRNA Vaccines – a Scientist Explains How They Make COVID Less Deadly

    In announcing the cancellation of US government support for research into mRNA vaccines, Kennedy has claimed that mRNA vaccines “encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics” – a misleading statement that contradicts the scientific consensus on viral evolution and effects of vaccination. The false assertions by RFK Jr. and other vaccine-skeptics notwithstanding, mRNA vaccines do not cause viruses to mutate. Mutations are part of viral evolution: a natural process that happens regardless of our intervention. What vaccines do is give us a fighting chance.

  • I’m a Physician Who Has Looked at Hundreds of Studies of Vaccine Safety, and Here’s Some of What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong

    In the five months since he began serving as secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made many public statements about vaccines that have cast doubt on their safety and on the objectivity of long-standing processes established to evaluate them. Many of these statements are factually incorrect. The evidence is clear and publicly available: Vaccines have dramatically reduced childhood illness, disability and death on a historic scale.

  • Geological 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.

  • Plugging America's Forgotten Wells: Study Addresses Decades Long Problem

    Since the drilling of the first oil well in 1859, millions more oil and gas wells have been drilled across the nation. Today, millions of wells – bout 3.4 million of them — sit idle, some for decades. One option for limiting the environmental and health impacts of orphaned wells is to plug them. But the question remains, with so many orphaned wells in the United States, what’s the best way to address this issue?

  • U.S. Moves Decisively to Avoid Dependence on China’s Rare Earths

    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.

  • Fewer Than Half of ICE Arrests Under Trump Are Convicted Criminals

    Despite Trump administration rhetoric accusing Democrats of protecting violent criminals and drug-dealing immigrants, the administration’s arrests have been catching a smaller share of criminals overall, and a smaller share of people convicted of violent and drug crimes, than the Biden administration did in the same time frame..

  • DHS Revokes Temporary Protected Status for Two More Latin American Countries

    After decades of extensions, DHS will not renew Temporary Protected Status for Honduran and Nicaraguan citizens residing in the U.S., per new agency announcements.

  • Emergency Powers Are for Emergencies

    The country thrived for many decades before the creation of most emergency powers. It can do so as well, going forward.

  • A New Trump Plan Gives DHS and the White House Greater Influence in the Fight Against Organized Crime

    The Trump administration has launched a major reorganization of the U.S. fight against drug traffickers and other transnational criminal groups. The overhaul would give new authority to DHS and deepen the influence of the White House.

  • MIx Helps Innovators Tackle Challenges in National Security

    Startups and government defense agencies have historically seemed like polar opposites. Startups thrive on speed and risk, while defense agencies are more cautious. Mission Innovation x creates education and research opportunities while facilitating connections between defense agencies and MIT innovators.

  • RFK Announces New ACIP Members, Including Vaccine Critics

    HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory committee, replacing them with a group of eight new members, some of whom are vaccine skeptics.