Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A major exam board has now signed off on gender-neutral language in GCSE French, Spanish and German exams – despite the terms being completely alien to how those languages are actually spoken in their home countries.

The move, buried in new specifications for 2026 exams, hands students the green light to ditch standard masculine and feminine forms in favour of made-up “inclusive” pronouns, nouns and adjectives.

Yes, you read that right. They’re letting students make up their own parts of foreign languages in exams.

‘Absurd!’ British exam board allows GCSE French students to use gender-neutral language despite terms not being used in Francehttps://t.co/IjXsL9J8ZK

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 10, 2026

Staff at Pearson Edexcel have explicitly permitted teens to use “inclusive” pronouns, nouns and adjectives in both written and oral GCSEs. Yet as the article linked above makes clear, “the French do not pander to the same bid for inclusivity, with all their grammatical concepts being strictly categorised into gendered variants.”

Adjectives must match the noun in masculine or feminine endings. Gender-neutral terms simply do not exist in grammatically correct French or Spanish.

French, by its very nature, is a gendered language. Words are denoted as being “le” or “la,” depending on whether they are masculine or feminine. This is silly and culturally ignorant. https://t.co/pj2TmzTdGQ

— Alex (@Admalez) May 9, 2026

Former French education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer blasted the move as “absurd”. He stated: “French grammar has not changed in this regard. And the use of ‘iel’ does not correspond to any widespread usage among the French population.”

Some French universities and socialist councils have tried pushing “iel” and “iels” as neutral replacements for “il” and “elle”, but Blanquer made it clear this is not mainstream French. The exam board’s decision flies in the face of actual language as used by native speakers.

The new specs include a dedicated section on “gendered language”, backed by the usual LGBT activists at Stonewall. Pearson claims gendered language “can present specific challenges for trans and non-binary students”. As a result, they’ve added vocabulary for “trans” and “non-binary” to the list and vowed to “recognise students’ use of non-binary or gender-neutral pronouns when describing themselves or others” in exams.

Absolute insanity. When these people go out into the real world, only then will they discover that no one has a clue what it is they’re saying.

Students can even deploy new adjectival endings “according to their preferred way of identifying”, along with special spellings using full stops, “x’s”, asterisks and underscores. This isn’t teaching French – it’s turning language exams into an identity politics playground.

The move comes just weeks after the government’s new trans guidance for schools, a framework that openly allows primary school children – some as young as four – to socially transition at school, complete with different pronouns, as long as teachers show “caution” and consult parents.

What started with pronoun policies in the classroom has now leaked into the actual curriculum and assessment system.

Director of Advocacy at Sex Matters, Helen Joyce, nailed the bigger picture, noting “It may seem baffling how quickly schools have been captured by gender ideology in recent years.” Joyce pointed to Stonewall-linked external providers pushing a “pro-trans agenda” and warned: “The next challenge for the Department for Education will be to tackle the pernicious creep of gender ideology throughout the curriculum, and the role of external providers in driving this.”

Pearson tried to walk it back in a statement, insisting: “Gender-neutral pronouns are not required as part of Pearson Edexcel GCSE French, German, or Spanish. The specifications require students to learn and be assessed only on the standard masculine and feminine forms used in these languages.” They added that the vocabulary list reflects “everyday life, including references to men and women, him and her, boys and girls, mothers and fathers,” and claimed their Stonewall membership ended over two years ago.

The Department for Education itself sounded a note of caution, stating: “Our expectations are clear: gender identity is an area of significant debate. Schools should not endorse any particular view or teach it as fact – including the idea that all people have a gender identity.”

Yet the guidance still permits the very practices critics say undermine real education. Allowing fantasy spellings and pronouns in a French GCSE doesn’t prepare kids for the real world – it prepares them for ideological conformity. French speakers in France won’t understand “iel” any more than they’ll understand a British teen demanding to be called “they” in Paris.

This is the inevitable next step after the trans guidance fiasco. Once you accept that feelings trump biology in the classroom, it was only a matter of time before the same logic infected subjects like languages, history and science. Stonewall’s influence may be officially over at Pearson, but the damage lingers in the specs they helped shape.

