More than 20,000 pounds of cocaine were seized by the crew of USCGC Cutter Munro, the “largest at-sea interdiction in 18+ years,” the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) said in a Dec. 5 post on X.

“Through #OperationPacificViper, @USCG has accelerated counter-narcotics operations across the Eastern Pacific and delivered historic results in the fight against narco-terrorists,” the post stated.

“Our maritime fighting force is leading America’s drug interdiction operations, protecting the Homeland, and keeping deadly drugs out of American communities.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a Dec. 5 post on X that 20,000 pounds of cocaine was enough to create over 7.5 million potentially lethal doses of the drug.

Naveen Athrappully reports for The Epoch Times that Operation Pacific Viper directs U.S. forces to the Eastern Pacific region to counter criminal and cartel organizations, essentially cutting off drug and human smuggling activities before they reach U.S. shores, the DHS said in a statement on Aug. 20.

At the time, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that “80 percent of illicit drug seizures occur at sea.”

Another major drug seizure this week took place on Dec. 2 when a Coast Guard Station Miami Beach law enforcement boat crew seized roughly 3,715 pounds of cocaine, estimated to be worth $28 million, from a vessel suspected to be used for drug smuggling, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a Dec. 5 statement.

“Disrupting maritime narcotics smuggling like this demonstrates the power of teamwork in safeguarding our nation and holding criminals accountable,” said Andy Blanco, executive director of CBP Air and Marine Operations Southeast Region.

“Smugglers should be warned that our whole-of-government team is watching, and they will be caught.”

Lt. Matthew Ross, Coast Guard Station Miami Beach commanding officer, said this was the “largest USCG Small boat station cocaine seizure since 1995.”

Crackdown on Drug Trafficking

Under the Trump administration, military activity against alleged drug traffickers has intensified. Strikes against suspected drug trafficking boats began in the sea around Venezuela, and have expanded into the eastern Pacific Ocean near the Colombian coastline.

One of the recent strikes was carried out on Dec. 4 against a drug trafficking boat in the Eastern Pacific. The action was taken after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered a “lethal kinetic strike” on the boat, the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said in a Dec. 4 post on X.

The boat was traversing international waters and was being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization, SOUTHCOM said, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean and near Latin America.

“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” according to SOUTHCOM.

On Dec. 2, President Donald Trump said that land strikes in Venezuela against drug trafficking groups were under consideration.

“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land too,” Trump said. “We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live, and we’re going to start that very soon.”

Criticism has been raised against the Trump administration’s strikes on suspected drug boats. On Dec. 4, Congress held classified briefings regarding a deadly strike on an alleged drug boat in September in the South Caribbean that killed two people.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters that the video he saw during the briefing was “one of the most troubling things” he’s seen while in public service.

“You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, killed by the United States,” Himes said.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who also attended the briefing, said he “didn’t see anything disturbing” about the video.

“What’s disturbing to me is that millions of Americans have died from drugs being run to America by these cartels,” Cotton said.

Meanwhile, drug seizures hit a record in November, according to a Dec. 4 statement from the CBP. Nationwide, 54,947 pounds of drugs were seized last month, up by 33 percent from October.

Methamphetamine seizures totaled 21,935 pounds, up by 118 percent, with cocaine seizures jumping 40 percent to 8,240 pounds.

Authorities seized 1,543 pounds of fentanyl, a 59 percent jump from October and the “highest monthly total since last October,” CBP said.

Authored by Mark Bauerlein via The Epoch Times,

In the old days, English class meant two things: one, reading Shakespeare, Tennyson et al., and two, learning to write. The classics plus grammar and punctuation—they made English a serious subject respected for its content and skills. Of course, it’s not like that any longer.

The traditional literary canon is ever less central to the field, which now spends lots of time on “media literacy,” critical thinking, “informational texts,” and other topics unrelated to literary history. Those changes have come about from above, we should note, from experts in curriculum and assessment.

