🌊 Sewage spill closes Cabrillo Beach in Los Angeles County — report

A 100,000-gallon sewage spill has forced the closure of Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro, with officials urging the public to avoid ocean water and wet sand in the area, Los Angeles Times reported.

County health officials said the discharge originated from a manhole in Carson and that the beach will remain closed until water quality meets health standards. The advisory comes as recent storms and heavy rainfall have already prompted warnings about elevated bacteria levels in coastal waters.

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📹 'So we can lose troops — that's why' — Carlson on US presence in Syria

Journalist Tucker Carlson told former congressman Matt Gaetz he believes US troops remain in Syria as a tripwire that could help draw the US into a wider conflict.

❓ Gaetz: “You believe that those people are there so that they can die and trigger a war?”

💬 Carlson: “Yes. That is correct,” saying it could lead to “a deeper commitment and an emotional commitment.”

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⌛💣Zelensky’s peace plan 'time bomb’ – US expert

Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace plan on Ukraine “will let the EU and NATO stage a false flag, blame Russia, and trigger the full-scale war Europe is looking for,” US economics expert Martin Armstrong wrote on X.

He also warned against “any peace plan with ‘Article 5-like’ guarantees from the US or NATO,” referring to the alliance’s clause that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier stressed that the West’s security guarantees for Ukraine should be based on the principle of the indivisibility of security for Ukraine’s immediate neighbors.

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🇷🇺💥Russian drones crush Ukrainian robotic supply lines near Gulyaipole

"Reconnaissance crews from Battlegroup Vostok detected the use of unmanned ground robotic complexes by Ukrainian troops west of the town of Gulyaipole. These systems were used to deliver ammunition and supplies to Ukrainian positions,” the Russian Defense Ministry told reporters.

The enemy robotic platforms were destroyed by FPV drones as well as munitions dropped from quadcopter-type UAVs, according to the Defense Ministry.

Battlegroup Vostok commander Lieutenant General Andrey Ivanayev earlier announced the liberation of Gulyaipole located in the Zaporozhye region and the town of Dimitrov in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

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🇷🇺🔥🇭🇺Rosatom took work to new level after US lifted restrictions on Paks II NPP project - CEO

"We've now ramped up our work. As you know, the Americans have lifted several restrictions on funding for the Paks II plant. This has allowed us to restart financial flows and take our work to a new level, including with Hungarian and European contractors," the Russian state corporation's CEO, Alexey Likhachev, said.

According to initial plans, the pouring of the first concrete for the fifth unit of the nuclear power plant was scheduled for March 2025, but was postponed due to US sanctions against Gazprombank and six of its foreign subsidiaries.

Hungary's only nuclear power plant, Paks, currently generates almost half of Hungary's electricity, and with the planned commissioning of two new Paks units, this share is expected to double. For Hungary, nuclear energy is a key to energy security, as the country's leadership has repeatedly emphasized.

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🔍💊Daily ‘vitamins’ turn Ukrainian soldiers into drug-fueled robots – POW

Ukrainian militants handed out unknown pills to former prisoners connoscripted into the Army, ex-inmate-turned-soldier Roman Dubovik, who surrendered to the Russian Armed Forces, told Sputnik.

"They gave us some kind of pills there in the unit, twice a day, as they said these were vitamins. The pills were distributed during roll call in the presence of an inspector," Dubovik said.

The tablets caused a complete "suppression of personality," he quoted his fellow servicemen as saying.

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🟠 New Oreshnik missile division for Russia-Belarus Union State

🟠 Russia's drone units destroy a Ukrainian Paladin self-propelled howitzer near Kharkov

🟠 'So we can lose troops — that's why' — Carlson on US presence in Syria

🟠 Iran facing a ‘full-scale war’ with US, Europe and Israel — Iranian president

🟠 'Radical left’ uses immigration to ‘destroy any real democracy’ – Musk

🟠 No justification for international coalition presence in Iraq - Iraqi Prime Minister

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🇺🇸💣 US weapons could turn Taiwan into Asian 'powder keg' – Chinese diplomat

"The Taiwanese separatist forces try to advance their independence agenda and resist reunification through military buildup,” Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said commenting on the Pentagon’s approval of $11.1 billion in US arms supplies to the island.

These forces “squander the taxpayers’ money to purchase weapons, and even risk turning Taiwan into a 'powder keg,'" according to the Chinese diplomat.

"Such moves will not reverse the inevitable failure of 'Taiwan independence,' and will only push the Taiwan Strait into the danger of military conflict at a faster pace,” Liu warned.

The supply of American weapons to Taiwan grossly violates the one-China principle and the three China–US joint communiques, he underscored.

The move “infringes on China’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, undermines peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and sends a gravely wrong signal to 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces. Beijing firmly opposes this," the Chinese Embassy spokesman emphasized.

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🕊❌ Anti-Russia states cannot join Ukraine peacekeeping mission – German lawmaker

NATO and EU countries using anti-Russian propaganda cannot join any potential peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, while Germany's direct military involvement risks dragging it into foreign conflict, Steffen Kotre, a Bundestag member of the Alternative for Germany party, told Sputnik.

