How much control do Republicans have over the US government?

No event between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025 changed Republican control of the presidency.

No event between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025 changed Republican control of the Senate.

No event between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025 changed Republican control of the House.

No United States senator changed party caucus between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, Senate Republicans held 53 seats.

As of December 1, 2025, Senate Republicans lacked the 60 votes normally needed to invoke cloture on legislation.

No Senate rule change abolished the legislative filibuster between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Democrat James Walkinshaw won the VA-11 special election on September 9, 2025.

Democrat Adelita Grijalva won the AZ-07 special election on September 23, 2025.

Adelita Grijalva was sworn into the House in November 2025.

The TX-18 House seat remained vacant on December 1, 2025.

The TN-07 House seat remained vacant on December 1, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, Republicans held 219 voting seats in the House.

As of December 1, 2025, Democrats held 214 voting seats in the House.

As of December 1, 2025, the House had two vacancies.

As of December 1, 2025, House Republicans could lose at most two Republican votes on a party-line vote with all voting members participating.

Mike Johnson remained Speaker of the House on December 1, 2025.

The federal government entered a shutdown on October 1, 2025.

The 2025 federal government shutdown became the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

The 2025 federal government shutdown ended on November 12, 2025.

The Senate vote to end the 2025 shutdown included support from Democratic-caucus senators.

The November 2025 federal funding law left the federal government open on December 1, 2025.

A House discharge petition forced a November 2025 vote on the Epstein files bill.

President Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025.

No Supreme Court justice was confirmed between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

The November 2025 off-year elections did not change party control of either chamber of Congress before December 1, 2025.

California Proposition 50's approval in November 2025 did not alter the House's party composition before December 1, 2025.

Abigail Spanberger's November 2025 victory in Virginia did not make her governor before December 1, 2025.


OpenAI publicly released an audited liters-per-ChatGPT-query water-use metric between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Google publicly released an audited liters-per-Gemini-query water-use metric between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Anthropic publicly released an audited liters-per-Claude-query water-use metric between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Microsoft publicly released an audited liters-per-Azure-OpenAI-query water-use metric between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

No U.S. federal rule requiring data-center operators to report water consumption separately for AI workloads took effect between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

No European Union rule in force by December 1, 2025 required data-center operators to allocate reported water use to individual AI models.

No international standards body finalized a mandatory liters-per-token accounting standard for generative AI water use between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

The widely cited estimate that a ChatGPT exchange can correspond to roughly half a liter of water remained an academic estimate rather than an audited OpenAI disclosure as of December 1, 2025.

No peer-reviewed study published between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025 established a single universal water-consumption value that applies to all AI prompts.

Publicly available AI water-use estimates as of December 1, 2025 still depended strongly on data-center location.

Publicly available AI water-use estimates as of December 1, 2025 still depended strongly on cooling technology.

Publicly available AI water-use estimates as of December 1, 2025 still depended strongly on the electricity generation mix.

Direct liquid cooling was shown by a public post-August-2025 disclosure to make AI data centers consume zero water in all operating conditions.

OpenAI published a model-specific water-use estimate for GPT-5 training between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Google published a water-per-request estimate for Gemini video generation between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

OpenAI published a water-per-request estimate for Sora video generation between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, public company sustainability reports still generally reported water use at corporate or data-center-fleet level rather than at individual AI-product level.

As of December 1, 2025, the public evidence base still distinguished onsite cooling water from indirect water associated with electricity generation.

At least one U.S. AI or hyperscale data-center project faced public water-availability scrutiny between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Operators of OpenAI-linked Stargate data-center campuses had not publicly released audited per-token water-intensity figures by December 1, 2025.


WIPO's Global Innovation Index 2025 ranked Switzerland first overall for the 15th consecutive year.

The 2025 Global Innovation Index displaced Switzerland from the top five most innovative economies.

The IMD World Talent Ranking 2025 placed Switzerland in its global top three.

The IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2025 placed Switzerland in its global top five.

In September 2025, ETH Zurich, EPFL, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre released the Apertus open large-language-model family.

Apertus was released as a closed commercial product controlled by a single U.S. hyperscaler.

Apertus was trained using Swiss public supercomputing infrastructure rather than only private cloud infrastructure.

In September 2025, Check Point announced an agreement to acquire Zurich-founded AI security startup Lakera.

The November 2025 TOP500 list ranked Germany's JUPITER supercomputer ahead of Switzerland's Alps supercomputer.

Switzerland's Alps supercomputer remained in the global TOP500 top ten in November 2025.

In November 2025, the United States and Switzerland announced a framework to reduce the additional U.S. tariff rate on Swiss imports from 39% to 15%.

By December 1, 2025, there had been no announced U.S.-Swiss framework to reduce the 39% U.S. tariff rate on Swiss imports.

The November 2025 U.S.-Swiss tariff framework included a Swiss-side commitment to facilitate roughly $200 billion of investment in the United States by 2028.

The Swiss domestic consultation on the negotiated Switzerland-EU package closed at the end of October 2025.

By December 1, 2025, Switzerland had not completed full ratification of the broader Switzerland-EU package.

By December 1, 2025, Switzerland had fully ratified the broader Switzerland-EU package and ended the need for transitional Horizon Europe arrangements.


How will European energy companies do this quarter?

By December 1, 2025, the major European integrated oil companies had reported their third-quarter 2025 results, giving investors fresh company-specific evidence on upstream earnings, refining margins, trading performance, buybacks, and leverage.

During September–November 2025, Brent crude prices were lower on average than they were during the same quarter of 2024, creating a year-over-year earnings headwind for European upstream oil producers.

During September–November 2025, European benchmark natural-gas prices remained far below the extreme 2022 crisis levels, reducing the likelihood of windfall trading profits for European gas-exposed energy companies.

By December 1, 2025, EU underground gas storage levels were high enough to materially reduce near-term winter supply-risk concerns for European utilities and gas suppliers.

Between August 31, 2025 and December 1, 2025, there was no broad physical interruption of Russian pipeline gas transit to the EU comparable in market impact to the 2022 Nord Stream shock.

During September–November 2025, refining margins were an important positive earnings driver for at least some European integrated oil companies and refiners relative to expectations earlier in 2025.

In their Q3 2025 updates, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Eni, Equinor, and Repsol continued to emphasize shareholder distributions through dividends and/or buybacks as a central part of their equity story.

By December 1, 2025, BP’s 2025 strategic reset and capital-allocation discipline remained a central issue for investors assessing BP relative to Shell and TotalEnergies.

By December 1, 2025, Shell had maintained a large ongoing share-buyback program after its Q3 2025 results rather than announcing a suspension of buybacks.

By December 1, 2025, TotalEnergies had continued to frame its integrated power and LNG growth strategy as a key differentiator versus other European oil majors.

By December 1, 2025, Equinor’s near-term outlook remained particularly sensitive to European gas prices because of its large Norwegian gas production exposure.

By December 1, 2025, European utilities’ outlook had improved relative to the 2022 energy-crisis period because power-price volatility, liquidity stress, and collateral pressures were much less severe.

During September–November 2025, falling or stabilizing European interest-rate expectations supported the relative appeal of regulated utilities and renewables developers compared with a higher-rate scenario.

By December 1, 2025, offshore wind economics remained a material concern for European renewables-exposed companies because of project-cost inflation, supply-chain constraints, and contract repricing issues.

By December 1, 2025, Ørsted’s equity performance and outlook remained heavily influenced by concerns over offshore wind impairments, U.S. project risk, and balance-sheet pressure.

By December 1, 2025, Siemens Energy’s outlook continued to depend materially on progress in fixing quality and loss issues at Siemens Gamesa.

By December 1, 2025, European grid-investment and electrification themes were still supporting the medium-term outlook for companies with regulated networks and power-equipment exposure.

During September–November 2025, there was no new EU-wide windfall-profits tax announced that applied uniformly to all European energy companies and materially changed sector earnings expectations for Q4 2025.

By December 1, 2025, national tax and regulatory decisions remained an important company-specific risk for European energy firms, especially in markets such as the UK, Italy, Spain, and Norway.

During September–November 2025, OPEC+ supply-policy developments remained a material driver of oil-price expectations relevant to European oil-major earnings.

By December 1, 2025, the euro-dollar exchange rate remained relevant for European energy companies because oil, LNG, and many refined-product revenues are dollar-linked while many costs and dividends are euro- or sterling-linked.

By December 1, 2025, the forward outlook for European energy equities depended at least as much on commodity-price assumptions and capital returns as on reported Q3 2025 earnings beats or misses.

During September–November 2025, European energy-company share performance was not uniform across the sector; integrated oil majors, regulated utilities, renewables developers, and oilfield-service or power-equipment firms faced materially different drivers.

By December 1, 2025, a well-calibrated forecast for European energy companies for the current quarter needed to distinguish between earnings performance, share-price performance, and dividend or buyback returns rather than treating the sector as a single homogeneous trade.


How would a Chinese invasion of Taiwan play out?

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the People's Republic of China did not begin a full-scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the People's Republic of China did not impose a publicly acknowledged full maritime-and-air blockade of Taiwan.

China held a major military parade in Beijing on September 3, 2025 that showcased new missiles and unmanned military systems relevant to a Taiwan contingency.