As for writing, the changes have been even more dramatic and taken place in just the past few years. Artificial intelligence (AI) has upset everything. It has swept into education so suddenly and profoundly that teachers are scrambling daily to cope with its effects. This time, it’s not the experts who are leading the way—it’s the kids. They aren’t writing anymore; AI does it for them. Some keywords, a few clicks, an adjustment or two, and “Voila!” the paper’s done. What late-teen can resist?

If they’re going to “meet students where they are,” as the ed school saying goes, teachers cannot assign any out-of-class writing tasks and expect students to do the work themselves. The lure is too strong, the process too easy. It’s safer than plagiarism, too, because AI creates a unique script for every student who requests one, not a borrowed script that can be unearthed through a Google search by the teacher using any unusual sentences that pop up in a paper as clues. Also, AI produces such authentic student prose that teachers haven’t the time or energy to scan each submission for subtle signs of AI usage.

The whole practice of English must change—it already is doing so.

No more out-of-class-writing, no extended research papers (AI does research as well as composing sentences), and no more in-class writing such as essay exams using computers. Blue books are back! One teacher told me recently that he plans to give oral exams to each student one-on-one at the end of the semester (his classes are small enough for him to do so). It’s a good idea, because in an oral exam, he can probe the student’s knowledge of specific elements in “The Great Gatsby” and other works on the syllabus, thus verifying that the student actually read the book and not just an AI summary of it.

Unfortunately, however, no amount of AI avoidance on the part of the teacher can replace what has been lost—namely, sustained, independent composition, a youth in a dorm room or the library spending two hours on his own verbalizing ideas, polishing sentences, and smoothing transitions. Those hours are a value in themselves, for writing is developed by practice, not by study. It’s an exercise, not a content. Reading a book on prose style will not make you a good stylist. A skilled wordsmith has spent years building vocabulary, acquiring a feel for sentence length and paragraph structure, and recognizing when to show and when to tell, what diction best suits this and that topic, and where irony and figurative language might be effective. It’s a plodding progress with lots of trial and error. Common errors are persistent (misplaced modifiers, oblique descriptions, too many passive verbs and prepositional phrases, etc.). An attentive coach is needed.

Nobody enjoys it, not the student who stares at the blank page in dismay or who rereads a paragraph he’s just written and knows it’s awful, and not the English teacher who feels the student’s dismay and joins the struggle to squeeze some eloquence out of that disjointed paragraph. I remember many sessions with students in office hours, the two of us going over a rough draft sentence by sentence as I directed her attention to a comma or a “which” or a verb tense and asking, “Is there anything wrong there?” and waited for her to figure it out. I had to be patient. She had to concentrate. Time slowed down. By the finish, she sighed and smiled weakly, while I looked forward to happy hour.

There’s no replacement for this humanistic boot camp, however. Most people can’t learn to write in any other way. If AI saves them from this unpleasant, plodding training, happiness will go up, but competence won’t. The impact will spread far beyond the campus, giving us an AI-dominant culture and a low-literacy society.

We might see in the coming years a curious irony: As AI does more and more of the work of communication, those times in which a more meaningful, unusual, impressive communication is needed—for instance, when a politician strives to deliver a rousing speech at a time of crisis—will make those few individuals who did get strong literary formation appear as rare assets.

Message to parents: Encourage your kids to keep a diary and write the day’s events in it every night.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

The wealth of America’s top 1% sits around $52 trillion today, rising by $4 trillion over the year.

Overall, the top 1% of U.S. earners need to make around $800,000 or more in salary per household.

Meanwhile, about 30% of American households earned less than $50,000 last year, highlighting clear divides in wage distribution across the country.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows income inequality by state, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Spectrum of Income Inequality in America

In 2024, the U.S. Gini coefficient was 0.48, representing a high degree of inequality.

Effectively, a score of one means that a single person would earn all of the income, and 0 would represent perfect equality. Last year, the top 20% of earners pocketed 52.2% of the country’s income according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In contrast, the bottom fifth of earners received just 3.1%.

