• Most Americans Believe Misinformation Is a Problem — Federal Research Cuts Will Only Make the Problem Worse

    Research on misinformation and disinformation has become the latest casualty of the Trump administration’s restructuring of federal research priorities. Following Trump’s executive orde, the National Science Foundation canceled hundreds of grants that supported research on misinformation and disinformation. But Trump’s executive order, instead of providing protections, will likely weaken Americans’ defenses against misinformation and disinformation, whether generated at home or by foreign actors.

  • Grok’s ‘White Genocide’ Responses Show How Generative AI Can Be Weaponized

    The AI chatbot Grok spent one day in May 2025 spreading debunked conspiracy theories about “white genocide” in South Africa, echoing views publicly voiced by Elon Musk. There has been substantial research on methods for keeping AI from causing harm by avoiding such damaging statements – called AI alignment – but this incident is particularly alarming because it shows how those same techniques can be deliberately abused to produce misleading or ideologically motivated content.

  • Trump Has Punished South Africa for Something Its Government Has Not Done

    The US president has claimed the South African government is seizing land from white farmers. The reality is much more mundane.

  • Guns Kill More U.S. Children Than Other Causes, but State Policies Can Help, Study Finds

    More American children and teens die from firearms than any other cause. Black children, especially, suffer when laws allow more guns to circulate, researchers found. There are more deaths — and wider racial disparities — in states with more permissive gun policies, according to a new study.

  • Trump’s Military Response to Protests: A Conversation on Law and Precedent

    “The federalized response to riots in Los Angeles will inspire demonstrations in other cities, not just against ICE and its tactics, but against the use of military forces in civilian law enforcement. If those demonstrations turn violent, they could lure the president to use military forces elsewhere within the United States—creating a dangerous feedback loop with a very uncertain ending,” says Peter Mansour.

  • The Mounting Crisis of Militarizing Immigration Enforcement

    President Donald Trump has federalized 2,000 California National Guard troops to quell immigration protests pursuant to an obscure provision in federal law–10 USC §12406–which has not been used since 1970, when President Richard Nixon federalized the Guard to deliver mail during a postal strike. William Banks and Mark Nevitt write that “the last time the National Guard was federalized over a governor’s objection was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson deployed the Guard to Selma, Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators.”

  • Trump’s Lawless, Baseless Immigration Ban

    President Trump signed a proclamation that, with few exceptions, bans nineteen nationalities from entering the United States, supposedly based on “security” concerns, and went into effect on June 9. The president claims that there is no way to vet these immigrants. Yet that is precisely what his consular officers and border officials were successfully doing for decades—up until June 9.

  • Examining State Legislation on Foreign Ownership of U.S. Farmland

    Foreign entities now hold 3.5% of privately owned U.S. agricultural land, prompting growing attention from lawmakers. In 2023 alone, more than 30 U.S. states introduced bills seeking to restrict foreign ownership of farmland. An MSU study shows that these legislative efforts are driven more by national security concerns and political ideology than by economic factors.

  • Europe’s Moment of Truth: A Democracy Shield for Today and Tomorrow

    Democracy in Europe is under growing pressure. Authoritarian regimes like Russia and the People’s Republic of China are conducting increasingly sophisticated foreign interference campaigns. Internally, illiberal actors – who are often the beneficiaries of this foreign interference — are eroding the rule of law and civic freedoms as democratic norms deteriorate in the EU’s immediate neighborhood. The EU’s European Democracy Shield, announced in 2024 and expected in 2025, aims to counter these threats to democracy.

  • 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.”

  • How Trump’s ‘Gold Standard’ Politicizes Federal Science

    The language of Trump’s so-called “Restoring Gold Standard Science” executive order of 23 May 2025 may seem innocuous based on a casual reading, but it risks undermining unbiased science in all federal agencies, subject to political whims. A politicized process has the potential to punish federal employees and to ignore external peer reviewers who have the temerity to advance evidence-based findings contrary to White House ideology.

  • Autocrats Don’t Act Like Hitler or Stalin Anymore − Instead of Governing with Violence, They Use Manipulation

    Modern autocrats don’t always resemble their 20th-century predecessors. Instead, they project a polished image, avoid overt violence and speak the language of democracy. They wear suits, hold elections and talk about the will of the people. Rather than terrorizing citizens, many use media control and messaging to shape public opinion and promote nationalist narratives. Many gain power not through military coups but at the ballot box.

  • 50+ Venezuelans Imprisoned in El Salvador Came to U.S. Legally, Never Violated Immigration Law

    Shortly after the U.S. government illegally and unconstitutionally transported about 240 Venezuelans to be imprisoned in El Salvador’s notorious “terrorism” prison, a CBS News investigation found that 75 percent of the men had no criminal record in the United States or abroad. Less attention has been paid to the fact that dozens of these men never violated immigration laws either.

  • Texas’ Mail-in Voting Rules Pushed Voters to Cast Ballots in Person — or Not Vote at All, Study Finds

    New research from the Brennan Center for Justice suggests that 2021 ID requirements in a recent overhaul of Texas election laws could explain some of the drop in mail voting.

  • The “Invasion” Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy

    The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.