The arrival of Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers to Venezuela has spurred negative reactions from some US officials, although the planes didn't carry nuclear armaments and had already visited the country in the past.

German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine has alleged that the disturbance in US government circles, which was incited by the visit of Russian Tu-160s to Venezuela, is caused by the fact that while the US grip on the region weakens, especially on Venezuela itself, Russia is continuing to cement its positions in the Latin American country. The newspaper even suggested that Venezuela might become a "new Cuba in the US backyard" for Russia.

ITALY'S Campi Flegrei volcano has, for the first time in nearly 400 years, been “showing a type of unrest” which could indicate it is “getting ready for another eruption”, volcano expert Christopher Kilburn has said.

Syria will adopt a new rule of engagement with Israel now that Russia has taken a tougher and clearer stance on the conflict between Israel and the “Axis of the Resistance”. Henceforth, Damascus will be responding to any Israeli strike. If it damages a specific military target it will reply with a strike against a similar objective in Israel. Decision makers in Damascus said, “Syria will not hesitate to hit an Israeli airport if Damascus airport is targeted and hit by Israel. This will be with the consent of the Russian military based in the Levant.”

Most Americans say they didn't get a pay raise at their current job, or start a better paying job in the last 12 months, according to a Wednesday survey from Bankrate.com.

According to the poll, 62% of Americans report not getting a pay raise or better paying job in the past year - up from 52% last surveyed last year. That said, just 25% of respondents in this year's survey said they would look for a new job in the next year.

Reporters who had descended on a DC courthouse on Friday grew frustrated as a "dramatic scene" unfolded which may or may not have something to do with special counsel Robert Mueller, according to BuzzFeed News.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit heard Friday morning arguments involving a grand jury matter that is currently sealed - a typical practice while cases are pending. The publicly available information on the case offer little clues as to what's going on, as there are no description of the subject of the case, no information on the parties or their lawyers, and no public access to the documents.

In recent decades, the US Constitution’s clause that requires a congressional declaration of war before invading any country, has been ignored. Furthermore, ever since 2012 and the passage by Congress of the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, economic sanctions by the US Government have been imposed against any company that fails to comply with a US-imposed economic sanction; a company can even be fined over a billion dollars for violating a US economic sanction.

And, so, sanctions are now the way that the US Congress actually does authorize a war — the new way, no longer the way that’s described in the US Constitution. However, in the economic-sanctions phase of a war — this initial phase — the war is being imposed directly against any company that violates a US-ordered economic sanction, against Russia, Iran, or whatever target-country the US Congress has, by means of such sanctions, actually authorized a war by the US to exist — a ‘state of war’ to exist.

Trump's Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke - who rode a horse to the Department of the Interior on his first day of work - has notified the White House he intends to step down amid an ethics investigation by the Interior Department's inspector general into his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest, Bloomberg reported on Saturday morning with the president confirming the departure by tweet moments later.

We live at a time when earthquakes are increasing in size and frequency, and many are concerned about what this may mean for our future. The recent earthquakes in Alaska were a shock, but at least they made sense since much of the coastline of Alaska sits directly along the Ring of Fire. But eastern Tennessee is not an area that has traditionally been prone to quakes. Could it be possible that the “seismic scar” that was created when the North American continent was formed is beginning to reawaken?

Prior to Wednesday, the last time that eastern Tennessee had experienced an earthquake of this magnitude or greater was on November 30th, 1973.

That was 45 years ago, and many of you that will be reading this article were not even alive at that time.

There are over 8 million abandoned homes in Japanese suburbs, according to The Japan Times.

If you are a struggling American millennial: you could theoretically move to Japan because the sushi’s fresh, cost of living is low, and the government is giving away free homes.

What is driving the government to give away these homes? Well, there is a massive housing glut.

In part, it has to do with Japan's aging population - responsible for the high number of abandoned houses across the country. Japan has a major demographic problem, which means there are too few first time home buyers.

Former supporters of the US president are turning evidence and jumping ship following reports that investigators now have Trump’s tax records, as well as the cooperation of the Trump family’s financial officers, lawyers and former business allies.

