Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows disqualified former President Donald Trump from the state's Republican primary ballot because of his role in the January 6 riot at the Capitol in 2021.

"They [challengers] have provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the falsity of Mr. Trump's declaration that he meets the qualifications of the office of the presidency," Bellows wrote in a document on Thursday. "Therefore, as required by [law], I find that the primary petition of Mr. Trump is invalid."

However, Bellows added that the effect of the decision will be suspended until the Superior Court rules on any forthcoming appeal from the Trump defense team.

The appeal will be filed immediately, a Trump campaign spokesman said in a press release.

"We will quickly file a legal objection in state court to prevent this atrocious decision in Maine from taking effect, and President Trump will never stop fighting to Make America Great Again," the spokesman said on Thursday.

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“Decade after decade of bad policy is finally catching up with the US,” journalist Daniel Lazare told Sputnik in a discussion about immigration and drug policy.

The conversation comes amidst a surge of migrants at the US’ southern border, with President Joe Biden seeking a solution in time for his expected reelection campaign.

The crisis prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to visit Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City recently. López Obrador is a harsh critic of US foreign policy and interference in Latin America.

The US backed political subversion, coups, and death squads in the region for decades throughout the Cold War, leading to violence and poverty that’s exacerbated by the West’s imposition of neoliberal economic policy on the region.

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Ukraine's PM is panicking over wrecked economy, begging for aid, according to a media report.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal has reportedly requested an emergency meeting to be held in January with Kiev's donors due to "exceptionally high uncertainty" over the country's budget.

The development was reported by US media, citing the politician's letter sent this month to the multi-agency Donor Coordination Panel.

“To uphold macroeconomic stability, it is imperative that we receive sufficient, prompt, and predictable external financing, beginning January 2024," the official reportedly emphasized. "It is hardly possible to hold any discussion about recovery and rebuilding projects, when we struggle fulfilling the 2024 survival priorities."

According to the report, the Kiev regime is unable to fulfill social obligations without urgent foreign financial support.

“We cannot wait till March to finance our social needs,” Shmyhal stressed.

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that US President Joe Biden's administration is displaying hostility to the rule of law in the United States after threatening to sue the state over a newly-imposed law designed to address the crisis on the southern border with Mexico.

"The Biden administration not only refuses to enforce current US immigration laws, they now want to stop Texas from enforcing laws against illegal immigration," Abbott said on Thursday. "I’ve never seen such hostility to the rule of law in America."

The governor also stressed that Biden is destroying the United States while Texas is trying to save it.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last week aiming to block this state law, known as SB4.

The US southern border has turned into a crisis that has seen three consecutive record-breaking years of illegal crossings since Biden came into office and relaxed immigration policies, which has summed up to more than 5.4 million to date.

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Hamas published a footage of its military wing engaging IDF armored vehicles in Gaza.

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Analyst Daniel Lazare sees peace and neutrality in Ukraine’s future if the United States is willing to allow it.

Lazare discussed the issue on Sputnik’s Political Misfits program, claiming Republicans’ opposition to further US funding for Ukraine could mark the “beginning of the end” of the conflict in the Donbass.

The investigative journalist blamed the United States for the outbreak of hostilities, saying their push against compromise with the Donbass people tore the country in two and made “outright war more or less inevitable.”

“And now the US is facing the consequences. Or rather Zelensky is facing the consequences while the US kind of walks away,” the analyst stressed.

Lazare proposed a “Finlandization” model for Ukraine, referring to Finland’s foreign policy during the Cold War that saw the country adopt a neutral stance towards the Soviet Union.

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📹 US company Del Monte is committing "pure massacre" of local people in Kenya, James Mwangi Macharia, Executive Chairman of the African Center for Corrective and Preventive Action (ACCPA), told Sputnik Africa.

Currently, Kenyan police are investigating the murders of four people allegedly killed by the American agribusiness giant's security guards supposedly for stealing pineapples from Del Monte's plantation in Murang'a County.

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☢️ Tax dollars will be put to work guarding some of America’s kitschiest landmarks this weekend as the federal government carries out helicopter flights over Las Vegas.

The flights are conducted by the US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team and are intended to monitor radiation levels and detect the presence of a nuclear “dirty bomb.”

The program was instituted in 1975 in the midst of terrorist threats and the theft of nuclear materials from US labs. The flights operate in major American cities around large events like the Super Bowl.

People in Las Vegas can expect to see the helicopters on Friday, December 29 and once again during the day on New Year’s Eve.

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📹 The Russian Su-35 fighter jet covered the bombers from the Ukrainian aircraft, which eventually interrupted the task, the Defense Ministry said.

The pilot of the Su-35 was assigned the task of escorting and covering the bombers. During a combat mission, he detected an enemy strike group in the air.

All Russian aircraft returned to the launch site and the combat mission was terminated.

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On the territory of the Russian airbase Khmeimim in the Syrian Arab Republic a prayer room for military personnel professing Islam has been opened.

▪️Muslim military personnel serving in the Russian group of troops will be able to perform prayers and all rituals prescribed by the canons of Islam.

▪️The place of prayer for Muslims is located very close to the field Orthodox church and chapel. Such close proximity of religious institutions has become a confirmation of the historically peaceful coexistence of representatives of different faiths in the Russian Armed Forces.

