👊 JD Vance SPANKS neocon warmonger Bill Kristol over Trump pope image criticism

💬 “As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen,” Vance wrote on 📱, after Kristol asked him if he was “fine with” the “disrespect and mocking of the Holy Father” the AI-generated pope Trump supposedly showed.

➡️Kristol, 73, co-founded the arch-neocon Project for the New American Century with Robert Kagan in 1997, and provided ideological justifications for US invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. Collectively, over 7,000 US servicemen were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus up to a million locals.

➡️Vance, a former Marine, did a six-month tour of Iraq in 2005 as a military journalist.

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⭐ Musk’s Starbase City is a go

Residents of Boca Chica Village, Cameron County, Texas have voted 212-6 to incorporate as the city of Starbase.

SpaceX began building its private spaceport at the location, situated near the Gulf of Mexico on the southern tip of Texas, in 2018. Most of its 500 or so residents are SpaceX employees and their families. Elon Musk has a home there on Meme Street.

Incorporation is expected to offer SpaceX zoning and development control, and the ability to independently approve construction and commercial projects, create a police or fire department, libraries, public parks and even a municipal court.

Starbase is used exclusively to launch Starship super-heavy rockets, with eight launches carried out to date (four successful, four failed).

As for the original residents of the once sleepy beachfront community, most have moved away to escape constant construction, noise and rocket launches.

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📡NATO urges EU to develop own military satellites as ties with US sour

💬 “There can be no European sovereignty without efforts in space. Today, a major awakening is necessary, even urgent, for Europeans to get started,” NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Transformation Pierre Vandier said.

💬 “The Americans themselves are calling for a form of emancipation, for Europeans to come of age and be better on a number of subjects – and that includes space,” Adm. Vandier, a former Chief of Staff of the French Navy, told European media.

🗣 At the moment, European allies rely mostly on Musk’s SpaceX for their space-based battlefield communication and intelligence-gathering needs, with the EU’s owned system, the IRIS Squared dual-use constellation, not expected to come online until 2030.

✅ Europe should rely more on cheaper low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites instead of far pricier geostationary orbit satellites, Vandier believes.

👉 Today, dependence on the Americans and the lack of domestic alternatives is a “huge hindrance” for “European sovereignty.”

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📹🇨🇳China unveils humanoid robot to revolutionize government services

🤖The robot, presented in Shenzhen, southern China, can even work night shifts.

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🔥 Heroes remembered in Rome: 80 years of Victory! 🇷🇺🇮🇹

🎉 Up to 400 people gathered in the square near the ancient Circus Maximus in Rome to hold the Immortal Regiment event.

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😢Barely afloat? UK Navy's SHRINKING fleet amid Russia's naval surge

The British Royal Navy is flexing its muscle, with the flagship HMS Prince of Wales leading its Carrier Strike Group (CSG) on NATO drills to the Indo-Pacific.

The harsh reality, though, is that the Royal Navy is running on fumes, Responsible Statecraft suggests.

🇬🇧The UK has just 10 war-ready ships to its name, it claimed, citing defense sources.

🛳 2 destroyers
🚢 5-6 frigates
🚤 2 attack submarines (not counting Vanguard-class deterrents)

❔ Where are the rest? Reportedly in dry dock:

🟠3 Astute-class attack subs launched in 2014 (Ambush, Artful, Audacious) stuck in port for over 1.5 years under repair
🟠HMS Daring, commissioned in 2009, has clocked 2,748+ days in refit.
🟠2 Albion-class assault ships decommissioned due to budget cuts.
🟠Around 9 ships in dry docks

🇷🇺 What about Russia?

✅49 naval vessels of various classes built in the past five years, President Vladimir Putin announced in April
✅Four Borey-A-class strategic nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarines with enhanced acoustic discretion & superior situational awareness
✅ Four Yasen-M-class multipurpose nuclear-powered attack subs with advanced stealth capability
✅Modernized frigates, corvettes, and nuclear subs armed with cutting-edge Zircon hypersonic missiles that no air defenses can stop!

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📹 Trump reveals if he is looking to RUN FOR A THIRD TERM

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❓What is Trump’s red line in Ukraine peace push?

POTUS admits that sometimes he gets “close to” wanting to QUIT MEDIATION EFFORTS out of frustration, but then “positive things happen” and he recommits.

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🪖US’ Indo-Pacific playbook: Muscle-flexing on China's doorstep amid regional tensions

The US is typically citing China’s “aggressive behavior” as a pretext to further ratchet up tensions in the Asian-Pacific region.

The US Army has created agile new units to operate in a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal reported.

📑The plan:

🗡 deploy fast-moving Army units to strike Chinese targets;

🔍 gather intel;

🧹 clear the way for US air and naval forces;

🪖 two Multi-Domain Task Forces are already active with the third coming;

🔫 arm them with new systems like the Typhon missile capable of reaching mainland China.

➡️The US sent the Typhon land-based Mid-Range Capability Launcher to the Philippines for the joint Balikatan military drills last April. It is still there, and in December Manila signaled interest in acquiring a Typhon system of its own.

➡️China’s Foreign Ministry has repeatedly called for the system’s removal, accusing the Philippines of “placing its national security and defense in the hands of others, introducing geopolitical confrontation and risk of arms race into the region.”

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🇮🇱🇺🇸🇵🇸 Israel wants to use American security contractors to throttle Gaza humanitarian aid: report

The “take-it-or-leave-it” proposal, put forward by the IDF to aid agencies and the UN as a condition of lifting its blockade, reportedly stipulates:

🔸 60 truckloads of supplies entering Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing after inspection by the IDF

🔸 Six initial Israel-designated distribution hubs secured by contractors from two US private security companies, the ex-CIA-run SRS and ex-military UG Solutions.

