Ilia Murtazashvili

America’s Rust Belt is often defined by deindustrialization, particularly the collapse of steel, but manufacturing remains alive and is shifting toward the bioeconomy. In Hazelwood—a once steel-centered Pittsburgh neighborhood—the BioForge Manufacturing Center, backed by the University of Pittsburgh and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, embodies this transition. In the near term, encouraging small-scale entrepreneurship, including Black-owned businesses, and construction jobs through innovative worker-training programs can drive inclusive growth. Over the long term, BioForge and the broader tech focus of Hazelwood Green Industrial Park offer both opportunities and challenges to ensure that residents benefit from emerging tech jobs.

Limitations in the prevailing measures hamper the accurate evaluation of the domestic artificial intelligence (AI) workforce. Accelerating the timeline for revising the Standard Occupational Classification system to create a technical AI occupational category could increase the prospects that AI policies will improve AI competitiveness, especially through more granular measures of the way AI is changing the nature of jobs. While AI is unquestionably a future foundation for national security and economic competitiveness in the United States during the digital era, American interests will be best served by a deliberate, measured, and data-driven workforce policy that builds on national strengths.

This policy brief examines the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence governance in the United States and focuses on the tension between federal soft law approaches and emerging state-level regulations. Soft law refers to nonbinding guidelines, voluntary standards, and informal frameworks that aim to guide innovation without imposing rigid legal constraints. Whereas federal policy has favored voluntary standards and industry-led initiatives, several states have proposed or enacted binding regulations that mirror the more prescriptive models of the European Union and China. Through case studies of Virginia, Texas, and Colorado, the brief assesses the risks of regulatory fragmentation and argues that a more coordinated federal framework—grounded in soft law—can preserve innovation while guiding state-level governance. The brief concludes by offering recommendations for a model governance approach that balances flexibility, national coherence, and state autonomy.

Right-wing extremism has emerged as one of the most extreme manifestations of political polarization, particularly in the context of long-term economic and social decline in the Rust Belt. Once the heart of American industrial power, Rust Belt communities have faced decades of deindustrialization, population loss, and institutional erosion-conditions that have produced not only economic despair but also fertile ground for political radicalization. Extremism is not a fringe phenomenon but rather a concept that is structurally linked to the broader processes of polarization and disaffection. These dynamics are especially acute in postindustrial communities with high concentrations of disaffected veterans, weakened civic institutions, and limited access to economic opportunity. These trends can be countered by a three-pronged strategy of socioeconomic revitalization, veteran support, and community policing-aimed at restoring resilience and undermining the appeal of extremist mobilization.

Quiet sites needed for radio astronomy are chosen for their remote locations and minimal radio interference and thus have been situated on lands traditionally inhabited by Indigenous communities. The needs of Native Nations are often overlooked, and consideration is necessary to assess whether radio astronomy sites in the United States are subject to trust or treaty agreements established between governments and Indigenous nations. Government or government-adjacent administrative entities such as the National Radio Astronomy Observatory may need to fulfill obligations to protect tribal sovereignty and uphold Indigenous rights.

The radio astronomy community can and should do more to acknowledge the rights of Native Nations because many of the telescopes are on Indigenous homelands, and Native Nations are important rightsholders that have generally been excluded from decision-making regarding radio astronomy. Furthermore, government entities in the radio astronomy field may have trust and treaty obligations to Native Nations that have long been ignored. These issues must be addressed as plans are made to expand radio astronomy’s frontier in the United States.

This brief analyzes US federal approaches to artificial intelligence governance under the previous Trump and Biden administrations, along with developments in the early months of Trump’s second term. Despite differing priorities, both administrations relied primarily on soft law—nonbinding executive orders, voluntary industry standards, and advisory frameworks—over formal regulation. The result has been a market-driven, decentralized governance model that emphasizes innovation and competitiveness but offers limited enforcement and oversight. In contrast to regulatory-heavy models in the European Union and China, the US approach remains rooted in public-private coordination, industry leadership, and flexible federal action