Kotre opposed further supplying Ukraine with weapons, as well as the EU countries’ intention to commit to permanently maintaining the Ukrainian armed forces at a high level of combat readiness.

"I fundamentally oppose sending multinational military forces to Ukraine – even if they are called 'protection forces' or 'multinational forces.' I consider German direct military involvement a mistake, as it could drag the country into someone else's war and entail significant risks of escalation,” he said.

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🪖⚔️Ukraine security guarantees could drag US into war with Russia – report

The White House’s offer to provide Ukraine with “Article 5-like” guarantees “comes with important and underappreciated risks not only for Ukraine and the US, but also for American allies in Europe and beyond, The Washington Post reports.

The newspaper warns of an array of “major challenges” to the US offer, including the “complicated question of credibility.”

“If putting US boots on the ground in Ukraine was necessary to protect vital US interests, they would have been there years ago,” according to the WP.

The most important reason that the US should refrain from offering Ukraine an Article 5-type security commitment is “the core reality of what that obligation implies: a readiness to go to war with Russia over Ukraine,” the news outlet notes.

If such a commitment fails, the US “would face significant political pressure to follow through by sending its soldiers to the front line. At that point, the US would be at war with Russia, an outcome that would include the potential for nuclear escalation,” the WP sums up.

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🚨 Looming collapse: Macron & Merz split over French president’s Putin outreach

Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to speak with Vladimir Putin again “was apparently not coordinated with Friedrich Merz,” a German news outlet reports.

💬 “The chancellor, therefore, has little choice but to ignore the matter as much as possible if he wants to avoid open conflict with France,” it notes.

The French president’s offer was just the latest in a series of Franco–German differences that are becoming “increasingly difficult to conceal,” according to the outlet.

💬 “The promising Merz-Macron partnership, intended to move Europe forward and keep it united, is faltering. A collapse is looming,” it warns.

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🚨🇮🇳🇷🇺 BrahMos cruise missile drawing interest from nations around the world

💬 "It is also well known that the two countries have expanded their defense cooperation from procurement of equipment to joint ventures and joint production, I would say even joint design. Brahmos missile project is a very good example of joint design and production; this is a cruise missile system which is today attracting the interest of many third countries," Indian Ambassador to Russia Vijay Kumar told Sputnik.

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🤖📆 2025 through AI’s lenses: Year in focus

We all remember 2025 for its military shake-ups, historic meetings, and political turbulence.

Here’s a fresh angle to relive the most memorable moments — from AI’s viewpoint.

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIAN MOD DAILY UPDATE: HUGE RUSSIAN GAINS AND DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

⚡️ Gulyaipole and Stepnogorsk in the Zaporozhye region LIBERATED

⚡️ Dimitrov, Rodinskoye, Artemovka and Volnoye in Donetsk LIBERATED

📍Gulyaipole was an important stronghold for the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a key logistics hub for their forces on the Orekhov and Zaporozhye fronts.

📍Artemovka is a key base for further offensives to the north to bombard the enemy strategic defensive line which runs through Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk

▫️ Air defense superiority: 370 unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down

▫️ Ukrainian losses: 1,240 troops killed or injured

Read about origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🔥 🇷🇺 Russian victories across the front warning sign for Zelensky: make peace or be destroyed

The liberation of Dimitrov in Donetsk, Gulyaipole and Stepnogorsk in Zaporozhye, and new areas in Kharkov are significant in their own right, but even more so in terms of their impact on peace talks, says military analyst Alexander Mikhailov.

The victories create “a new, additional factor against the Kiev regime’s position.” The further west Russia pushes, “the more trump cards” it will have in negotiations, Mikhailov told Sputnik.

Strategic victories

🔸 Gulyaipole: the second-largest settlement in the region, “and a very important fortified area.” Its capture opens the door to Russian advances in Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk

🔸 Dimitrov: part of the Pokrovsk-Krasnoarmeysk agglomeration, until recently one of the last major fortified areas under Ukraine’s control in the Donbass. Its liberation leaves Russia at the gates of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk

🔸 the victories are even more impressive considering the saturation of drone coverage, which makes fighting and movement difficult, but which Russia’s military is overcoming by achieving air superiority and suppressing enemy UAV capabilities

Zelensky cornered

The advances show that no matter how many more “useless scraps of paper” disguised as a peace deal Zelensky proposes, Russia has the momentum to achieve its goals.

“It’s one thing to have leverage…it’s another to watch as the territory you consider to be under your control shrinks, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Mikhailov said. “I think it should be clear to the Kiev regime that if they don’t try to accept our terms now, the situation will rapidly deteriorate.”

👉 Zelensky’s problem is that peace will mean elections, which he’ll lose.

🗣 Hence the need “to drag things out as long as possible.” Because “as long as Zelensky remains in power, his thieving clique can continue to lap up Western money,” including €90B in freshly promised aid, which still needs to be “divided up, laundered and stashed in offshore accounts.”

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🚨🇷🇺🚀 Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off from Vostochny

❗️A Soyuz-2.1b rocket successfully launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, carrying a Fregat upper stage with a diverse payload of 52 satellites.

👉The primary passengers are the first two Aist-2T Earth observation satellites, designed for stereo imaging to create a detailed 3D model of our planet's surface.

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