Author: Press Room

The Royal Navy is reportedly mulling a drone flotilla to gather intel on Moscow’s alleged “shadow fleet” Britain is planning to launch a seaborne drone fleet to seize oil tankers it claims are linked to what it calls a Russian “shadow fleet,” the Sunday Times has reported.London banned the import of Russian crude and oil products in 2022, along with related maritime transportation, insurance, and financing, imposing sanctions on over 500 vessels.Despite those measures, Moscow has shipped 550 million tonnes of oil legally through the English Channel with an estimated value of $326 billion, according to the outlet, which said…

A Silver Lining in a Soot-Soaked Retail Sales Report Analysts had visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads for December retail sales. Instead, they got a lump of coal. The Census Bureau said Tuesday that retail sales were flat in December, well short of the consensus forecast for a 0.4 percent gain. That was a pretty serious retreat after the solid 0.6 percent increase in November. There are two competing narratives explaining this. Optimists say that holiday demand just showed up earlier than expected, and so consumers did not have as much leftover on their shopping lists in December.…

Former foreign service officer Simon Hankinson, who served at consulates in Ghana and Nairobi, among others, says Somali nationals routinely lied in their immigration applications to secure visas in the United States. “In my consular assignments, I was lied to many times a day about every aspect of applications, including their age, name, identity, marital status, occupation, purpose of travel, wealth, income, relatives in the U.S., and intent to return home,” Hankinson, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It’s an unfortunate fact: People lie to get visas and immigration benefits,” Hankinson said. Hankinson, who…

Senate Republicans are facing a full-circle moment on the filibuster. Four years ago, the GOP stood united against a failed attempt by Democrats to sidestep the chamber’s 60-vote supermajority requirement and pass a voting-rights bill demanded by their party base. Now — with their own trifecta and their own elections bill at issue — Republicans are under pressure to do much the same. The shoe-on-the-other-foot moment is being fueled by a cadre of hard-right senators arguing forcefully for tactics once embraced by Senate progressives. Many Democrats, meanwhile, are keeping silent and watching as the GOP undergoes similar internal turmoil to…

Geopolitical tensions and volatility in American bond markets have reportedly been raising risk concerns China has urged its banks to curb their exposure to US government debt, citing market volatility and growing financial and geopolitical risks, Bloomberg has reported citing people familiar with the matter.Over the past decade, China has steadily trimmed its US Treasury holdings, a shift that has seen it overtaken by Japan and the UK as the largest foreign holders of American debt. Since peaking at around $1.3 trillion in 2013, its holdings have fallen roughly by half to about $650–700 billion, reaching levels not seen since…

Around two-thirds of Germans think their levels of welfare spending, one of the most generous systems in the world, is “no longer financially sustainable”, while the West tousles with the impact of mass migration and the guns versus butter debate for the first time in a generation. A strong majority of 64 per cent of Germans believe the “welfare state in its current form is no longer financially sustainable”, with 34 per cent dissenting. A surprisingly low two per cent said they have no opinion, suggesting the ongoing debate about how generous Germany’s handouts scheme can be and how it…

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared feedback from Americans on President Donald Trump’s “Working Families Tax Cuts,” including people who said they’ve saved thousands of dollars. The tax cuts, included in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” are set to result in a “tremendous” benefit for filers this tax season, Trump told Breitbart News’s Nick Gilbertson in January.  The House Ways and Means Committee predicted in November that filers could see “an extra $1,000 bump to their tax refund.” During her Tuesday press briefing, Leavitt praised the tax cuts and shared personal stories gathered by the Association of Mature American…

As war clouds gather over Iran, will Hezbollah and the Houthis step in to defend Tehran? Another round of talks between the US and Iran is expected to be held in the upcoming days. With regional allies on edge and militant groups warning of escalation, the outcome of the negotiations could determine whether diplomacy holds or whether the Middle East slides toward a broader war.What’s at stake in the new round of US-Iran talks?Iran and representatives of the Trump administration are expected to hold another round of talks in the coming days, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday. The…

The Trump administration has made no secret of its desire to push the monetary easing pedal to the metal, even as the engine is already near the red line. They intend to push the system as hard as possible today and worry about the consequences later. One reason may be to inflate the stock market ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. There are several indicators that the Trump administration intends to run it hot in 2026. The first — and most important — is that Trump will likely succeed in consolidating control over the Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell’s term as…

The Venezuelan terrorist organization Tren de Aragua (TdA) is expanding dramatically in Mexico City and has become one of the leading criminal organizations in the Mexican capital city. TDA is one of several criminal organizations designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. government. The expansion in Mexico appears to be closely tied to the push by the U.S. government to track down its members and remove them from U.S. soil. A special report by Mexico’s Proceso Magazine shows that in a span of two years, TdA has gone from having a minimal presence in police intelligence reports to becoming…