As an ongoing investigation into the financial doings of US President Donald Trump and his family ratchets up following Democratic wins in the 2018 November midterms, various allies, supporters and fellow travelers of the beleaguered American leader are playing turncoat with increasing regularity, according to reports.

For those living under darker skies, Sunday night will reveal to the naked eye a green comet zooming by our Earth.

46P/Wirtanen, a fuzzy but bright green dot tracing an elliptical parabola between the orbit of Jupiter and the Sun, will be visible to the naked eye on Sunday night.

During its closest approach to the Earth in several centuries, the flyby of comet 46P/Wirtanen — named for astronomer Carl Wirtanen, who discovered it in 1948 — will coincide with the Geminids, one the most spectacular of our planet's annual meteor showers.

The comet itself, to those who will be able to see it unaided, will appear as a small and amorphous green blob.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton in a speech unveiled the US strategy to counter Chinese and Russian influence in Africa. He accused Moscow and Beijing of deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the US.

The American official claimed that China was using bribes, opaque agreements and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands. In addition, Bolton announced a new program, "Prosper Africa", to support American investment across the continent and provide alternatives to Chinese projects.

Radio Sputnik has discussed this new plan with Ian Taylor, a professor in International Relations and African Political Economy at the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland.

The spokesman of Yemen’s ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement has expressed doubts about United Nations' assertions about a recent peace deal on the war-torn city of Hudaydah, saying the agreement for implementing a ceasefire in the northwestern port city is yet to be finalized.

In a detailed interview with the Press TV, Mohammed Abdul Salam, who represented the Houthis in the recent UN-sponsored peace talks in Sweden, said the agreement on Hudaydah reached on Thursday between the National Unity government in Sana'a, led by the Houthis and the Saudi Arabia-backed exiled government, led by former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, was just a deal on the main issues involved and there was no binding agreement on how to implement the ceasefire in the port city.

Contradictory to the UN statements, Abdul Salam told Press TV’s Robert Carter that no final agreement had been reached on Hudaydah and that the talks were far from over.

At least 20 women and children have been killed in an airstrike conducted by US warplanes in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar, local officials say.

The deadly aerial aggression occurred late on Friday and claimed the lives of eight women and 12 children, Abdul Latif Fazly, a member of the provincial council, said on Saturday, adding that the airstrike also wounded more than 15 other civilians.

Kunar governor Abdul Satar Mirzakwal said an operation by Afghan forces in Sheltan district killed 38 members of the Taliban militant group and a number of terrorists belonging to the Takfiri al-Qaeda terror group, including four foreign nationals, and wounded 12 more.

A South Carolina pastor who still preaches occasionally at Joel Osteen's famed Lakewood Church became emotional defending his extravagant purchase of a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus for his wife's wedding anniversary gift after coming under fire for its excess.

John Gray of Relentless Church in Greenville, South Carolina, received a social media backlash after a video of him presenting his wife, Aventer Gray, with the keys to the luxury vehicle during their 8th anniversary vow renewal was posted online.

'Pastor buys his wife, you know, this expensive car,' The pastor said in an impassioned Instagram video now taken down. 'First of all, it wasn't a pastor that bought the car. It was a husband that bought the car. Get that in your spirit.'

Ted Kennedy's dream of one day becoming president continued even after the Chappaquiddick scandal.

This is the focus of the new episode of Scandalous airing this Sunday on Fox News, which takes a look at how the then-sitting president Richard Nixon used the tragedy to killed Kennedy's aspirations for a spot in the Oval Office.

'The Nixon White House was obviously very interested in this case because it had always been assumed that Teddy would be running against Richard Nixon when he sought reelection in 1972,' explains Boston herald columnist Howie Carr in an exclusive clip from the episode.

Thomas Whalen, the Associate Professor of Social Services at Boston University then points out how documents and recordings that are now in the public record show how Nixon and his team plotted to bring Kennedy down following the crash.

For the past 13 years, Israel has been waging all-our war against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement: diplomatic reservists have been drafted in, friends around the world have been rallied and there's even a government minister dedicated to tackling the 'strategic' problem.