Yet, income is distributed differently across states. Last year, income inequality was the most severe in Washington, D.C. and New York, each with a 0.52 Gini index score.

In Washington, D.C. the top 20% of earners made 27 times more than the bottom 20% in 2023 according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which is the highest ratio of any state between the top and bottom quintiles.

New York, on the other hand, is home to more billionaires than any other state except for California, creating huge disparities in income. Since 2019, real wage growth among the Big Apple’s top 3% soared 34.5%, more than triple all other income tiers.

Falling near the U.S. average are Florida, Texas, and Massachusetts, providing a more representative picture of income inequality in the country.

In comparison, Utah ranks lowest overall, a position it has regularly held for some time. Utah has the sixth-highest employment share (65.4%) in the country, keeping average family incomes more even.

Along with this, Utah has one of the best social mobility index scores nationwide, likely influenced by narrower wage disparities.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on wealth inequality by country in 2025.

Authored by Arnaud Bertrand via The Ron Paul Institute

In a big development, the final US National Security Strategy was just published and the refocus on the Western Hemisphere (i.e. the Americas) is confirmed. The document clearly establishes this as the US’s number one priority, saying that the US will now “assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”

In terms of military presence, they write that this means “a readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”

On China, a couple of points…

The most striking aspect to me is that China is NOT anymore defined as “the” primary threat, “most consequential challenge,” “pacing threat,” or similar formulations used in previous such documents.

It’s clearly downgraded as a priority. Based on the document’s structure and emphasis, the top U.S. priorities could be characterized as:

1) Homeland security and borders (migration, cartels, etc.)

2) Western Hemisphere (Monroe Doctrine restoration)

3) Economic security (reindustrialization, supply chains)

4) China and Indo-Pacific

To be clear they don’t define China as an ally or a partner in any shape or form but primarily as:

1) an economic competitor;

2) a source of supply chain vulnerabilities (but also a trading partner); and

3) a player who regional dominance should be “ideally” denied because it “has major implications for the U.S. economy.”

Interestingly, I believe for the first time ever, they mention the possibility of being overmatched militarily by China. They write that “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority” – but “ideally” clearly means that it’s ideal, but not necessarily a given.

The fact that they call deterring conflict over Taiwan merely “a priority” also suggests, by definition, that it’s no more a top strategic priority, or a vital interest. On Taiwan they also clearly imply that if the US’s “First Island Chain allies” don’t “step up and spend – and more importantly do – much more for collective defense,” then there might be “a balance of forces so unfavorable to us as to make defending that island impossible.”

They still maintain that “the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait” but, clearly, there’s a widening gap between what the US says it opposes and what it’s actually willing to do about it.

Interestingly as well, contrary to previous such document, there is zero ideological dimension in the document when it comes to China. No “democracy vs. autocracy” framing, no “rules-based international order” to defend, no values-based crusade. China is treated as a practical issue to be managed, not an ideological adversary to be defeated.

In fact the document explicitly mentions, I think for the first time ever as well, that US policy is now:

• “not grounded in traditional, political ideology”

• that they “seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.”

• and that they seek “good relations with nations whose governing systems differ from ours.”

…Which is quite a stunning departure from the rhetoric of the past few decades. We all knew this but it’s now amply clear that the era of missionary liberal internationalism in US foreign policy is dead and buried.

The competition with China is primarily described in economic terms, explicitly so: they write the competition is about “winning the economic future” and that economics are “the ultimate stakes.”

Notably, they admit that the tariffs approach “that began in 2017” when it comes to China essentially failed because “China adapted” and has “strengthened its hold on supply chains.”

The new strategy, as described in the document, is to build an economic coalition against China that can exert more leverage than the US economy alone – a tacit admission that America just isn’t powerful enough on its own anymore.