Parents and common-sense voices have every right to be furious. Education should teach facts, grammar and reality – not indulge every passing social trend. The UK already lags behind in basic skills; turning GCSEs into optional pronoun workshops only accelerates the decline.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was once again this year the only EU leader to visit Moscow for Russia’s Victory Day commemorative WW2 celebrations on Saturday, which has drawn a predictable and fierce rebuke from Germany and European officials.

This was the second time Fico attended V-Day celebrations, after a similar controversial visit last year. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in particular chastised Fico with scolding words, as if Fico was being called to the principal’s office. “We will talk with him about this day in Moscow today,” he said. “We are celebrating Europe Day here in Stockholm today. And this is something completely different.”

One apt and hilariously sarcastic headline said that “Merz promised Fico a spanking for a trip to Moscow on May 9.”

Merz also said he “deeply regretted” Fico’s trip while asserting it did not reflect the EU’s “common view”. Fico has not only been intensely skeptical of European aid to Ukraine, but Slovakia has also remained heavily dependent on Russian energy.

As for President Putin, he received Fico and said: “I know there were some difficulties with your trip to Moscow. But the important thing is that you’re here.” These ‘difficulties’ included several European states having refused to let let the Slovak leader’s plane use their airspace on his way to Moscow.

“We welcome the gradual resumption of bilateral cooperation, which had effectively been put on hold by the previous Slovak authorities,” said Putin. “We will do everything we can to meet the Slovak Republic’s energy needs.“

Still, Fico didn’t attend the full array of V-Day events. He met with Putin, but skipped the main military parade events at Red Square, and instead solemnly laid flowers on Friday at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is Russia’s central memorial to millions of Soviet soldiers who died fighting against Nazi Germany.

Fico deflected ongoing EU criticism, saying his visit was “a manifestation of respect for the victims of the Second World War” and that he and Putin must necessarily discuss “fundamental questions” of bilateral relations.

“I am opposed to creating any kind of new Iron Curtain between Europe, the European Union, and the Russian Federation,” Fico said. “I support normal, standard, friendly, and mutually beneficial relations.”

But one irony is that Slovakia has been a member of the NATO alliance since 2004, and in President Putin’s keynote V-Day speech, he again blasted NATO expansion and its role in Ukraine.

Brussels Pressure Failed, Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico Arrives To Meet Putin pic.twitter.com/7yroI79VJr

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) May 9, 2026

“The great feat of the generation of victors inspires the soldiers carrying out the goals of the special military operation today,” Putin had declared. “They are confronting an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc. And despite this, our heroes move forward,” he said. “I firmly believe that our cause is just,” he later emphasized.

Authored by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida via Global Research,

Recent drone incidents in European countries, especially in the Baltic states, are generating controversy among those who support the war with Russia. Some argue that Ukraine is merely defending itself against “Russian aggression,” with these “accidental” occurrences being an inevitable side effect of hostilities. Others believe that Kiev should act more cautiously to avoid harming partner countries. Meanwhile, drones continue to crash in Europe without a definitive solution being presented for this issue.

Recently, a kamikaze drone launched by Ukraine struck a fuel storage tank in Latvia. At the time of the incident, the tank was empty, which prevented a major tragedy. Had the drone hit a full tank, the result would have been a large explosion, followed by a massive fire, generating serious economic and environmental damage – as has happened in several recent cases in Russian border regions, with drones hitting energy facilities and causing serious fires.

Obviously, the expected attitude of any country hit by a foreign drone – even from an allied country – is at least to condemn the action and demand financial compensation for the damage caused. But apparently, this is not the Latvian stance regarding Ukrainian drones falling in the country. Recently, Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds stated that Kiev should not be held responsible for these incidents. According to him, these are merely accidental collateral damages, with the real blame for the occurrence lying with Russia – which he believes “started the war”.

Spruds stated that “Ukraine has every right to defend itself,” admitting that even incidents affecting Latvian territory should be tolerated, since Kiev is only acting in “legitimate self-defense.”

In practice, he prioritized the supposed Ukrainian “right” to attack Russia over the national security of Latvian territory and people.

Not only that, the Latvian government also summoned Russian diplomats and demanded explanations about the case.

Even though the drones are known to be of Ukrainian origin, the Latvian government maintains a firm stance of holding Russia responsible for any event related to the conflict.

Furthermore, Moscow has also presented reports to the Latvian side showing that drones have crashed in the country due to failed Ukrainian attempts to attack the St. Petersburg region, but the Latvian government ignores these circumstances and simply blames Moscow.