As part of this war, Israeli leaders brand any non-Israeli who supports BDS as anti-Semitic and Israeli supporters of the movement are called kapos, traitors and worse.

But with BDS moving more into the American mainstream – two incoming members of Congress have expressed support for the movement and even the Anti-Defamation League has, in a leaked internal memo, questioned the wisdom of the anti-BDS campaign – we ask: Is this a war Israel can win?

Two school districts in Iowa will reportedly introduce mandatory classes about firearm safety into school curriculum starting next year.

Students enrolled in both the 7th and 8th grade at schools in the North Butler and Clarksville districts will be required to take part in a mandatory hunter safety course taught by the Butler County Conservation Board, Radio Iowa reported on Thursday.

The course will reportedly be implemented into the students’ PE curriculum.

High school students interested in learning about firearm safety will also reportedly have the option to participate in a voluntary class.

If the answer is no - and I'm not getting one! - you're not alone. A new study finds more than 40 percent of Americans have not been vaccinated and, in fact, don't plan on it either.

This is despite the warnings, potential dangers, and last year's record-number of flu deaths. The survey was done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

People under the age of 45 were the least likely to report being vaccinated.

As tech executives continue to be grilled in front of Congress, the growing Bernie Sanders-wing of the Democratic Party is preparing to push its misnamed “Medicare for All” into the political mainstream after its political gains in the midterms. While these two stories seem to have very little in common, it’s not difficult to imagine a not-so-distant future where the two are dangerously connected. After all, so long as the scope of government grows, the continued politicization of all aspects of life will follow – the inevitable consequences of which could be quite horrific.

Concerns prompt ‘review’ of Shanghai agreement within Israel’s inner security cabinet, sources say.

A father of a 7-year-old boy in Malmö has been arrested for beating up a burglar who put a gun in the boy’s mouth.

The 45-year-old burglar broke into a flat in Malmö. He was confronted by the family who lives there, whereupon he grabbed one of the children, a 7-year-old. He then allegedly put his gun in the boy’s mouth.

When the child’s grandmother saw this, she screamed and managed to snatch the child. Then the boy’s father came into the room and the two men started fighting.

The father “flipped out” and hit the gunman so hard that he lost consciousness and suffered severe head injury, a source tells Aftonbladet.

The police then came to the site and seized the burglar – and also the father. Since then, he has been locked up and detained, suspected of aggravated assault.

Despite a recent slump in the markets, the U.S. economy is still putting up strong numbers. Unemployment is at its lowest point since the 1960s, and the U.S. manufacturing sector is thriving.

But, as Visual Capitalist's Nick Routley points out, looking beyond these big picture gains, many communities in the United States are struggling. Check cashing stores outnumber McDonald’s locations, the opioid epidemic rages on, and tens of millions are living in poverty around the country. It’s becoming more clear that the recovery from the financial crisis has been highly uneven.

The US Army has recently stated that two transportation battalions will receive a fleet of autonomous leader-follower vehicles by summer 2019. This is a developing theme in the service of 'take the man out of the machine’ has led to a new era of autonomous systems entering the modern battlefield as the Pentagon prepares for the next series of conflicts.

“The Ground Vehicle Systems Center’s work with the Robotic Operating System – Military (ROS-M) covers a spectrum of autonomy and robotics, including small explosive ordnance disposal-assist robots that have been fielded as part of the advanced leader-follower capabilities that Soldiers in two transportation battalions will see by summer 2019,” said an article published in the January – March 2019 issue of Army AL&T magazine.

"We don't want the Americans. It's occupation" — a Syrian resident in US-controlled Raqqa told Stars and Stripes military newspaper. This as the Washington Post noted this week that "U.S. troops will now stay in Syria indefinitely, controlling a third of the country and facing peril on many fronts."

The Justice Department's internal watchdog revealed on Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller's office scrubbed all of the data from FBI agent Peter Strzok's iPhone, while his FBI mistress Lisa Page's phone had been scrubbed by a different department, according to a comprehensive report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released on Thursday.