Picture a vessel carrying thousands of pounds of narcotics toward U.S. shores. The ship runs with no transponder or electronic trace, slipping through open waters under cloud cover. Overhead, a network of advanced satellites capture every movement. Within minutes, automated systems fuse imagery, signals and open-source data, alerting analysts who can pinpoint the ship’s location and intercept it before it reaches land. That’s the kind of coordination national security leaders are striving to make routine, and it depends on the ability to turn data into clear, actionable insight. However, while the limiting factor used to be access to enough data, Nicholas Bousquet, vice president of strategy for the intelligence community at GRVTY, stated that national security leaders now face the challenge of navigating an influx. “What we’ve seen in the […]

Vast and global “black markets”—what national-security practitioners call shadow economies—are no longer peripheral nuisances but core strategic terrain. Trade executed outside regulatory, taxation, and enforcement frameworks prolongs wars, defangs sanctions, frays alliances, and helps rogue governments and groups survive and thrive. These flows have long been treated as problems for law enforcement, but military and defense policymakers and planners must increase their efforts to account for and stem them. Shadow trade enables regimes and insurgent groups to survive extreme pressure. Iran’s illicit oil exports help sustain the regime amid punishing sanctions. North Korea endures through complex illicit portfolios: counterfeit currency, arms smuggling, cyber theft, and forced labor. Russia earns billions by evading sanctions on oil, gas, and gold exports. Oil-smuggling states create front companies and “dark fleets” of tankers—Russia alone […]

Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer is “not co-operating” with authorities and has not confessed to carrying out the shooting, Utah’s governor Spencer Cox has told US media. Suspect Tyler Robinson, 22, was taken into custody some 33 hours after Kirk, a 31-year-old right-wing activist, was shot dead in Orem on Wednesday. Speaking to ABC News, Cox, a Republican, said people around Mr Robinson had been co-operating with the investigation. Cox appeared on various US news outlets on Sunday morning, where he also reiterated concerns regarding social media in the aftermath of Kirk’s death.The governor was also asked about a New York Times report alleging Mr Robinson had spoken to others after the shooting via the Discord messaging platform, including allegations that he joked about being the gunman. Cox told ABC News: […]

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will meet Stormont ministers on Tuesday to discuss how to grow Northern Ireland’s economy, as part of her first visit to Belfast. She will also visit Studio Ulster, Northern Ireland’s largest film and TV virtual production studio, to look at how government spending is helping the “creative industries”. About a third of the funding for the £72m project came from the government’s Belfast Region City Deal. Reeves is expected to meet Finance Minister John O’Dowd and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly during her trip.Stormont’s first and deputy first minister met Reeves last September, in a bid to lobby for “fairer” funding for public services in Northern Ireland. Since then, the government has faced criticism over its plans and subsequent U-turns on winter fuel payments and changes to […]

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania isn’t even up for reelection until 2028, but already a one-time primary foe, former U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, is crisscrossing Pennsylvania and social media, looking and sounding like he’s preparing to challenge Fetterman again. At town hall after town hall across Pennsylvania, Democrats and allied progressive groups aren’t hearing from Fetterman in person — or Republicans who control Washington, for that matter. But they are hearing from Lamb, a living reminder of the Democrat they could have elected instead of Fetterman. The former congressman has emerged as an in-demand town hall headliner, sometimes as a stand-in for Fetterman — who just might bash Fetterman.“I thought I was going to play Senator Fetterman,” Lamb joked as he sat down in front of a central Pennsylvania […]