The madness around us is no accident. Donald Trump is not an anomaly, but he is the worst of what this nation has to offer. Intentional ignorance fuels his hatred and money fuels his bloated and undeserved ego. We live in a nation ruled by small minded and heartless men and women whose egos match their ill begotten bank accounts. Their perception of justice is that which serves the market and the [...]

Beijing has announced plans to extend the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative to the Arctic by developing shipping routes, in a project dubbed the Polar Silk Road. In a white paper released on Friday, the country said it expects to have a “major role in expanding the network of shipping routes” and noted that “as a result of global warming, the Arctic shipping routes are likely to become impo [...]

The much-anticipated finals are due to take place in Thailand in mid-December, with Russia being represented by beautiful Yulia Polyachikhina from Cheboksary. The winner of the contest "Miss Universe — Iceland 2018" Katrin Lea Elenudottir, who is representing the Nordic country in the "Miss Universe" finals, was born in Russia, according to the news portal Taiga.info. [...]

Obesity could be spread among people living in close proximity, similarly to contagious diseases, according to a new report by researchers from the University of Southern California and think tank Rand Corp. Radio Sputnik discussed the findings with Louise Baur, Professor of child and adolescent health at the University of Sydney’s Westmead Clinical School. [...]

Donald Trump's official rejection of the role of a global "policeman" could be called the most important event of the outgoing year, Sputnik contributor Ivan Danilov writes, stressing that the cracks in the foundations of American hegemony have already become too visible. [...]

Europeans are becoming increasingly discontent over the issue of anti-Russian sanctions and distorted Crimea narrative, Vadim Kolesnichenko, the chairman of the presidium of the Internal Council of Russian Compatriots, has told Sputnik, commenting on the ongoing visit of German delegation to the peninsula. [...]

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. [...]

Previously unseen government records detail ‘deeply worrying’ incidents in pork and poultry plants, raising fears of ‘dirty meat’ entering the UK under a post-Brexit trade deal. Shocking hygiene failings have been discovered in some of the US’s biggest meat plants, as a new analysis reveals that as many as 15% (one in seven) of the US population suffers from foodborne illnesses annually. [...]

Chinese investments in North America and Europe fell by 73 percent last year as a result of tightened US scrutiny of foreign takeover deals and Beijing’s restrictions on outbound investments. Data from law firm Baker & McKenzie showed that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into the United States have also turned negative, falling to the lowest in seven years. [...]

German car maker Porsche continues to impress and is mulling a new way to create a vehicle which would be able to easily navigate around any potential gridlock on city highways. In an interview with the German magazine Automobilwoche, Porsche sales chief Detlev von Platen said that it did not rule out the creation of a flying passenger vehicle by Volkswagen's sports car maker. [...]

The current attempt to depose the president of Venezuela is similar to the toppling of the Ukrainian leader in 2014. Or at least that’s the view of the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin. [...]

A first in global capitalism, US citizen consumer credit card debt has now topped $1 trillion. For the first time in history, consumer credit card debt in America has risen above the benchmark $1 trillion measure, according to Washington DC-based online personal finance website Wallethub.com. [...]

On Tuesday, senior Afghan officials, including former President Hamid Karzai, met with Taliban representatives in Moscow weeks after the insurgents met with US representatives to discuss an end to the war. However, no Afghan government officials were present at the meeting, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani strongly criticized the talks as undermining his government. [...]

Central banks around the world have been building up their gold stockpiles to make sure they are stored on soil they can trust. The National Bank of Hungary (MNB) says it is bringing back three tons of the country’s gold reserves stored at the Bank of England in London, Gold Seek reported. The move to repatriate 130 million dollars’ worth of gold from Budapest previously stored on Britis [...]

Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to safeguard the United States from the purported evils of socialism – but critics note that the US president is fine with giving government subsidies to the rich and well-connected. [...]

Twitter lit up with sarcastic remarks and genuinely concerned commentary over Boris Johnson's latest allegations against Moscow in the Sergei Skripal poisoning case. Johnson lashed out against Moscow on Monday, calling Russia's increasingly adamant denials that it anything to do with the Skripal case "increasingly absurd." [...]

The National Security Agency has reportedly ended the intrusive spying program that combs through Americans’ calls and texts and won’t be seeking to renew it, begging the question – what are they doing now that’s more effective? [...]

The United States was developing the gas A-234, we have a document that confirms this, said the head of the laboratory for chemical and analytical control of the scientific center of the Russian Defense Ministry Igor Rybalchenko. "The fact is that back in 1998 when we looked through another version of the spectral library, which was published by the National Bureau of Standards of the Unite [...]

Earlier this week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the stopping of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which the document claimed boosts the EU's dependence on Russian gas supplies and threatens the bloc's energy security. [...]

Vienna refused to expel Russian diplomats not because it feared reprisal, but because it stands for open dialogue, Austria’s foreign minister said, decrying the UK’s attempts to lure the country into taking “certain measures.” Austria refrained from expelling Russian diplomats earlier this week, in contrast to its EU neighbors, who chose to rely on the UK’s assertion that Russia was behi [...]

A lawsuit was filed against Boeing in a US federal court on Thursday in what appears to be the first litigation over the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash which killed 157 people. The lawsuit was filed in Chicago federal court by the family of Jackson Musoni, a citizen of Rwanda. [...]

The US military spent $60 million on a new section of power grid in Afghanistan’s northeast. It doesn’t work and may even put residents at risk, according to a report from the US government’s reconstruction watchdog. While the power lines have been built, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that mismanagement by the Army Corps of Engineers led to the g [...]