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President Biden would easily beat former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 election matchup — but would lose if he faced off against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a recent poll. In a rematch of the 2020 presidential contest, the 80-year-old Biden would prevail over his 76-year-old predecessor by eight percentage points in the popular vote — 49% to 41% — but would fall to the Sunshine State’s Republican governor by 45% to 42% in a head-to-head contest, the WPA Intelligence survey released Jan. 13 found. Trump announced Nov. 15 that he would mount a third consecutive run...

A speaker at the World Economic Forum (WEF) held at Davos, Switzerland, said Tuesday that mining cobalt, a material vital for the batteries used by electric cars, had “horrific” costs. “The question about mining is — we mine for cobalt and we don’t recognize that cobalt mining has a catastrophic impact if it’s — if it’s, you know, local cobalt mining or even if it’s large-scale cobalt mining, it’s really horrific,” Alan Dangour, the Wellcome Trust’s director for climate and health, said during a panel titled “Protecting the Climate Vulnerable.” Cobalt is one of several metals and minerals critical for...

So just how badly are we depleting our own arsenal of military hardware as we keep sending more and more arms to Ukraine? You rarely hear a peep about this from our swamp-dwellers in Washington, but our supplies, particularly ammunition, are obviously running low. This week we tapped into an infrequently-mentioned stockpile that we keep in Israel for short-notice use, both for American missions in the Middle East and for our Israeli allies during emergencies.

RIFLE, Colo. (AP) — Debbie Hartman voted for Lauren Boebert for Congress in 2020 and again in 2022, delighted by Boebert’s unequivocal defense of cultural issues that animate the Republican Party’s far right flank. But as Hartman shopped recently at a supermarket in this Rocky Mountain ranching outpost, she had one piece of advice for the Colorado lawmaker. “Tone down the nasty rhetoric on occasion and just stick with the point at hand,” said Hartman, 65, a veterinary tech assistant. That sentiment reflects Boebert’s challenge as she begins her second term in the House. In her relatively short time in...

Ukrainian leaders have vowed to retake all territory occupied by Russia, prompting a debate over what would be necessary for Ukraine to win and evict Moscow’s forces. The answer is primarily military because Russia is only going to abandon its hard-won gains if its troops suffer catastrophic losses, military strategists say. Behind those talks about weapons and ammunition is a deeper political question as Ukraine’s battlefield fortunes rely heavily on the willingness of Western governments to continue their multibillion-dollar military assistance to Kyiv. And pushing Russian forces out of the entrenched positions they hold in more than 15% of Ukraine’s...

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Donald Trump left his supporters on the edge of their seats when he touted a 'major announcement' just weeks after he revealed his run for president again in 2024. Speculation swirled that it could be the announcement of a rally after a pause since the midterms or a move that could upend the Republican primaries. Despite the anticipation, it turned out to be a line of his own digital trading cards, costing $99 each and featuring him in various poses - including Superman and as a cowboy with a hunting rifle. 'They will be gone, I believe, very quickly!' Trump...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) leads former President Trump by 14 points in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary match-up, according to a new poll. The Wall Street Journal survey released on Wednesday found that DeSantis leads Trump among likely Republican voters, 52 percent to 38 percent. DeSantis also has an advantage in his approval rating, with 84 percent of Republicans surveyed having a favorable view of him. By comparison, 71 percent said they have a favorable view of Trump. DeSantis’s name recognition also appears strong, as only about 10 percent of likely GOP primary voters said they did not know...

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With all the fanboy Musk-As-Savior tributes on FR, maybe it's an appropriate time to look at his family and business history.Elon Reeve Musk is the son of Maye Musk and Errol Musk. from Wikipedia: The (Musk) family traces its origins to England where the surname was adopted by Elon's paternal ancestors in the 16th century. The family was part of the small number of British immigrants to South Africa in the early-to-mid twentieth century; Elon's paternal great-grandmother was descended from Dutch Free Burghers, while his maternal great-grandparent originated from Switzerland. The surname Reeve traces back in the peerage to at...

