• What Zawahiri’s Killing Means for al-Qaeda

    Ayman al-Zawahiri leaves behind a robust network of strategically aligned but tactically independent al-Qaeda affiliates operating in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

  • Chinese Subsidiary of British Investment Bank Now Includes Communist Party Committee

    British bank and financial services giant HSBC, a longtime presence in East Asia, has become the first foreign lender to install a Chinese Communist Party committee in its investment banking subsidiary in China.

  • Reviving the Petroleum Administration for War: A Case for Government-Industry Partnership

    The Russo-Ukrainian War is exposing deep fissures in global energy networks and finally forcing Western capitals to address their energy security. Ryan P. Kellogg and David Brunnert write that “To confront this profound challenge, policy should consider creating a partnership between government and industry for managing energy resources.”

  • U.S. Kills Al-Qaida Leader Aymen al-Zawahiri

    In a rare counterterrorism operation over the weekend, U.S. forces killed top al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was deputy to the terror group’s founder, Osama bin Laden, when they orchestrated the September 2001 attacks against the U.S.

  • Texan Who Prosecutors Say “Lit the Match” of Jan. 6 Riot Sentenced to More Than 7 Years in Prison

    Guy Reffitt, a 49-year-old Wylie resident, never entered the Capitol but helped ignite the crowd “into an unstoppable force,” a prosecutor at his trial said. His sentence is the longest given out so far from the Jan. 6 riot.

  • U.S. Imposes Sanctions, Files Charges Over Russian Influence Campaign

    U.S. authorities have charged a Russian national with recruiting political groups in the United States to sow discord, spread pro-Moscow propaganda, and interfere with U.S. elections. Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a Russian national, has been charged with “foreign malign influence campaign” and interference in the U.S. election. His effort, which was made on behalf of the FSB, one of Russia’s intelligence services, lasted from December 2014 until March 2022, and included contacts and coordination with American political groups which campaigned against globalization and helped promote Russia’s interests.

  • Regenerate: Biotechnology and U.S. Industrial Policy

    A revolution in biotechnology is dawning at the precise moment the world needs it most. Amid an ongoing climate crisis, fast-paced technological maturation, and a global pandemic, humans must find new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve food security, develop new vaccines and therapeutics, recycle waste, synthesize new materials, and adapt to a changing world. The United States needs some form of industrial policy to promote its bioeconomy—one that is enshrined in democratic values and focused on improving access to four key drivers of bioeconomic growth: equipment, personnel, information, and capital.

  • Sanctions Are Crippling Russia's Economy: Study

    Researchers at Yale University say the Russian economy is suffering massive damage due to Western sanctions, despite Moscow downplaying the effect.

  • Correcting Misconceptions About the Electoral Count Reform Act

    It has been apparent for a long time that the Electoral Count Act (ECA)—the 1887 law designed to ensure that presidential elections operate with integrity—is flawed. These flaws were on full display during the counting of electoral votes in 2020-2021, but all of the flaws had historical precursors. Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith write that the Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA), which was recently introduced by a bipartisan group of senators to replace the ECA, is an exceptionally promising development in our polarized era.

  • A Water Strategy for the Parched West: Have Cities Pay Farmers to Install More Efficient Irrigation Systems

    Unsustainable water practices, drought and climate change are causing this crisis across the U.S. Southwest. To achieve a meaningful reduction in water use, states need to focus on the region’s biggest water user: agriculture.

  • Europe’s Energy Choice

    Russia’s war in Ukraine and the disruption of Russian gas exports to Europe has triggered an energy crunch, with price spikes unlike anything seen since 1973. And the situation will get worse before it gets better. Responding to the immediate energy crisis in the right way will help to address the broader climate challenge. Authorities must both buffer the shock of the gas crunch in the short term, and accelerate the transition to clean energy in the long -term.

  • China Tried to Infiltrate Federal Reserve: Senate Report

    Fed Chair Jerome Powell and a senior member of Congress are at odds over a report issued Tuesday by Senate Republicans alleging that China is trying to infiltrate the Federal Reserve and that the central bank has done too little to stop it. China’s goal, according to the report, is to “supplant the U.S. as the global economic leader and end the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s primary reserve currency.”

  • Anti-Israel Activists Co-opt American Tragedies to Target Israel

    Prominent anti-Israel groups and individuals have sought to tether American issues such as gun violence and limits on abortion rights to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, doubling down on anti-Zionist tropes and false accusations against the state of Israel.

  • Buying Into Conspiracy Theories Can Be Exciting – That’s What Makes Them Dangerous

    The historian Richard Hofstadter, in his seminal 1964 book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, described a “paranoid style” which he observed on the fringes of far-right U.S. politics and culture: a blend of “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” In our time, the “birther” movement, “Pizzagate,” QAnon, and “Stop the Steal” are but a few examples of these conspiratorial fantasies. Much of the commentary on conspiracy theories presumes that followers simply have bad information, or not enough, and that they can be helped along with a better diet of facts. My research shows that believers in conspiracy theories have plenty of information, but they insist that it be interpreted in a particular way – the way that feels most exciting. Just as the “X-Files” predicted, conspiracy theories’ acolytes “want to believe.”

  • Building the “Big Lie”: Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth

    Internal emails and interviews with key participants reveal for the first time the extent to which leading advocates of the rigged election theory touted evidence they knew to be disproven, disputed or dismissed as dubious.