▪️The prayer room is decorated in a yurt, a traditional dwelling of many Muslim peoples, which was handed over to Russian friends by representatives of the Republic of Kazakhstan. It is equipped with all the necessary attributes for spiritual enlightenment.

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🎖Chief of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense Valery Gerasimov presented state awards to the servicemen who distinguished themselves during the liberation of Maryinka.

"I would like to present the servicemen of the 150th Division and the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade with the awards they have honestly earned for the timely performance of their tasks and the liberation of Maryinka. I congratulate you on receiving these awards and wish you success on the battlefield, good health and safe return," Gerasimov said.

On December 25, the Russian Armed Forces liberated Maryinka, a heavily fortified town in the Donetsk People’s Republic, which for years served as an important stronghold for the Ukrainian troops.

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The US won’t be able to use frozen Russian assets for supporting Ukraine without Europe’s consent, the Washington Post has quoted unnamed officials as saying.

“There is resistance in Europe, especially in Berlin, about whether the move is justifiable under international law and whether it might undermine confidence in the euro,” the sources pointed out.

They also insisted that “without European buy-in, the [Biden administration’s] plan [on frozen Russian assets] won’t work.
Currently, the $300 billion of Russian assets are frozen in US and European banks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that any possible moves by Western countries to use Russia's frozen assets to assist Ukraine “will have legal consequences for those who initiated and implemented it.”

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Ukrainian media reported explosions in Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Konotop, the Sumy region, and the Khmelnitsky region.

Repeated explosions were heard in Kiev, where Mayor Klitschko confirmed the strikes on the Podolsk district of the city, where more than 50 manufacturing enterprises are located.

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▪️A building belonging to the Lukyanovskaya metro station in Kiev was damaged due to an explosion, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

▪️Blasts were heard in the vicinity of the Artem military plant in Kiev.

▪️Explosions were also heard in western Ukraine’s Ternopol region, the local press reported.

▪️Warehouses and enterprises were damaged by blasts in Kharkov, the head of the regional administration said.

▪️In Dnepropetrovsk, electric-powered urban transport has been partially suspended.

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❗️Yuriy Ignat, Ukrainian air defense spokesman, confirms unprecedented Russia missile attack on Ukraine:

"We have never seen so many targets on our monitor at the same time. Russia fired all its missiles today, except for the calibres. Daggers, Ballistic, S-300, cruise missiles, UAVs, X-22 or X-32. About 18 strategic bombers launched the X-101/X-505".

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Drone wars: How Russia can crack new Ukrainian UAV tactic

Sputnik correspondent Russell Bentley (@TXDPR) reports that Ukrainian troops have begun launching FPV attack drones in pairs, a tactic aimed at reducing flight time and increasing accuracy.

“However, Russian soldiers in the field are already taking countermeasures of their own, such as additional layers of anti-drone (metal/nylon barriers) protection, moving on foot in a more dispersed column (15 meters apart, instead of 5), enhanced audio recon (listen for the sound of flying mopeds), and the use of thermal imagers (motors and batteries are hot and can be detected against the sky).

The effectiveness of this new Ukrainian tactic can be further reduced by deploying more drone detectors, anti-drone rifles, thermal imagers, and enhanced listening devices to the frontlines. Additionally, if Russia continues increasing the delivery of its own attack drones, then our pilots can employ the same technique against the Ukrainians.

Enemy drone operators and launching sites should be made priority targets by official doctrine.”

👉 Check out Sputnik's article to find out more

President of Ukraine Volodimir Zelensky said that since last night, air defense forces allegedly shot down 110 Russian missiles of various classes, which indicates the scale of the strikes.

"Today, Russia used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal: “Kindzhals,” S-300s, cruise missiles, and drones. Strategic bombers launched X-101/X-505 missiles. A total of around 110 missiles were fired against Ukraine, with the majority of them being shot down," he wrote on his X account.

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Over 50 artificial holiday trees have been set up at the Palestinian Embassy in Russia, Sputnik correspondent reports.

Photos of the consequences of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict hang on the branches, as well as the QR code linking to ''Help Palestine.''

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SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launches US Space Force’s unmanned X-37B spaceplane into orbit

The X-37B is one of the most secret US military projects, and its mission objectives are strictly classified. The Space Force only disclosed that the spaceplane would have to conduct "a wide range of tests and experiments."

Earlier, it was reported that the Pentagon is planning to deploy a new constellation of spy satellites, with the aim of keeping a close watch on Russian and Chinese space projects.

Moscow has repeatedly excoriated the very idea of militarizing space. In 2017, Pentagon specialists referred to space as another “war-fighting domain”. In 2019, Washington created the Space Force, the first new branch of the armed services since 1947.

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Israel's Netanyahu cancels cabinet meeting on post-war governance in Gaza Strip - reports

The war cabinet was expected to meet on Thursday. The fact that it has consistently ignored the issue of the Gaza Strip's post-war governance at its meetings has reportedly caused concerns in the United States, where officials believe that Israel's failure to clearly map out the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave's political future risks resulting in the indefinite prolonging of hostilities.

Netanyahu’s decision to cancel the meeting could have been influenced by his far-right coalition partners, who have rejected any possibility of the Gaza Strip going under the control of the Palestinian Authority, the newspaper wrote.

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❗️An unidentified "air object" entered Polish space from Ukraine, it was accompanied by air defenses, then disappeared from radar, the Polish Army reports

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