Discourse,
‍with Direction.

On October 27, U.S. forces destroyed a small vessel in the Eastern Pacific and killed all five people aboard, whom U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) labeled “narco-terroists.” The command attributed the strike to "confirmed intelligence” but released no evidence that the boat was carrying drugs. The strike raises the reported toll of a campaign launched in September 2025 to roughly 243 dead.

Artificial intelligence systems are often asked to answer questions from retrieved webpages, uploaded documents, research papers, and institutional records. In these instances, access to a relevant source is only part of the reliability problem. Particularly, the model must also determine what the source actually supports. That is, a claim may be directly supported, directly contradicted, or simply left unresolved by the available evidence. The third case is far easier to miss than the former two because an unsupported conclusion can be coherent, plausible, and even closely related to the source. This study tests whether two frontier language models can reliably distinguish among those three claim categories.

Rising transportation costs have increased barriers to economic opportunity for low-income households and young people seeking access to education, employment, and essential services. This brief examines how transportation affordability is an issue of economic resilience and evaluates policies that prioritize commuter assistance while still investing in accessible and reliable public transportation. These cost-reducing policies for mobility can expand access to opportunity, increase labor force participation, and support long-term economic stability.