The US cannot know Russia's casualties in the special operation, they are pulling the figures out of a hat

Earlier in the day, several media outlets reported, citing US National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby, that Russia has allegedly more than 100,000 soldiers killed or seriously wounded during the course of the special military operation.

Washington does not have the opportunity to give any correct figures, they do not have such data, this is how it should be treated. It is necessary to focus only on those figures that are published in a timely manner by the Russian Defense Ministry," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

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🎬 Film director Oliver Stone responded to the question if his attitude towards Vladimir Putin had changed

He also shared what he thinks about the head of the White House. "My favorite president was John F. Kennedy, so if you look at these two Irishmen from the side, you will find that John F. Kennedy is a peace-loving person. And you will find that Joe Biden is a Cold War warrior in the worst sense of the word," said the director.

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🗣️”People are furious at the fact that Europe is being taken down this rabbit hole of NATO, which is not benefiting Europe and is hurting the people there”: labor attorney, human rights activist, and author Daniel Kovalik discusses why the French continue to protest

🎧Listen to more of Kovalik’s analysis in our podcast Political Misfits

Murdochs reportedly spoke to Zelensky ahead of Tucker Carlson’s departure

Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan allegedly spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News. However, there is no direct evidence linking these calls to Carlson's dismissal. Despite previous complaints from Ukrainian officials about Carlson's coverage of the Ukraine conflict, Zelensky did not mention it during the conversations.

Fox News has not publicly explained why Carlson was fired, but several theories have emerged online, including lawsuits and his use of vulgar language. Carlson himself has accused media executives of being "hysterical and aggressive" in stifling debate in the industry.

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📹 "We are bringing in a new age of Satanic era": A meeting of Satan's followers was held in the US to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the so-called Satanic Temple. Footage of Bible ripping at the event went viral, dozens of Christians gathered at the venue in protest.

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🗣️”I think that the confrontation with China is coming. I think it will not end well for the US”: Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of 'America's Undeclared War' ponders what the US confrontation with China will lead to

🎧Listen to Lazare’s analysis in our podcast The Critical Hour

This tweet may be of "public interest" - Elon Musk opened access to Dmitry Medvedev's Twitter post about "Polish rats", which was previously blocked.

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First Republic Bank Bailout Part of Trend Towards Finance 'Oligopoly'

US financial watchdog FDIC announced on Monday it was taking First Republic Bank into administration, with sector giant JPMorgan named as the buyer.

"The big banks can posture as rescuers, public-spirited or socially responsible financial institutions when they 'rescue' the banks that they have, in fact, brought about the failures of in the first place by offering deposit accounts to those who want to leave those banks," said Cornell professor of law and public policy Robert Hockett.

"You have to have runs on banks," economist Mark Frost said, "because there's not enough money to pay off all the banks, unless you impose inflation and print the money to do it."

"And then if you print too much money, people get even more scared and then you eventually have hyperinflation and you end up scratching your head and saying: How did we become Zimbabwe?'," he added.

Read the expert analysis on Sputnik's website

📹 The Russian Army destroyed a Ukrainian counter-battery radar using the Kornet ATGM

Russian soldiers managed to identify the counter-battery radar used by the enemy. The target was destroyed by the Kornet anti-tank missile system.

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US economic crisis worsens despite moves to bolster finance sector and tame inflation

Regarding the First Republic Bank takeover by JPMorgan Chase. Linwood Tauheed, associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, argued that "The consolidation in banking that's occurring" is a result "of these failures of these smaller banks [that are] being gobbled up by these huge banks."

“The idea of ‘too big to fail’ is becoming ‘too bigger to fail’. The banks that are too big to fail are gobbling up the smaller banks because of this crisis, and they're becoming even bigger.”

Read the expert analysis on Sputnik's website

A US default would cause a systemic financial crisis, destabilize the global economy

While the Biden administration is playing chicken with Republicans in an apparent bid to twist their arm into raising the debt ceiling without any budget cuts, bigger trouble is brewing for the US economy, according to Swiss economist Sergio Rossi: "The US is on the verge of a new systemic financial crisis, owing to a series of factors in their own national economy as well as in the global economy."

Read the expert analysis on Sputnik's website

President Biden has reluctantly agreed to hold discussions on the debt ceiling with top GOP lawmakers on May 9

House Republicans passed a bill to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, cut spending levels for most recent federal programs, and repeal some of Biden's legislative initiatives. Democrats, including Biden, have been insisting on a clean debt ceiling increase and threatened to veto the GOP measure. However, a group of Democratic representatives sent a letter to Biden and House Speaker McCarthy urging them to work out a bipartisan solution, causing divisions within the Democratic Party.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the US government could run out of cash to pay its bills in just four weeks without additional borrowing.

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Strike, they wrote: Hollywood screenwriters stage first walkout for 15 years

Nearly 98% of voting members of the Writers Guild of America, consisting of approximately 9,000 screenwriters, are set to stage a walkout due to salary and working condition disputes with Netflix and Disney.

Despite reaching almost $500 million in payments to writers in 2021, the writers argue that this amount is insufficient compared to the profits streaming giants earn. Talks between the union and the studios proved futile, leading to the strike.

The strike is expected to have a significant impact on Hollywood, delaying autumn releases. The last screenwriters' strike occurred in 2007 and lasted over three months, costing the local economy over $2 billion.

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🤖 Geoffrey Hinton – the US computer scientist often called the "AI Godfather" – left his position in tech giant Google to warn society about the threat AI poses to humanity. Sputnik decided to interview ChatGPT neural network about the potential dangers of AI. This is how it answered.

How do chatbots operate? What threats does ChatGPT pose? What are the potential solutions?

Touch wood: world's first timber transistor conducts electricity

Researchers at Linkoping University and the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden have developed the world's first transistor made of wood. The transistor was created from balsa wood, with the lignin removed, leaving long cellulose fibers with channels that were then coated with a conducting polymer. While slow and clumsy, the wooden transistor works and has great development potential for organic and wood-based electronics, and could lead to control of electronic plants.

Previous attempts to make wood-based transistors only regulated ion flux and stopped working when the ions ran out. The wooden transistor created by the researchers can function continuously at a selected output signal level, and while it can turn the power on and off, it does so quite slowly.

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