Homeland Security Newswire

U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP, “Deeply Troubling” for Economy, National Security

Guest Writer — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:46:11 +0000

5/2/26

NATIONAL DEBT

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The U.S. national debt is now larger than the entire American economy and is only set to keep growing, further exacerbating the affordability crisis and risking national security.

Out of the $39 trillion total national debt, debt held by the public hit $31.27 trillion on March 31, surpassing the $31.22 trillion in Gross Domestic Product over the past 12 months.

Another Look at Gerrymandering

Guest Writer — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:44:34 +0000

5/4/26

DEMOCRACY WATCH

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On April 29, in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court examined what might be characterized as reverse gerrymandering. Four years earlier, in 2022, a federal judge ordered the state to redraw its congressional map to create a second majority-Black district. Previously, only one of six districts was majority-Black, even though 33 percent of the population was Black. After the legislature complied, non-Black voters claimed reverse discrimination.

Can China Stop Its Demographic Slide? Can the United States?

Guest Writer — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:40:35 +0000

5/2/26

DEMOGRAPHICS

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China faces a problem that could strain its government, undermine its security, and sap its economic energy.

It isn’t having enough babies.

That may seem like an advantage for the United States, China’s main rival. But fertility rates are slipping here, too. Researchers at RAND have been studying what China’s demographic future will look like, and what the United States can learn from it.

How Much Should Politics Influence Science, and Vice Versa? National Science Board’s Ousting Resurrects an Existential Debate

Guest Writer — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:38:27 +0000

5/2/26

SCIENCE & POLITICS

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“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump,” read 22 emails sent from the White House Presidential Personnel Office on Friday afternoon, April 24, 2026, “I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately.”

The email was signed “Thank you for your service.”

Found Industries Aims to Strengthen America’s Industrial Supply Chains

Guest Writer — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:36:38 +0000

5/4/26

INDUSTRIAL BASE

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Found Industries has gone through several distinct phases in the four years since it was originally formed as Found Energy. There was the scrappy startup stage, in which the company was primarily housed in the basement of founder Peter Godart ’15, SM ’19, PhD ’21. Then there was the demonstration phase, in which the company worked to productize its technology for transforming aluminum into high-density fuel for industrial operations.

Trump’s New Conditions on DEI, Immigration Could Cut Off States’ Wildfire Funding

Guest Writer — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:34:41 +0000

5/2/26

WILDFIRES

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A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands.

Some liberal states can’t sign the documents because the policies clash with state law, forestry experts say.

AI Nuclear Decision Making Has a Data Problem | Cheap Missiles, Not Drones, Will Win the Next Air War | Deepfakes Are Coming for Your Bank Account, and more

Staff — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:32:56 +0000

5/4/26

OUR PICKS

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Deepfakes Are Coming for Your Bank Account (Lila Shroff, The Atlantic)
OpenAI made the perfect tool for scammers.

The End of America’s Soft Power | The Global Scramble for Ports | Mali Is the Key to Understanding Africa’s Trajectory, and more

Staff — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:31:12 +0000

5/4/26

WORLD ROUNDUP

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The End of America’s Soft Power

The United States has given up on one of its core international strengths.

Can Donald Trump Reopen the Strait of Hormuz? (Economist)
Probably not, and he still has to deal with Iran’s uranium.

DeepSeek V4 Signals a New Phase in the U.S.-China AI Rivalry

Guest Writer — Fri, 01 May 2026 11:46:19 +0000

5/1/26

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Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek released a version of its long-awaited V4 large language model on Friday. It’s the most significant update since the release of the version that rattled global tech markets more than a year ago. Like DeepSeek’s previous models, V4 is open source, meaning it is available for anyone to download, use, and modify. The company claims the new model rivals leading closed-source systems from American firms—like Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini—on major benchmarks, while outperforming its rival open-source models.

8 Things You Should Know About Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections

Guest Writer — Fri, 01 May 2026 11:44:48 +0000

5/1/26

DEMOCRACY WATCH

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When President Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election, the institutional guardrails of American democracy held — but just barely.

If faced with the same tests today, those guardrails and the people who held the line would largely be missing, a ProPublica examination found.