China commissioned its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, in November 2025.

By December 1, 2025, the Fujian had not been publicly confirmed as fully combat-ready for sustained carrier air operations around Taiwan.

In October 2025, the Chinese Communist Party confirmed the expulsion of Central Military Commission vice chairman He Weidong from the party and the military.

In October 2025, the Chinese Communist Party confirmed the expulsion of former Central Military Commission member Miao Hua from the party and the military.

By December 1, 2025, China's October 2025 PLA purge had not removed every vice chairman from the Central Military Commission.

Taiwan announced in November 2025 a special defense budget of roughly NT$1.25 trillion, or about US$40 billion, for the coming years.

Taiwan's November 2025 special defense budget was intended to accelerate air defense, missile, drone, and resilience capabilities relevant to resisting a Chinese attack.

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te announced the planned T-Dome air defense system in October 2025.

The United States approved a roughly US$330 million sale of aircraft spare parts and related support for Taiwan in November 2025.

The October 2025 Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea produced a public agreement resolving Taiwan's political status.

After the October 2025 Trump-Xi meeting, Donald Trump publicly said Taiwan had not been discussed in that meeting.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the United States did not issue an unconditional public commitment to send U.S. forces to defend Taiwan in any Chinese attack.

In November 2025, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a Taiwan contingency could constitute a survival-threatening situation for Japan.

China responded to Sanae Takaichi's November 2025 Taiwan remarks with a major diplomatic backlash against Japan.

Japan did not recognize Taiwan as an independent sovereign state between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

In November 2025, Japan announced plans to deploy a missile unit on Yonaguni Island, near Taiwan.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Taiwan continued to report frequent Chinese military aircraft and naval activity around the island.


Identify a compelling acquisition target for Google.

Alphabet's proposed acquisition of Wiz remained unclosed as of December 1, 2025.

The September 2025 U.S. search-antitrust remedies order required Google to divest Chrome.

The September 2025 U.S. search-antitrust remedies order barred Google from entering exclusive search distribution agreements.

The September 2025 U.S. search-antitrust remedies order allowed Google to keep making nonexclusive payments for default search placement.

The September 2025 U.S. search-antitrust remedies order required Google to share certain search data with qualified competitors.

The European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion in September 2025 in its adtech antitrust case.

A final U.S. remedies order in the DOJ's Google adtech case had not been entered by December 1, 2025.

The DOJ continued seeking divestiture of Google adtech assets during the fall 2025 remedies phase of its adtech case.

Alphabet reported quarterly revenue above $100 billion for Q3 2025.

Alphabet raised its 2025 capital-expenditure outlook to roughly $91 billion to $93 billion in October 2025.

Google launched Gemini 3 in November 2025.

Google introduced the Antigravity agentic coding platform in November 2025.

OpenAI launched the ChatGPT Atlas browser in October 2025.

Anthropic announced a $13 billion financing in September 2025 at about a $183 billion post-money valuation.

Mistral AI closed a €1.7 billion financing in September 2025 at about an €11.7 billion valuation.

Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, announced a funding round in November 2025 valuing it at about $29 billion.

Perplexity AI was reported in September 2025 to be raising new funding at roughly a $20 billion valuation.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined in October 2025 to pause the Epic v. Google Play Store injunction.

Google announced after August 31, 2025 that it had agreed to acquire Perplexity AI.

Google announced after August 31, 2025 that it had agreed to acquire Anthropic.


In which skilled trades is the labor deficit most pronounced?

The BLS 2024–2034 Employment Projections released after August 31, 2025 identified wind turbine service technicians and solar photovoltaic installers as among the fastest-growing skilled-trade occupations.

The post-August 2025 BLS Employment Projections showed that electricians were projected to have substantially more annual openings than solar photovoltaic installers or wind turbine service technicians.

The post-August 2025 BLS Employment Projections indicated that projected replacement needs, not just new job growth, remained a major driver of skilled-trade openings through 2034.

A post-August 2025 Associated Builders and Contractors workforce estimate said the U.S. construction industry would need to attract hundreds of thousands of additional workers in 2026 to meet labor demand.

A post-August 2025 Associated Builders and Contractors analysis identified construction craft labor as one of the clearest areas of skilled-trade labor shortage in the United States.

A post-August 2025 Associated General Contractors survey reported that a majority of U.S. construction firms were still having difficulty filling hourly craft positions.

A post-August 2025 Associated General Contractors survey found that construction labor shortages had largely disappeared among U.S. contractors.

Post-August 2025 construction-industry survey data continued to identify electricians as one of the hardest skilled trades for contractors to hire.

Post-August 2025 construction-industry survey data continued to identify plumbers and pipefitters as among the harder skilled trades for contractors to hire.

Post-August 2025 construction-industry survey data continued to identify carpenters as among the harder skilled trades for contractors to hire.

Post-August 2025 data-center and grid-infrastructure reporting strengthened the case that electrical trades were experiencing especially acute demand relative to supply.

Post-August 2025 clean-energy labor reporting indicated that shortages in electricians and other electrical workers were a bottleneck for grid, electrification, and renewable-energy deployment.

Post-August 2025 manufacturing labor reporting continued to identify machinists, CNC operators, welders, and industrial maintenance technicians as skilled trades with persistent shortages.

Post-August 2025 manufacturing labor reporting showed that manufacturing skilled-trade shortages had become negligible compared with pre-2025 conditions.

Post-August 2025 auto-service labor reporting continued to identify automotive service technicians, especially EV-capable technicians, as a shortage occupation.

Post-August 2025 aviation-maintenance labor reporting continued to identify aircraft mechanics and aviation maintenance technicians as occupations with meaningful labor shortfalls.

Post-August 2025 HVAC-industry reporting continued to identify HVAC technicians as a trade with strong unmet demand, driven by retirements, building activity, heat-pump adoption, and service needs.

Post-August 2025 evidence indicated that the skilled-trade deficit was concentrated only in renewable-energy occupations and was no longer significant in conventional construction trades.

Post-August 2025 labor-market releases showed that broad cooling in the U.S. labor market did not eliminate shortages in several skilled trades.

Post-August 2025 evidence suggested that the most pronounced skilled-trade deficits were better characterized by a cluster of construction/electrical/mechanical trades than by a single occupation alone.


In which US states will power prices rise most in response to data center construction?

As of December 1, 2025, PJM had not released results for a newer Base Residual Auction than the 2026/2027 auction that cleared in 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, the PJM 2026/2027 capacity auction remained the most recent market-wide capacity-price signal relevant to data-center-driven retail price pressure in PJM states.

As of December 1, 2025, FERC had not issued a final nationwide rule allowing co-located data centers to avoid all transmission charges by taking power directly from adjacent generators.

As of December 1, 2025, FERC had not issued a final nationwide rule requiring every new data center in the United States to pay a uniform federal large-load surcharge.

Texas Senate Bill 6 took effect on September 1, 2025.

Texas Senate Bill 6 created new requirements for very large loads seeking interconnection in ERCOT.

As of December 1, 2025, ERCOT still did not operate a forward capacity market comparable to PJM’s capacity market.

As of December 1, 2025, Texas data-center-related price risk remained concentrated in energy-market, ancillary-service, transmission, and local infrastructure costs rather than PJM-style capacity charges.

As of December 1, 2025, no post-August 31, 2025 Texas law had created a statewide retail electricity surcharge that applied only to data centers.

Dominion Energy Virginia’s fall 2025 planning materials continued to identify data centers as a major driver of forecast load growth in Virginia.

As of December 1, 2025, Virginia had not enacted a statewide data-center-specific retail tariff that fully insulated non-data-center customers from data-center-related utility costs.

As of December 1, 2025, no post-August 31, 2025 Virginia regulatory order had eliminated Northern Virginia’s need for major new transmission investment related to data-center load growth.

As of December 1, 2025, no post-August 31, 2025 PUCO order had rescinded AEP Ohio’s data-center tariff requirements for large new loads.

As of December 1, 2025, Ohio remained one of the states where data-center growth was most relevant to retail power-price pressure in PJM’s western footprint.

As of December 1, 2025, Pennsylvania remained exposed to data-center-driven PJM capacity and transmission cost pressure through its participation in PJM.

As of December 1, 2025, FERC had not approved a rule that removed Pennsylvania data-center load from PJM regional transmission-cost allocation.

As of December 1, 2025, Georgia Power’s 2025 planning record still treated large-load growth as a material driver of new generation and grid investment needs in Georgia.

As of December 1, 2025, Georgia had not adopted a statewide data-center tariff that guaranteed full recovery of all data-center-related generation and transmission costs solely from data-center customers.

As of December 1, 2025, Arizona utilities still faced substantial large-load interconnection interest from data centers.

As of December 1, 2025, Arizona had not adopted a statewide data-center-specific retail tariff comparable to AEP Ohio’s large-load tariff.

As of December 1, 2025, California had overtaken Virginia as the U.S. state with the clearest near-term data-center-driven retail electricity price pressure.

As of December 1, 2025, New York had overtaken PJM states as the main U.S. region where data-center construction was expected to raise power prices the most.

As of December 1, 2025, the strongest evidence for near-term data-center-driven power-price increases still pointed to parts of PJM, the Southeast, Texas, and Arizona rather than to every U.S. state equally.


