Trump Administration Aims to Strip More Foreign-Born Americans of Citizenship  (Hamed Aleaziz, New York Times)
An official with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it would prioritize “those who’ve unlawfully obtained U.S. citizenship.”

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Who Can Solve Iran’s Many Problems? Not I, Says the President.  (Farnaz Fassihi and Leily Nikounazar, New York Times)
Amid sky-high inflation, water and energy cuts and prospects for a deal with the U. S. dimming, President Masoud Pezeshkian has apparently thrown up his hands.

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Evidence that the Islamic State allegedly inspired the attack that killed at least fifteen people at a Hanukkah event in Australia could spur new concern about the reach of the terrorist group six years after it was defeated militarily. Australian authorities say that flags and explosive materials linked to the father and son who mounted the attack points to the influence of ISIS.

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The mass shooting during Hanukkah in Bondi Beach is a horrific reminder that contemporary terrorism can affect the places where we meet others, shop, celebrate and conduct our daily lives. However, our research suggests that what the UK public fears and assumes about terrorism threats is quite different from reality.

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The U.S. Department of Justice has sent a confidential draft agreement to more than a dozen states that would require election officials to remove any alleged ineligible voters identified during a federal review of their voter rolls.

The agreement — called a memorandum of understanding, or MOU — would hand the federal government a major role in election administration, a responsibility that belongs to the states under the U.S. Constitution.

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Before 2025, science policy rarely made headline news. Through decades of changing political winds, financial crises and global conflicts, funding for U.S. research and innovation has remained remarkably stable, reflecting the American public’s strong support for investing in basic science.

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American Science Shattered(STAT News)
An eight-decade partnership between universities and the federal government made U.S. science preeminent. It took Trump less than a year to shred that crucial alliance.

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For years, Sen. Ron Johnson has been spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation about COVID-19 and the safety of vaccines.

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President Donald Trump spent most of 2025 hacking away at large parts of the federal government. His administration fired, bought out, or otherwise ousted hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Entire agencies were gutted. By so many metrics, this year in politics has been defined more by what has been cut away than by what’s been added on. 

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On December 4, the White House released its National Security Strategy, detailing President Donald Trump’s plans for promoting his “America First” philosophy. The strategy includes a stronger military presence in pivotal regions, bringing countries into Washington’s orbit by negotiating peace settlements, and “securing access to critical supply chains and materials,” among several other priorities.

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Britain will be more secure from Russian undersea threats in the North Atlantic through a transformation of the Royal Navy and its submarine-hunting capabilities.

Defense Secretary John Healey visited HM Naval Base Portsmouth to unveil early work on the groundbreaking Atlantic Bastion program, with millions of pounds invested this year in development and testing of innovative anti-submarine sensor technology.

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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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