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A Huge Cache of Critical Minerals Found in Utah May Be the Largest in the U.S.
A Utah company says it has unearthed a massive deposit of minerals crucial for building electric vehicles, semiconductors, satellites, magnets, and more. The discovery could reshape the clean energy supply chain.
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Colorado Adopts First-of-Its-Kind Water Protections in U.S.
In a bipartisan move, Colorado environmental leaders approved landmark water protections in reaction to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that they believed weakened regulations in Western states.
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The Bondi Beach Shooting Shows ISIS Threat in Australia and Beyond
The attack in Sidney, Australia, comes at a time when several alleged terror plots in Europe have reportedly been foiled. The resilience of the ISIS ideology and ongoing concerns over extremist violence put an added burden on security officials to safeguard the many public events occurring at year’s end.
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Why Public Views of Terrorism Don’t Match the Evidence, and What the Government Needs to Do to Keep People Safe
It is essential to address the misalignments between public understanding of terrorism and the current evidence. The public needs clear, easy to remember, and updated information about current threats. Without this, people will struggle to recognize current threats and attune their instincts on how to react to them correctly.
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Trump’s DOJ Offers States “Confidential” Deal to Wipe Voters Flagged by Feds as Ineligible
Justice Department attorney says 11 states have shown a willingness to stop residents from voting at DOJ’s request.
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Trump’s Second Term Is Reshaping U.S. Science with Unprecedented Cuts and Destabilizing Policy Changes
President Donald Trump is far from the first president to be deeply skeptical of the academic research community. But his relentless attempts to overhaul the federal support system for research and development have set a new precedent for the level of mutual distrust and its consequences for scientists.
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Bondi Terror: Attack Reinforces the Need for Security Frameworks That Manage Risk
The terror attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday should be understood not only as an act of violence but as a stress test of Australia’s security, social and policy systems. The more consequential question is what this event reveals about the community assumptions that have quietly taken hold—and what follows if those assumptions are left unchallenged.
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Bondi Attack Came After Huge Increase in Online Antisemitism: Research
As a researcher who studies hate and extremist violence, I am sadly not surprised by the terrorist attack on Bondi Beach. The Jewish community has been a top target for terrorist ideologies and groups for a long time. Many people working in this field have been expecting a serious attack on Australian soil.
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Diversity as National Security: Why Retreating from DEI Risks Repeating Pre-9/11 Failures
One of often overlooked lessons of the 9/11 intelligence failure is that diversity — linguistic, cultural, experiential — was not simply a “nice to have” in intelligence work. It was essential infrastructure. The absence of diversity in America’s national security workforce thus represented more than a demographic imbalance; it represented a structural blind spot.
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Behind Trump’s Peace Efforts: A Strategic Focus on Critical Minerals
President Trump has repeatedly claimed to have ended eight wars since he returned to office. Accessing critical minerals and resource extraction appear to be at the core of those diplomatic efforts.
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Afghan Terrorism Is a Small Threat in the United States
It is still not clear whether Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who murdered a West Virginia National Guard member in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, was a terrorist – but assuming he is a terrorist, it would mean that since 1975, Lakanwal is the only Afghan terrorist to have murdered somebody on U.S. soil in an attack. In other words, the annual chance of being murdered in an Afghan terrorist attack on U.S. soil is about 1 in 14.2 billion per year. The annual chance of being murdered in a normal homicide is about 1 in 14,000 per year, approximately one million times greater.
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Trump Administration’s Immigrant Detention Policy Broadly Rejected by Federal Judges
In response to the Trump administration’s practice of rounding up and jailing immigrants without a hearing — a departure from fundamental constitutional protections — federal judges have systematically rejected the administration’s attempt to drastically expand who can be locked up without a hearing while awaiting deportation proceedings.
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The First MAGA National Security Strategy
Trump’s ideologically driven statement of strategic intent indicates that the United States could be willing to interfere abroad to promote an illiberal world—a stunning victory for the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.
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The Rise of the Far-Right in Japan
Sohei Kamiya’s far-right populist Sanseito captured 14 seats (in addition to a previously existing seat) in the July 2025 elections to the House of Councilors, the Upper House of the Japanese Diet. The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, along with its defining policy approaches and worldview, has found resonance among certain sections of the electorate in Japan.
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The UK Has It Wrong on Digital ID. Here’s Why.
In late September, the U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his government’s plans to introduce a new digital ID scheme in the country to take effect before the end of the Parliament (no later than August 2029). This is the latest example of a government creating a new digital system that is fundamentally incompatible with a privacy-protecting and human rights-defending democracy.
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The long view
A Turning Point: U.S. Recognizes Agriculture as a Domain of Defense
The US has legitimized the role of food supply in national defense. It has recognized that in a world of rupture, a nation that cannot feed itself cannot defend itself. A new policy effectively ends the era of agriculture functioning solely as a commercial sector.
Social Media’: The Changing Tech of Terror
In the wake of the white noise generated by mainstream social media channels and apps, a new trend of ‘anti-social media’ has emerged in recent years, which seeks to abandon mainstream platforms, reduce screen time, and seek private, intimate, or even ‘analogue’ communication to avoid algorithm-driven polarization, surveillance and loneliness. But some of these so-called anti-social media platforms have also become off-the-wall mediums for disseminating extremist propaganda.
The Trump Administration’s Cyber Strategy Fundamentally Misunderstands China’s Threat
The adoption of an offense-first strategy is a dangerous miscalculation. It will not diminish Beijing’s campaigns, and it coincides with a significant deterioration of cyber defenses that have kept U.S. networks and Americans safe.
Allfare: China’s Whole-of-Nation Strategy
To analyze how states exert their influence, scholars often compartmentalize actions into rigid analytical frameworks, which obscures the holistic scope of the challenge.
ICE Not Only Looks and Acts Like a Paramilitary Force – It Is One, and That Makes It Harder to Curb
ICE and CBP meet many but not all of the most salient definitions of a “paramilitary force.” Both are also not subject to the same constitutional restrictions that apply to other law enforcement agencies. ICE and CBP thus bear some resemblance to the informal paramilitaries used in many countries for “regime maintenance,” carrying out political repression along partisan and ethnic lines, even though they are official agents of the state.
How the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Shaped ICE’s Immigration Strategy
The immigration enforcement response to 9/11 set the stage for ICE’s aggressive conduct. Under this way of thinking, if the homeland is under threat, then those who challenge immigration enforcement are “domestic terrorists.” Investigations into ICE officers are muted, for the officers are protecting the homeland against existential danger. Severe tactics to detain immigrants and condemn protesters – and violate U.S. citizens’ constitutional protections — become not only permissible but also advisable.