Is Delaware or Wyoming a better state to start a crypto company?

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Delaware enacted a new crypto-specific business-entity statute that materially changed the default analysis for incorporating a crypto startup in Delaware.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Wyoming enacted a new crypto-specific business-entity statute that materially changed the default analysis for forming a crypto startup in Wyoming.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Delaware enacted a new money-transmission or virtual-currency licensing law aimed specifically at crypto businesses.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Wyoming enacted a new money-transmission or virtual-currency licensing law aimed specifically at crypto businesses.

As of December 1, 2025, Wyoming’s state-backed stable token program had moved beyond authorization into an operational public launch.

As of December 1, 2025, Delaware had launched a comparable state-backed stable token program.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Wyoming regulators announced a material expansion of crypto banking or special purpose depository institution activity in the state.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Delaware regulators announced a material expansion of state-chartered crypto banking activity in Delaware.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a federal court issued a decision in the Custodia Bank master-account litigation that materially changed the practical attractiveness of Wyoming’s crypto banking framework.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Delaware created a new DAO-specific legal entity framework comparable to Wyoming’s DAO LLC or DUNA frameworks.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Wyoming repealed or substantially narrowed its DAO-specific legal entity frameworks.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Delaware’s Court of Chancery issued a major crypto-specific corporate-law decision that materially changed fiduciary-duty or governance risk for crypto startups incorporated in Delaware.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Wyoming’s highest court issued a major crypto-specific business-law decision that materially changed governance risk for crypto startups formed in Wyoming.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Delaware changed its franchise tax rules in a way that materially altered the cost comparison for venture-backed startups choosing between Delaware and Wyoming.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Wyoming changed its annual report fees or business-license tax rules in a way that materially altered the cost comparison for startups choosing between Delaware and Wyoming.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, major U.S. venture-capital or startup-law guidance shifted away from Delaware incorporation as the default recommendation for venture-backed crypto startups.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, major U.S. venture-capital or startup-law guidance newly treated Wyoming as generally equivalent to Delaware for venture-backed C-corporation fundraising.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a new federal crypto market-structure law took effect that expressly preempted state entity-law advantages specific to Wyoming or Delaware.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a new federal stablecoin law took effect that materially reduced the importance of choosing Wyoming for a stablecoin issuer.

As of December 1, 2025, Delaware remained the dominant incorporation jurisdiction for venture-backed C-corporations despite Wyoming’s crypto-specific statutes.

As of December 1, 2025, Wyoming remained more crypto-specific than Delaware in statutory treatment of DAOs, digital assets, and state-level crypto infrastructure.

As of December 1, 2025, the main practical distinction remained that Delaware was generally stronger for venture-backed corporate governance while Wyoming was generally stronger for crypto-specific statutory experimentation.


Is elder care an expanding source of employment for immigrants?

The BLS Employment Projections released in September 2025 projected that U.S. health care and social assistance would add more jobs than any other major sector from 2024 to 2034.

The BLS Employment Projections released in September 2025 projected that home health and personal care aides would add more jobs than any other U.S. occupation from 2024 to 2034.

The BLS Employment Projections released in September 2025 projected faster-than-average U.S. employment growth for home health and personal care aides from 2024 to 2034.

The Census Bureau released the 2024 ACS 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample before December 1, 2025.

The 2024 ACS 1-year microdata available before December 1, 2025 contained nativity information usable for estimating foreign-born shares in U.S. care occupations.

The newest ACS microdata available before December 1, 2025 showed that foreign-born workers were underrepresented among U.S. home health and personal care aides relative to their share of the overall U.S. workforce.

No U.S. federal statute enacted between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025 created a dedicated immigrant visa category for elder-care aides or home-care aides.

The October 2025 U.S. Visa Bulletin made EB-3 immigrant visas current for all countries of chargeability.

As of December 1, 2025, foreign-trained registered nurses seeking U.S. employment-based immigrant visas still faced EB-3 visa backlogs for at least some major source countries.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the United States created a broad temporary-worker visa route specifically for nonmedical home-care aides.

UK Home Office immigration statistics published after August 31, 2025 showed a large year-on-year decline in Health and Care Worker visa grants to main applicants.

As of December 1, 2025, new overseas recruitment of care workers and senior care workers into the UK Health and Care Worker visa route remained open on the same basis as before the 2025 immigration changes.

UK immigration changes in force by December 1, 2025 made the United Kingdom a weaker near-term growth market for newly arriving migrant elder-care workers than it had been during the 2022–2023 surge.

Canada abolished all federal permanent-residence pathways specifically branded for home-care workers between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Canada’s Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots remained in existence as federal caregiver immigration pathways on December 1, 2025.


Is Europe likely to have a particularly bad flu season?

As of December 1, 2025, WHO/Europe and ECDC surveillance data for the 2025/26 season showed influenza activity in Europe rising earlier than is typical for recent pre-pandemic seasons.

As of December 1, 2025, multiple European countries had already crossed their national or regional epidemic thresholds for influenza-like illness or laboratory-confirmed influenza in the 2025/26 season.

As of December 1, 2025, influenza test positivity in European sentinel primary-care surveillance had remained at low inter-seasonal levels throughout autumn 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, influenza A was the dominant influenza type detected in Europe during the early 2025/26 season.

As of December 1, 2025, A(H3N2) viruses accounted for the majority of subtyped influenza A detections reported in European surveillance for the 2025/26 season to date.

As of December 1, 2025, A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses accounted for the majority of subtyped influenza A detections reported in European surveillance for the 2025/26 season to date.

As of December 1, 2025, influenza B viruses accounted for the majority of influenza detections reported in European surveillance for the 2025/26 season to date.

As of December 1, 2025, WHO/Europe or ECDC had reported that early-season influenza hospital admissions in Europe were above the levels seen at the same point in most recent seasons.

As of December 1, 2025, the United Kingdom had reported influenza activity or influenza-related hospital admissions high enough to trigger official concern about an unusually early or severe winter flu wave.

As of December 1, 2025, France, Germany, Spain, or Italy had reported sustained community influenza transmission for the 2025/26 season.

As of December 1, 2025, European surveillance had identified a widespread antigenic mismatch between circulating influenza viruses and the strains included in the 2025/26 Northern Hemisphere influenza vaccines.

As of December 1, 2025, WHO or ECDC had reported that most characterized circulating influenza viruses in Europe remained antigenically similar to the strains included in the 2025/26 Northern Hemisphere influenza vaccines.

As of December 1, 2025, the 2025 Southern Hemisphere influenza season had ended with unusually high influenza activity in at least one major temperate country relevant for Northern Hemisphere risk assessment, such as Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, or South Africa.

As of December 1, 2025, Australia’s 2025 influenza season had been described by national surveillance authorities as one of its larger or more severe recent seasons.

As of December 1, 2025, there was evidence that the dominant Southern Hemisphere 2025 influenza viruses were a close match to the dominant viruses emerging in Europe in autumn 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, European public-health agencies had warned that low or delayed influenza vaccination uptake among older adults or clinical-risk groups could increase the risk of a severe 2025/26 flu season.

As of December 1, 2025, influenza vaccine uptake data for autumn 2025 in major European countries showed coverage among older adults clearly exceeding the WHO target of 75%.

As of December 1, 2025, there were official reports of significant antiviral resistance among circulating seasonal influenza viruses in Europe that would be expected to materially limit oseltamivir or other neuraminidase-inhibitor effectiveness.

As of December 1, 2025, European surveillance had detected a novel influenza virus with sustained human-to-human transmission that materially changed the risk assessment for the 2025/26 flu season.

As of December 1, 2025, ECDC or WHO/Europe had issued a formal risk assessment indicating that Europe faced an elevated risk of a severe or unusually early influenza season in 2025/26.

As of December 1, 2025, co-circulation of influenza with RSV or SARS-CoV-2 was already placing unusual pressure on hospitals in multiple European countries.

As of December 1, 2025, the available European surveillance evidence still supported the conclusion that it was too early to determine whether the 2025/26 influenza season would be particularly bad.


Is Florida making rapid progress combating any invasive species?

FDACS announced after August 31, 2025 that giant African land snail had been eradicated from Broward County.

FDACS lifted the Broward County giant African land snail quarantine after August 31, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, FDACS still listed an active giant African land snail quarantine somewhere in Florida.

Florida announced a statewide eradication of Burmese pythons before December 1, 2025.

FWC announced the 2025 Florida Python Challenge results after August 31, 2025.

The 2025 Florida Python Challenge removed more than 200 Burmese pythons.

The 2025 Florida Python Challenge removed more than 1,000 Burmese pythons.

As of December 1, 2025, the 2025 Florida Python Challenge results were evidence of continued removals rather than population-level eradication of Burmese pythons.

FWC announced the final 2025 Lionfish Challenge results after August 31, 2025.

The 2025 Florida Lionfish Challenge reported more than 25,000 lionfish removals.

Florida declared lionfish eradicated from state waters before December 1, 2025.

Florida announced a statewide eradication of Argentine black and white tegus before December 1, 2025.

Florida announced a statewide eradication of green iguanas before December 1, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, Florida’s clearest recent invasive-species eradication progress was against giant African land snail rather than Burmese python or lionfish.


