A top Russian state-run news website used X’s artificial intelligence tools to generate an image of a new fighter jet — but neglected to scrub the tech platform’s watermark off the manipulated portrayal.

RT, formerly Russia Today, shared the image on X, alongside a caption that read, “Russia advances sixth-generation fighter development.” Readers on X, owned by Elon Musk, attached their own note to the post by X, saying the image was manipulated.

Russian media may have wanted to show off the country’s air prowess online to keep up with its great-power competitors. Last month, two new stealth jets were spotted on Chinese social media. Some defense analysts believe the images represented Beijing’s first sixth-generation stealth fighters. Chinese state-run media refrained from carrying news articles acknowledging the new jets.

The U.S. military services are working on their own sixth-generation fighters, the Next Generation Air Dominance. However, the Air Force last year halted the development of the fighter that would succeed the current F-22 Raptor over cost concerns, with more than $5 billion spent in recent years.

A Chinese-owned ship is being accused of damaging an undersea internet cable connecting Taiwan to outlying islands, following accusations of a similar cable-cutting incident by China in Europe’s Baltic Sea just weeks ago.

The ship was identified as the Cameroonian-flagged freighter Shunxing39. Taiwanese officials said it is owned by Jie Yang Trading Ltd., a Hong Kong-registered company headed by Chinese national Guo Wenjie. Online shipping data showed the ship making several circuitous transits off the coast of northern Taiwan. Taiwan suspects the ship was dragging its anchor during the passages in a bid to cut the underwater cables.

European authorities suspect a Chinese freighter severed two underwater cables in the Baltic Sea in November that disrupted regional communications and prompted claims of pro-Russian sabotage. China politically backs Russia in Ukraine, and the European cable damage was said to be part of what military officials call “gray zone” warfare efforts by Beijing in support of its ally.

Congressional Republicans are speeding their first immigration crackdown bill through Congress with an initial vote scheduled later this week on the Laken Riley Act, which would pressure the Department of Homeland Security to detain and deport illegal immigrants who shoplift or steal.

House GOP leaders have already slated it for a floor vote on Tuesday, and given the backing of new Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the bill will likely also see fast action in the upper chamber.

Riley, a nursing student in Georgia, was slain last year by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela who was caught and released by the Biden administration and was protected by sanctuary-city policies that allowed him to amass a lengthy rap sheet while free in the U.S. The killing helped elevate illegal immigration into a political crisis for the Biden administration and a powerful campaign message for Republicans.

Following the Chinese president’s New Year’s speech calling for “an epic change the world hasn’t seen in a century,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi launched the Institute for the Study of the Community of Common Destiny for Mankind, writes Miles Yu.

“This institute is a propaganda machine designed to justify China’s ambitions while undermining liberal democracies,” according to Mr. Yu, an opinion contributor to Threat Status, who writes that “despite these overt signals, many in the West continue to misread Beijing’s intentions.”

“Too many Western policymakers mistakenly view China as a nationalist regime focused on domestic revival. This misperception leads to accommodation, assuming China’s ambitions are limited to East Asia,” writes Mr. Yu. “In reality, the ‘community of common destiny’ is a blueprint for a global order dictated by Beijing — where authoritarian values trump freedom, economic dependence enforces compliance and sovereignty is conditional on China’s approval. This is not a nationalist agenda but a calculated drive for global hegemony.”

The next few months will be the last chance to prevent a nuclear Iran. Right now, an Iranian breakout is still detectable and stoppable, according to Blaise Misztal and Jonathan Ruhe of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

“[Iran’s] air defenses are degraded, and its means of aggression are depleted, creating a unique but fleeting opportunity that the United States must exploit before time runs out. By year’s end, one or more of these windows will likely have slammed shut,” they write. “The fundamental question that has prompted the Biden administration to discuss potential military action is the same that must drive the incoming Trump administration: How long does America still have to stop an Iranian bomb? There is still time, but not much.”

• Jan. 7 — Report Launch and Panel: NATO and U.S.-Turkey Defense Cooperation in a New Era, Atlantic Council

• Jan. 8 — The U.S.-Japan Alliance for the Future, Stimson Center

• Jan. 8 — Russia’s Difficult Road to Freedom: A Conversation with Vladimir Kara-Murza, American Enterprise Institute

• Jan. 9 — Georgia on Your Mind: An Event with President Salome Zourabichvili, Hudson Institute

• Jan. 9 — What Do People in Taiwan and the United States Think about Taiwan’s Security Situation? Brookings Institution