Unfortunately, this attitude is not unique to the defense sector. Tolerance towards incidents involving Ukrainian drones is also widely endorsed by the country’s government and parliament, with most local politicians and bureaucrats being mere representatives of European elites interested in spreading Russophobia and pro-war sentiments. Commenting on the case, Latvian PM Evika Silina herself stated that, regardless of the origin of the drones that hit the country, it is always necessary to blame Russia – which she considers the “actual culprit”.

“It doesn’t matter whose drones hit the oil depot in Latvia, the main thing is to remember Russia’s responsibility for it. Russia is the aggressor,” she said.

It is important to remember that the incident at the fuel depot was just one in a recent wave of frustrated Ukrainian attacks resulting in drone crashes in Europe. Previously, on March 23, Ukrainian drones exploded near Lake Lavysas in Lithuania; two days later, in Latvia itself, drones crashed in the Kraslava region, and on the same day a similar incident occurred at the Auvere Power Plant in Estonia. On March 29, the city of Kouvola in Finland was hit by Ukrainian drones. Furthermore, several other related incidents have been reported in different countries in recent months.

In none of these cases was there an effective European response to the crimes committed by Ukraine. Justifying these occurrences with the unfounded narrative of “self-defense,” European countries are tolerating threats to their own territories and abdicating their right to demand reparations from the Ukrainian regime.

In practice, this only strengthens Ukraine’s position and gives even more freedom to the local military to act irresponsibly, launching swarms of drones indiscriminately, aware that some of them will likely fall on civilian areas of allied countries – but simply not caring, since these countries will ultimately blame Russia.

At some point, these Ukrainian drones will begin to cause more serious damage than merely destroying empty depots. If the incidents do not cease, there will inevitably be deaths in Europe in the near future. And then it will not be enough for local governments to say “it’s Russia’s fault,” because the victims’ relatives, knowing that the drones are Ukrainian, will demand more concrete answers and harsh measures against those responsible. As a result, the support given by these countries to Ukraine will become even more unpopular, generating an internal legitimacy crisis.

To prevent the worst-case scenario, the best thing Europeans can do now is to openly condemn Kiev and demand financial reparations for the damage caused.

Authored by José Niño via The Libertarian Institute

The United States has long operated under a seductive strategic fantasy. Remove the leader of an adversary organization, whether a drug cartel, a terrorist group, or a sovereign state, and that organization will collapse, enabling American interests to fill the resulting vacuum.

However, decades of academic literature, hard empirical data from Mexico’s drug war, and the lived consequences of America’s post 9/11 targeted killing campaigns all tell a damning story many in the DC ruling class refuse to acknowledge. Decapitation strategies are, at best, tactically satisfying and strategically hollow. At worst, they escalate violence, radicalize successors, and produce precisely the instability they were designed to prevent. The ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran represents the most ambitious test of this doctrine in history. The results so far are deeply troubling.

The poor results should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the academic literature on leadership targeting. The scholarly consensus against decapitation has been building for decades. Jenna Jordan’s landmark research, first published in Security Studies in 2009 and later expanded into her book Leadership Decapitation, examined 298 incidents of leadership targeting from 1945 through 2004. She concluded that “decapitation is not an effective counterterrorism strategy” and that it tends to extend the life of terrorist organizations.

Jordan identifies three structural factors that make organizations resilient to leadership decapitation: bureaucratic depth, popular support, and ideological coherence. The more institutionalized and ideologically rooted an organization is, the more it absorbs the loss of leaders. Martyrdom replaces individuals with myth.

Through analysis of over 1,000 decapitation events against 180 terrorist groups, Jordan found that decapitation “does not increase the mortality rate of terrorist groups and, in some cases, even leads to more terrorist activity,” as War on the Rocks reported. The University of Pretoria’s Emmanuel Ofuasia confirmed that “the decapitation tactic has served as a basis for escalation and proliferation of terrorist groups rather than serving as deterrence against the possibility of recurrence.”

The fixation with decapitation strategies is part and parcel of the DC mindset, which puts regime change on a pedestal—consequences be damned. Alexander Downes of George Washington University, whose book Catastrophic Success surveys roughly 90 instances of foreign-imposed regime change, finds that more than 40% of states that experience foreign-imposed regime change have a civil war within the next ten years. Ben Denison of the Cato Institute concurs that “even after high-profile failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, some in the policy community still call for ousting illiberal regimes,” and the empirical record “clearly reveals that a regime-change operation is more likely to fail than to succeed.”

