Immigration arrests under the Trump administration continued to increase through mid-October, reaching rates of more than 30,000 a month. But, rather than the convicted criminals the administration has said it’s focused on, an ever-larger share of those arrests were for solely immigration violations.

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In the years following the September 11, 2001 attacks, a painful truth became unavoidable: the United States intelligence community entered the twenty-first century understaffed, undertrained, and culturally unprepared for the threats that ultimately materialized. Numerous post-incident investigations, including the 9/11 Commission Report, pointed to systemic shortfalls in language capacity, cultural expertise, and information-sharing structures.

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The terror attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday should be understood not only as an act of violence but as a stress test of Australia’s security, social and policy systems.

The immediate danger has passed. The more consequential question is what this event reveals about the community assumptions that have quietly taken hold—and what follows if those assumptions are left unchallenged.

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At least 16 people – including a ten-year-old child – are dead after two men opened fire on a crowd of people celebrating the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Sunday in a public park at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Many more are injured.

I am horrified. But as a researcher who studies hate and extremist violence, I am sadly not surprised.

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“The More I’m Around Young People, the More Panicked I Am”  (Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic)
Anti-Jewish prejudice isn’t a partisan divide—it’s a generational one.

I Watched 12 Hours of Nick Fuentes  (Ali Breland, The Atlantic)
The white-supremacist influencer is laying the groundwork to go even bigger.

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Trump’s Business Model Is to Break Europe  (Majda Ruge, Foreign Policy)
Washington wants a free hand for Silicon Valley and Russia investment. The EU is an obstacle—and the far right is an ally.

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The DHS Data Grab Is Putting US Citizens at Risk  (Vittoria Elliott, Wired)
As the US government rapidly merges data from across agencies in service of draconian immigration policies, citizens increasingly risk being caught up as well.

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Trump’s National Security Strategy Is a Blueprint for the Demise of the West  (Howard W. French, Foreign Policy)
The White House’s agenda may not be coherent, but it is deeply dangerous.

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It would be a mistake for allies or adversaries to read President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS), released late at night on December 4, as a guide to Washington’s moves over the next three years. But it is significant for a different reason: the first MAGA national security strategy previews a new vision of the United States as an illiberal superpower.

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The Japanese far-right has emerged as a radical challenger to the conservative socio-political landscape, long dominated by the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party.

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In late September, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his government’s plans to introduce a new digital ID scheme in the country to take effect before the end of the Parliament (no later than August 2029).

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As the United States accelerates deployment of advanced and small modular reactors (A/SMRs), the nuclear energy sector is embracing a digital future. While digital systems provide operators with big benefits, they can also create vulnerabilities that enable criminals to access critical infrastructure.

To protect the next generation of reactors, cybersecurity has become a critical pillar of trust, safety and resilient operations.

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Very little new information has been released since Rahmanullah Lakanwal murdered West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom in Washington, DC, two weeks ago. He also shot and injured Andrew Wolfe, another National Guardsman, in the same attack. Prosecutors have since charged Lakanwal with murder, assault with intent to kill while armed, and possession of a firearm during a violent crime. Terrorism charges are absent because prosecutors do not yet know his motives. The FBI is conducting a terrorism investigation to discover those.

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In federal courtrooms across America, a pattern has emerged in cases in which immigrants are being rounded up and jailed without a hearing. That’s a departure from fundamental constitutional protections in the U.S. that provide the right to a hearing before indefinite imprisonment.

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Military Competition in Space Will Intensify  (Economist)
Five areas to watch in the coming year.

When Leaders Mistake Brutality for Strength  (Jeff Flake, The Atlantic)
Americans may disagree on many things, but they still distinguish between necessary force and needless killing.

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Trump Calls Europe “Decaying” Group of Nations with Weak Leaders  (Lara Spirit, The Times)
US president singles out London, saying it is now a “different place” and referring to London mayor Sadiq Khan as “vicious and disgusting.”

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Derrin Robinson has worked in Oregon elections for more than 30 years, long enough to remember when voters in the state cast their ballots at physical polling sites instead of by mail.

As the nonpartisan clerk of Harney County, a vast, rural expanse larger than Massachusetts, Robinson oversees elections with about 6,000 registered voters. Oregon has exclusively conducted elections by mail since 2000, a system he thinks works well, requires fewer staff and doesn’t force voters to travel through treacherous weather to reach a polling place.

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The purpose of a new report from RAND is to represent the ongoing policy debate on the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) in a mathematically neutral model that allows policymakers to compare the outcome of alternative strategies in in

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER) and DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory announced the winners of the eleventh CyberForce Competition held on Nov. 15 in Tinley Park, Illinois. At the end of the competition, Tinley Park MHC from the University of Central Florida defeated 93 teams from 73 universities to claim first place.

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In a joint research project, researchers at Julius MaximilliansUniversität Würzburg have developed a system capable of repelling and capturing unauthorized drones. The interceptor drones operate entirely autonomously.

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