Hubs to be equipped with facial recognition monitoring, and serve 5,000-6,000 households apiece.

🔸 Distribution of 20 kg food and hygiene packages weekly/biweekly by aid workers. Fuel and water distributed separately.

💬 “We did the entire operational planning of how we can deliver the aid needed – the exact amount needed and not an ounce more,” an ex-IDF official involved in planning told WaPo.

Critics fear the starvation rations would trigger violence around hubs. “Yes, I’ll starve Gazans, yes, this is our obligation,” Likud lawmaker Moshe Saada said last month.

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‘He is completely crazy!’

Florian Philippot, leader of the French Patriots party, reacts to Zelensky’s threats to politicians who will attend the Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9.

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🇮🇱 ‘There will be many bangs’, Netanyahu warns after Houthi missile strikes airport

💬 “I can’t describe anything in detail, but we will start responding to them,” Netanyahu said in a tense address during which he furrowed his brows, raised his voice and banged his hand on the table.

💬 “We’re acting against them in coordination with the US. We’ve acted against them in the past, and will act against them in the future. It’s not ‘bang and we’re done’. There will be many bangs,” he said.

🟠Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Katz threatened to “hit back sevenfold at anyone who hurts us.”

🟠Houthi politburo member Hazam al-Assad warned in a Hebrew-language tweet that “just as the port of Eilat has been closed, Ben Gurion Airport will also be closed, until the aggression stops and the siege of Gaza is lifted.”

🟠Multiple US and European airliners have already canceled their flights to Israel.

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🇷🇺🇵🇰 Lavrov and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar discuss growing tensions between India and Pakistan.

Russia has expressed readiness to assist in normalization of relations.

💬 "The Russian side emphasized its readiness to facilitate a political settlement of the situation that arose as a result of the terrorist attack on April 22 in the Pahalgam area, if there is a mutual desire on the part of Islamabad and New Delhi," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

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🇮🇱 IDF’s morale collapsing due to battle fatigue, loss of faith in the government: Israeli media

The Israeli military can now only dream about the kind of surge in enthusiasm it enjoyed in October 2023, when 20-30% more soldiers showed up for duty than were called up.

A JPost analysis says today, the Army would be “fortunate” if 60-70% of those called up actually showed up, attributing waning enthusiasm to:

◻️ Battle fatigue: “sheer exhaustion,” physically and emotionally, among troops called up 3-6 times in the last 19 months, having to again leave their families, work, or school.

◻️ Loss of faith in Netanyahu, and the perception that his government has prolonged the war for political reasons, plus criticism of how the conflict has been handled, and lack of clear objections or end game.

◻️ Haredim: exemptions for ultra-Orthodox believers from service, sapping reservists’ morale and perceived as unfair.

◻️ The sense that troops are “a convenient, low-cost labor force that can be mobilized at a moment’s notice.”

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🇷🇴 Romanian authorities report almost 50 violations in presidential elections

Ten are under investigation by the Interior Ministry, with eight others forwarded to the Central Election Bureau, Romanian media reported.

Really, Romania? Less than 50? No big scandals or anything? Like BARRING the leading candidate from running after he WON the first round of elections which were then canceled?

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🇮🇷 Iran unveils new missile with a 1,200 km range that can defeat US’s best defenses

The Qassem Basir is a solid fuel ballistic missile with the ability to maneuver, and can evade top US and Israeli air and missile defense systems including THAAD and Patriot, Defense Minister Nasirzadeh said.

◻️ The missile was successfully test-fired on April 17, with footage of the test airing on Iranian television for the first time on Sunday.

◻️ Nasirzadeh said development of Qassem Basir incorporated experience gained during Iran’s True Promise series of retaliatory missile and drone strikes on Israel in 2024.

◻️ He warned that Iran will not hesitate to target American bases in the region in the event of US aggression.

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🔸 ‘I think about it all the time’ – Putin on his successor

🔸 Putin explains why Russia did not start its special op in Ukraine earlier

🔸 What is Trump’s red line in Ukraine peace push?

🔸 ‘There will be many bangs’, Netanyahu warns after Houthi missile strikes airport

🔸 Barely afloat? UK Navy's SHRINKING fleet amid Russia's naval surge

🔸 US’ Indo-Pacific playbook: Muscle-flexing on China's doorstep amid regional tensions

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💥 The IDF admits a technical problem with the interceptor caused the missile strike on Ben Gurion Airport.

Meanwhile, major airlines such as Lufthansa, Air France, Delta, Air India suspend flights to Tel Aviv.

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🇷🇴🗳 George Simion leads in Romania's preliminary election results

According to CEC data, with 80.01% of the votes counted, the leader of the opposition party Alliance for the Unification of Romania (AUR) has 40.78% of the votes, while the candidate of the ruling coalition, Crin Antonescu, has 21.32% of the votes.

One of them will become president based on the results of the second round to be held on May 18, unless the authorities cancel the vote again.

UPD. Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan overtook ruling coalition candidate Crin Antonescu in the race for second place with 98.90% of the votes counted.

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🚨 Houthis impose AIR BLOCKADE on Israel

Yemen's Ansar Allah movement called on all international airlines to comply and cancel their flights to Israel in order to "ensure the safety of their planes and passengers."

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❗️ Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan overtook ruling coalition candidate Crin Antonescu in the race for second place with 98.90% of the votes counted.

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