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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.”
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Regulating X Isn’t Censorship. It’s Self-Defense
The European Union’s landmark new content law, the Digital Services Act (DSA) reflects hard-earned European wisdom. It comes from historical memory of democracies undone by propaganda, foreign interference, and the normalization of lies. Vice President J. D. Vance and X owner Elon Musk harshly criticize DSA, framing their agenda as “free speech,” but in Europe, it increasingly looks like a coordinated push to weaken democratic institutions and empower their far-right allies.
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Supreme Court allows Trump Administration to Terminate Venezuelan's Protected Status
The protected status was granted to roughly 600,000 Venezuelans, with one group’s status ending in April of this year and another in March of next year. The court’s decision applies to roughly 300,000 Venezuelans released into the country by the Biden administration.
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U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Deportations Under Alien Enemies Act
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday extended a previous ruling blocking the Trump administration from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members detained in northern Texas. The Court pointedly criticized the administration’s grudging approach to due process: “Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster.”
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Busting ‘Manufacturing Jobs’ Myths
A nostalgia-soaked return to the 1950s industrial workforce is neither preferable nor possible. Promises to use blanket tariffs to reengineer an industrial workforce of our parents’ distant memories are laughably out of touch.
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What Is Birthright Citizenship and Could the Supreme Court End It?
The Trump administration’s efforts to nullify birthright citizenship for millions of U.S.-born children could overturn a nearly 160-year legal precedent.
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Governments Continue Losing Efforts to Gain Backdoor Access to Secure Communications
The spotlight on encrypted apps such as Signal is a reminder of the complex debate pitting government interests against individual liberties.
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Five Questions: RAND’s Jim Mitre on Artificial General Intelligence and National Security
A recent RAND paper lays out five hard national security problems that will become very real the moment an artificial general intelligence comes online. The researchers made only one prediction: If we ever get to that point, the consequences will be so profound that the U.S. government needs to take steps now to be ready for them.
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Real ID Is Useless, Unconstitutional, and Finally Here
At its core, the mentality behind REAL ID is that every American is a potential airline terrorist first and a citizen of the Republic a very distant second. Among other problems, a REAL ID requirement potentially creates an end-run around direct regulation of the right to travel. REAL ID obliterates the idea of freedom of travel, which is why it should be abolished.
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Gain-of-Function Research Is More Than Just Tweaking Risky Viruses – It’s a Routine and Essential Tool in All Biology Research
Updates to current oversight are not unreasonable, but blanket bans or additional restrictions on gain-of-function research do not make society safer. Gain-of-function experiments are not inherently risky or the purview of mad scientists. In fact, gain-of-function approaches are a fundamental tool in biology. Misunderstanding the term “gain of function” as something nefarious comes at the cost of progress in human health.
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Chicago Economist Argues for Social Intervention on Gun Violence
In his new book, University of Chicago’s Jens Ludwig makes the case for a pragmatic approach. Instead of waiting for the U.S. to solve gun violence by addressing its social problems, incarcerating people, and reducing the number of guns in circulation, he argues for a short-term solution: social intervention in places most affected by interpersonal violence.
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The DEA Once Touted Body Cameras for Their “Enhanced Transparency.” Now the Agency Is Abandoning Them.
An internal email obtained by ProPublica said the agency made the change to be “consistent” with a Trump executive order. But at least two other federal law enforcement agencies are still requiring body cameras.
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States Push to Combat Human Trafficking Amid Federal Funding Cuts
States are moving to strengthen protections against human trafficking, but some advocates warn that some programs might not have the resources to help survivors.
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U.S. declares military zone around El Paso, allowing soldiers to arrest migrants
It’s the second military zone the Trump administration has created at the border, following one on the New Mexico-Mexico border, where a group of migrants were arrested on Monday.
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Why Do People Continue to Support Politicians Who Attack Their Democracies? Expert Q&A
Most people in most countries say it is important to them that they live in a democracy. Yet, many people who claim to care about democracy also support political leaders and movements that have attacked democratic institutions and values. Even when people agree about the fundamental definition of democracy, they may disagree over how democracy is implemented in practice. Anti-democratic political leaders can take advantage of these disagreements to argue that their actions defend rather than disrupt democracy.
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The long view
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.”
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”