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Extremist-Related Murders Set to Rise in 2025
All extremist-related murders in 2024 were committed by right-wing extremists. Growing concern about a return of violent attacks by homegrown Islamist extremists.
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Election Officials Blast Trump’s “Retreat” from Protecting Voting Against Foreign Threats
The Trump administration has begun dismantling the nation’s defenses against foreign interference in voting, a sweeping retreat that has alarmed state and local election officials. The administration is shuttering the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and last week cut more than 100 positions at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
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As Facebook Abandons Fact-Checking, It’s Also Offering Bonuses for Viral Content
Meta decided to stop working with U.S. fact-checkers at the same time as it’s revamping a program to pay bonuses to creators with high engagement numbers, potentially pouring accelerant on the kind of false posts the company once policed.
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Firing Civil Servants and Dismantling Government Departments Is How Aspiring Strongmen Consolidate Personal Power – Lessons from Around the Globe
A well-functioning bureaucracy is an organization of highly qualified civil servants who follow established rules to prevent abuses of power. Bureaucracies, in this way, are an important part of democracy that constrain executive behavior. For this reason, aspiring strongmen are especially likely to go after them.
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U.S. States Push Back Against Possible Election Security Changes
Moves by U.S. President Donald Trump to potentially gut programs aimed at supporting election security are not sitting well with key state election officials, who are now asking the Trump administration to reconsider.
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Time to Reassess the Costs of Euro-Atlantic Security
The undeniable truth is that security comes at a cost. If Europeans fail to invest more now to deter Russia and China, the alliance will face far greater expenses and risks. The problem is that Europeans, with few exceptions, fail to grasp the immense costs such a scenario would inflict on allied security.
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Economic Cyberespionage: A Persistent and Invisible Threat
Economic cyber-espionage, state-sponsored theft of sensitive business information via cyber means for commercial gain, is an invisible yet persistent threat to national economies.
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“Tulsi Gabbard as US Intelligence Chief Would Undermine Efforts Against the Spread of Chemical and Biological Weapons”: Expert
The Senate, along party lines, last week confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National intelligence. One expert on biological and chemical weapons says that Gabbard’s “longstanding history of parroting Russian propaganda talking points, unfounded claims about Syria’s use of chemical weapons, and conspiracy theories all in efforts to undermine the quality of the community she now leads” make her confirmation a “national security malpractice.”
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Trump’s Cuts to Federal Wildfire Crews Could Have “Scary” Consequences
President Donald Trump’s moves to slash the federal workforce have gutted the ranks of wildland firefighters and support personnel, fire professionals warn, leaving communities to face deadly consequences when big blazes arrive this summer. States, tribes and fire chiefs are preparing for a fire season with minimal federal support.
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Trump Says He’s Sending Water to LA. It’s Actually Going to Megafarms.
The president’s executive orders on California water will help irrigate Central Valley farms. They won’t do anything to fight wildfires.
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Trump Administration Shouldn’t Designate Drug Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations
Congress has given the president too much authority to prosecute a war on terrorism without sufficient oversight by the legislature and the courts. By designating drug cartels as FTOs, the Trump administration unlocks new powers for itself, creates a new media narrative that could fool many, and reinforces the rest of its anti-immigration and border enforcement agenda.
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Deporting Millions of Immigrants Would Shock the U.S. Economy, Increasing Housing, Food and Other Prices
An economy supported by immigrants living illegally in the U.S. protects Americans. The U.S. would be unable to dodge the economic shocks and high costs that mass deportations would bring about.
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Democracies Should Learn the TikTok Lesson and Restrict Risky Apps from Day One
With its recent halt on implementing a legally mandated ban on TikTok, the United States is learning the hard way that when it comes to Chinese technology, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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How Progress Happens
On Feb. 7, the National Institutes of Health issued a notice, effective Feb. 10, to cap reimbursements for indirect costs (IDC) associated with its grants. The world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, the NIH supports investigations into, among other things, efforts to fight cancer, control infectious disease, understand neurodegenerative disorders, and improve mental health. Harvard’s vice provost for research details crucial role of NIH support in science and medicine.
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Can Israel Destroy Iran's Nuclear Program?
U.S. intelligence has concluded that the odds of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program in the next few months are high, but the jury is out on whether Israel can destroy its archfoe’s nuclear facilities on its own.
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The long view
Kinetic Operations Bring Authoritarian Violence to Democratic Streets
Foreign interference in democracies has a multifaceted toolkit. In addition to information manipulation, the tactical tools authoritarian actors use to undermine democracy include cyber operations, economic coercion, malign finance, and civil society subversion.
Patriots’ Day: How Far-Right Groups Hijack History and Patriotic Symbols to Advance Their Cause, According to an Expert on Extremism
Extremist groups have attempted to change the meaning of freedom and liberty embedded in Patriots’ Day — a commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord – to serve their far-right rhetoric, recruitment, and radicalization. Understanding how patriotic symbols can be exploited offers important insights into how historical narratives may be manipulated, potentially leading to harmful consequences in American society.
Trump Aims to Shut Down State Climate Policies
President Donald Trump has launched an all-out legal attack on states’ authority to set climate change policy. Climate-focused state leaders say his administration has no legal basis to unravel their efforts.
Vaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules on COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack of Consensus, Clarity
Sidestepping both the FDA’s own Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two Trump-appointed FDA leaders penned an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to announce new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Critics say that not seeking broad input into the new policy, which would help FDA to understand its implications, feasibility, and the potential for unintended consequences, amounts to policy by proclamation.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”