Iran ignored warnings of retaliation from the US as the first of five Iranian tankers entered Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone on Saturday. The tanker, named Fortune, reached the Venezuela’s territorial waters at around 7:40 pm after passing north of  Trinidad and Tobago in the Carribean, according to vessel-tracking data.

Hong Kong police have fired tear gas after protesters gathered in Causeway Bay to rally against the looming national security law announced earlier this week by Beijing.

The US Navy has been developing high energy laser weapons for the past several years, and just this week they announced the successful test of their most powerful iteration of this technology to date. On Friday, the Navy’s Pacific Fleet issued a statement announcing that a new laser weapon destroyed a drone during recent live tests.

Benjamin Netanyahu professed his innocence at the start of his corruption trial on Sunday, saying he was being framed in the first criminal prosecution of a serving Israeli prime minister.

Why would an alleged GRU officer - supposedly part of an operation to deflect Russian culpability - suggest that Assange “may be connected with Russians?”

Joe Biden is facing a backlash for yet another disastrous interview during which he told the Breakfast Club’s black host, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

What one world war, one Great Depression and numerous oil price shocks couldn't do, the coronavirus did in less than three months and late on Friday, auto rental giant Hertz which was founded in 1918 when it set up shop with a dozen Ford Model Ts, quietly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection struggling under a massive debt load after its business was brought to a grinding halt during the coronavirus pandemic and talks with creditors failed to result in much needed relief.

On Friday, Donald Trump announced his appointment of Moncef Slaoui, a former executive with vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, to lead “Operation Warp Speed”, Trump’s plan to fast track the development of vaccines for COVID-19. Slaoui will serve in a volunteer position, assisted by Army Gen. Gustave Perna, the commander of United States Army Materiel Command.

From the moment of “COVID-19’s” naming—and particularly since the imposition of unprecedented restrictions on “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”—some people have smelled a rat. And with each passing week, the smell becomes worse. A growing chorus of ordinary citizens and world-renowned medical and scientific experts is raising questions about matters ranging from the coronavirus’s origins to the rationale for continued lockdowns…

Considering the New York Fed is privately owned by the member banks in its region (as are all of the 12 regional Fed banks) and has run up a $3.9 trillion balance sheet, you’d be forgiven for thinking its share owners would be on the hook for any liabilities. But you’d be wrong.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), happily amplified by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in the United States which carries its World News, continues to pump out its regular dreck about the alleged economic chaos in Russia and the imagined miserable state of the Russian people.

“There is no country with more to lose from the disruptive potential of digital currency than the United States.” So goes the stark warning from analysts at the U.S.’ largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, in a new report covered by Bloomberg News on May 22.

To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question. Fears of the worst sort are already cropping up as Apple has not made completely clear what software developers will be able to access and use the new core features that allow for Contact Tracing.

Six countries have digital currency pilot programs in place. Canada is in development mode while the US lags. The Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker shows the evolution towards central bank sponsored digital currencies.

American gun control activists looked at New Zealand’s response to the Christchurch massacre with a high degree of awe. They desperately want the United States to follow that lead after the next mass shooting. They would love for our government to swoop in after such an event and snatch away all our guns, but particularly those nasty so-called “assault weapons” that they don’t think we have any business owning.

One month ago, after the banks reported Q1 earnings, we showed that the major US money center banks saw their loan loss provisions surge by roughly 4x from year ago levels in response to expected deterioration in their loan books, with JPMorgan jumping the most, or just over 5x, hinting the other banks are likely underprovisioned for the storm that is coming.

Time and again, governments have used crises to expand their power, and often their intrusion into citizens’ lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen this pattern play out on a huge scale. From deploying drones or ankle monitors to enforce quarantine orders to proposals to use face recognition or thermal imaging cameras for monitoring public spaces, governments around the world have been adopting intrusive measures in their quest to contain the pandemic.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday it had lodged “solemn representations” with the United States to complain about a planned U.S. sale of advanced torpedoes to Chinese-claimed Taiwan.

Beijing will introduce a draft resolution to allow the National People’s Congress to chart legislation for a new national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong that will proscribe secessionist and subversive activity, foreign interference and terrorism in the city, sources have told the Post.

In a report that flew under the radar late last week, China admitted that it did order laboratories to destroy samples of the new coronavirus in the early stage of the outbreak.