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July arabica coffee (KCN25) Friday closed down -9.35 (-2.49%), and July ICE robusta coffee (RMN25) closed down -106 (-2.13%). Coffee prices on Friday fell sharply, with robusta posting a 5-week low. Signs of bigger coffee supplies are weighing on prices after Safras Mercado on Friday reported that Brazil's 2024/25 coffee sales were 97% done as of May 13, above the 94% from the same time last year. An increase in current coffee inventories is also pressuring coffee prices. ICE-monitored robusta coffee inventories rose to a 7-1/2 month high Friday of 4,890 lots. Also, ICE-monitored arabica coffee inventories rose to a...

Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over past year, boosting cash supply in wake of Biden admin's Afghan withdrawal ... The Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over the last year, boosting its cash supply by 14 percent amid the return of Afghanistan as a central safe haven for terrorist organizations across the Middle East, according to a U.S. government watchdog group. The repercussions of the Biden administration’s disastrous 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan continue to reverberate across the war-torn country, with multiple al Qaeda affiliates accessing American-supplied "weapons seized from the former Afghan National Army," according to...

A multimillion-dollar estate the Obama family stayed at several times during trips to Martha’s Vineyard is up for sale. The owners, identified as architect Norman Foster and his family, are looking to get $39 million for the massive Blue Heron Farm on the Massachusetts island, The Wall Street Journal reported April 25. MGS Group Real Estate’s Maggie Gold Seelig and Corcoran Property Advisors’ Brian Dougherty are listing the property on the seller’s behalf, according to the outlet. Blue Heron Farm spans 30 acres in Chilmark, Massachusetts. The main house consists of approximately 7,000 square feet, according to the Journal. On...

A Pakistani marketplace known for selling weapons to interested buyers, including terrorists, bustled with activity in the immediate aftermath of the Biden administration’s botched pullout from Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported Monday. The market in Darra Adamkhel, near Peshawar, Pakistan, saw its busiest days in recent memory in the wake of the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades at war as leftover American military gear sold like hotcakes, the Post reported. Years later, American machine guns, rifles and night vision goggles are turning up in the hands of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and Pakistani Baloch separatist fighters...

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, urged the U.S. to reevaluate its funding and continued participation in the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) this weekend, and the bold statement got the attention of Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk. "Exit NATO *now*!" Lee wrote in a midnight X post, sharing a video of nude, chest-painted women marching in protest in Paris. Lee's post got the attention of Musk minutes later. "We really should," Musk replied on X. "Doesn't make sense for America to pay for the defense of Europe." NATO has been criticized for almost a decade by President Donald Trump,...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that he has already picked investigators who will look into the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. “We’ve already identified folks that’ll be in charge of that full investigation inside the Pentagon,” Hegseth said in the interview Thursday. “I don’t have a timeframe on it. Sadly, we’ve already waited two-and-a-half years, three years since what occurred. I don’t want to wait longer, but I always want to get it right,” he said.

Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the Trump administration’s actions directed toward USAID was an “American retreat.” Kim said, “People see diplomacy as important, and it is essential in pairing with our military. We have their pillars when it comes to foreign policy. We have defense, policy and diplomacy. This is not charity. This is about our national security. In fact, someone who said that exact line is Marco Rubio when he was a senator. There’s a reason why USAID is at the Ronald Reagan building because Ronald Reagan was a strong supporter of...

Former President Barack Obama didn’t listen to Pentagon officials when they told him Taliban mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa was too dangerous to release. Instead, he freed the group that came to be known as the ‘Gitmo five’ — Khairkhwa alongside four of his buddies — from the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2014 in exchange for a U.S. soldier who deserted his post. Obama all but guaranteed that Khairkhwa and the four other men would be sent to Qatar, where their movements would be restricted and where they could do no harm. As it turns out, the Taliban isn’t as trustworthy as...

About 1,700 soldiers from a Ukrainian unit equipped by the West and trained in France went AWOL before a shot was even fired.At least 50 members of the new 155th mechanised brigade, one of the few to operate the Leopard 2 battle tank, disappeared while elements of the unit were being drilled in France. The mass exodus came before the brigade was deployed to Pokrovsk, the key logistics hub anchoring Ukraine’s defence against Russian advances in the eastern Donetsk region.Entering the battle in recent days, it suffered heavy losses, reportedly including some of its tanks and armoured vehicles.It prompted the...

Joe Biden kept the grieving relatives of the Marines killed in Afghanistan waiting for three hours while he napped on Air Force One on the tarmac before a dignified transfer, multiple military families have told Daily Mail.

Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken finally expressed remorse that the Biden administration had not done more to protect the 13 US troops who were killed in an ISIS-K suicide bombing during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. “I think today, especially of the 13 heroes that we lost at Abbey Gate. And I deeply regret we did not do more and could not do more to protect them,” Blinken said as he testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “And to those families who are here with us today, you’re in my thoughts and my prayers.” Blinken, 62, mixed a...

An actress died during a bizarre spiritual cleansing ritual at a retreat in Mexico, when she took the venom of an Amazonian frog and suffered severe vomiting while being denied medical treatment, report said. Marcela Alcázar Rodríguez, 33, died on Dec. 1 after ingesting Kambo — a gluey, poisonous substance produced on the skin of the Amazon’s giant monkey frog — during a toxin cleansing ritual in Durango. Though Rodríguez suffered a sever reaction to the poison, she initially was denied medical attention by the retreat before finally being taken to a Red Cross hospital, where she died, witnesses said,...

An Army general who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was promoted to a four-star officer after a Republican senator dropped a hold on his nomination, according to a Senate aide. The Senate on Monday confirmed Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue to be the commander of US Army Europe-Africa by unanimous consent, meaning no senator objected to his approval. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, had previously blocked the promotion, despite the Senate Armed Services Committee advancing 984 other military promotions. It was not immediately clear why Mullin dropped his hold, and CNN is reaching out to Mullin’s office for...

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma placed a hold on the promotion of Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue that would have elevated him to lead U.S. Army forces in Europe.Donahue is currently a three-star general who was nominated to become a four-star general by President Joe Biden earlier this month. Donahue was one of the top military officials overseeing the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.Mullin, who was serving in the House of Representatives at the time of the withdrawal, tried to lead his own outside efforts to extract Americans from Afghanistan, but was repeatedly stymied by the State Department...

During an interview with CBS’s “The Takeout” podcast released on Friday, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) wondered why the Biden administration can’t admit it made a mistake with Afghanistan and said, “When you make a mistake and you can’t own up to it, then that means, did you make it intentionally then, since you don’t think it’s a mistake?” While discussing Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy, Manchin said, [relevant remarks begin around 10:25] “[W]hen they said, do you support everything that was done? I’m on the team. I’m number two. This is not my gameplan. I didn’t put the gameplan out....

BREAKING: Trump team puts together a list of military officers to court martial involved in the botched Afghanistan withdrawal - NBC Charges of "TREASON" are being considered for some officers... They are also getting together a potential commission to investigate the withdrawal that resulted in American deaths. WOAH. The list includes both current and former U.S. military officials - and will be used to examine if they can be "court-martialed for their involvement." “They’re taking it very seriously."

During MSNBC’s coverage of the 2024 election on Wednesday, MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” host and NBC News Chief Washington Correspondent and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell said that President-Elect Donald Trump says things that people think are “truth-telling,” but aren’t true and stated that Trump “bound Joe Biden to a withdrawal” from Afghanistan with the deal Trump reached during his first term in office, even though, by Mitchell’s own acknowledgment, Biden could have decided not to withdraw. Mitchell said, “He then gets into office, he cut the deal with the Taliban, cutting out the Afghan government, that bound Joe...

Ukraine’s defenses in the Donetsk region are continuing to crumble. In the past week alone, the Russians have gained more land than at any point this year. “The gain of more than 200 square kilometers (77 square miles) adds to territory taken in a grinding summer offensive that’s involved huge losses of Russian troops and equipment,” Bloomberg News reported, citing maps compiled by the DeepState open-source intelligence group’s map service maintained in cooperation with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. “Russia has captured 1,146 square kilometers in Ukraine since Aug. 6, about a quarter more than in the first seven months of...

On Friday, Donald Trump blasted Joe Biden for his “horribly” managed 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan that got 13 American service members killed. The moment came during a three-hour conversation between the former president and comedian Joe Rogan on the latter’s “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. The men were discussing the implications of U.S. foreign policy under Biden and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin “would have never” invaded Ukraine if he was still president, and contended the “number one” reason Putin launched his offensive is because “he doesn’t respect Biden at all.” “Not even a...

Family members of the 13 US service members killed in the chaotic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan were underwhelmed Tuesday by President Biden’s brief tribute to their loved ones before the United Nations General Assembly. Biden, 81, defended the fiasco as “a hard decision, but the right decision” during what was likely his final address to the global body. “Thirteen brave Americans lost their lives, along with hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bomb. I think [of] those lost lives — I think [of] them every day,” the president said, stumbling over his prepared remarks. Relatives of the fallen Americans...