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The Department of Defense cautioned Venezuela after saying two of its military aircraft flew near a Navy vessel, the USS Jason Dunham, on Thursday. The military struck a Venezuelan drug boat earlier this week in the Caribbean and positioned vessels near the South American nation. In response to the flyby, made by two armed Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets, the Trump administration accused Venezuela of being run by the cartels. "Today, two Maduro regime military aircraft flew near a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters," a Department of Defense release said. "This highly provacative move was designed to interfere with our...

Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the Central Bank is “struggling” to lower interest rates without sparking new inflation, warning that a sharp cut would drive up prices. Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, he said, “If inflation overwhelms the economy, nothing good will come of it.” The remarks come amid concerns over a slowing economy. Sberbank chief German Gref said this week that Russia has entered “technical stagnation,” arguing the current 18% key rate must drop closer to 12% to stimulate recovery, News.Az reports, citing foreign media. Official data shows annual inflation eased to 8.8% in July,...

A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right. The objective was to plant an electronic device that would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump. The mission had the potential to provide the United States with a stream of valuable intelligence. But it meant putting American commandos on North Korean...

Guest post from our trusted source in South Korea A shocking development in South Korea took place recently: a senior official of the ruling Democratic Party, a former lawyer who now leads the Party’s Education and Training Institute, openly advocated for the elimination of opposition voters during a public book talk. He referred to conservative voters as “No. 2 voters” (a derogatory label for supporters of the People Power Party, South Korea’s main opposition), and stated that if they were “all gathered in one day and buried, democracy would advance.” He also targeted the Yeongnam region (Daegu, Busan, Gyeongbuk, etc.),...

Vladimir Putin has been issued a stark warning about the state of Russia's economy. It comes after one of his close allies and head of the biggest bank in Russia, German Gref, urged him to enforce immediate measures to avoid a recession. Gref, the CEO of Sberbank, warned Putin that the country's wartime economy is stagnating. Military spending in Russia has hit record highs since the invasion of Ukraine, causing inflation and high interest rates. The economy is also suffering from a shortage of workers due to the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of men into the military.

<p>Tallahassee, Florida (AP) — The matriarch of a wealthy South Florida family was convicted Thursday of murder in the killing of her former son-in-law, a prominent law professor who was locked in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife when he was gunned down in 2014.</p>

Only 22,000 jobs were added in August while unemployment reached a near-four-year high, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.The unemployment rate rose from 4.2% to 4.3% last month, CNN reported.The data represents the first jobs report after President Donald Trump fired former BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last month, hours after she published a weak jobs report partly based on steep downward revisions for May and June.

A federal appeals court on Thursday halted a lower court judge’s order to end operations indefinitely at the "Alligator Alcatraz" immigration detention center built in the Florida Everglades. The panel voted 2-1 to stay the judge’s order pending the outcome of an appeal, allowing the facility to continue holding migrant detainees – for now. Last month, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction blocking Florida from further expanding the detention center and ordering operations to dwindle by the end of October. The judge also ordered the state to transfer detainees to other facilities and to remove equipment and...

Job creation sputtered in August, adding to recent signs of labor market weakening and likely keeping the Federal Reserve on track for a widely anticipated interest rate cut later this month. Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 22,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for payrolls to rise by 75,000. The report showed a marked slowdown from the July increase of 79,000, which was revised up by 6,000. Revisions also showed a net loss of 13,000 in June after the...

Doug Ross has created a very readable six-part series, with illustrations, outlining in great detail and in dramatic form the corruption of the FBI and the entire intelligence community in the latter years of the Obama administration, beginning first with an extensive cover-up of Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server for sending classified emails, followed by the initial stages of the Russian collusion hoax against Trump that was also used to justify spying on his campaign. The series admits to be being a dramatization, but is also is based entirely on actual facts that are now documented and...

President Vladimir Putin denied on Friday that Russia's economy was stagnating, despite a report from the central bank that suggests it is technically in recession. In a speech to an economic forum in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, Putin defended the central bank's use of very high interest rates, currently at 18%, to tackle inflation - a stance fiercely criticised by business leaders and bankers. A graph published in a central bank report this week showed Russia's gross domestic product shrank for two consecutive quarters, a standard definition of what economists call a technical recession. Sberbank CEO German Gref, one...