The academic literature is damning enough, but the real-world laboratory of Mexico’s drug war offers even starker evidence of decapitation’s failure. By January 2011, Mexican authorities had captured or killed 20 of their 37 priority cartel targets. Violence did not recede. More than 66,000 drug-related deaths occurred in Mexico between 2007 and 2012.

The landmark 2015 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution—by Calderón, Robles, Díaz-Cayeros, and Magaloni—found that “captures or killings of drug cartel leaders have exacerbating effects not only on DTO-related violence, but also on homicides that affect the general population.”

The mechanisms are clear: “When drug capos are eliminated, other cartels possess incentives to fight turf wars…Moreover, as the elimination of drug capos weakens existing chains of command, criminal cells begin operating with less restraint.”

The lessons from Mexico have gone unheeded. Today, the same flawed logic drives American policy toward Iran, where prominent voices in the foreign policy establishment have begun sounding the alarm. Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has been the most prominent institutional voice of skepticism about the Iran campaign.

In March 2026, he wrote that “Killing Iran’s top leaders may feel like a decisive blow, but history shows that decapitation rarely produces the political outcomes the United States hopes for, and often exacerbates instability.” He points to Israel’s repeated targeting of Hamas leaders since 1987 as definitive refutation. Instead of changing political direction, Hamas simply “absorbed its martyrs and lives to fight another day.”

Iran is not a hollow dictatorship held together by one man’s terror. It is an institutionalized revolutionary state that has operated under sanctions, sabotage, covert operations, and assassination campaigns for decades. Its architecture was consciously engineered for continuity under stress.

As Al Jazeera’s analysis notes, “Iran is not a single pyramid with one man at the apex. It is a heterarchical, networked state: Overlapping hubs of power around the Supreme Leader’s office, the Revolutionary Guards, intelligence organs, clerical gatekeepers, and a patronage economy. In such a system, removing one node, even the most symbolic one, does not reliably collapse the structure; redundancy and substitute chains of command are a design feature.”

The evidence is overwhelming, yet Washington refuses to learn. Decapitation strategies represent a cartoon, video game style approach to foreign policy, rooted in the fantasy that eliminating a single leader will cause an entire regime to crumble. DC desperately needs a wakeup call.

The United States cannot kill its way to a more favorable world order. America must abandon the interventionist impulse and embrace strategic retrenchment and accept the harsh realities that not all countries want to be remade in Washington’s image. Restraint, not assassination nor quixotic regime change ventures, is the foundation of a sustainable grand strategy.

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

Sen. Marsha Blackburn sent a sharply worded letter Wednesday to Secret Service Director Sean Curran demanding an immediate, top-to-bottom review of the Secret Service, a move that comes nearly two weeks after an armed gunman sprinted past a checkpoint leading to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in a third assassination attempt on President Trump.

As part of the review, Blackburn called for a “full, thorough audit of every single employee on your payroll.”

“It is blatantly clear that the Secret Service needs to be cleaned up,” the Tennessee Republican wrote. “Unless you root out the rot, our nation will suffer the consequences.”

Blackburn’s letter also comes just days after a Secret Service Uniformed Division officer was arrested in Miami after being found naked and masturbating in a hallway in yet another embarrassing spectacle.

The senator drew an explicit connection between the misconduct pattern and the agency’s core protective mission: “At a time when President Trump faces increasing threats to his safety, including yet another assassination attempt, the Secret Service cannot afford to have individuals who engage in this kind of embarrassing, disgraceful conduct on its payroll.”

Blackburn stopped short of calling for Curran’s resignation, but her demand for a full personnel audit – along with the blunt warning about consequences – signals mounting congressional pressure on an agency that has faced repeated public scrutiny since the July 2024 assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, that nearly killed him. An attempt on Trump’s life two months later at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course, was another close call.

Blackburn cited the recent arrest of the agent for indecent exposure at the Miami hotel and framed the personnel issues as symptomatic of deeper structural problems – including what she described as persistent difficulties in vetting, hiring, and maintaining agent morale.