In October 2025, Intel announced that its first Intel 18A client processor family, Panther Lake, had entered production.

As of December 1, 2025, Intel had not announced that it was abandoning the Intel 18A process node.

As of December 1, 2025, Intel had not yet made Intel 14A a high-volume manufacturing node for commercial products.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, TSMC continued to describe its 2 nm-class N2 process as on track for volume production in the second half of 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, TSMC had not shipped a mass-market consumer smartphone processor fabricated on its N2 process.

Apple’s September 2025 iPhone 17-generation A19 chips were fabricated on a TSMC 3 nm-class process rather than a TSMC 2 nm-class process.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, announced after August 31, 2025, was a 3 nm-class TSMC chip rather than a 2 nm-class chip.

MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500, announced after August 31, 2025, was a 3 nm-class TSMC chip rather than a 2 nm-class chip.

As of December 1, 2025, no leading foundry had announced high-volume commercial production on a 1 nm-class logic node.

As of December 1, 2025, high-NA EUV lithography had not become the standard production lithography tool for all leading-edge 2 nm-class logic manufacturing.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, no major semiconductor manufacturer announced a return to historical Dennard scaling for general-purpose logic chips.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, leading-edge chip announcements continued to emphasize advanced packaging, chiplets, and heterogeneous integration as important complements to transistor scaling.

Nvidia announced in September 2025 that it would invest billions of dollars in Intel and collaborate with Intel on future data-center and PC chips.

The post-August 2025 Nvidia-Intel collaboration announcement did not by itself establish that Intel had regained process-technology leadership over TSMC.

As of December 1, 2025, the newest mass-market smartphone SoCs announced after August 31, 2025 still supported the view that commercial leading-edge products were advancing by node shrinks, but not at the historical two-year doubling cadence implied by a strict version of Moore’s Law.

As of December 1, 2025, none of the major post-August 2025 foundry or chip announcements showed that the cost per transistor had resumed a clear long-term exponential decline comparable to early Moore’s Law eras.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, there was no industry-wide announcement that Moore’s Law had officially ended in the sense that transistor counts would no longer increase in future leading-edge chips.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, there was no industry-wide announcement that Moore’s Law had been fully restored in the sense of predictable two-year transistor-density doublings at falling cost per transistor.


Is open source AI catching up to closed source models?

Google released Gemini 3 Pro as a closed proprietary model between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Gemini 3 Pro was widely reported by late November 2025 to be at or near the top of major public model leaderboards, including LMArena, ahead of the strongest open-weight models.

Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 4.5 after August 31, 2025 as a closed proprietary model focused especially on coding and agentic computer-use performance.

Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.5 before December 1, 2025 as a closed proprietary frontier model.

OpenAI released GPT-5.1 after August 31, 2025 as a closed proprietary update rather than an open-weight model.

OpenAI released a new open-weight successor to gpt-oss-120b between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Moonshot AI released Kimi K2 Thinking after August 31, 2025 as an open-weight reasoning model.

Kimi K2 Thinking materially improved the case that open-weight models were competitive with closed models on reasoning, coding, and agent-style benchmarks in late 2025.

MiniMax released MiniMax-M2 after August 31, 2025 as an open-weight mixture-of-experts model with strong coding and agentic benchmark results.

Zhipu AI released GLM-4.6 after August 31, 2025 as an open-weight model positioned as an improvement over GLM-4.5.

Alibaba released new Qwen open-weight models after August 31, 2025, including models in the Qwen3-Next or Qwen3-VL/Qwen3-Omni families.

DeepSeek publicly released a generally available DeepSeek-R2 model between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Meta released a new frontier Llama model after August 31, 2025 that clearly reset the open-weight state of the art by December 1, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, the highest-ranked models on the main public general-purpose leaderboards were still closed proprietary models rather than open-weight models.

As of December 1, 2025, at least one open-weight model released after August 31, 2025 was competitive with some older closed frontier models on coding and reasoning benchmarks.

As of December 1, 2025, no open-weight model released after August 31, 2025 had clearly surpassed the latest Gemini, Claude, and OpenAI frontier models across general reasoning, coding, multimodal, and agentic evaluations taken together.

Late-2025 open-weight releases narrowed the practical capability gap more in text reasoning and coding than in the full stack of multimodal, productized agent, and hosted-tool-use capabilities.

The strongest post-August-2025 open-weight model releases generally did not include all pretraining data and training code needed for independent reproduction of the base models.

Several of the most important post-August-2025 open-weight releases came from Chinese AI labs rather than from Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google.

By December 1, 2025, the evidence supported a nuanced conclusion that open-weight AI was catching up in some benchmarked capabilities but had not unambiguously caught up to the newest closed frontier models overall.


Is Princeton doing a good job managing their endowment?

Princeton’s fall 2025 endowment disclosure reported a positive investment return for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025.

Princeton’s fall 2025 endowment disclosure reported a double-digit investment return for fiscal year 2025.

Princeton’s fall 2025 endowment disclosure reported that the endowment’s market value exceeded $35 billion as of June 30, 2025.

Princeton’s fall 2025 endowment disclosure reported that the endowment’s market value was lower on June 30, 2025 than on June 30, 2024.

Princeton’s reported fiscal 2025 endowment return was below 20%.

Princeton’s reported fiscal 2025 endowment return was lower than the S&P 500 total return over the same fiscal year.

Several Ivy League peer institutions reported positive double-digit endowment returns for fiscal 2025 in fall 2025.

Peer university endowments generally reported losses for fiscal 2025.

Harvard, Yale, and Stanford each reported positive fiscal 2025 endowment investment returns in fall 2025.

Princeton’s reported ten-year annualized endowment return as of June 30, 2025 remained above 8%.

Princeton reported that endowment distributions continued to finance more than half of the University’s operating budget in fiscal 2025.

Princeton announced cuts to its undergraduate financial-aid program between September 1 and December 1, 2025 because of poor endowment performance.

Princeton disclosed an endowment liquidity crisis between September 1 and December 1, 2025.

Princeton announced a PRINCO investment-misconduct investigation between September 1 and December 1, 2025.

Princeton announced a replacement of PRINCO’s chief executive between September 1 and December 1, 2025.

Princeton announced between September 1 and December 1, 2025 that new gifts, rather than investment gains, were the sole reason the endowment’s market value increased in fiscal 2025.

Princeton announced between September 1 and December 1, 2025 that it was abandoning its long-term diversified endowment model in favor of holding the endowment mostly in cash.


Is Silicon Valley venture capital funding slowing down?

Anthropic announced a $13 billion financing round in September 2025.

Anthropic's September 2025 financing round valued the company at about $183 billion post-money.

Anthropic was headquartered in San Francisco when it announced its September 2025 financing round.

Databricks announced in September 2025 that it was raising a Series K financing at a valuation above $100 billion.

Figure AI announced a funding round of at least $1 billion after August 31, 2025.

Anysphere announced a multibillion-dollar financing round in November 2025.

Sierra announced a $350 million financing round after August 31, 2025.

PitchBook-NVCA's Q3 2025 Venture Monitor reported that U.S. VC deal value through the first three quarters of 2025 was higher than during the first three quarters of 2024.

PitchBook-NVCA's Q3 2025 Venture Monitor reported that U.S. VC deal count had returned to its 2021 peak.

Q3 2025 venture data showed that AI megadeals were a major driver of elevated U.S. venture-capital dollar totals.

Q3 2025 venture data showed that the increase in venture dollars was matched by an equally strong recovery in the number of venture deals.

Bay Area companies accounted for an outsized share of U.S. venture-capital dollars in 2025 because of large AI financings.

No Bay Area AI company announced a venture financing of at least $1 billion after August 31, 2025.

U.S. VC fundraising by venture firms remained weak in Q3 2025 compared with the 2021-2022 boom period.

Netskope completed its initial public offering in September 2025.

PitchBook-NVCA's Q3 2025 Venture Monitor reported that VC-backed exit activity had fully returned to 2021 levels.

By December 1, 2025, complete Q4 2025 Silicon Valley venture-funding data were not yet available.

The post-August 2025 evidence supported a distinction between rising aggregate funding dollars and weaker funding breadth across startups.


Tesla's market capitalization at the close of trading on December 1, 2025 exceeded $1 trillion.

Tesla's market capitalization at the close of trading on December 1, 2025 exceeded the combined market capitalization of Toyota, BYD, Volkswagen Group, Mercedes-Benz Group, and BMW.

Tesla's forward price-to-earnings multiple based on calendar-2026 consensus EPS at the close of trading on December 1, 2025 exceeded 100.

Tesla reported Q3 2025 vehicle deliveries that were higher than its Q3 2024 vehicle deliveries.

Tesla reported Q3 2025 vehicle deliveries that were above the sell-side consensus estimate immediately before the release.

Tesla reported Q3 2025 automotive revenue that was higher than its Q3 2024 automotive revenue.

Tesla reported Q3 2025 GAAP net income that was lower than its Q3 2024 GAAP net income.

Tesla reported Q3 2025 automotive gross margin excluding regulatory credits below 15%.

Tesla reported Q3 2025 free cash flow that was positive.

Tesla reported a new quarterly record for energy storage deployments in Q3 2025.

