As 2025 winds to a close, new data show a surprising trend: this year is on track to record the fewest mass killings in two decades. That is according to data collected by James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist and leading expert on mass murder. 

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The Documented Strategy of Civilization Jihad by the Muslim Brotherhood  (Mubin Shaikh, HSToday)

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A Strategy That Ignores the Real Threats  (Thomas Wright, The Atlantic)

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How a US “Suez Moment” Could Hollow the U.S. Alliance System  (Bence Nemeth, Texas National Security Review)

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In a world where misinformation spreads faster than fact, a new study is offering insight into why so many people fall for fake news, even when they suspect it’s false.

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When a natural disaster strikes, time is of the essence if people are trapped under rubble. Conventional methods use radar-based detection or employ acoustics that rely on sounds made by victims.

Since most people carry their phones with them every day, Shogo Takada, a student at the University of Tokyo, is working on a way to use smartphone microphones to assist in locating disaster victims.

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New Mexico is known for bringing the heat with its famous green chiles, but a new report points to another source of heat that’s causing excitement. Project Innerspace’s report titled “Future of Geothermal in New Mexico” lays out the opportunities — and challenges — to harnessing the state’s geothermal resources as a reliable, sustained domestic source of energy.

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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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