This article explores the potential risks of chatGPT, a language generation model developed by OpenAI, for counterterrorism and international security. With its ability to generate human-like text, chatGPT has rapidly gained popularity and become one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history, with over 100 million active users. However, practical and ethical concerns regarding its strengths and weaknesses remain under debate. Terrorists' increasing use of modern communication technologies has made the intelligence problem more complex, as access to critical data becomes increasingly challenging for intelligence agencies. Terrorists have also adopted new technologies and implemented operational security measures to evade sophisticated intelligence collection operations. Furthermore, artificial intelligence has enabled individuals and groups to exploit newer technologies, heightening the threat of cyberattacks and espionage. This article analyzes the potential risks of chatGPT in four key areas: the implications of artificial intelligence for future threats and international security, the impact of chatGPT on cyberterrorism and artificial intelligence, the dangers of fragmented and secondary information for violence and sabotage operations, and conducting psychological warfare against targets. Additionally, this article provides recommendations, including taking proactive measure such as developing strategies to counter the misuse of AI and ChatGPT to assist policymakers and researchers in utilizing artificial intelligence technology effectively while mitigating potential risks.

Veterans make up approximately 8% of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in jails and prisons in the United States—a share similar to that of veterans in the general U.S. adult population (7%). This represents a decline in the proportion of incarcerated veterans compared with prior generations of veterans. In the 1970s and 1980s, veterans were overrepresented in jails and prisons. For example, in 1978, only 19% of U.S. adults were veterans, but veterans accounted for a quarter of the incarcerated population. Not all justice-involved veterans are incarcerated in jails and prisons. Howeverthere are no reliable statistics on the total number of justice-involved veterans, which would include those on community supervision. Across the population of justice-involved veterans, the clearest picture of the differences between incarcerated veterans and their nonveteran counterparts exists, in part, because the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics conducts periodic surveys and publishes reports specific to incarcerated veterans. These survey data are among the best sources of information about justice-involved veterans. The bureau's most recent survey, conducted in 2016, showed that 98% of veterans in state and federal prisons were men and that they were older and more likely to be White and serving longer sentences than incarcerated nonveterans. One intervention examined in this report is the use of veteran treatment courts where the emphasis is on providing treatment to justice-involved veterans with substance use or mental health needs rather than incarcerating them.

According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, about one-quarter (24.8%) of the U.S. population over the age of 3 was enrolled in school in 2021. This report outlines modern enrollment trends while also offering comparisons to past levels of enrollment. More specifically, this report covers the time of the COVID-19 pandemic that was characterized by school closures, expanded remote learning, and decisions to delay school enrollment from both schools and families. The report pays specific attention to two levels of schooling that saw notable shifts from 2019 to 2021 -- preschool enrollment and college enrollment -- and examines whether certain demographic groups or geographic areas were more impacted than others. In 2021, school enrollment included 4.1 million preschool students, 4.0 million kindergartners, 32.9 million students in first through eighth grades, 17.3 million high schoolers, 16.6 million undergraduate students, and 4.6 million graduate students. In 2021, approximately 19.8% of graduate students and 11.1% of undergraduate students were foreign-born. Just over one-half (51.8%) of all undergraduate students were White, 13.9% were Black, 7.6% were Asian, and 20.6% were Hispanic. Similarly, 48.1% of all kindergarten through 12th (K–12) grade students were White, 12.8% were Black, 4.9% were Asian, and 25.7% were Hispanic. High school dropout rates—defined as the percentage of people (aged 18 to 24) who are not enrolled in school and do not have a high school degree—declined from 12.5% of all 18- to 24-year-olds in 2005 to 5.8% in 2021. Since 2019, the number of students enrolled in preschool has declined, and the roughly 4.1 million preschool students in 2021 marked the lowest recorded estimate since the survey began data collection in 2005. College enrollment continued to decline, with 21.1 million students enrolled in 2021, compared to 21.7 million in 2019 and 23.7 million in 2011.