“There are broader questions about your agency’s ability to properly vet and hire agents,” she wrote, “which has resulted in continued manpower and morale issues.”

Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect charged with multiple felonies for his aborted attack on the White House Correspondents’ dinner, managed to sprint through a checkpoint while allegedly exchanging fire with a Secret Service Uniformed Division officer. Federal prosecutors and Curran have said the officer was shot but was protected from harm by his ballistics vest.

The agents pursued Allen, who fell and then was apprehended 45 yards from the stairs to the ballroom. If the “brave” officers and agents hadn’t acted swiftly, Blackburn wrote, many attendees – including the president – “could have been seriously harmed.”

Just hours after the arrest of the naked officer on Monday, the Secret Service made headlines again – this time for engaging in a gunfight with an armed man that injured a juvenile bystander with a stray bullet near the Washington Monument, which is not far from the White House complex.

Law enforcement experts, including Fox News contributor Paul Mauro, who served 24 years with the new York Police Department, have questioned why the Secret Service didn’t provide more details sooner about Monday’s exchange of fire and the suspect’s injuries. Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged 45-year-old Michael Marx of Midland, Texas, with assaulting federal officers with a dangerous weapon, among other crimes.

“A press conference over this recent mysterious shooting in D.C. wouldn’t be a bad idea either,” Mauro remarked in an X.com post. “USSS involved in more shooting incidents than NYPD these days. And that’s…new.”

Curran has also drawn fire for telling Fox News last week that the security for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was “set-up perfectly.”

Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who led multiple investigations into the Secret Service when he was Oversight Committee chairman, strongly questioned that characterization. “Perfect? Are you kidding?” he told RealClearPolitics. “What if there were 12 guys with guns that decided to rush that point?  “And Curran’s talking about how great the training was. Are you kidding me?” he added.

Former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who previously served as a Secret Service agent, also expressed concern about the possibility of multiple assailants bombarding Secret Service checkpoints and argued that agents with elite training should help fortify that layer of security.

“What worries me is not the first guy going through who charges the checkpoint. It’s the second, third, and possibly tenth guy after that,” he said in an interview this week with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. “You get a counter-assault team there, you got a real force to hit back.”

The dinner incident was not the only recent security lapse Blackburn highlighted. Just 19 days before the correspondents’ dinner, sometime between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. April 6, a gunman fired shots near the White House grounds. In an RCP report cited by the senator, multiple sources said Secret Service investigators were unable to identify any information about the shooter – who, as of the letter’s writing, remains unidentified. Trump also was pressing the agency for more information, the sources said.

Blackburn cited other personnel incidents RCP reported, including a junior Secret Service agent faulted for the security planning and execution failures at the Butler rally marrying a foreign national without promptly notifying her superiors; another in which the FBI raided an agent’s home in an investigation of an alleged massive tax fraud scheme; and an agent charged for murdering his brother on New Year’s Eve.

“These are just a few of the many examples of personnel concerns that demonstrate a clear pattern of incompetence at the Secret Service that must be promptly addressed,” Blackburn wrote Curran.

The spate of such incidents has fueled bipartisan alarm on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have questioned whether the agency is structurally equipped to protect its principals at a moment when threats against the president are, by Blackburn’s account, escalating.

A bipartisan push began this week to place the Secret Service under direct White House supervision. Led by Reps. Russell Fry and Jared Moskowitz, the move would transfer the Secret Service away from the Department of Homeland Security oversight and make the agency report directly to the White House. After the WHCA scare, RCP reported that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had blocked efforts by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s team to impose a layer of oversight at the Secret Service aimed at ensuring deeper reforms under Curran’s leadership.

After the WHCA dinner shooting, Wiles convened a meeting with Secret Service and DHS leaders to discuss “protocol and practices” for major events involving Trump. A senior White House official said the meeting was convened to plan for upcoming events commemorating America 250. Trump also has expressed interest in attending the World Cup, which kicks off June 11.

Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a 60 Minutes interview which aired Sunday that President Trump still wants Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium removed. Trump on Monday warned that the Iran ceasefire is on ‘massive life support’.

Netanyahu told CBS show host Major Garrett that the military campaign had achieved “a great deal” but insisted additional operations remain necessary.  That’s when he described, “There’s still nuclear material, enriched uranium, that has to be taken out of Iran. There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled.”