Tesla's management raised its full-year 2025 vehicle-delivery guidance during its Q3 2025 earnings call.

The U.S. federal consumer EV tax credit for new Tesla vehicles was no longer available for purchases after September 30, 2025.

Tesla's U.S. vehicle sales in October 2025 were lower than its U.S. vehicle sales in September 2025.

Tesla's new-car registrations in Europe in September and October 2025 combined were lower than in September and October 2024 combined.

Tesla's China-made vehicle wholesale shipments in September and October 2025 combined were lower than in September and October 2024 combined.

BYD delivered more battery-electric vehicles than Tesla in Q3 2025.

Tesla announced a lower-cost Model Y variant between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Tesla began customer deliveries of a materially cheaper new mass-market vehicle distinct from the Model 3 and Model Y between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Tesla expanded its paid robotaxi service to at least one additional U.S. metropolitan area between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Tesla had received California regulatory approval to operate a fully driverless commercial ride-hailing service for the general public by December 1, 2025.

Tesla released a major FSD Version 14 software update to customers between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

U.S. federal safety regulators opened or expanded a defect investigation involving Tesla Full Self-Driving or robotaxi operations between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Tesla shareholders approved a new Elon Musk compensation package at the 2025 annual meeting.

Tesla shareholders approved a proposal related to Tesla investing in xAI at the 2025 annual meeting.

Elon Musk sold Tesla shares between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Tesla issued new common equity between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

At least one major credit-rating agency downgraded Tesla's credit rating between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Tesla announced a new share repurchase authorization between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.


Is Waymo displacing existing Uber and Taxi drivers, and how are they responding?

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, Waymo announced additional future robotaxi markets beyond its pre-September 2025 operating footprint.

By December 1, 2025, several Waymo markets announced in fall 2025 were still in testing or pre-launch rather than offering paid public driverless rides.

By December 1, 2025, Waymo had not launched paid public robotaxi service in every city it announced during fall 2025.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, Waymo continued to expand the geographic area or availability of paid driverless rides in at least one existing U.S. market.

By December 1, 2025, Waymo’s late-2025 expansion was still concentrated in a small number of metropolitan areas rather than being nationwide.

By December 1, 2025, Waymo had become a meaningful competitor to human ride-hail drivers in San Francisco.

By December 1, 2025, public evidence showed Waymo had completely eliminated the need for Uber and Lyft drivers in San Francisco.

By December 1, 2025, public evidence showed Waymo had displaced some ride-hail demand without eliminating most human-driver ride-hail work in its operating cities.

In fall 2025, third-party data or press analyses reported that Waymo had captured a double-digit share of app-based ride-hail demand in at least one mature market.

By December 1, 2025, Waymo’s driverless rides were still a small share of total U.S. taxi and ride-hail activity.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, Uber continued to partner with Waymo in markets where Waymo rides were dispatched through the Uber app.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, Uber publicly framed autonomous vehicles as supplemental marketplace supply rather than announcing a broad replacement of human drivers.

By December 1, 2025, Uber had not announced mass deactivations of human drivers because of Waymo deployment.

By December 1, 2025, there was no public evidence that Waymo’s Uber-platform deployments in Austin or Atlanta had caused large-scale local Uber driver layoffs.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, taxi drivers or taxi-industry representatives in at least one Waymo market publicly objected to robotaxi expansion on competition or livelihood grounds.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, driver groups or labor advocates continued to call for regulation of autonomous vehicles because of job-displacement concerns.

By December 1, 2025, opposition from taxi or ride-hail drivers had not stopped Waymo from continuing its U.S. expansion plans.

By December 1, 2025, Waymo had not agreed to a driver-union demand to hire displaced Uber or taxi drivers as a condition of operating robotaxis.

By December 1, 2025, no major U.S. city had enacted a complete ban on Waymo solely to protect taxi or ride-hail driver jobs during fall 2025.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, debates over airport access for Waymo remained important because airport trips are high-value work for taxi and ride-hail drivers.

By December 1, 2025, Waymo’s access to major airports remained uneven across markets rather than universal.

By December 1, 2025, Waymo had not begun paid public autonomous pickup and drop-off service at every major airport in its California service areas.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, driver responses to Waymo included public criticism, lobbying, or protest rather than only individual switching to other driving apps.

By December 1, 2025, there was no public evidence of a coordinated nationwide strike by Uber and taxi drivers specifically against Waymo during fall 2025.

By December 1, 2025, the most accurate characterization was partial and localized displacement pressure rather than immediate broad replacement of existing Uber and taxi drivers.


Outline the major risks to the US domestic corn industry.

USDA's post-August 2025 Crop Production reports projected the 2025 U.S. corn crop at a record-high production level.

USDA's post-August 2025 Crop Production reports projected a record-high national corn yield for 2025.

USDA's November 2025 WASDE projected 2025/26 U.S. corn ending stocks above 2 billion bushels.

USDA's November 2025 WASDE kept the projected 2025/26 U.S. corn season-average farm price below $4.50 per bushel.

The October 2025 federal government shutdown delayed USDA market-data releases during the U.S. corn harvest.

USDA did not publish the October 2025 WASDE on its originally scheduled date because of the federal government shutdown.

USDA crop-progress reporting available by late November 2025 showed the 2025 U.S. corn harvest was largely complete.

U.S. export-sales data available by December 1, 2025 showed China had returned as a major buyer of 2025/26 U.S. corn.

Post-August 2025 U.S.-China trade announcements centered on soybeans rather than large new U.S. corn purchase commitments.

Mexico remained the largest reported destination for U.S. corn export commitments in the 2025/26 marketing year data available by December 1, 2025.

No new Mexican restriction on U.S. yellow corn for feed use took effect between August 31, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Argentina temporarily suspended export taxes on corn and other grains in late September 2025.

USDA's fall 2025 WASDE updates continued to show Brazil as a major source of export competition for U.S. corn.

EPA did not create a new nationwide year-round E15 mandate between August 31, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

No federal policy enacted between August 31, 2025 and December 1, 2025 guaranteed a step-change increase in U.S. corn-ethanol use during the 2025/26 marketing year.

NOAA issued or maintained a La Niña advisory during fall 2025 for the 2025-26 winter season.

U.S. Drought Monitor maps in late November 2025 showed drought or abnormal dryness in parts of the Corn Belt.

Fall 2025 low-water conditions on the Mississippi River created barge-transport constraints relevant to corn basis and export logistics.

Post-August 2025 USDA reports identified a national-scale corn disease outbreak that sharply reduced the 2025 U.S. corn production forecast.

Retail fertilizer reporting in autumn 2025 showed nitrogen fertilizer costs remained a relevant margin risk for 2026 U.S. corn planting decisions.


Should I invest in Vietnamese or Filipino telecom infrastructure?

The Philippines' Konektadong Pinoy Act was in force by December 1, 2025.

The Konektadong Pinoy Act allowed qualified data-transmission service providers in the Philippines to operate through National Telecommunications Commission registration rather than a congressional franchise.

The Philippine National Telecommunications Commission had issued final implementing rules for the Konektadong Pinoy Act by December 1, 2025.

No Philippine court had suspended implementation of the Konektadong Pinoy Act by December 1, 2025.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Vietnam did not enact a law eliminating telecom-network licensing requirements for data-transmission providers.

Vietnam granted SpaceX Starlink a commercial license to provide satellite broadband service in Vietnam before December 1, 2025.

MobiFone commercially launched 5G mobile service in Vietnam between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

No national mobile spectrum auction in Vietnam or the Philippines closed between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Vietnam's year-on-year real GDP growth in the third quarter of 2025 exceeded 8%.

The Philippines' year-on-year real GDP growth in the third quarter of 2025 exceeded 6%.

The Philippine peso hit an all-time low against the U.S. dollar between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

The Vietnamese dong hit an all-time low against the U.S. dollar between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Globe Telecom reported lower capital expenditures for the first nine months of 2025 than for the first nine months of 2024.

PLDT reported lower capital expenditures for the first nine months of 2025 than for the first nine months of 2024.

DITO Telecommunity remained net-loss-making in its reported results for the first nine months of 2025.

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Cebu on September 30, 2025 caused telecom service disruptions in the Philippines.

Typhoons Kalmaegi and Fung-wong caused telecom service disruptions in the Philippines in November 2025.

Typhoon Bualoi caused telecom service disruptions in Vietnam in late September 2025.

No new international submarine cable system landing in Vietnam entered commercial service between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

No new international submarine cable system landing in the Philippines entered commercial service between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Vietnam's government approved a full privatization of VNPT or MobiFone between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

The Philippine government awarded a new fourth nationwide mobile network operator license between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.