As conservatives increasingly turn to secular culture war outrages to fire up their base, it would seem that God is no longer their co-pilot.If a single image could encapsulate the Trump era, perhaps it is the infamous photo of the former president standing alone on a sidewalk in front of a boarded-up church with a stern expression and a Bible in his hand. The shot was captured in June 2020, shortly after police had used tear gas to clear Black Lives Matter protestors from Lafayette Park outside the White House, where they had gathered to voice their anger about the...

TOPLINE Less than a quarter of Americans from both parties approve of former President Donald Trump’s dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, according to a new YouGov/Yahoo survey that also found less than half of Republicans think Trump is stronger now than he was in 2020, as the former president faces a string of controversies since announcing his 2024 candidacy

Senate Republicans who want to move on from Donald Trump are smelling blood after a series of self-destructive errors by the former president that they think is opening the door for GOP rivals to challenge and defeat him in a 2024 presidential primary. The GOP lawmakers say Trump looks increasingly vulnerable in a primary after what they describe as his erratic behavior in recent weeks, which has raised new doubts about his ability to beat President Biden or any other Democrat in a general election. Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Trump’s most recent self-inflicted wound — in which...

Kyiv relies entirely on its allies for weapons. That’s not a position any country fighting a war for its existence should be in – relying on others for its defense needs. NATO was unprepared for a big war, especially with Russia. ...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday told his country to prepare for another wave of Russian missile strikes as citizens struggle with widespread power outages and a lack of heat in the aftermath of last week’s attacks. Zelensky said the “terrorists are preparing new strikes” and would continue to shell their country so long as Russia has missiles. He urged Ukrainians to pay attention to air alerts and respond to the attacks with unity, adding that “our mutual assistance is one of the elements of protection against terror and our strength.” “The upcoming week can be as hard as the...

Pendukh, 33, after serving several months on the front lines - the war has taken a toll on him He considers himself lucky. Friends in his battalion have served with squads that lost more than half their members. "Lots of problems, even psychological problems," he says. "Some people from those formations, they need psychological help after this. Very serious psychological help." He's tired of living out of a tent. He's tired of facing daily artillery fire. He misses his mom and her cooking....He acknowledges crying while eating an apple pie that his mother recently sent him. "The further you are...

While Europe correctly perceives that some sectors of the U.S. economy are raking in profits at the expense of Europe, the economy of the United States is showing clear signs of a retracting economy on multiple fronts.

NATO allies the UK and Belgium are at loggerheads as Belgium's green party coalition is using Brexit rules to block the export of critical nuclear arms technology to the UK. The technology at the centre of the row plays a vital role in the maintenance of the UK's nuclear deterrent, with Belgium insisting the UK needs an 'export licence' to obtain it post-Brexit. However, though both nations are NATO allies, Belgium's deputy prime minister Georges Gilkinet, member of the green coalition-member Ecolo party has blocked the licence due to 'opposition to nuclear weapons and the arms industry,' ...

Twitter’s radically reduced anti-propaganda team grappled on Sunday with a flood of nuisance content in China that researchers said was aimed at reducing the flow of news about stunning widespread protests against coronavirus restrictions. Numerous Chinese-language accounts, some dormant for months or years, came to life early Sunday and started spamming the service with links to escort services and other adult offerings alongside city names. The result: For hours, anyone searching for posts from those cities and using the Chinese names for the locations would see pages and pages of useless tweets instead of information about the daring protests as...

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Europe supplying weapons to Kiev is draining the continent's resources and putting it in a difficult situation. Since the war began in Ukraine, Western countries such as the US and Britain, as well as European states, have supplied Kiev with billions of dollars worth of weaponry, adding fuel to the fire in the war. This comes after reports from US media said that as Washington and its western allies continue to pump weapons into Kiev, maintenance of the armaments is increasingly becoming a headache. Weapons overused by the Ukrainian military are either being wiped out...