Pentagon Grabs 35% Equity Stake In Venezuelan Oil As Trump Vows To "Fill Up" The SPR

Lebanon's President Blasts Iran, Hezbollah For Using Country As Bargaining Chip Lebanon's president has angrily lashed out at both Hezbollah and Iran - the latter for using the Lebanese nation and people as a bargaining chip in the war and standoff with the United States and Israel. President Joseph Aoun told CNN in a rare interview that Tehran is exploiting his war-torn nation and issued a fresh demand that Iran's leadership and military stop interfering in Lebanese affairs. via Reuters He stressed to Christiane Amanpour that the Lebanese people are "fed up" with...

Central Asia Resists US Pressure To Choose Sides In AI Race Authored by Eurasianet via OilPrice, Kazakhstan is continuing to expand AI cooperation with China even after joining the US-led Pax Silica initiative. Uzbekistan says it wants access to both cutting-edge American technology and lower-cost Chinese AI models rather than choosing between them. Their positions illustrate the difficulty Washington faces in persuading Central Asian governments to take sides in the intensifying US-China technology rivalry. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are tossing figurative darts at a US trial balloon connected to the intensifying race between the United...

Is Marco Rubio The New Heir Apparent To Trump? For months, the conventional wisdom inside Republican circles has been settled and simple: JD Vance is next. The vice president has led 2028 Republican presidential nomination polling by a country mile, averaging nearly 45.5 points in the RealClearPolitics aggregate — more than 30 points ahead of Donald Trump Jr. at 14.8% and Marco Rubio at 14%. And yet, something shifted this week. One press briefing, and the betting markets started hedging. Rubio stepped in as White House press secretary on Tuesday, covering for...