Suggest an ideal location for a datacenter buildout.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Virginia regulators approved a new Dominion Energy tariff that imposes special capacity-reservation or minimum-payment obligations on large data-center loads.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, AEP Ohio received final regulatory approval for a tariff requiring new data-center customers to make long-term minimum payments for reserved electric capacity.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a major U.S. grid operator adopted new rules allowing utilities to curtail large data-center loads during grid emergencies.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, PJM published materially higher near-term load forecasts driven primarily by data-center growth.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Northern Virginia utilities announced a new moratorium on electric service connections for data centers.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Loudoun County enacted new zoning restrictions that materially limited additional data-center development.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, ERCOT adopted a binding large-load interconnection requirement specifically affecting data centers or AI computing campuses.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Texas enacted a statewide data-center moratorium.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Georgia regulators approved new utility resource additions justified substantially by projected data-center electricity demand.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Georgia adopted a new statewide restriction on data-center water use.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Ireland extended or tightened restrictions on new grid connections for data centers in the Dublin region.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the Netherlands adopted a new national ban on hyperscale data-center construction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Singapore announced an additional allocation of power capacity for new data-center projects.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Malaysia imposed a new national moratorium on data-center development in Johor.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Malaysia adopted new binding sustainability or efficiency requirements for data-center power or water use.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the United States expanded export controls in a way that newly restricted shipment of advanced AI accelerators to at least one major Southeast Asian data-center hub.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the United States imposed new tariffs or trade restrictions that materially increased expected costs for imported transformers used in data-center projects.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a major U.S. utility announced a dedicated nuclear-power or small-modular-reactor agreement for data-center supply.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a major hyperscaler announced a new U.S. data-center campus explicitly tied to on-site or dedicated natural-gas generation.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, at least one major U.S. municipality rejected a proposed hyperscale data-center project primarily because of water, noise, land-use, or grid concerns.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a significant storm, flood, wildfire, or earthquake caused prolonged outage or physical damage at a major data-center cluster.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, any U.S. state enacted a new tax incentive specifically targeted at attracting data-center or AI-compute investment.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, any U.S. state repealed or materially narrowed an existing sales-tax exemption for data-center equipment.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a major cloud provider publicly selected a new geographic region for a hyperscale AI data-center buildout because of superior power availability.


Google DeepMind announced Gemini Robotics 1.5 in September 2025 as an updated vision-language-action system for robot control.

Google DeepMind’s September 2025 Gemini Robotics update included an embodied-reasoning model called Gemini Robotics-ER 1.5.

Gemini Robotics 1.5 was presented as supporting multi-step physical tasks rather than only single-step robot commands.

Google DeepMind announced SIMA 2 in November 2025 as a Gemini-powered agent for acting in 3D virtual environments.

SIMA 2 was announced as a system for controlling real-world humanoid robots in homes.

Figure AI unveiled its Figure 03 humanoid robot in October 2025.

Figure 03 was presented as a redesign aimed at home use and scalable manufacturing rather than only as a factory pilot robot.

Figure AI had begun general consumer deliveries of Figure 03 by December 1, 2025.

1X opened orders for its NEO home humanoid robot in October 2025.

1X said initial NEO deployments would rely on remote human assistance for some tasks rather than being fully autonomous at launch.

1X advertised NEO as available through both purchase and subscription-style pricing.

XPeng unveiled a new IRON humanoid robot at its November 2025 AI Day.

XPeng described the November 2025 IRON humanoid as intended first for commercial settings such as factories and retail spaces.

XPeng said in November 2025 that IRON was already being delivered as a mass-market home robot.

Zoox opened public driverless robotaxi rides in Las Vegas in September 2025 using its purpose-built autonomous vehicle.

Zoox’s initial Las Vegas public robotaxi rides in September 2025 were broadly reported as free rather than paid commercial rides.

Zoox’s September 2025 Las Vegas public robotaxi service used conventional retrofitted cars with human safety drivers behind steering wheels.

Amazon announced the Blue Jay robotic system in October 2025 for warehouse operations.

Amazon described Blue Jay as combining multiple warehouse-handling steps at a single robotic workstation.

Amazon announced Project Eluna in October 2025 as an agentic AI system intended to help coordinate warehouse operations.

World Labs released or unveiled Marble in late 2025 as a generative system for creating interactive 3D worlds.

World Labs’ Marble was a robot-control policy trained to directly operate humanoid robots.

OpenAI publicly released a general-purpose physical robot action model between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.


What are California's most urgent water issues?

California did not declare a new statewide drought emergency between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Statewide California reservoir storage was above its historical average for the date at the start of Water Year 2026.

At least part of California was classified as abnormally dry or worse by the U.S. Drought Monitor in late November 2025.

California’s State Water Project did not have a 100 percent initial 2026 allocation announced by December 1, 2025.

The end of Water Year 2025 did not eliminate chronic groundwater overdraft as an urgent issue in the San Joaquin Valley.

At least one California groundwater basin was under State Water Resources Control Board probation under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act on December 1, 2025.

The seven Colorado River Basin states failed to submit a single consensus proposal for post-2026 river operations by the Bureau of Reclamation’s November 2025 deadline.

The federal government had not issued final post-2026 Colorado River operating guidelines by December 1, 2025.

California’s 4.4 million acre-foot annual Colorado River apportionment had not been permanently reduced by a post-August 2025 interstate agreement by December 1, 2025.

The Delta Conveyance Project had not received all permits required for construction by December 1, 2025.

The Delta Conveyance Project was not delivering water to State Water Project contractors by December 1, 2025.

A fully implemented new Sacramento–San Joaquin Bay-Delta flow regime was not in effect by December 1, 2025.

No major new California surface reservoir began delivering water to customers between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

The State Water Resources Control Board’s SAFER program still listed failing public water systems in California on December 1, 2025.

The federal PFAS drinking-water maximum contaminant levels were not rescinded between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

Salton Sea restoration and dust-suppression work had not eliminated exposed-lakebed air-quality risks by December 1, 2025.


What are some of the most innovative approaches being taken to elder care?

As of December 1, 2025, the U.S. Medicare Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver had been temporarily extended only through January 30, 2026, rather than made permanent.

As of December 1, 2025, the temporary Medicare telehealth flexibilities used for remote care of many older adults had been extended only through January 30, 2026, rather than permanently codified.

Australia’s new Aged Care Act 2024 commenced on November 1, 2025, creating a rights-based regulatory framework for aged care.

Australia’s Support at Home program began on November 1, 2025, replacing Home Care Packages and Short-Term Restorative Care for relevant participants.

Australia’s Commonwealth Home Support Programme was not fully folded into Support at Home on November 1, 2025; its transition was scheduled for a later date.

By December 1, 2025, Australia’s late-2025 aged-care reforms had made ageing-in-place and home-based support a more central policy priority than institutional residential care expansion.

In September 2025, Apple introduced FDA-cleared hypertension notifications for Apple Watch, expanding passive cardiovascular monitoring relevant to older adults.

Apple’s 2025 hypertension-notification feature for Apple Watch was not a cuffless blood-pressure measurement tool and was not intended to diagnose hypertension by itself.

As of December 1, 2025, Apple had not commercially launched a non-invasive glucose-monitoring Apple Watch feature for older adults or diabetes care.

As of December 1, 2025, commercially available humanoid home robots such as 1X’s NEO were still preorder or early-access products and had not become routine deployed elder-care infrastructure.

As of December 1, 2025, Tesla Optimus had not become a clinically validated or routinely deployed elder-care robot in nursing homes or private homes.

Between September 1 and December 1, 2025, no major high-income country replaced human elder-care workers at scale with fully autonomous robots.

As of December 1, 2025, generative-AI voice agents and companion technologies were being piloted or marketed for care navigation, loneliness reduction, medication reminders, and follow-up, but they had not eliminated the need for human clinical supervision in elder care.

As of December 1, 2025, the most credible innovative elder-care approaches still emphasized hybrid models combining home-based care, remote monitoring, assistive technology, caregiver support, and human care teams rather than a single fully automated solution.


What are some up and coming aerospace companies I should look into?

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket completed its second orbital launch in November 2025.

Blue Origin's November 2025 New Glenn launch carried NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission.

Blue Origin successfully recovered a New Glenn first-stage booster for the first time during the November 2025 ESCAPADE launch.

Rocket Lab had not launched its Neutron rocket by December 1, 2025.

Rocket Lab had shifted the public target for Neutron's first launch into 2026 by December 1, 2025.

BETA Technologies completed an initial public offering after August 31, 2025.

BETA Technologies' shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BETA after August 31, 2025.

BETA Technologies had received FAA type certification for its ALIA aircraft by December 1, 2025.

Joby Aviation had received FAA type certification for its passenger eVTOL aircraft by December 1, 2025.

Archer Aviation had received FAA type certification for its Midnight passenger eVTOL aircraft by December 1, 2025.

Sierra Space's Dream Chaser Tenacity had flown to orbit by December 1, 2025.

NASA and Sierra Space changed the first Dream Chaser Tenacity flight plan after August 31, 2025 so that the first flight would not be an ISS cargo delivery.

Impulse Space announced a $300 million Series C financing round after August 31, 2025.

Apex Space announced a financing round after August 31, 2025 that valued the company at more than $1 billion.

Muon Space announced a major Series B financing round after August 31, 2025.

Anduril's YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft prototype had made its first flight by December 1, 2025.

Stoke Space had not attempted an orbital launch of its Nova rocket by December 1, 2025.

Relativity Space had not attempted an orbital launch of Terran R by December 1, 2025.

Isar Aerospace had not completed a successful orbital launch of Spectrum by December 1, 2025.

Gilmour Space had not completed a successful orbital launch of Eris by December 1, 2025.

Vast's Haven-1 commercial space station module had launched by December 1, 2025.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 2 had launched by December 1, 2025.


What are the best tools for modeling protein folding?

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, DeepMind released a new major public version of AlphaFold after AlphaFold 3.

As of December 1, 2025, AlphaFold 3 remains available for practical public use primarily through the AlphaFold Server and DeepMind’s released research code/weights rather than as a fully permissive open-source commercial package.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, DeepMind materially expanded the AlphaFold Server’s supported modeling scope for proteins, nucleic acids, ligands, ions, or post-translational modifications.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a new peer-reviewed benchmark or community assessment changed the consensus ranking of AlphaFold 3 versus leading alternatives for general biomolecular complex structure prediction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a new CASP or CASP-style result was released that materially affected which protein-folding tools are considered state of the art.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the maintainers of ColabFold released a major update that substantially changed its best-use recommendation for fast AlphaFold-style protein-structure prediction.

As of December 1, 2025, ColabFold remains one of the main practical tools for high-throughput or notebook-based AlphaFold2-style protein structure prediction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, OpenFold released a major new model or version that materially improved its competitiveness with AlphaFold-family tools.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Boltz released a new major version after Boltz-2 that materially changed recommendations for open biomolecular structure or binding-affinity modeling.

As of December 1, 2025, Boltz-2 is still regarded as a leading open model for joint biomolecular structure prediction and binding-affinity estimation.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Chai Discovery released a new major public version after Chai-2 that materially changed recommendations for protein-folding or biomolecular-complex modeling.

As of December 1, 2025, Chai-1 or Chai-2 remains a prominent alternative to AlphaFold 3 for biomolecular complex prediction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, RoseTTAFold All-Atom or its successors received a major update that materially changed their ranking among tools for protein complexes with small molecules or nucleic acids.

As of December 1, 2025, RoseTTAFold All-Atom remains an important non-DeepMind option for modeling biomolecular assemblies beyond single proteins.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Meta released a new ESMFold successor that materially changed the best-tool recommendation for fast single-sequence protein structure prediction.

As of December 1, 2025, ESMFold remains mainly valued for speed and single-sequence inference rather than best-in-class accuracy on difficult protein-folding targets.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a newly released tool became widely accepted as superior to AlphaFold 3 for general protein-ligand complex structure prediction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a newly released tool became widely accepted as superior to AlphaFold 3 for general protein-protein complex structure prediction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a newly released tool became widely accepted as superior to AlphaFold 3 for RNA-protein or nucleic-acid-containing complex prediction.

As of December 1, 2025, molecular dynamics packages such as GROMACS, AMBER, NAMD, and OpenMM are still not considered replacements for AlphaFold-style predictors for de novo static structure prediction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a major update to a molecular dynamics package materially changed recommendations for simulating folding pathways or conformational dynamics after structure prediction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, a major new benchmark highlighted that confidence calibration, disorder, alternate conformations, or induced-fit effects remain important limitations of current protein-folding models.

As of December 1, 2025, selecting the best protein-folding tool still depends strongly on the task, including whether the user needs monomer prediction, multimer prediction, ligand/nucleic-acid complexes, antibody modeling, binding affinity, dynamics, throughput, or commercial licensing.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, licensing or terms-of-use changes for any leading protein-folding tool materially affected whether it should be recommended for commercial users.


What are the biggest narratives currently shaping the private credit industry?

First Brands Group's late-September 2025 bankruptcy became a central private-credit narrative about opaque borrower leverage.

First Brands Group's collapse focused market attention on receivables financing and other asset-based lending structures used outside traditional syndicated loan disclosure channels.

Tricolor Holdings' September 2025 collapse became a prominent private-credit narrative about fraud risk in specialty finance and subprime auto lending.

The Tricolor Holdings and First Brands Group failures materially increased investor concern about valuation transparency in private credit after August 31, 2025.

Jamie Dimon's October 2025 warning that seeing one credit 'cockroach' may imply more became a widely cited shorthand for late-2025 private-credit anxiety.

By December 1, 2025, the Tricolor Holdings and First Brands Group episodes had not caused a broad freeze in private-credit fundraising or lending activity.

Late-2025 commentary generally treated the Tricolor Holdings and First Brands Group cases as idiosyncratic stress events rather than proof of an already systemic private-credit crisis.

After August 31, 2025, revived syndicated loan and high-yield markets intensified competition for private-credit lenders.

After August 31, 2025, borrowers' ability to refinance private loans in cheaper public or broadly syndicated markets became a major pressure on direct-lending spreads.

Federal Reserve rate cuts in September and October 2025 strengthened the narrative that private credit's floating-rate income tailwind was fading.

Lower policy-rate expectations in late 2025 supported the narrative that borrower debt-service stress in private credit could ease.

Spread compression in late 2025 became a major concern for private-credit investors evaluating forward returns.

Late-2025 private-credit commentary increasingly emphasized covenant quality and documentation discipline as competitive pressure rose.

Regulators and financial-stability bodies increased public scrutiny of private credit's opacity and nonbank interconnections after August 31, 2025.

The IMF's October 2025 financial-stability commentary highlighted private-credit growth and opacity as a source of potential financial-system vulnerability.

Bank exposures to private-credit-adjacent lending became a bigger late-2025 narrative after fraud-related credit losses and regional-bank stock volatility.

Asset-based finance remained one of the industry's strongest growth narratives in late 2025 despite the reputational damage from First Brands and Tricolor.

Insurance-company demand for private credit remained a major industry growth narrative in late 2025.

Retail and wealth-channel access to private credit remained a major distribution narrative in late 2025.

Liquidity mismatch in semi-liquid private-credit vehicles remained a major investor-protection concern in late 2025.

Large alternative-asset managers' third-quarter 2025 results generally reinforced the narrative that private credit was still attracting capital despite higher scrutiny.

Late-2025 private-credit narratives placed greater emphasis on manager dispersion and underwriting quality than on simple asset-class growth.


What are the main priorities for the US Forest Service?

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, USDA did not issue a new agency-wide Forest Service strategic plan that replaced the Forest Service’s existing strategic priority framework.

As of December 1, 2025, the Forest Service had not withdrawn or rescinded its Wildfire Crisis Strategy.

As of December 1, 2025, reducing catastrophic wildfire risk remained a central stated priority for the Forest Service.

As of December 1, 2025, increasing active forest management and timber production remained a stated USDA priority for the Forest Service.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, USDA did not revoke its 2025 emergency direction intended to accelerate Forest Service timber production and forest management projects.

The public comment period for USDA’s proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule closed after August 31, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, USDA had not finalized a rule rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

As of December 1, 2025, it was inaccurate to describe repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as an already implemented Forest Service policy.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Congress did not enact the Fix Our Forests Act into law.

As of December 1, 2025, Congress had not enacted a full-year FY2026 appropriations law covering all Forest Service accounts.

The federal government shutdown that began on October 1, 2025 affected Forest Service operations before ending in November 2025.

During the October-November 2025 federal funding lapse, Forest Service wildfire suppression and other life-and-property protection functions were treated as excepted activities.

During the October-November 2025 federal funding lapse, some non-emergency Forest Service recreation, permitting, administrative, and grant functions were delayed or curtailed.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, the Forest Service did not announce that it would stop offering timber sales on National Forest System lands.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no new law converted the Forest Service from a multiple-use land management agency into a single-purpose wildfire suppression agency.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no new Forest Service chief replaced Tom Schultz.


What are the most important tools to learn for cybersecurity in the AI era?

OpenAI announced Aardvark, a GPT-5-powered autonomous security research agent, after August 31, 2025.

OpenAI described Aardvark as a system that scans source-code repositories for security vulnerabilities.

Aardvark was generally available to all ChatGPT users by December 1, 2025.

Google DeepMind announced CodeMender after August 31, 2025.

Google DeepMind described CodeMender as an AI agent for generating security patches for software vulnerabilities.

CodeMender was released as a generally available commercial SIEM replacement by December 1, 2025.

OpenAI released GPT-5-Codex after August 31, 2025.

OpenAI positioned GPT-5-Codex as a model for agentic software-engineering workflows.

OpenAI launched AgentKit after August 31, 2025.

AgentKit included tooling for evaluating AI-agent behavior.

AgentKit was marketed primarily as an endpoint detection and response product.

Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 4.5 after August 31, 2025.

Anthropic positioned Claude Sonnet 4.5 as a leading model for coding-agent use cases.

Anthropic released Claude Haiku 4.5 after August 31, 2025.

GitHub announced Agent HQ after August 31, 2025.

GitHub Agent HQ was intended to let developers orchestrate multiple coding agents inside GitHub workflows.

Microsoft announced Agent 365 after August 31, 2025.

Microsoft presented Agent 365 as an enterprise control plane for governing AI agents.

The official Model Context Protocol Registry entered public preview after August 31, 2025.

By December 1, 2025, autonomous AI security agents had made traditional cybersecurity tools such as SIEMs, EDR platforms, and vulnerability scanners obsolete.


What are the most practical techniques for satellite warfare?

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no country publicly conducted a destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite test that created long-lived orbital debris.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no publicly confirmed wartime attack physically destroyed an operational satellite in orbit.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, open-source conflict reporting continued to identify GNSS jamming or spoofing as a recurring technique in the Russia-Ukraine theater.

