Happy cultures are all alike. But this is not a happy culture. Sullen and sour, America seems like a country whose nerves are shot. And, after 16 straight years of war, why wouldn’t the political neurons be frayed? Each day the fear factor is being ratcheted up. New threats are being targeted. New wars being planned. A paralytic dread hangs over the Republic. [...]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has become the wealthiest person in history and the first to outrank Microsoft’s Bill Gates on the rich list, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gates was the only one to have made 13-figure fortune. [...]

Shares in Facebook dropped by more than 4 percent ahead of Friday's opening bell after the CEO announced changes to the platform’s centerpiece news feed, which he said would hit user engagement in the near term. The company is planning to change the filter for its news feed to prioritize what friends and family share, while reducing the amount of non-advertising content from publishers and brand [...]

Ukraine’s hryvnia has hit rock bottom, now 34 against the euro. This is the lowest point for the Ukrainian currency ever tracked. The hryvnia has also plunged to a record low against the Russian ruble, trading at 4.99 hryvnia to 10 rubles. The Ukrainian currency is on its hat-trick against the US dollar. One dollar is worth 28.44 hryvnia; the historical record was 30.01 hryvnia in February 2015. [...]

Since the new Russia-China oil supply agreement took effect at the start of the year, PetroChina’s largest refinery has almost doubled the amount of Russian pipeline crude oil that it is processing. A senior industry source with direct knowledge of the volumes told Reuters, the 410,000-bpd PetroChina refinery in the northeast port city Dalian will process 260,000 bpd of Russian pipeline crude oi [...]

Hardly anyone will buy President Donald Trump’s explanation for his abruptly canceled visit to London next month. The real reason, no doubt, was to avoid embarrassing scenes of mass street protests marring his official welcome. Whatever has become of the so-called “special relationship”? [...]

By some improbable fluke of physics, a speeding car went airborne and plowed into the second floor of a California office building. The bizarre crash left two people injured. The vehicle became partially wedged in the side of a dental office building after it hit a road divider in the Orange County city of Santa Ana shortly before 5:30am, Sunday. [...]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has emerged a winner in the latest crisis around the Korean Peninsula, Russian president Vladimir Putin said. He believes Pyongyang is now trying to defuse tensions. [...]

Two Russian Syria-embedded journalists have put together a damning firsthand report on the true purpose of the secrecy-laden US military mission at At-Tanf, southern Syria. The Pentagon was forced to go into full public relations mode late last month amid fresh allegations by the Russian General Staff that US instructors were providing training assistance for some 350 ex-Daesh (ISIS) militant [...]

Twitter users have pointed out the irony of Donald Trump lamenting immigration from “s***hole countries” wishing to have “more people from places like Norway”: Why would Norwegians immigrate to the United States? Where people are far more likely to be shot, live in poverty, get no healthcare, get no paid parental leave or subsidized daycare, and see fewer women in political power. [...]

Donald Trump’s remarks on “s***hole countries” roused a righteous high-mindedness in his detractors. But a perusal of their own past quotes suggest they are quite capable of similar words – when one particular state is involved. [...]

Advanced weapon systems and lack of necessity for bases in foreign nations are key factors that will allow the Russian military to defend the nation, despite receiving far less funding than their US counterparts, Putin said. [...]

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has questioned the value of Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the US, suggesting Washington is not actually the UK’s ‘most important ally,’ while criticizing Trump’s ‘endless offensive remarks.’ [...]

A passenger jet with over 160 on board slid off the runway in the Turkish city of Trabzon Saturday night and was left precariously perched atop a cliff edge, saved only by the freezing mud. "All 162 passengers, 2 pilots and 4 cabin crew have been disembarked safely from the aircraft. There has been no loss of life or injury to anyone on-board," [...]

The US-led coalition says it is helping to create a thousands-strong “Border Security Force” in Syria using Kurdish SDF militias. Washington's support, branded “unacceptable” by Ankara, is further straining bilateral ties. [...]

"America does not need Walls; it actually needs tens of millions of younger and working age immigrants who can function as tax mules to carry the burden of 105 million baby-boomer and retirees" Washington is drifting rapidly into a hellacious fiscal calamity and the only thin reed of resistance is the once and former party of fiscal rectitude. If it does not get its act together and screw-up some [...]

The website, Factbase, conducted a thorough analysis of the US President’s interviews and speeches, ranking his speaking skills on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale, and here’s their conclusion. Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted of being “like, really smart,” which was dispelled by numerous lexicological tests, studying for vocabulary, comprehension levels, and English language comple [...]

Moscow may act as mediator in the denuclearization talks between the two Koreas, as the nuclear issue affects Russia’s national interests, Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, said. “It highly likely that efforts by international mediators will be required to promote the issue of denuclearization and the nuclear dossier" on the Korean peninsula, Slutsky s [...]

Plans by the City of New York to sue and divest $5 billion worth of pension funds from oil companies accused of harming the environment have been heralded as a major step by environmentalists. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that trustees of the city’s $191 billion pension fund are devising ways to divest billions of dollars held in securities from more than 190 compani [...]

The Trump administration’s insistence on improving border security has led to more travelers having their electronic devices snatched by Custom and Border Protection agents in 2017 than ever before in history. [...]

Russia will deliver liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the US, Kommersant daily reports. The reason for the deal is the sharp rise in gas prices on the east coast of the US. An LNG tanker belonging to French energy company Engie is now shipping from the British port of Isle of Grain to an American terminal, Everett, located near Boston. [...]

WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has allegedly been issued an Ecuadorian ID in a bid to end his 5-year confinement. The UK Foreign Office reportedly rejected a request from Quito to grant the whistleblower diplomatic status. [...]