Northwestern University president Michael Schill announced his resignation on Wednesday, saying in a statement that "now is the right time for new leadership to guide Northwestern into its next chapter." That is certainly true. Schill’s departure clears the way for the elevation of a leader committed to ensuring Northwestern’s Jewish students receive the safe learning environment to which they are entitled. Schill’s record speaks for itself. He was the first university president to strike a deal with student radicals who took over parts of campus after Oct. 7, rewarding them for their disruptions. As a part of that deal, Northwestern...

NATIONAL CHIANTI DAY The first Friday in September each year ushers in a celebration worthy of a toast. National Chianti Day recognizes the most-recognized red wines from the Tuscany region of Italy. #NationalChiantiDay Always leading with the Sangiovese grape, the ruby red wine is famous worldwide. The iconic Gallo Nero log and a black rooster inside a red circle represent Chianti Classico. While Chianti is most associated with Tuscany, the smaller Chianti Classico region, located between Florence in the north and Siena in the south, is the historical heartland and most-respected area for red wines. As essential to Italian cuisine...

A handful of apparel retailers including Levi's and Aritzia are teasing more full-priced products, testing how much wealthier shoppers are willing to pay despite the sobering effect of tariffs. They have not been disappointed so far. Levi Strauss, for instance, raised prices on some products in July but saw no slowdown in demand, the denim maker's chief financial officer, Harmit Singh, said at the Goldman Sachs Global Retailing Conference in New York on Wednesday. "We are making a full-court press in selling higher full-price than we have done in the past," he said. "The Levi's consumer largely earns $100,000 and...

An immigrant who allegedly evaded federal agents with the help of a Milwaukee County judge pleaded guilty Thursday to being in the U.S. illegally. Federal prosecutors charged Eduardo Flores-Ruiz in April with reentering the country illegally after being deported. He faces up to two years in prison when he's sentenced and agreed to be deported whenever he is released, according to a summary of the plea deal he reached with prosecutors. Online court records did not list a sentencing date. His attorney, Martin J. Pruhs, didn't immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press on Thursday afternoon seeking comment....

“‘Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest’” (Matthew 9:38). “The Lord of the harvest” is a title of God that represents His role as the Judge of the unsaved—those who will stand before Him in the last day and be condemned to hell. We are to plead for Him to send workers who will lovingly warn them so they may be a part of those harvested to eternal glory. The Christian’s first responsibility is not to go and start working as soon as he sees a need but to come to the Lord...

The Ohio-class’s carrying capacity is about 50 percent of the entire supply of the U.S. Navy’s Tomahawk missiles. And since these SSGNs have been used recently to great effect, why take them away now? Some experts even argue that there is a strong case for attempting a refit of at least some of these powerful missile submarines until more Virginia-class boats equipped with cruise missiles can replace them.

Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Animal services officers in Texas came to the rescue of a juvenile great horned owl found entangled in a soccer net outside a school. The Leander Police Department said on social media that Leander Animal Services officers responded to a local school on Tuesday on a report of an owl in distress.

The Trump Administration is once again putting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the center of U.S. housing finance. According to Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director William J. Pulte, the government continues to consider floating a 5% stake in the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) via an initial public offering. The transaction, which could raise as much as $30 billion, would mark the most significant step toward releasing the GSEs from government conservatorship since they were seized in 2008 during the global financial crisis. The administration initially teased an IPO of that scope last month, suggesting it could happen in...

President Trump's high-seas Navy strike on a boat full of illegal drugs and 11 narcos, taking it out and feeding the local sharks, didn't go over well with the Chavista elites in Caracas. But instead of pretending they had no idea drugs were being trafficked from Venezuela to the U.S., or at least pretending that they didn't know the particular criminals aboard, a leading Chavista kingpin went full frontal 'thug' instead: [X post in Spanish at link] Google Translation: #URGENT | Direct threat from Diosdado Cabello against María Corina due to the US offensive: "If they squeeze us, we squeeze...