The contradiction is however obvious: it is unclear how you build an economic coalition against China while simultaneously waging trade wars against your coalition partners, demanding they shoulder more of their own defense, and treating every allied relationship as a deal to be renegotiated in America’s favor.

At some point these “allies” will be asking a very obvious question: why sacrifice our economic interests to prop up an America that can no longer compete on its own – and that offers us less and less in return? The document can be found here.

By Haley Zaremba of OilPrice.com

An experimental Chinese nuclear plant reportedly just crossed a historic threshold, successfully operating the world’s first thorium-based molten salt reactor (TMSR). The Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics has broken a major scientific barrier by successfully converting thorium to uranium in a historic first.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that the breakthrough, which took place at an experimental reactor out in the Gobi Desert, is “poised to reshape the future of clean sustainable nuclear energy.” 

The process works by using a “precise sequence of nuclear reactions” in which naturally occurring thorium-232 absorbs a neutron, becoming thorium-233. Through a decay process, that isotope breaks down into protactinium-233 and then finally into uranium-233, a potent form of nuclear fuel that can sustain chain reactions for nuclear fission.

While this breakthrough was just publicized this month by a report by Science and Technology Daily, the TMSR has apparently been operational for years. Li Qingnuan, Communist Party secretary and deputy director at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, told the outlet that “since achieving first criticality on October 11, 2023, the thorium molten salt reactor has been steadily generating heat through nuclear fission”.

If the reports are true, this breakthrough would signal an incredible leap forward in a nuclear technology race that China is already winning handily. Although the United States is still the world’s biggest producer of nuclear energy, that status won’t last much longer. In the same time period that the United States built the overdue and over-budget Plant Vogtle, China built 13 reactors of similar scale, and has 33 more on the way. Beijing is also making major forays into the nuclear sectors of emerging economies, with particularly concerted efforts in Africa.

“The Chinese are moving very, very fast,” Mark Hibbs, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and expert on the Chinese nuclear sector, told the New York Times. “They are very keen to show the world that their program is unstoppable.”

But while China has invested huge sums of money and manpower into becoming a global nuclear energy innovator and superpower, the nation lacks sufficient uranium to power its lofty goals. While nuclear power production growth is dominated by China, uranium supply chains are dominated by Russia, which is home to nearly half (approximately 44 percent) of all global uranium enrichment capacity. 

China has been buying up more and more of Russia’s uranium, but reliance on exports is both risky and antithetical to China’s ethos of domestic energy independence and international energy dominance. Russia’s outsized presence in the nuclear fuel supply chain has resulted in some degree of risk and market volatility, as the Kremlin has shown that it is not afraid to use enriched uranium for political leverage.

“The nuclear energy supply chain sits atop the clean technology risk pyramid,” warned a recent article from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Beyond standard supply chain considerations, nuclear exports are subject to a suite of safety and security concerns, and overreliance on a single technology or fuel provider can create significant dependencies given the limited number of suppliers and distinct intellectual property (IP).”

By sidestepping the uranium supply chain issue by using thorium instead, China is leaping over a critical hurdle and straight over the finish line for global nuclear power sector domination. Thorium is much more accessible and abundant than uranium, and could theoretically solve all of China’s nuclear fuel problems. According to the South China Morning Post, just one mining site in Inner Mongolia “ is estimated to hold enough of the element to power China entirely for more than 1,000 years.”

A major and very dangerous incident occurred over waters off Japan’s southern islands on Saturday, but has only been publicly revealed Sunday. Chinese PLA military aircraft locked radar on Japanese fighter jets, at a moment Japan-China relations have deteriorated to their worst in many years

Japan and Australia are urging calm in the wake of the aerial encounter, with contrasting accounts and accusations from each side that the other is acting dangerously. Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said his country and allies have formally protested it, calling this “an extremely regrettable” act and “a dangerous” one which exceeds “the scope necessary for safe aircraft operations.”

“We have lodged a strong protest with the Chinese side and demanded strict preventive measures,” Koizumi said.

