It’s hardly breaking news that under Mr. Biden’s watch, illegal immigration is reaching historic levels. But now the long-term, systemic ramifications are coming into focus.

The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan breaks down the latest numbers, which are startling in and of themselves: There are now 13.7 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., and 51.4 million immigrants overall — an increase of 6.4 million in the three years since Mr. Biden took office. That averages 172,000 new immigrants each month.

Mr. Dinan reports that as more and more immigrants with low education levels make their way into the country, U.S. citizens with lower education levels, who now have to compete with more immigrants, will almost certainly end up worse off in the long run.

Some states, such as Texas, are getting more aggressive in their efforts to stem the tide. But federal courts sometimes stand in the way. Earlier this week, a federal appeals court renewed an injunction blocking Texas’s tough new immigration law. The judge specifically rejected Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s claim that the surge of illegal immigrants is an “invasion” that triggers a section of the Constitution granting states broad powers to wage war independent of the federal government.

Democrats in Congress also deny the idea that the unprecedented wave of illegal immigration constitutes an “invasion.”

High-tech products could soon come with the same kinds of nutrition labels found on food products and drinks. The Times’ Ryan Lovelace is on top of several major artificial intelligence developments out of the White House, including that the federal government is weighing how best to inform consumers about the AI used to develop a given tech product.

“Financial institutions stated that they would benefit from a standardized description, similar to a nutrition label” for AI products, the Treasury Department said in a report released Wednesday.

Mr. Lovelace also tracked new rules for federal agencies on how they can use AI. Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters that the new guidelines mean government agencies will need to verify that their usage of AI does not endanger Americans’ rights and safety. A few examples: If the Veterans Affairs Department wants to use AI to treat patients, it would first have to demonstrate that the technology does not produce racially biased diagnoses. And at America’s airports, travelers will be able to opt out of the Transportation Security Administration’s facial recognition technology without losing their place in line.

AI is, or soon will be, employed at virtually all levels of the federal government. But nowhere are the stakes higher than inside the Defense Department. The epicenter of the Pentagon’s AI portfolio is its ambitious “Replicator” initiative aimed at integrating artificial intelligence into major weapons systems.

The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit is planning a major Replicator summit for early this year, but no exact dates have been announced. That’s led to skepticism in some quarters about whether the Pentagon can deliver on some of its lofty AI promises.

And the pressure is weighing most heavily on Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who in many ways has embraced a role as the public face of the Pentagon’s embrace of AI.

But can she follow through? Roger Zakheim, director of the Ronald Reagan Institute, told Mr. Wolfgang and Mr. Taylor on the latest episode of Threat Status Podcast that Ms. Hicks has “staked her career” on the Replicator program. It’s also not clear that the department can follow through on its planned high-level Replicator conference early this year.

“There’s been a lot of skepticism whether or not she can deliver it,” Mr. Zakheim said.

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued a direct rebuttal to Beijing early Thursday morning and vowed that his government would enforce a “countermeasure package” in response to “aggressive and dangerous attacks” by the Chinese coast guard in recent weeks.

“We seek no conflict with any nation, more so nations that purport and claim to be our friends, but we will not be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience,” he wrote in a lengthy post on X. 

The strong comments come on the heels of last Saturday’s confrontation between Filipino and Chinese personnel in disputed waters of the South China Sea. The Times’ Bill Gertz has all the details, including the use of water cannons by two Chinese coast guard ships against a Philippine navy boat that resulted in injuries to several sailors.

Last Saturday’s incident, Mr. Gertz says, was the most serious incident in recent weeks involving Chinese military attempts to force Manila to back off sovereignty claims to an outpost known as Second Thomas Shoal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as “utter nonsense” the notion that he wants to invade the Baltic states, Poland or any other European nation beyond Ukraine. Taking Mr. Putin at his word, of course, is a risky proposition. Even some of his closest allies have recently contradicted the longtime Russian leader.

Military Correspondent Mike Glenn reports on the conflicting claims made by Mr. Putin and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who seemed to shoot down the Kremlin’s assertion that the ISIS terrorists involved in last week’s concert hall attack in Moscow originally intended to flee to Ukraine. Mr. Lukashenko said the attackers first tried to flee into Belarus but failed because of stepped-up security along his country’s border.

The alleged assailants in that Moscow attack appeared to have been subjected to torture at the hands of Russian law enforcement. That would hardly be a surprise. The United Nations said in a sweeping new report this week that they interviewed Ukrainian prisoners of war who said that “Russian service persons or officials tortured them during their captivity, using repeated beatings, electric shocks, threats of execution, prolonged stress positions and mock execution.”

Elsewhere in Europe, a strange scene played out in Greece Wednesday night. Local police clashed with Communist-backed demonstrators who tried to prevent a concert by U.S. military cadets. The violent protest occurred in the central Greek city of Larissa ahead of a concert by members of the West Point Glee Club, a musical group of the U.S. Military Academy, which is currently on tour in Greece.