🇺🇸 DeSantis gearing up for 2024 election bid in early May

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may reportedly announce his participation in the 2024 presidential campaign as early as mid-May.

Reports indicated that some of DeSantis' supporters are urging him to announce his decision on May 11. However, individuals in the governor's inner circle reportedly believe it's far too soon and are calling for the political figure to make an announcement later in the year.

It's been suggested by US outlets that the arrival of political vendors in Tallahassee this past week is potentially a sign that an announcement could be imminent as vendors seek to obtain contracts with the DeSantis camp.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸📝 Joe Biden was caught with a cheat sheet – again

A photographer caught the president revealing a pre-written question from a reporter during a press conference at the White House Rose Garden. "Question #1" was handwritten on the note, showing that Biden should call on the journalist first after he finished his speech.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸 Tucker Carlson in first post-Fox commentary claims those in power 'resort to force' to kill debate

💬 "Debates like that are not permitted in American media," Carlson said. "Both political parties - and their donors - have reached consensus on what benefits them. And they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly the United States looks very much like a one-party state."

Carlson also said there are not many places left where Americans are saying "true things." But there are some, he added, and that is enough.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

☦️ "Stinky Swiss!": Ukrainian nationalists berate worshipper at Orthodox church

A Ukrainian activist in Kiev abused a reader who was visiting from an Orthodox church in Basel for refusing to speak Ukrainian. The guy in military uniform spends several minutes trying to get Dominik Milko to take up the Ukrainian flag, refusing to let him go until a police officer intervenes.

Yet Milko's troubles didn't end there. Another Ukrainian nationalist promised him a "biblical apocalypse” and even threatened him with bottle rape.

Milko came to Kiev to support the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but instead has come face to face with the persecution habitually dished out to believers.

The Kiev regime has been flagrantly abusing the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Authorities in Ukraine's capital embarked on a violent takeover of one of orthodoxy’s main shrines – the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇦🇷🇨🇳 Argentina switches to payments for imports from China in yuan

Buenos Aires is switching to paying for imports from China in yuan against the backdrop of issues with maintaining reserves of the central bank, Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Tomas Massa said

💬 "The worst drought in our history reduced our exports by $15 billion and challenged us to maintain reserves to secure imports of goods and resources that are key to the country," said Massa.

He noted that such measures provide greater strength to the country's reserves.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇳🇬🕷 Nigeria's Spiderman: Cleaning Home

▪️Jonathan Olanlokun from Nigeria is demonstrating by example that it is not superpowers that make a man a superhero, but the desire to improve the world

▪️Donning a Spiderman costume regularly and going out to pick up litter, Olanlokun puts the spotlight on the problem of trash on the streets.

💭 "I clean up the streets, I tell people about how they can keep their environment clean but more people still don’t take me serious and I feel sad about this but that wouldn’t stop me from doing my good work," Nigeria’s Spiderman told media

Subscribe to @sputnik_africa

📹🇷🇺 Russia’s Uragan MLRS crews in action during special military op

Combat work takes several minutes from obtaining coordinates to the volley, after which the crews swiftly change their position.

The Uragan MLRS crews aim for Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities and logistics hubs located in the rear of the adversary’s defensive battle lines. Rocket artillery hits various area targets, such as ammunition storage bases, enemy equipment and formations of servicemen.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚡️Sergey Lavrov 🇷🇺 will take part in SCO Foreign Minister's meet in Goa 🇮🇳 on May 4-5, discuss preparations for Council of Heads of States' meet in July: Moscow

Subscribe to @sputniknewsindia

🇺🇸✈️ American F-16s 'might not last very long' if delivered to Ukraine

Most Ukrainian airfields are “too short” and "austere" to allow for safe utilization by a fully loaded F-16, air-warfare analyst for the UK’s Royal United Service Institute think tank Justin Bronk believes.

💬 “You would have to do a lot of work to get those Ukrainian, old Soviet-pattern runways to a clean enough state to use an F-16 without high risk of foreign object debris going in and damaging the engines," he said.

Accordingly, if the US were to finally decide to hand over its F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, the Kiev authorities would be facing extensive work involving resurfacing the existing runways, extending the landing strips, etc.

💬 “All of Ukraine's airbases are within reach of Russia's ballistic and cruise missiles," the air-warfare analyst said on a podcast.

Bronk summed up by saying that Russia’s missiles would make light work of destroying any Ukrainian F-16 fleet.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

👨🏻‍🦳 Joe Biden (80) "can't even say" his age

💬 "With regard to age, I can't even say, I guess, how old I am. I can't even say the number. It doesn't register with me."

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🏫 “Person who produces eggs”: American school goes full woke when talking about sex in “science and health class”

The Essex Westford School District in Vermont has published recommendations to use “gender inclusive” language in health class:

👦 “Person who produces sperm” should be used instead of boy or male.
👧 “Person who produces eggs” should be used instead of girl or female.

The move sparked backlash among some parents in the district. Vermont Family Alliance called the recommendations inappropriate and said the move ignores the biology of the human body.

💬 "Every student should have equal access to scientific reality," Renee McGuinness, a spokesperson, said. "It doesn't matter what their sexual orientation is, it doesn't matter what their gender identity is."

Some parents are reportedly afraid to speak up about the changes because they “get smeared and labeled as hateful, transphobic or bigoted” while raising their concerns.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Latest statements by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:

▪️Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping did not discuss the issue of Ukraine's return to its 1991 borders during their talks in Moscow;

▪️The expulsion of Russian diplomats from EU countries provokes a degradation of relations and narrows the basis for diplomacy;

▪️Xi Jinping's conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky is a matter of sovereign affairs between China and Ukraine, but Russia welcomes anything that can bring peace to Ukraine and accomplish the goals of the special military operation;

▪️Putin and Erdogan will hold a phone conversation before the fuel-loading ceremony at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸 NATO could send troops to western Ukraine if Kiev’s spring offensive fails

Anonymous Biden administration officials told US media this week that the White House is “quietly preparing” for the contingency of Ukrainian forces failing to gain any significant ground against Russia during Kiev’s much-hyped spring offensive, and for the reputational blow this might have for Washington via-a-vis other allies and clients.

💬 “I have long felt that the signals they’ve been giving are that they believe that US-led Western global hegemony, their ‘rules-based order’ is at stake here – they really do believe that," international affairs Mark Sleboda has told Radio Sputnik.

For more of his analysis and insights, click here

☢️🤖💥 US lawmakers introduce bill to prevent AI from launching nuclear weapon

The legislation is called Block Nuclear Launch by Autonomous Artificial Intelligence Act.

💬 "The bill is expected to make sure that AI will never be allowed to substitute human judgment when it comes to making a decision about launching a nuclear weapon," congressmen Ted W. Lieu said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Catch our Fault Lines show, where we provide updates and analysis on all the most vital stories! Here's our line-up for today:

🔺To kick things off, we’ll be discussing the situation in Haiti, where people tired of gang violence started to take matters into their own hands
🔺Next, we’ll continue monitoring the situation in Ukraine and discuss new Russian laws
🔺Finally, we’ll speak about the US debt ceiling negotiations as well as the presidential campaigns launched by Biden and Trump

More trending stories coming your way! Tune in to Radio Sputnik at 7am EST|4am PST|1pm CET via the website or app!

📻Also in the United States at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

☦️📦 Humanitarian aid arrives at St. Kasperovsky female monastery in Donbass

The Moscow-Donbass international volunteer group, with the support of the First Donetsk Army Corps, has delivered humanitarian cargo to the monastery. Volunteers brought shoes, various household appliances, household chemicals, and a milk separator, which was severely needed by the monastery.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt