The White House’s Aliens.gov Site Brags That ICE Arrested More Than 700 US Citizens

The website, which compares human beings to extraterrestrials, touts arrest numbers from the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. But some of its details are really out there...

Chilling Effects

Younger Americans have soured on the second Donald Trump presidency, but they are not protesting it. Despite an unpopular Iran war and an even more unpopular Trump administration, college campus protests nationwide have gone silent. And at many schools, student activism is virtually nonexistent...

Cole Allen Charged With Attempting to Assassinate Trump

The suspected shooter at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner faces three felony charges. He remains in custody following Monday’s hearing...

California Engineer Identified in Suspected Shooting at White House Correspondents’ Dinner

A 31-year-old engineer and self-described indie game developer is suspected of firing shots at the annual event attended by President Donald Trump, high-profile media figures, and US government officials...

‘Uncanny Valley’: Iran’s Threats on US Tech, Trump’s Plans for Midterms, and Polymarket’s Pop-up Flop

In this episode, we discuss Iran’s threats to target US tech firms, gear up for the midterm elections, and get a scene report from the Polymarket pop-up bar in DC...

As the US Midterms Approach, AI Is Going to Emerge as a Key Issue Concerning Voters

In December, the Trump administration signed an executive order that neutered states' ability to regulate AI by ordering his administration to both sue and withhold funds from states that try to do so. This action pointedly supported industry lobbyists keen to avoid any constraints and consequenc...

Anthropic and the Pentagon

OpenAI is in and Anthropic is out as a supplier of AI technology for the US defense department. This news caps a week of bluster by the highest officials in the US government towards some of the wealthiest titans of the big tech industry, and the overhanging specter of the existential risks posed...

The Controversies Finally Caught Up to Kristi Noem

Donald Trump said he would replace the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Noem’s tenure was marked by aggressive anti-immigration tactics and ICE and CBP’s killing of two US protesters...

Pentagon ditches Anthropic AI over “security risk” and OpenAI takes over

On Friday the US Pentagon cut ties with Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the San Francisco-based company a "supply-chain risk to national security." The supply-chain risk designation means that no contractor, supplier, or partner doing business wi...

War in Iran Spiked Oil Prices. Trump Will Decide How High They Go

The conflict in the Middle East is driving oil prices up in a midterm year when Americans are already focused on high energy bills...

The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran

The all-out air assault on the Islamic Republic might be the biggest gamble of the president’s career...

US and Israel Launch Strikes Against Iran

US president Donald Trump said a “major combat operation” against Iran had begun as he called for the country’s government to be overthrown...

Pentagon Designates Anthropic Supply Chain Risk Over AI Military Dispute

Anthropic on Friday hit back after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed the Pentagon to designate the artificial intelligence AI upstart as a "supply chain risk." "This action follows months of negotiations that reached an impasse over two exceptions we requested to the lawful use of o...

The Instant Smear Campaign Against Border Patrol Shooting Victim Alex Pretti

Within minutes of the shooting, the Trump administration and right-wing influencers began disparaging the man shot by a federal immigration officer on Saturday in Minneapolis...

Trump Warned of a Tren de Aragua ‘Invasion.’ US Intel Told a Different Story

Hundreds of records obtained by WIRED show thin intelligence on the Venezuelan gang in the United States, describing fragmented, low-level crime rather than a coordinated terrorist threat...

Are We Ready to Be Governed by Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence AI overlords are a common trope in science-fiction dystopias, but the reality looks much more prosaic. The technologies of artificial intelligence are already pervading many aspects of democratic government, affecting our lives in ways both large and small. This has occurr...

The Most Dangerous People on the Internet in 2025

From Donald Trump to DOGE to Chinese hackers, this year the internet’s chaos caused outsize real-world harm...

Against the Federal Moratorium on State-Level Regulation of AI

Cast your mind back to May of this year: Congress was in the throes of debate over the massive budget bill. Amidst the many seismic provisions, Senator Ted Cruz dropped a ticking time bomb of tech policy: a ten-year moratorium on the ability of states to regulate artificial intelligence. To many,...

An Anarchist’s Conviction Offers a Grim Foreshadowing of Trump’s War on the ‘Left’

As the Trump administration ramps up its targeting of left-leaning people and groups, the prosecution and harsh sentencing of Casey Goonan may provide a glimpse of things to come...

AI in the 2026 Midterm Elections

We are nearly one year out from the 2026 midterm elections, and it's far too early to predict the outcomes. But it's a safe bet that artificial intelligence technologies will once again be a major storyline. The widespread fear that AI would be used to manipulate the 2024 US election seems rather...