The US health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, believes that aluminum in vaccines can cause health issues, such as neurological disorders, allergies and autoimmune diseases. This contradicts scientific evidence from many studies that have confirmed the safety of vaccines and aluminum “adjuvants” – substances that boost vaccines’ effectiveness.

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On Friday morning, after contentious discussion, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8-3 to drop the recommendation for a universal birth hepatitis B vaccine dose and 6-4 to suggest that parents use serologic testing—which detects antibodies in the blood—to determine whether more than one dose of the three-dose series are needed.

Under the first recommendation, only infants born to mothers who test positive for hepatitis B would receive a birth dose, while parents of other babies would be advised to postpone the first dose for at least two months.

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THE LONG VIEW

Trump Is Taking 3 Steps Backward in the AI Race  (Arati Prabhakar and Asad Ramzanali, Politico)
The administration needs to shift focus away from providing chips and datacenters to the world’s richest companies.

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Editor’s note: We published this article nearly three months ago, on 10 September 2025. The recent revelations about the killing, on 2 September, of two survivors who were clinging to a sinking shipwreck after their boat had been destroyed in the initial attack by U.S. forces, highlight the deeper problems with the Trump administration’s approach of using military force to deal with what is essentially a law-enforcement issue.

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How can society police the global spread of online far-right extremism while still protecting free speech? That’s a question policymakers and watchdog organizations confronted as early as the 1980s and ’90s – and it hasn’t gone away.

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Immigration has historically driven U.S. growth and filled labor shortages in various sectors, but it has also remained one of the most politically divisive issues. In the modern era, successive administrations have agreed on the need to reform the asylum system and bolster border security, while differing sharply on how to manage immigration more broadly.

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The total federal debt of the United States passed a new milestone on October 21, 2025, reaching $38 trillion for the first time, with $30.4 trillion in federal debt held by the public, which is equivalent to about 100 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP). This is the highest level it’s been relative to our GDP since 1946.

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Licensed gun dealers are a major source of firearms that end up illegally trafficked, according to a new analysis using federal data by the research arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for stricter gun laws.

Gun trafficking involves diverting guns from legal commerce into the illegal market, often through straw purchases, unlicensed dealing or other methods that bypass background checks and federal recordkeeping requirements.

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Trump Is Taking 3 Steps Backward in the AI Race  (Arati Prabhakar and Asad Ramzanali, Politico)
The administration needs to shift focus away from providing chips and datacenters to the world’s richest companies.

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Trump’s New National Security Strategy Goes Full “America First”  (Rishi Iyengar and Christina Lu, Foreign Policy)
The long-anticipated plan aims to selectively impose the U.S. president’s worldview around the globe.

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U.S. attacks on alleged narcotics trafficking boats continue unabated with little apparent concern for near-unanimous legal condemnation.

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A Dishonorable Strike  (Jack Goldsmith, Executive Func)
Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder

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The signals from Washington on critical minerals are no longer ambiguous; they are decisive, strategic and aligned with Australia’s long-term interests. The issue is whether Canberra and industry can convert this momentum into concrete projects that deliver secure supply chains, new processing capacity, domestic industrial depth and worthwhile commercial returns. To do that, Australia must move at speed, locking in partnerships, prioritizing specific minerals, and supporting companies ready to diversify minerals markets.

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Pentagon Report: Hegseth Risked Endangering Troops with Signal Messages  (Shane Harris et al., The Atlantic)
The inspector general finds that the defense secretary violated his department’s policies.

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The New German War Machine  (Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Atlantic)
After World War II, Germany embraced pacifism as a form of atonement. Now the country is arming itself again.

China’s Turn to National Security Lawfare  (Weijia Rao, Lawfare)
The U.S.-China rivalry is fueling a legal arms race.

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Growing energy demand means the U.S. will almost certainly have to expand its electricity grid in coming years. What’s the best way to do this? A new study by MIT researchers examines legislation introduced in Congress and identifies relative tradeoffs involving reliability, cost, and emissions, depending on the proposed approach.

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A largely overlooked directive issued by the Trump administration marks a major shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that threatens bedrock free speech rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

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The war in Ukraine has exposed a critical front long neglected by Western militaries: electromagnetic warfare (EW). Control over this invisible battlespace, where communications are jammed, drones blinded, and precision weapons thrown off course, can decide the outcome of a conflict. Russia has understood this sooner than NATO, using EW to isolate Ukrainian units, disrupt command networks, and neutralize Western systems. Ukraine has adapted with ingenuity, but it is learning in combat what NATO should have learned in training.

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As food prices remain high, the Trump administration has made it easier for farmers to hire foreign guest workers and to pay them less. Now, other industries with large immigrant workforces also are asking for relief as they combat labor shortages and raids.

Visas for temporary foreign workers are a quick fix with bipartisan support in Congress. And Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ office told Stateline that “streamlining” visas for both agricultural and other jobs is a priority for the Trump administration.

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President Donald Trump continues to use his pardon powers in remarkable ways. Now he has pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking.

Cato asked me to write a statement on this development and here is what I wrote:

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