Last Monday, with strong bipartisan support, both the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees voted to sanction any company helping to complete Nord Stream 2, Russia’s gas pipeline to Germany. Since the nearly constructed pipeline runs under the Baltic Sea, it bypasses Ukraine completely, thus costing it billions of dollars in lost transit fees currently collected through the gas...

Last week, the House of Representatives, in addition to voting to impeach President Trump, agreed to the largest military budget in history: $738 billion. The vote wasn’t even close: 377 voted for it, only 48 were against it. Democrats and Republicans finally found an issue they could agree on. The new spending bill eliminated virtually all of the language many...

The crippling transport strike that began 13 days ago over pension reforms in France continues. And yesterday, one of the key government figures pushing pension reforms, Jean-Paul Delevoye, dubbed “Mr. Pensions,” resigned after reports surfaced of a transparency scandal. Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe claimed the government’s new system would be fairer and more consistent and, if passed, the...

On 18 October, hundreds of thousands of Chilean citizens took to the streets in protest of government corruption and the excessive gap between rich and poor. The spark that ignited the flare-up was a rise in mass transit fares. In response, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera called out 20,000 troops who arrested several thousand protesters, killed 18 people, and wounded hundreds....

Last January, when Nicolás Maduro was poised to be sworn in as President of Venezuela, the U.S. implemented an attempted coup d’état with its coronation of a little know politician, Juan Guaidó, as the country’s interim leader, in effect dismissing Maduro from office. President Trump launched a propaganda campaign branding Maduro’s victory as “heavily rigged,” “fraudulent,” “a sham,” “a joke,”...

Demonstrations in Beirut, which began last October against government corruption and income inequality, continue. Last Saturday, police confrontations with protesters led to more than 130 people being injured. The overnight police actions did not stop the thousands who took to the streets the following day to specifically voice antagonism against the nomination of Saad Hariri as the next prime minister....

The citywide street demonstrations, now in their seventh consecutive month, show no signs of diminishing. Last weekend, protesters blocked roads, set property on fire, and smashed traffic lights as they battled baton wielding, tear-gas firing police. Hong Kong citizens, from social workers and business people to angry college students, continue to press demands for an independent review of police brutality...

The latest research from the National Institute of Mental Health is alarming: Over 46 million American adults are suffering some form of anxiety disorder. With Millennials and Gen-Zs, money and work-related issues are the most significant stress factors. In a study published in the Harvard Business Review, half of Millennials (23-38 years old) and, even more astonishingly, 75 percent of...

Researchers at the Salk Institute may have found a way to delay, if not cure, aging itself. They worked with mice genetically engineered to develop an illness called progeria that causes rapid aging. In humans, progeria causes children to age at about six times the normal human speed. Skin wrinkles, bones become brittle, and these children die – typically of...

If demand for oil and gas shrinks in the future, oil companies will face the problem of stranded assets: oil and gas deposits they own but can’t sell profitably because the market has moved on to renewable energy and non-petroleum plastics. But there’s another kind of asset that might be stranded: a large number of the roughly 7,400 tanker ships...