❗️ The US Federal Reserve has announced an increase in its base interest rate by 25 basis points, taking it to 5-5.25% per annum

⚡️ Ukrainian militants went on the offensive south of Orekhov in the Zaporozhye region. They were met with aimed fire and suffered losses in manpower and equipment, said Zaporozhye politician Vladimir Rogov

🗣️”People think that inflation is good, but it's not, because it hurts your producers, it hurts production, hurts everything. I wouldn't be surprised to see the oil well north of $100 sometime over the summer”: chief market strategist of Bubba Trading, Todd "Bubba" Horwitz speaks about the stagflation of the US economy

🎧Listen to more of Horwitz’s analysis in our podcast The Final Countdown

US Braces for Immigration Explosion With End of Title 42 Border Controls

Responding to White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre's claim that President Joe Biden’s administration had cut illegal immigration by 90 percent, Sergio Arellano, political analyst and executive director of Conserva Mi Voto, said: “I don't know if the early-onset Alzheimer's that Joe Biden has, can be passed on to the people next to him. But it seems like they suffer from the same affliction.”

“We're going to see 10,000, 12,000 illegal aliens a day coming over when we're already at 8,000 now, because people are coming over in anticipation of the end of Title 42,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Sputnik. “They're not even waiting for that. They're just coming across.”

Read the expert analysis on Sputnik's website

🗣 Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev commented on today's Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin.

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A Florida principal who was fired after showing students 'David' is welcomed in Italy

Hope Carrasquilla, a principal who was asked to resign in March after sixth-grade students were taught about and shown a picture of Michelangelo’s David statue, traveled to Florence to see the sculpture in real life.

”David was magnificent in person. All students should study the Renaissance, not only the art but the history as well,” Carrasquilla said.

Some students’ parents resented the fact that their children were shown a naked statue, which later led to Carrasquilla’s dismissal.

"I miss the teachers, the students," Carrasquilla said. "I felt like I was supposed to be there, like I had a purpose. I love classical education and I want everyone to be taught that way, so I miss that."

The only question left is: when did showing Michelangelo’s masterpiece to students became a reason for getting fired?

Absurd! How could she have been sacked? — 😡
Showing the David statue to children is inappropriate! — 🥴

🗣️”So the whole Polish reparations thing struck me as unusual on many levels because like the first layer is this understanding by the Polish government that victimhood is a currency in the modern West. And so why shouldn't they make a request? What's the worst that can happen?”: political analyst and author Nebojsa Malic speaks about Poland wanting reparations

🎧Listen to more of Malic’s analysis in our podcast The Final Countdown

🔺 The Kiev regime decided to play dirty: an attempt on the life of the Russian president was made by a drone attack on the Kremlin
🔺 Where will it lead to? Biden's sending 1,500 troops to southern border as Title 42 ends — but not to secure the border
🔺 Unwillingness to admit the obvious: IMF does not recognize the trend of de-dollarization

The Critical Hour will cover these and more stories! Tune in to Radio Sputnik at 6pm EST|3pm PST|12am CET via the website or app

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

America's obesity epidemic thins out pool of potential army recruits

The US Army is expected to fall short of its 65,000 recruitment goal, according to US Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. The army likewise failed to achieve its target of 60,000 recruits last year by 15,000 active-duty recruits.

This issue stems from a significant number of prospective candidates being deemed unfit for service: many are either overweight, fail the entrance exam to assess their intelligence, or both.

Pentagon figures suggest that only 23% of Americans aged 17 to 24 can meet the Army's expectations, indicating a broader trend towards obesity across the US population.

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Illegal immigration in the US is nearly over!

Yeah, you read it correctly.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared that illegal immigration was down by 90% since the implementation of President Biden’s immigration policies. 

Thus, our headline is ok… oh, wait, unless Karine Jean-Pierre made a mistake…

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#Sputnik_meme

Despite 🇺🇸 US attempts to isolate Iran 🇮🇷 by means of sanctions and media bias, Washington has failed to prevent Tehran from building strong and long-term partnerships 💪

😀 Take that, Biden!

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🗣️“What destroys economies over time is the ability to create and manipulate the currency and of course, the fiat currency system, with no underlying backing of any of it, is the most fraudulent system in the world because you have central banks that have the power to push dollars one way or the other. And of course, basically what it is, is a race to the bottom right now”: chief market strategist of Bubba Trading, Todd "Bubba" Horwitz speaks about the US economic policy

🎧Listen to more of Horwitz’s analysis in our podcast The Final Countdown

Is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again?

Elon Musk in a letter to a National Public Radio reporter asked whether the publicly-funded broadcaster was going to resume posting on Twitter or should the NPR handle be transferred to “another company”.

The broadcaster stopped posting on Twitter last month after the social media platform was labelled as a media outlet funded by the US government.

Musk and Twitter identify such media as "outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution." In other words, a radio station that simply promotes the ruling regime's agenda even without direct funding will be branded as such.

NPR is notorious for its close affiliation with the current White House occupants. Namely, the outlet did it best to silence the Hunter Biden laptop story.

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📹 Combat work of crews of 152-mm Akatsiya self-propelled artillery mounts

Russian Artillerymen actively use the tactics of a fire raid: they arrive in the designated area, work on the specified targets and leave their positions. Unmanned aircraft crews help them correct their fire.

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Norway will meet NATO's spending goal of 2 percent of its GDP by 2026, PM Jonas Gahr Store has pledged

Until now, Norway has been among the member states that are lagging behind, with no concrete plan for how to reach this goal. However, the windfall state revenues following the conflict in Ukraine, which made Norway the EU's top energy supplier, made reaching the spending target all the more important, according to Store.

"Per inhabitant, Norway spends the most on defense in NATO after the US. But we are one of the countries that has not had a plan to reach the two-percent target. We have that now," Store said in a statement. "In a year with extraordinarily high incomes, we must stay the course. We want long-term planning and upsurge," he added.

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🇹🇷🇺🇸 US may attempt coup in Turkiye during upcoming presidential election

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that on May 14, the United States will attempt to finish the coup d’état they tried to carry out during the 2016 presidential election.

The minister said there was a recording of a meeting between a person "now making many statements" with an ambassador "of one interested country," who was briefed on "how to make a mess" four months prior by his interior minister during the latter's visit to Turkiye. However, Soylu refused to name the country and the person in question.

Soylu also expressed confidence that incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would easily win the presidential election already in the first round of vote.

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🇺🇸 Senators urge Biden to negotiate debt limit, stop 'playing Russian roulette' with economy

💬 "I am disappointed in the White House, they are missing in action," Sen. Rick Scott told reporters. "This should be the biggest issue that they are dealing with every day, they should be having daily meetings with Kevin McCarthy to figure out how we get this done."

Scott was joined by a number of other congressional lawmakers, including Sen. John Barrasso, with the same message to the US president outside the Capitol building.

💬 "Joe Biden is playing Russian roulette with the American economy," Barrasso said. "It's time for Joe Biden to take his head out of the sand and sit down and negotiate with Kevin McCarthy."

The Biden administration wants Congress to raise the debt ceiling without attaching other economic policy proposals. However, McCarthy has said a "no-strings-attached" debt limit increase will not pass the lower chamber.

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#SputnikInfographic: 🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russian Lancet-3 vs US Switchblade-600

UAVs are quickly becoming the most acute topic of debate about modern military warfare - overshadowing even discussions about nuclear weapons.

Check out the Sputnik infographic to see the difference between the two drones.

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