• More States Restrict 3D-Printed Firearms

    For decades, making an untraceable firearm required specialized tools, technical expertise and hours of work. Today, it can start with a downloaded file and a consumer-grade 3D printer. At least six states this year have outlawed or imposed regulations on such guns.

  • “If He Had Not Misspoken, Perhaps He Did Not Really Mean What He Said”

    Two weeks ago, referring to U.S. ally Oman, Trump warned that if Oman did not “behave just like everybody else,” the United States will “have to blow them up.” Perhaps, some Middle East observers wondered, he meant to say “Iran,” not “Oman.” Perhaps he did not really mean what he said.

  • How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies: Trump’s Approach to Oman

    Allies across the Indo-Pacific and Europe are also watching. When even a quiet, reliable partner of nearly 200 years can be publicly threatened, the message is clear that today’s ally can quickly become tomorrow’s target. 

  • How Cuts to CDC Are Dismantling Its Capacity to Protect Americans’ Health

    CDC’s mission is to protect and improve the health of Americans, which it fulfills by preventing, detecting and controlling disease. CDC also staffs a pool of public health experts who are rapidly deployed to respond to public health emergencies – including disease outbreaks – worldwide. The cuts to CDC put these functions in jeopardy.

  • National Security, Terrorism Concerns as FIFA World Cup 2026 Matches Begin in U.S.

    As the FIFA World Cup 2026 tournament begins in roughly a dozen U.S. cities this week, law enforcement officials have been implementing national security measures.

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

    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.

  • First Large-Scale Empirical Analysis of Dual-Use Research and Security Oversight

    Dual-use research refers to scientific research that has both legitimate civilian applications and potential security-sensitive applications. A new analysis of approximately 600,000 research papers reveals structural limits to single-country security oversight of dual-use research and identifies trade-offs that policymakers face when strengthening such oversight.

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

    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.

  • From Exporting Spyware to Surveilling Activists – How Democracies Became the New Digital Authoritarians

    “Digital authoritarianism” refers to governments using technology for surveillance and censorship to repress dissent. China remains the master practitioner, but democracies, too — in particular, India and Israel — are beginning to repress their citizens with the same tools and export them abroad.

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

    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.

  • Will Generative AI Fundamentally Change Terrorist Threats?

    Does generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) represent a genuine transformation in terrorist capability, or are its risks being overstated within contemporary security discourse? Gen AI tools, particularly large language models, can improve the efficiency, accessibility, and scale of certain terrorist activities, but there remains limited evidence that they fundamentally alter the nature of terrorism or significantly enhance operational capability.

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

    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.

  • Dangerous Speech in Disguise: The White House’s New “Aliens” Website Is Not a Joke

    The official White House website has launched a new page titled, “Aliens,” which looks like a video game, with stars twinkling in a dark sky behind spooky neon green text. The page, echoing the rhetoric and the great replacement conspiracy theory, pushes inflammatory buttons familiar to experts on rhetoric, rhetoric which increases the risk of intergroup atrocities by instilling deep fear of members of another group. Such rhetoric, that one of us has named “dangerous speech” for its capacity to inspire violence, can demonize any human group.

  • What to Know About Screwworm in Texas

    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.

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

    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.