Absent a nationwide plan for universal public prekindergarten, states and districts have taken various approaches to increasing access to school-based educational opportunities for their youngest learners. Though some of these programs have focused on making public prekindergarten available to all families, others have targeted families most in need by introducing means-tested programs. Early efforts to expand access to public schooling for preschool-age children, such as the War on Poverty–era federal Head Start program, focused on reaching low-income children. More recently, states and cities have made significant investments in their own public preschool programs, often citing their utility in combatting racial, ethnic, and income-based test score differences that are apparent at school entry. The authors present several key findings. Black and Hispanic prekindergarten students in means-tested programs experience consistently higher rates of racial isolation and lower rates of exposure to white students relative to their K–12 counterparts than those in open programs. In states with open-enrollment prekindergarten, the proportion of Black prekindergarten students enrolled in racially isolated schools is nearly identical to that of Black first-graders (roughly 46%), but in states where prekindergarten is means tested, the proportion of Black preschoolers in racially isolated schools is 6% higher than that of Black first-graders. Hispanic preschool students are 5% more likely than their first-grade counterparts to attend racially isolated schools in states with means-tested prekindergarten and are 3% less likely than first-grade students to do so in states where prekindergarten is open. In comparing states with diverse and robust prekindergarten programs, the data show that Black and Hispanic prekindergarten students in Texas and North Carolina, which have means-tested programs, have less exposure to white students than their counterparts in Georgia and Oklahoma, which have universal enrollment. The authors recommend that state policymakers should continue to work diligently to address the racial and ethnic segregation that exists in school-based preschool programs. Because school resources are correlated with a student’s race and socioeconomic status, the ongoing segregation reduces the likelihood of low-income students and students of color accessing equitable schooling resources such as funding, experienced teachers, school resources, and programmatic support. More universal early childhood programming, with attention to countering the role of housing segregation outside schools and to practices facilitating positive interracial interactions within schools, could represent a major step toward an integrated public education system.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruption in schooling in the U.S., and student test scores showed dramatic declines by the end of the 2020-21 school year. The authors use state test score data to analyze patterns of test score recovery over the 2021-22 school year. On average, the authors find that 20% of test score losses are recovered in English language arts (ELA) by 2022, compared to 37% in math. These recovery rates do not significantly vary across demographic characteristics, baseline achievement rates, in-person schooling rates in the pandemic school year, or category-based measures of recovery funding allocations. The authors observe large state-level variation in recovery rates in ELA – from full recovery to further losses. This evidence suggests state-level factors play an important role in students’ academic recovery, but the research does not isolate particular state factors. Future work should focus on this variation to facilitate a broader recovery effort.

U.S. wildfires have grown more severe in recent years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service and 4 agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Services, and National Park Service) rely on about 18,700 employees to fight fires. In November 2022, GAO found seven commonly cited barriers to the recruitment and retention of federal wildland firefighters: (1) low pay, (2) career advancement challenges, (3) poor work-life balance, (4) mental health challenges, (5) remote or expensive duty stations, (6) limited workforce diversity, and (7) hiring process challenges. This report highlights findings related to the first three barriers. Agency officials and stakeholders reported the pay for federal wildland firefighters is low and that the pay does not reflect the risk or physical demands of the work. Steps to increase pay were positive, but those interviewed believed the pay still did not reflect the demands of the job and was not competitive with non-federal entities. A new occupational series for federal wildland firefighters was developed, aimed at better reflecting the duties related to firefighting and providing a clearer path for firefighters to advance their careers. Implementation of the series is ongoing. Poor work-life balance was also noted, attributed to longer and more intense fire seasons that have increased the number of firefighter deployments per year. Frequent deployments were reported to cause some firefighters to leave the workforce or take a break in service, and that the structure of the retirement system may affect their willingness to return later to firefighting. However, eligibility for the special retirement system would have to be made by Congress.

This report provides data on the amount of carbon that is stored in and flows through U.S. forests. Estimates of forestland area and forest inventory data are used to estimate carbon stocks, or the amount of carbon stored in one of five different types of pools in the forest ecosystem: aboveground biomass (e.g., leaves, trunks, and limbs), belowground biomass (e.g., roots), deadwood, litter (e.g., fallen leaves and stems), and soils. Carbon flux, the net annual change in carbon stock or the flow of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is then measured by comparing changes in forest carbon stocks over time. Negative flux values indicate more carbon was removed from the atmosphere and sequestered than was released in that year (e.g., net carbon sink); positive flux values indicate more carbon was released than was sequestered in that year (e.g., net carbon source). This report includes data for the most recent year available as well as data for every five years back to 1990, as available. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Inventory, U.S. forests stored 59.7 billion metric tons (BMT) of carbon in 2022. The majority of forest carbon was stored in the forest ecosystem pools (95%); the remainder was stored in the product pool (i.e., harvested wood products). The largest pool of carbon was forest soils, which contained approximately 52% of total forest carbon in 2022. The next-largest pool was aboveground biomass, which contained approximately 27% of the total. Each of the other pools stored 7% or less of the total carbon. The report also found that from 1990 to 2021, U.S. forests were a net carbon sink. However, the net amount of carbon sequestered by U.S. forests varies annually. Interannual variation depends largely on the size, duration, and severity of unplanned disturbances, such as wildfires or deforestation, which disrupt forest ecosystems.

