Chris Townsend has been organizing workers, conducting political work for labor unions, and teaching young workers to organize for almost all his adult life. He is, as we say, “the real deal.” While most of us opine and pontificate about labor, Chris does the dirty work.

    By Chris Townsend, Michael D. Yates

Donald Trump's July 14 statement, accompanied by a staged scene with the NATO secretary general, and his offhand remark about the first lady (which was quickly promoted in Kiev), has turned out to be one of his most complex statements of his presidency.

As always, the devil is in the details, but those details remain hidden, and few European allies are brave enough to dive into them and challenge the otherwise positive tone of what was said (or wasn’t said).

Alexander Yakovenko, deputy director of Rossiya Segodnya - Sputnik's parent company - and head of the Committee on Global Issues and International Security of the Russian Security Council’s Scientific-Expert Board, breaks it down:

x

The cabinet of former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz allocated nearly €590,000 ($640,000) in public funds for makeup artists and stylists for government officials between 2022 and March 2025, Bild has reported, citing government data.

The highest expenses were attributed to former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, whose makeup costs totaled €21,000 or about €248 a day in the first three months of 2025 alone. Her longtime makeup artist, Claude Frommen, was reportedly charging €7,500 per month and accompanied her on official trips, prompting critics to argue that such spending clashes with Germany’s economic crisis rhetoric, the outlet said on Friday.

The UK government is secretly paying foreign YouTube stars to publish “propaganda” videos, Declassified can reveal.

A three-year investigation has found that online influencers are made to sign legal contracts banning them from disclosing the government’s involvement.

Whitehall officials give “feedback” on each video before the influencers are allowed to publish them. 

UK GOVERNMENT SECRETLY PAID FOREIGN YOUTUBE STARS FOR ‘PROPAGANDA’
Revealed: Media agency Zinc Network has contract to recruit social media influencers across Europe.

BY MARTIN WILLIAMS

The work is coordinated by a London-based media agency, Zinc Network Ltd, on behalf of the Foreign Office in a deal worth nearly £10m of public money. 

Harrisburg: US President Donald Trump says he will sue the Murdoch-owned The Wall Street Journal for a story claiming he wrote a cryptic letter – with a drawing – to now-convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for the disgraced financier’s 50th birthday.

The newspaper reported that Trump had signed a letter in a leather-bound book organised by Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003, and that the book formed part of the files examined by the Justice Department during its sex-trafficking investigation of Epstein and Maxwell.

‘Going to sue his ass off’: Trump turns on Murdoch over Epstein story

The callousness of the Ukrainian offer to exchange the exhumed remains of Russian WWII soldiers for Ukrainian military prisoners is “hard to imagine,” former US Department of Defense analyst Karen Kwiatkowsky told Sputnik.

“It also suggests that there are not enough current Russian soldiers dead or captured to match those Ukrainians dead or held as POWs by Russia,” Kwiatkowski notes.

This offer, and other similar acts perpetrated by the Ukrainian side, “ensure Ukraine’s future will even more impoverished, less free, and even more widely held in contempt by the world community.”

Kwiatkoswki also lamented the West’s inability to “get its data and intelligence right regarding Ukraine,” and argued that “such willful ignorance on the US and NATO side kills more Ukrainians, and degrades Ukraine as desperate acts and offers such as this one become normalized.”

A group of congressional Republicans have joined Democrats in an effort to push through an amnesty bill by performing two cheap tricks: repeat the tired trope that we’re a “nation of immigrants” and redefine “amnesty” as “dignity.”

The bipartisan bill, dubbed the DIGNITY Act, was introduced this week by Republican Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, who has lately been on a media tour to promote what she calls, falsely, “a revolutionary bill that offers the solution to our immigration crisis.”

America Is Not A ‘Nation Of Immigrants’

AS EUROPE WAS HOT, DEBATE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING WAS NOT ON FOR SOME... SURE, WHAT WE DO NOW, WON'T HAVE AN IMPACT IN THE NEAR FUTURE, BUT SCIENCE TELLS US THAT SHOULD WE DO NOTHING, THINGS COULD GET A LOT WORSE IN FIFTY TO ONE HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW... AIR CONDITIONING IS A HOT TOPIC AS COOLING INSIDE HOUSES USES A LOT OF ENERGY...

France is sweating its brains out thanks to the EU’s climate madness
Apparently, cranking up the A/C in near-40-degree heat is now “cheating” and killing the environment

Paris was melting last week, flirting with 40°C and zero chill. Apparently, the moment was ripe for an epiphany.

Germany and UK sign historic post-Brexit friendship treaty

The accord — dubbed the "Kensington Treaty" — includes plans for close security and defense cooperation, a mutual assistance clause in crises, and visa simplifications for school exchanges.

On defense, the two sides vowed to "pursue joint export campaigns" to secure international orders for equipment they co-produce, including the Typhoon Eurofighter jet and the Boxer armored vehicle.

The agreement also includes plans to boost connectivity by establishing a new direct rail connection, aiming to deepen economic and people-to-people ties.

Critically for the UK, it also features a pledge by Germany to assist in combating illegal immigration.

Three people were killed and several others were injured in the strike on Gaza's only Catholic church, which was widely condemned. Follow DW for more.

Middle East: Israel 'deeply regrets' strike on Gaza church
Louis Oelofse | Timothy Jones dpa, AFP, Reuters, AP

Israel said it "deeply regrets" striking the only Catholic church in Gaza City.

VLADIMIR PUTIN RECENTLY EXPRESSED HIS VIEWS THAT FOR MANY YEARS HE THOUGHT THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE WEST WAS IDEOLOGICAL, BUT HE HAS RECENTLY "DISCOVERED" THAT IT IS NOTHING ELSE BUT GEOPOLITICAL….

ON THIS SITE, WE HAVE EXPLORED THIS SINCE THE BEGINNING… THE IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY IS ONLY A TINY PART IN THE GAME OF MARKING AND EXTENDING ONE’S TERRITORY LIKE A MALE DOG COCKING UP A HIND LEG… SEE NETANYAHU...

THIS IS WHERE WE SEE THE HOAX OF THE REPORT FROM IRON MOUNTAIN BECOME REALITY… THIS HOAX ACTUALLY REVEALED THE TRUE INTENT OF THE GOVERNMENTS, AS PEACE IS A HINDRANCE — ESPECIALLY FOR THE USA…:

THERE IS NO NEED TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES OF ANY REPORTS BY THE WAR-MINDED MODERN THINK-TANKS:

US-made Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems will be delivered to Ukraine “as quickly as possible,” and Germany will pick up the tab, NATO’s top military commander in Europe, American General Alexus Grynkewich, has said. Washington and Berlin agreed on the scheme earlier this week.

Vladimir Zelensky has been increasingly urging his Western backers to provide more Patriot units recently. Russia, which claims to have destroyed some of the air defense systems since 2022, maintains that no amount of military aid to Ukraine can change the outcome of the conflict, and only serves to prolong the bloodshed.

In an article on Thursday, Reuters quoted Grynkewich as saying he was under orders to carry out the delivery “as quickly as possible.”

“There will be a lot more to follow,” he added, without providing any further details.

The current genocide is the culmination of a spiral of violence that has been going on since 1948 and has been covered up by the powerful in the West for generations. The media portray the genocide as self-defense – but they are nothing less than partners in crime.

Genocide as “self-defense” – Western media as accomplices to the genocide in Gaza – We stand up!
by Peter Haenseler

This article deals with a more than unsavory topic: a genocide that is committed in the open and not only promoted by most Western media, but justified in such a way that opponents of this genocide – be they Jews or non-Jews – are attacked, vilified and threatened in the most disgraceful manner.