Trump on Iran:

Iran told me, “You are getting the nuclear dust, but you will have to get it.”

They said, “You and China are the only ones that can get it because the sites were obliterated.” pic.twitter.com/bpyRXcNTtw

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 11, 2026

“There are still proxies that Iran supports,” Netanyahu added. “There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce. Now, we’ve degraded a lot of it, but all that is still there, and there’s work to be done.”

Clearly the Israeli prime minister is trying to hold the line of maximalist demands on Iran, even as it seems Washington is trying to extricate itself from the conflict while still seeking to present a narrative of ‘victory’.

It is true that Trump has still not let up on insisting that what he calls all the “nuclear dust” must be removed from Iran, amid Tehran’s repeat objections to this. This lone issue is primarily what has collapsed peace negotiations at this point.

Garrett pressed Netanyahu on just how the removal of Iranian nuclear material would be accomplished, given such a gambit would be obvious recipe for prolonging and even escalating the war.

“With what?” Garrett posed. “Special Forces from Israel, Special Forces from the United States working in tandem under international supervision? How?”

Netanyahu dodged the question, amid growing criticism among the American public that Washington is doing the bidding of Israel in starting and prolonging Operation Epic Fury:

“Well, I’m not gonna talk about military means, but what President Trump has said to me, ‘I want to go in there,’ I mean, he’s said that publicly. He’s said it and I think he’s right. He’s very committed to this. And I think it can be done physically,” Netanyahu responded. “That’s not the problem. If you have an agreement, and you go in, and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”

“What if there isn’t an agreement? Can it be taken out by force?” Garrett asked.

The below segment has raised some serious questions: Bibi trying to dictate US foreign policy?…

🚨 HOLY CRAP. A FOREIGN PRIME MINISTER just told American media YOUR war isn’t over, and casually floated sending YOUR sons into Iran to grab uranium.

NETANYAHU: “It’s not over.”

“You go in and you take it out.”

REPORTER: With what? Special forces from Israel? From the United… pic.twitter.com/pcvTwJ80Xo

— Space Ape (@EatDaBugs) May 10, 2026

“Well, you’re gonna ask me these questions. I’m gonna dodge them, so you can ask me that second time, third time, and I’ll dodge it second time, third time,” the prime minister replied.

At one point Netanyahu had said: “I think it can be done physically.”

While there remains the distinct possibility that this conflict could morph into an eventual ground war, US officials have downplayed the potential of Israeli boots on the ground. And yet Washington hasn’t discounted putting American soldiers in harm’s way. This is has resulted in anger and frustration among some sectors of the Right in the US.

*  *  *

Below is the full interview:

India rejected Russia’s offer ​to sell it liquefied natural gas subject to US sanctions, despite a huge shortfall driven by Middle East tensions, leaving a tanker bound for India in limbo as talks continue on permitted cargoes, Reuters reports.

The stance highlights the fine balance the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer is seeking to strike between securing energy supplies and avoiding LNG cargoes on which the U.S. has ​placed sanctions, which are harder to disguise and carry greater compliance risk. It also underscores the limits of Moscow’s ability ​to pivot its LNG exports to new markets.

India’s reluctance has left an LNG cargo from Russia’s U.S.-sanctioned Portovaya ⁠plant in the Baltic Sea unable to discharge, despite indicating India as its destination in mid-April, one of the sources said. The ​vessel was tracked despite documentation suggesting the cargo was non-Russian, the source added.

Reuters had reported in mid-April, citing LSEG shipping data, that the ​138,200-cubic-metre tanker Kunpeng was heading to the Dahej LNG import terminal in western India. The vessel is now near Singaporean waters with no destination broadcast, according to LSEG.

India, the biggest buyer of Russian seaborne crude, conveyed its decision not to buy LNG that was under sanction to Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Pavel ​Sorokin during his April 30 visit, when he met Indian officials including Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, one of ​the sources said. It was their second meeting in as many months, and Sorokin could return in June for further talks, said the source.

India’s purchases of Russian crude have meanwhile continued unabated, aided by a temporary waiver of U.S. sanctions introduced to help countries cope with an energy crisis resulting from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28.

Arctic LNG 2 is Russia’s other export plant subject to U.S. sanctions. Washington stepped ​up sanctions on the LNG ​plants in early 2025 over ⁠Russia’s war on Ukraine.  

While crude oil cargoes can be hidden through ship-to-ship transfers at sea, LNG shipments are far harder to conceal from satellite tracking. 

While India is open to buying authorised ​Russian LNG, most of those volumes are committed to Europe, Reuters notes. Meanwhile, China remains ⁠a major buyer of both sanctioned and unsanctioned Russian LNG. Moscow is also seeking long-term deals to supply India with LNG and fertilizers such as potash, phosphorus and urea, the source added.

Before the Iran conflict disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, India was meeting half of its ⁠gas consumption ​through imports, about 60% of which had come through the waterway. More than ​half of its crude supplies came the same way.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged people to conserve fuel and foreign exchange by working from home, limiting foreign ​travel and reducing imports of gold and edible oil.

Rival submarine threats have emerged Monday amid the ongoing Strait of Hormuz showdown and as President Trump has said the ceasefire with Iran is on “massive life support”.

A US Navy nuclear-armed submarine has arrived in Gibraltar while en route into the Mediterranean Sea and likely Central Command or Middle East regional waters, in a very rare Pentagon admission of the whereabouts of one of America’s most secretive weapons.

“The port visit demonstrates U.S. capability, flexibility, and continuing commitment to its NATO allies,” the Navy announced, confirming that the submarine arrived in Gibraltar on Sunday. “Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines are undetectable launch platforms for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, providing the U.S. with its most survivable leg of the nuclear triad.”

The Wall Street Journal has emphasized, “The Pentagon almost never acknowledges the locations of its boomers [US naval slang], which are highly classified. The Navy didn’t provide the name of the submarine in Gibraltar.”

The revelation of the nuclear sub’s movements comes just atter President Trump blasted Iran’s latest counterproposal to a US peace plan as “totally unacceptable” and even called it “garbage” while threatening renewed anti-Tehran military action. It also comes as Trump is about to travel to China for a highly anticipated summit with Xi Jinping.

There’s current some rival ‘sub flexing’ going on among the two rival and warring powers, given also the following from Bloomberg on the same day: “The Islamic Republic has at least 16 of the Ghadir-class midget submarines, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.”

USS Alaska (SSBN 732) (tentatively identified) Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine coming into Gibraltar – May 10, 2026 SRC: X-@PeterFerrary pic.twitter.com/aU7V53tS3V

— WarshipCam (@WarshipCam) May 11, 2026

“Each has a crew of fewer than 10 people and can carry either two torpedoes or two Chinese-designed C-704 anti-ship cruise missiles,” the report described.

Iranian Rear Admiral Shahram Irani said the domestically built submarines, known as the “Persian Gulf Dolphins,” are deployed in active operational positions calibrated to confront evolving threats.

Tehran is in essence warning it still possesses the capability to take out American destroyers and warships patrolling the area, as the deployment reinforces Tehran’s broader asymmetric warfare strategy across the Persian Gulf.

State-linked Iranian outlets have characterized the submarines as “trigger-ready” – but also say they are capable of prolonged seabed-resting surveillance operations.

All of this suggests intense submarine warfare could soon come to the Hormuz Strait and Persian Gulf waters. Already most of the Iranian Navy’s surface vessels were obliterated in over a month of intense US-Israeli airstrikes.

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times,

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Friday named six Democratic states he wants to join New York in pursuing mid-decade redistricting ahead of the 2028 election—a longer-term play as both parties have raced to redraw maps before the November 2026 midterms.

“It’s going to be incredibly important that states like New York, New Jersey, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Maryland and Illinois are aggressive in moving forward to ensure that there’s a fair national map, particularly in light of what the Supreme Court’s attack on the Voting Rights Act has unleashed,” Jeffries said in an interview with CNN published on May 8.

Congressional maps are slated to be redrawn after the next census in 2030.

The comments came the same day that the Virginia Supreme Court voided an April referendum that would have allowed state Democrats to redraw Virginia’s congressional map ahead of the November midterms. Democrats had said the new Virginia map could result in their having 10 congressional seats to only one for Republicans. Virginia now has six Democratic members of Congress and five Republicans.

Jeffries called the Virginia ruling “unprecedented” and “undemocratic” in a statement released by his office on Friday.

“Over three million Virginia citizens cast their votes in a free and fair election, yet the State Supreme Court has chosen to invalidate their voice, disenfranchise them and violate their due process rights,” Jeffries said in the statement.