The Build-to-Rent (BTR) sector, a subset of the single-family rental (SFR) market, is an emerging source of new supply that can help close the housing supply-demand gap. Given the recent and rapid growth of the BTR market, the authors examined the factors that have drawn institutional investors, homebuilders, commercial multifamily developers, and others to the market. The study also provides estimates of the size of the market and its growth potential, describes operation models, chronicles the common features of BTR homes and communities, and offers policy implications for the BTR sector. These properties offer reduced capital expenditure burdens compared to traditional SFR homes. They are new and require less maintenance, making them attractive to investors and operators. For homebuilders, BTR provides an alternative disposition strategy, diversifies their business, and reduces risk. Individuals and households benefit from BTR as it caters to those who prefer single-family homes without homeownership responsibilities. The BTR market is expected to continue growing, albeit potentially slower, in the coming years. However, BTR is not the silver bullet for increasing housing supply, particularly affordable housing. The reality is that nearly 80% of homes on the market today are not affordable for households earning median incomes or less. BTR provides capital for a desperately needed increase in housing supply. Policies that encourage and allow more homebuilding overall are crucial to combatting the supply-side shortage, and such policies will help the BTR market as well. For example, tax incentives and flexible zoning policies can promote more homebuilding, either for rent or for sale, and these policies should be tweaked to encourage more investment in affordable housing. By allowing greater density in new developments, localities can encourage newly built properties, including BTR properties, to be affordable, as the cost of the units will be lower. Given that land costs have increased more rapidly than the costs of structures themselves over the past decade, BTR operators could produce smaller units, which can be more profitable in many locations, even when they can charge lower rents. Similarly, by allowing incentives such as low-cost financing or tax credits for homes rented to low-income borrowers, SFR investors would be more likely to prioritize affordable rental housing.

With the disruptions to access and use of care caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency department (ED) visit rates decreased from 2019 to 2020 among children and adolescents. The ED visit rate for children under age 1 year in 2020 was nearly one-half of the rate in 2019, and the rate for those aged 1–17 years decreased over the same period. This report uses data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey to compare ED visits for children aged 0–17 from 2019 to 2020, by age group, sex, and race and ethnicity, and to assess changes in wait time at ED visits. Key findings include that the overall emergency department (ED) visit rate among children aged 0–17 decreased from 48 visits per 100 children in 2019 to 31 visits per 100 children in 2020. The ED visit rates for both sexes were lower in 2020 than in 2019. The ED visit rates for Black or African American non-Hispanic, White non-Hispanic, and children of other non-Hispanic races and ethnicities were lower in 2020 than in 2019. The percentage of visits at which children waited less than 30 minutes until being seen in the ED was higher in 2020 than in 2019 (81% compared with 68%), while the percentage of visits at which children waited 60 minutes or more was lower in 2020 than in 2019 (7% compared with 16%).

Family child care networks are community-based programs that support family child care providers. The U.S. Government Accountabilty Office (GAO) was asked to review the characteristics and perceived benefits and disadvantages of family child care networks, among other issues. This report examines (1) characteristics of Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)-supported networks including their funding, service population, and services; (2) selected stakeholders’ views on whether and how providers benefit from networks and on factors providers consider in deciding whether to join a network; and (3) how the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Child Care (OCC) supports and assesses states’ efforts to improve the quality of family child care, including through networks. As of March 2022, 142 networks received federal funds through the CCDF. The GAO conducted a non-generalizable survey of CCDF-supported networks and interviewed state, union, and network officials in four states (Alabama, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Oregon), selected in part based on the percentage of children receiving CCDF-subsidized care in family child care homes. Over 80% of the 116 networks that responded to GAO's survey reported having funding sources in addition to CCDF, such as parents, state and local governments, and the Head Start program. All of the 116 networks serve licensed providers, and more than half also serve child care center providers or license-exempt family, friend, and neighbor providers. The most commonly offered services are coaching and training, and peer-to-peer networking and learning, according to respondents. Fewer respondents reported offering certain administrative services, such as financial recordkeeping or tax preparation. The GAO made two recommendations to OCC: (1) provide written guidance to states to improve their performance measures, and (2) assess and report on states’ progress in improving child care quality.

This model standards guidance document, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National Model Standards for Peer Support Certification, is prepared in response to President Biden's 2022 Unity Agenda. A peer supporter is a person with lived experience, either directly or through a current/former dependent, involving a problematic mental health and/or substance use condition(s), and who supports other people experiencing similar challenges in a wide range of non-clinical activities including advocacy, navigation and linkage to resources, sharing of experience, social support, community and relationship building, group facilitation, skill building, mentoring, goal setting, and more. This document outlines 11 model standards for substance use disorder, mental health, and family/youth peer support certification as well as strategies for states to implement these model standards and create parity across certification requirements. The SAMHSA recommends that state certification entities strengthen collaboration efforts and implement additional processes for expanding reciprocity, and strongly encourages state certification entities to utilize this document to revise, strengthen, and align their peer support certifications with other states. The guidance document also includes potential strategies for supporting and expanding the peer workforce such as creating an interstate compact that can be used to establish reciprocity between states and partnering with universities and community colleges to expand career pathways and educational opportunities for certified peer workers.