According to a description of the event from Tokyo’s side:

Japan’s Defense Ministry said China’s military aircraft J-15 took off from the Chinese carrier Liaoning near the southern island of Okinawa on Saturday and “intermittently” latched its radar on Japanese F-15 fighter jets on two occasions Saturday, for about three minutes in the late afternoon and for about 30 minutes in the evening. It was not made clear whether the radar lock incident involved the same Chinese J-15 both times.

Japan had scrambled its own jets apparently to monitor Chinese military flight actions in the region, and as readiness in case some kind of deeper intervention was needed:

Japanese fighter jets had been scrambled to pursue Chinese ones that were conducting aircraft takeoff and landing exercises in the Pacific. They were pursuing the Chinese aircraft at a safe distance and did not take actions that could be interpreted as provocation, Kyodo News agency said, quoting defense officials, when the radar lock happened. There was no breach of Japanese airspace, and no injury or damage was reported from the incident.

As for the Chinese side, its military responded in a statement alleging the Japanese aircraft of “harassment” during routine PLA exercises.

PLA Navy spokesman, Senior Colonel Wang Xuemeng, asserted, “We solemnly asked the Japanese side to immediately stop slandering and smearing, and strictly restrain its frontline actions. The Chinese Navy will take necessary measures in accordance with the law to resolutely safeguard its own security and legitimate rights and interests.”

More from the Chinese version of events on the highly dangerous weekend encounter, which could have led to a full-blown shooting conflict:

Japan deployed F-15 fighter jets, rather than reconnaissance aircraft, to the area where China’s aircraft carrier formation was conducting routine training, and these jets repeatedly approached and disturbed the sea and airspace where the Chinese Navy was conducting training.…

— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) December 7, 2025

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has slammed the radar lock-in as “extremely disappointing” and declared “We will act calmly and resolutely.”

Takaichi herself has taken center stage in the weekslong controversy, which started when she made comments in a parliamentary meeting last month which made clear Japan could possibly intervene militarily in the scenario of China invading Taiwan. China has been retaliating through measures related to curbing trade, cultural exchanges, and tourism – coupled with threats of more punitive action to come.

Beijing has warned that Takaichi’s verbalized stance constitute fighting words…

Tokyo files formal protest as Chinese J-15s direct & lock fire-control radars on its jets south of disputed Diaoyu

New female PM Takaichi vows to FIGHT FOR TAIWAN pic.twitter.com/GwBzU6Qkzi

— RT (@RT_com) December 7, 2025

Lately, Chinese and Japanese vessels have also had tense encounters near disputed Japanese-owned islands, and each’s coast guard ships have been involved in warnings and threats.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have been discussing how ChatGPT is accused of encouraging the suicide of various individuals as well as the defamation of other individuals.

Various lawsuits have been filed against the company, but now federal prosecutors have indicated that ChatGPT may have played a role in enabling or encouraging an accused criminal stalker.

The New York Post is reporting that federal prosecutors are alleging that ChatGPT served as the “therapist” and “best friend” to Brett Michael Dadig, a Pittsburgh man who violently stalked at least 11 women across more than five states.

Dadig, 31, is a social media influencer who referred to himself as “God’s assassin” and allegedly would threaten to strangle people with his bare hands.

He reportedly used AI to facilitate his conduct and prosecutors say ChatGPT encouraged him to continue his social media posts.

The account is strikingly similar to the suicide cases where ChatGPT allegedly encouraged him to ignore the “haters” and boosted his ego to “build a voice that can’t be ignored.”

Dadig was reportedly convinced that the messages from ChatGPT reaffirmed “God’s plan” for his alleged criminal conduct.

The question is whether any of these stalked women will join others in suing OpenAI as have families of those who committed suicide.

As I previously noted, there is an ongoing debate over the liability of companies in using such virtual employees in dispensing information or advice. 