He added, “We are exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision. No matter what it takes, House Democrats will win in November so we can help rescue this nation from the extremism being unleashed by Donald Trump and Republicans.”

Despite the setback, Jeffries told CNN that Democrats could still flip “at least two” GOP-held seats in Virginia under the existing congressional map.

“If the current map holds in Virginia, we will at minimum flip two seats. And we’re exploring other options given how unpopular the policies of the Republican party have been,” Jeffries told CNN.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana’s congressional map was unconstitutional because race was the predominant factor in drawing the lines, a decision that limits redistricting based on race. Democrats and voting rights advocates say the decision guts the Voting Rights Act and gives Republican-led states grounds to revisit majority-minority districts.

Republicans hailed the ruling. Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton said on May 6 that the Supreme Court had “opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind.” He noted that the court had also indicated that “states can redistrict based off partisan politics” as the state began redrawing its districts.

Republican-led states have moved quickly.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on May 7 signed a new congressional map that splits Memphis into three districts and will probably eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held congressional seat. The Tennessee General Assembly first passed a measure repealing a state law that had previously prohibited mid-decade redistricting.

Republicans have also moved this year to redraw congressional maps in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, and Florida. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 4 signed a new map that could add up to four Republican-leaning seats to that state’s congressional delegation.

Democrats have countered with their own mid-decade redraws in California and the now-voided Virginia attempt. On May 4, Jeffries launched what he calls the New York Democracy Project, an effort to recruit New York into the mid-decade redistricting fight.

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), dispatched to Albany by Jeffries, pressed New York Democratic leaders to advance a constitutional amendment enabling mid-decade redistricting before the legislature adjourns the first week of June. A New York constitutional change would require passage by two consecutive legislative sessions before going to voters for ratification.

Jeffries on Monday told House Democrats in a Dear Colleague letter that he will host a caucus-wide briefing on Thursday with Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee, to discuss what he called “the largest voter protection effort in modern American history.”

National Republican Redistricting Trust Executive Director Adam Kincaid told The Epoch Times this past week that the broader push amounted to “Hochul and Jeffries’s annual attempt to illegally gerrymander New York and roll back the state’s twice-voter-approved redistricting commission.”

First Canada, then Greenland… and now Venezuela?

President Donald Trump said Monday he is seriously considering annexing the South American nation as the 51st U.S. state, citing the country’s vast oil reserves and what he described as strong local support for his leadership.

In a telephone interview with Fox News anchor John Roberts, Trump mused that he is weighing the move for a nation that holds an estimated $40 trillion in oil resources.

NEW: President Trump tells @FoxNews colleague @johnrobertsFox in a phone call just now that he is “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state”, adding that there is $40 trillion in oil there and “Venezuela loves Trump”.

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) May 11, 2026

“Venezuela loves Trump,” the president told the reporter.

The suggestion comes months after U.S. forces conducted a military operation in Venezuela in January that resulted in the capture of longtime President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple was extradited to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism and weapons charges, effectively ending more than a decade of socialist rule that had transformed one of Latin America’s richest economies into an economic disaster marked by hyperinflation, mass emigration and the breakdown of public services.

Rather than installing opposition figure María Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, as the new leader, the Trump administration supported the installation of Delcy Rodríguez—Maduro’s former vice president—as interim president. Trump has described the arrangement as “spectacular” and predicted a rapid economic turnaround.

Rodríguez’s government has moved swiftly on economic reforms. Within weeks of taking power, it enacted legislation opening the oil sector to privatization, dismantling core elements of the Chavista model that had dominated for more than two decades.

Meanwhile, commercial activity has accelerated thanks to Chevron, which signed two agreements expanding its participation in a joint venture with state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA in the Orinoco Oil Belt, Reuters reported at the time.

Venezuelan oil output is already rising.

PDVSA reported production of 1.095 million barrels a day last month, up 75,000 barrels a day from February, with Oil Minister Paula Henao setting a target of 1.3 million barrels a day by year-end.
Trump administration officials have been candid about the financial stakes.

A White House spokesman called the first $500 million portion of an approximately $2 billion oil-supply agreement a “historic energy deal,” CBS News reported at the time. Trump has said the U.S. would rebuild Venezuela “in a very profitable way,” adding, “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil.”