The United States Department of Defense’s supply chains have deteriorated, and they now require significant modernization – and taxpayer funding – if Washington wishes to make war with Russia or China, according to an internal Pentagon report. [...]

The Trump administration quietly downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union’s mission to the US late last year, without informing the diplomats themselves, a German report has revealed. The European Union’s delegation to the US, which had previously enjoyed nation-state ambassador status, was reduced to “international organization” sometime in late October or early November 201 [...]

A postliterate society is a hypothetical society in which multimedia technology has advanced to the point where literacy, the ability to read or write, is no longer necessary or common. The term appears as early as 1962 in Marshall McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy. Many science-fiction societies are postliterate, as in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Dan Simmons' novel Ilium, and Gary Shteyngart's [...]

Authorities in southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have closed highways and some railroads due to heavy snowfall in the region, according to Fox News reports. Thousands of tourists ended the Christmas holiday in the Alps on 6 January being evacuated due to heavy snowfall, including visitors to the popular Matterhorn in Switzerland, Fox News reported, saying that airports and trains have exp [...]

Rick Sanchez takes a look at China’s response to the Trump Administration tariffs imposed on Beijing, as US telecom giant Apple losses 64 billion dollars of its value. Apple CEO Tim Cook blames the tit-for-tat and the Trump administration’s trade war with China. Is Apple blameless, or is this a show of force as Apple falls third in the market behind Samsung and Huawei? Host of Boom Bust Bar [...]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 660 points as Apple stock dropped nearly 10 percent – the biggest single day decline for the company since 2013 – just one day after it slashed its revenue forecast. [...]

Set up by scammers to trick users into thinking there is a new update for their WhatsApp, a downloadable malware has been promoted via spam messages on the mobile application. Messages warning against a fake update called 'WhatsApp Gold' and a video supposedly carrying a virus called "martinelli," have resurfaced online. Users would receive a notification saying: "If you know anyone using [...]

US President Donald Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden on Friday that he has considered using emergency powers to build his vision of a border wall along the US' southern border with Mexico. [...]

The hackers that have allegedly stolen gigabytes of so-far-unknown and potentially sensational information about the 9/11 attacks have urged governments and individuals to come and get what they have. They tease that the most hard-hitting part of the documents, which they estimate at $2 million, would eventually "bury" the deep state. [...]

Aside from the trade wars, Apple has been hurt by a boycott in China and its own apparent arrogance towards Chinese laws. Apple had to cut its revenue outlook for the latest quarter, citing what it called an "economic deceleration" in China and emerging markets, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. [...]

Tensions have spiked between Russia and the UK, following the doxing of personal information and pictures of state-funded media employees in both countries. So where will the escalating tensions lead? Sputnik has discussed the issue with Journalist Ollie Richardson. [...]

Although the latest US jobs report did indicate that 312,000 new non-farm jobs were added to the economy in December of 2018, it should by no means suggest that the US economy is functioning in a perfect manner, Richard Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told Sputnik. [...]

The Chinese robotic probe Chang'e 4 has landed on the dark side of the moon, becoming the first manmade craft to alight on the unexplored surface, according to reports from Chinese state media. [...]

Gold has reached a more than six-month peak rising above $1,300 as investors rushed to seek refuge in the metals after iPhone maker downgraded its revenue forecast and amid fears of a global economic slowdown. The precious metal futures climbed in a second straight session on Thursday after US stocks saw the worst start of the year in more than a decade. [...]

Germany’s major rightwing party, the AfD, threatens to push for a so-called ‘Dexit’ if the EU doesn’t restore its members’ national sovereignty and takes no action against “Islamization of Europe” within the next five years. [...]

NBC News has given endless war and ‘destructive’ intelligence agencies a free pass, all while fixating on around-the-clock Trump hysteria, a veteran national security reporter wrote in a biting farewell message to his colleagues. [...]

Wealth inequality is becoming one of the fastest growing problems facing the US. As the nation gets richer, who benefits? Richard Wolff helps break down all the different facets as he and Bart dissect why people are finding it harder and harder to afford the basic needs of life. Wealth inequality can also extend to nations; Hilary Fordwich breaks down the situation as certain countries grow while [...]

Donald Trump has told Benjamin Netanyahu that the US is paying billions of dollars a year for Israeli security, and that Tel Aviv should not be worried about losing its influence in the region after US troops withdraw from Syria. [...]

Vladimir Putin unveiled that Russia had developed a new type of weapon that flies faster than the speed of sound and looks like a “fireball” in March 2018. Less than a week before the start of 2019, information about its successful test launch was released. [...]

The test of the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle took place on 26 December, when it reached a speed of Mach 27 and successfully struck a target 6,000 kilometres away. The Zvezda TV channel, the official media outlet of the Russian Defence Ministry, has published a new video of the test launch of the hypersonic missile Avangard, depicting it from the launch command centre. [...]

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's lawyer and a former NYC mayor, insisted that the media is allowed to publish hacked classified information for the purpose of informing the public. He drew parallels with the case of Hillary Clinton, who WikiLeaks claim received questions for the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primary debate with Bernie Sanders. [...]

Crimea dramatically broke off from Ukraine and rejoined Russia in March 2014 following a peninsula-wide referendum, a month after a Western-backed coup rocked Kiev and overthrew Ukraine's democratically elected government. [...]