If a human employee of OpenAI negligently gave harmful information or counseling to a troubled teen, there would be little debate that the company could be sued for the negligence of its employee.

As AI replaces humans, these companies should be held accountable for their virtual agents.

As many of you know, President Trump pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) after he fell under investigation for alleged bribery after criticizing Biden’s open border policies. As Trump put it on Truth Social, “For years, the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them,” writing that Cueller had “bravely spoke out against Open Borders, and the Biden Border ‘Catastrophe.’”

Cuellar accused the Biden Department of Justice of trying to bribe and entrap him in a failed sting operation, telling Fox News‘ Maria Bartiromo that DOJ prosecutors went so far as to set up an elaborate sting operation specifically designed to entrap him. He also pointed out that prosecutors found no evidence of any quid pro quo, the very allegation that formed the basis of their case against him. Despite the lack of evidence, they apparently decided to create some.

“Again, no quid pro quo from any of the evidence, from any of the individuals,” Cuellar explained. “And therefore, they even did, attempted a sting operation where they were trying to entrap me, and that failed.”

Cuellar and his wife were charged last year with bribery, with the Biden DOJ alleging they accepted roughly $600,000 from Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank in exchange for political favors. Cuellar’s allegations reveal a troubling pattern of prosecutorial misconduct at the highest levels of the Justice Department – a pattern all too familiar when Democrats weaponize government power against their opponents. Democrats used the Obama administration’s Russian collusion hoax to hobble the first Trump administration. Democrats later impeached Trump twice. Then, the Biden Justice Department and Democratic prosecutors across the country pursued dozens of politically charged indictments against Trump in an attempt to prevent his return to the White House.

Bartiromo was clearly shocked by the allegations.

“Wow, entrapment, bribery. Uh, Congressman, tell me specifically, who tried to bribe you? You mean Biden’s DOJ tried to bribe you?”

“Yes, that, they did,” he confirmed when asked if Biden’s DOJ tried to bribe him. “You know, we got all the, the testimony, the 302s, the sting operation. They set up a false company, a false account. They took out money. We saw all this. They took out the money, and they said this money was to bribe me.”

The scheme allegedly fell apart when they approached his Washington, DC staff with the dirty money. “They tried to use this money. They talked to my DC staff. My DC staff told them no, there was nothing there,” Cuellar recalled. Unable to complete their corrupt scheme, the operatives had no choice but to return the money. “So they actually returned the money back to the account because they couldn’t bribe me.”

Cuellar made it clear this was no rogue operation by overzealous local prosecutors. The entire case was orchestrated from Washington, DC. “So the Biden administration, they tried to entrap me and tried to bribe me, and that failed,” he said. “And this is very significant because one more thing, everything came in from the DOJ in DC. Everything came from the office there. The local office, that is the one in Houston, never got enough.”

 “And from my sources, they did not get involved because they felt there was not a case, and they said, ‘We’re not gonna get involved.’ The Houston office said, ‘We’re not gonna get involved.’ It’s all the DOJ people in Washington, DC,” he explained. When local prosecutors who know the territory refuse to touch a case, that should raise red flags about its legitimacy.

Cuellar says he’s already reached out to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to request a formal investigation. If Cuellar’s allegations are true—and he claims to have the receipts in the form of FBI 302 reports and other documentation, it would be an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct. Biden’s DOJ didn’t just bring questionable charges against a sitting congressman who dared to speak out against his immigration policies, but also tried to manufacture evidence through bribery and entrapment when they couldn’t find any real wrongdoing. 

Despite Cuellar’s allegations against the Biden administration, he assured Democrats that he’d still be loyal despite Trump’s pardon, and announced his intention to seek reelection as a Democrat, a move that President Trump criticized as a sign of a lack of loyalty in a Sunday post on Truth Social.

“Only a short time after signing the Pardon, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced that he will be ‘running’ for Congress again, in the Great State of Texas (a State where I received the highest number of votes ever recorded!), as a Democrat, continuing to work with the same Radical Left Scum that just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend the rest of their lives in Prison – And probably still do!”