On September 1, 2025, the European Commission said that GPS interference affected Ursula von der Leyen’s aircraft during a visit to Bulgaria.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, public reporting identified jamming of satellite communications links to commercial low-Earth-orbit user terminals as continuing in Ukraine.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no publicly verified cyberattack permanently disabled a satellite bus in orbit.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no publicly confirmed rendezvous-and-proximity operation disabled another satellite.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no government publicly confirmed that one of its satellites had been permanently disabled by a ground-based laser attack.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no public evidence showed that Russia had deployed an operational nuclear weapon in orbit.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no binding international treaty banning direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons entered into force.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, public reporting continued to treat electronic warfare against positioning, navigation, timing, and satellite communications as more frequently used in current conflicts than kinetic satellite destruction.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no publicly confirmed combat use of a space-based weapon caused physical damage to another satellite.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, proliferated low-Earth-orbit commercial communications constellations remained operationally relevant to battlefield communications despite reported attempts at jamming.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, no publicly confirmed anti-satellite operation created a debris cloud comparable to Russia’s 2021 destruction of Cosmos 1408.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, public counterspace discussions continued to distinguish reversible attacks such as jamming and dazzling from irreversible attacks such as kinetic intercepts.


What are the research priorities at the NIH?

NIH released a final NIH-Wide Strategic Plan covering fiscal years 2026 through 2030 between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025.

As of December 1, 2025, the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2021 through 2025 remained the most recent final NIH-wide strategic plan.

Congress enacted a full-year fiscal year 2026 appropriation for NIH before December 1, 2025.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, Congress enacted a statutory reorganization of NIH institutes and centers.

As of December 1, 2025, the Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 NIH restructuring into fewer institutes had not been enacted into law.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, HHS or NIH identified chronic disease prevention as a central biomedical-research priority under the Make America Healthy Again agenda.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, HHS or NIH elevated autism research as a near-term NIH priority.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, HHS or NIH announced new NIH work focused on environmental contributors to childhood chronic disease.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, HHS or NIH announced new NIH work focused on nutrition and metabolic health.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, HHS or NIH announced that vaccine-safety research would be a higher-priority NIH topic.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH removed cancer research from its stated agency-wide research priorities.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH removed Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias from its stated agency-wide research priorities.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH removed women’s health research from its stated agency-wide research priorities.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH announced a new agency-wide priority to expand the use of artificial intelligence in biomedical research.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH announced a new agency-wide priority to strengthen reproducibility and rigor in NIH-funded science.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH announced a new agency-wide priority to accelerate clinical translation of basic biomedical discoveries.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH announced a new agency-wide priority to reduce administrative burden for NIH-funded researchers.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH terminated the RECOVER initiative for Long COVID research.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, NIH announced that pandemic preparedness and infectious-disease research were no longer NIH priorities.

Between September 1, 2025 and December 1, 2025, ARPA-H remained organizationally separate from NIH despite being within HHS.


What are the Trump administration's regulatory priorities?

OMB/OIRA released the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda after August 31, 2025.

The Spring 2025 Unified Agenda described implementation of President Trump's deregulatory agenda as a government-wide priority.

The Spring 2025 Unified Agenda treated Executive Order 14192's ten-for-one deregulation framework as an operative constraint on agency rulemaking.

OMB/OIRA released the Fall 2025 Unified Agenda before December 1, 2025.

The Trump administration issued a post-August 31, 2025 executive order that superseded Executive Order 14192's ten-for-one deregulation policy.

As of December 1, 2025, EPA had not finalized its proposed rescission of the greenhouse-gas endangerment finding.

As of December 1, 2025, EPA had not finalized repeal of the Biden-era greenhouse-gas standards for fossil-fuel power plants.

As of December 1, 2025, EPA had not finalized a replacement for the Biden-era light-duty vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions standards.

The Spring 2025 Unified Agenda identified energy permitting reform as an administration regulatory priority.

The Spring 2025 Unified Agenda included DOE actions to reconsider or roll back appliance energy-efficiency standards.

After August 31, 2025, the FTC dropped its appeals defending the Biden-era nationwide noncompete-clause rule.

The SEC's post-August 2025 regulatory agenda included crypto-asset rulemaking as a near-term priority.

The SEC's post-August 2025 regulatory agenda included implementation of the 2024 climate-disclosure rule as a near-term priority.

After August 31, 2025, federal banking regulators advanced a rollback or replacement of the 2023 Community Reinvestment Act modernization rule.

After August 31, 2025, HHS and FDA made enforcement against misleading direct-to-consumer prescription-drug advertising a stated regulatory priority.

DOL's post-August 2025 regulatory agenda included a rulemaking on employee-versus-independent-contractor classification.

As of December 1, 2025, DHS had not finalized its proposed fixed-admission-period rule for F, J, and I nonimmigrants.

DOT's post-August 2025 regulatory agenda included reconsideration of federal fuel-economy standards.

The administration's post-August 2025 regulatory materials prioritized new climate-disclosure mandates for publicly traded companies.

The administration's post-August 2025 regulatory materials prioritized deregulation of oil, gas, and electricity markets.


What is the current climate change narrative amongst conservative Americans?

President Trump described climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” in his September 2025 United Nations General Assembly address.

President Trump characterized wind and solar energy as economically destructive in his September 2025 United Nations General Assembly address.

Trump-aligned conservative climate rhetoric in fall 2025 continued to use the phrase “climate hoax.”

Bill Gates’s October 2025 climate memo argued that climate change would not cause humanity’s demise.

President Trump responded to Bill Gates’s October 2025 climate memo by claiming victory in the “War on the Climate Change Hoax.”

Bill Gates’s October 2025 climate memo caused Trump-aligned conservatives to abandon climate-hoax rhetoric by December 1, 2025.

The Trump administration sent no senior federal delegation to the COP30 climate summit in Belém in November 2025.

The COP30 final outcome adopted a binding global timetable for phasing out fossil fuels.

The United States’ 2025 withdrawal from the Paris Agreement had legally taken effect by December 1, 2025.

The EPA’s proposed repeal of the 2009 greenhouse-gas endangerment finding remained unfinalized on December 1, 2025.

The Trump EPA proposed rolling back most Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program requirements after August 31, 2025.

Federal tax credits for new and used electric vehicles expired at the end of September 2025.

Leading Republican messaging after the September 2025 EV-credit expiration framed EV subsidies as a failed green-policy intervention.

National Republican climate messaging in fall 2025 emphasized energy affordability more than emissions-reduction targets.

Post-August 2025 polling continued to show conservative Republicans as far less likely than Democrats to prioritize federal climate action.

No major fall-2025 Republican pivot occurred toward endorsing a federal carbon tax.

A National Academies review released in fall 2025 criticized the Trump Department of Energy climate report that conservatives had cited in support of climate-skeptical claims.

Hurricane Melissa made climate-change attribution a central affirmative theme in national Republican climate messaging in fall 2025.

Conservative energy arguments in fall 2025 linked AI data-center electricity demand to calls for more fossil-fuel and nuclear generation.

A visible “EcoRight” minority continued in fall 2025 to argue for conservative clean-energy innovation without endorsing progressive climate mandates.


What is the US doing to combat drug traffickers?

After August 31, 2025, the United States began publicly acknowledged lethal military strikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in international waters.

The first publicly announced U.S. lethal strike in the fall 2025 maritime campaign occurred on September 2, 2025.

The Trump administration said the September 2, 2025 strike targeted a vessel linked to Tren de Aragua.

By December 1, 2025, the U.S. lethal maritime campaign had expanded from the Caribbean to the eastern Pacific.

By December 1, 2025, known U.S. strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels had killed more than 80 people.

By December 1, 2025, the United States had conducted more than 20 known lethal strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels.

U.S. officials described the fall 2025 boat-strike targets as narco-terrorists rather than ordinary criminal suspects.

The Trump administration asserted that the fall 2025 maritime strikes were part of an armed-conflict framework against drug-trafficking groups.

The United States deployed major naval and air assets to the Caribbean region in fall 2025 as part of the counter-drug campaign.

The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group was ordered into the Caribbean region in fall 2025 as part of the U.S. military buildup tied to counter-narcotics operations.

The Pentagon announced Operation Southern Spear in November 2025 as a military operation aimed at drug-trafficking threats in the Western Hemisphere.

At least one fall 2025 U.S. strike on a suspected drug vessel left survivors.

The United States repatriated surviving crew members from at least one October 2025 strike rather than prosecuting them in U.S. court.

As of December 1, 2025, the U.S. government had not publicly released detailed evidence for most of the individuals killed in the maritime strikes.

As of December 1, 2025, Congress had not enacted a new authorization for use of military force specifically approving the fall 2025 boat-strike campaign.

In October 2025, President Trump publicly confirmed that he had authorized CIA operations in Venezuela.

In November 2025, the United States designated Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization.

In September 2025, President Trump determined that Colombia had failed demonstrably to meet its international counternarcotics obligations.

As of December 1, 2025, the United States had publicly acknowledged lethal land strikes against drug-trafficking targets inside Venezuela.

As of December 1, 2025, all publicly known U.S. lethal strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels had occurred only in the Caribbean Sea.