Trump concluded, “Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like. Oh’ well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”

Russia on Sunday issued new statements voicing deep concern over the US force posture in the southern Caribbean, warning against any possible slide toward direct military action.

The fresh Kremlin statement said Moscow is standing shoulder to shoulder with Caracas, with a fresh appeal for the Trump administration to avoid exacerbating tensions which could lead to open and unnecessary conflict.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov criticized Washington’s desire to establish unconditional dominance in the region, and decried that this has become the norm for the current administration. 

He warned that “tensions are not easing” and “escalation continues” off Latin America, also after the last few months stretching back to September have seen a string of nearly two dozen deadly US attacks on alleged drug smuggling boats near Venezuela. 

“This is primarily due to the desire to assert the unquestioning dominance of the United States in the region, this is a trademark of the Trump administration,” Ryabkov explained.

According to more of his statement:

“We express our solidarity with Venezuela, with whom we recently signed a strategic partnership and cooperation agreement,” the deputy foreign minister noted.

“We support Venezuela, as it supports us, in many areas. In this hour of trial, we stand shoulder to shoulder with Caracas and the Venezuelan leadership. We hope that the Trump administration will refrain from further escalating the situation toward a full-scale conflict. We urge it to do so.”

The Kremlin in these remarks might also have in mind the just published (on Friday) US National Security Strategy and its significant refocus of America’s priorities on the Western Hemisphere.

The document clearly establishes this as the top priority, saying that the US will now “assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”

According to this column, “In Venezuela, the Department of War is indeed playing offense, as Trump promised, but the opponent isn’t really Maduro, it’s Putin” pic.twitter.com/1W0ros2WvM

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 7, 2025

The US national security authors write that this means “a readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”

While Russia has been a longtime ally of President Maduro, it is unlikely to come to his defense in any direct way, also given the delicate and sensitive efforts to improve bilateral ties with Washington amid talks to de-escalate the Ukraine war. This despite Caracas having formally pleaded for more help from Moscow of late, including arms deliveries.

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com,

India’s solar sector has hit that awkward stage of adolescence where ambition seems to be outpacing demand. And now the adults in the room are issuing critical warnings.

A new letter from the clean-energy ministry, quietly circulated to the finance ministry, urges lenders to think twice before showering cash on yet another wave of standalone module factories. When a government that spent the last three years cheerleading capacity expansion suddenly says “maybe don’t,” you can assume the oversupply problem is no longer a theory.

The timing isn’t great for India’s manufacturers. They bulked up with a clear target in mind: the U.S. market. But U.S. tariff walls went up, as did customs scrutiny over Chinese components. This has turned Indian shipments into a slow-moving regulatory piñata. Exports faded. Domestic installations couldn’t pick up the slack. And now the ministry is speaking the painful truth that module capacity could climb to 200 GW in the next few years, and cell capacity could climb to 100 GW.

Local demand won’t come close to that.

Translation: keep building like this and you’re manufacturing future bankruptcies.

The subtext here is political as much as economic. India’s decade-long quest to peel itself away from Chinese supply chains has produced a patchwork of incentives, protectionist barriers, and bold proclamations about “solar self-reliance.” But you can only sustain that narrative if the factories you’ve coaxed into existence have somewhere to sell. Right now, many don’t.

The ministry’s preferred solution is to nudge lenders toward funding fully integrated facilities — the kind that run from polysilicon to finished panels.

That would, at least in theory, give India a more defensible position in the global supply chain. But integrated plants require heavy capex, deep technical expertise, and long-term policy stability. India has not always provided the latter.

The smarter read is this: India isn’t abandoning its solar manufacturing push. It’s trying to avoid a bloodbath.

A gentle warning today is cheaper than a mass insolvency cleanup tomorrow. Whether India’s fragmented solar industry takes the hint is another matter entirely.