🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- Venezuela expects nearly $76 billion in oil investment over the next five years following a series of agreements with foreign partners, including a major bilateral energy accord with the United States.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced that the US agreement covers 17 oilfields and includes plans to drill 250 rigs, forming part of a broader package of 61 agreements. She also reported that oil production in western Zulia state has increased from 70,000 to 370,000 barrels per day, with output expected to reach 400,000 by the end of 2026. The planned investments represent a major expansion of American involvement in Venezuela's energy sector following Nicolás Maduro's removal in January, with the potential to substantially increase production from the world's largest proven crude oil reserves.

🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺⚡- "My decision on Russia is a very simple one. I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table. Great progress is being made, and that includes current hostage negotiations! Signing that document at this time will do that, and I can sign it later, or any time that I want!

Perhaps more importantly, Russia is doing very little, if anything, to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared to what they could be doing, and I want to keep it that way, and will, unless stupid people get in the way.

Lastly, Zelenskyy is using Diesel Refineries in Russia as a target, knowing that these attacks are seriously hurting the world diesel markets, including those in the United States. Farmers, ranchers, and businesses of all kinds are suffering greatly from this, but Russia is, nevertheless, sending, at a low price, millions of barrels of diesel to the World.

Zelenskyy doesn’t care, and frankly, with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him, and that Crooked Joe Biden gave him in the past, he doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did. He could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now. His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead.

I WANT THIS WAR END!

Thank you for your attention to this matter," - President Trump on Truth Social.

🇫🇷⚡️- Locals tell Rerum Novarum that Paris has turned into a warzone again in several areas. The police have not been reinforced and are currently overwhelmed. Shops have been left alone as police forces retreated and regrouped. Several shop owners are alone facing "hundreds of black people".

🇫🇷⚡️- Widespread looting is being reported in the historically-queer district "Le Marais" of Paris.

🇮🇱 - Israeli Channel 15 (i24) polls for the upcoming Israeli elections (a generally neutral outlet):

Likud (Benjamin Netanyahu) - 25 seats
Yashar (Gadi Eisenkot) - 21 seats
Bichad (Naftali Bennett + Yair Lapid) - 13 seats
Otzma Yehudit (Itamar Ben-Gvir) - 10 seats
Democrats (Yair Golan) - 9 seats
Yahadut HaTorah (Ya'akov Asher) - 8 seats
Joint List (Yousef Jabareen) - 8 seats
Shas (Aryeh Deri) - 8 seats
Yisrael Beiteinu (Avigdor Lieberman) - 6 seats
Tkuma (Bezalel Smotrich) - 6 seats
Ra'am (Mansour Abbas) - 6 seats

🇺🇸🇮🇱⚡- "Trump is a puppet of Netanyahu," - Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli far-right opposition candidate.

🇺🇸⚡️- The Air Force officer, who was rappelling from the top of the Alamodome before the UTSA vs Navy college football game, in a pregame stunt, has passed away from his injuries.

🇺🇸🦇⚡️- In some lighter news, today marks the 15th anniversary of Batman: Arkham City's release in 2011.

Widely considered the greatest superhero game ever made, the high point of the Arkham series featured the legendary performances of the late Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker.

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇾🇪⚡- US embassies and missions in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Iraq, Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Yemen have issued warnings to American citizens over the possibility of an escalation of the Ansarullah-Saudi Arabia war, and Iranian-backed militias across the region could target US interests.

🇫🇷⚡️- "We have uncontestably failed." - Gérald Darmanin, French Minister of Justice, as Paris was shaken by another wave of violences overnight.

🇺🇸⚡️- JD Vance, while answering a question from a Jewish Democrat, whose children were in the Temple Israel terrorist attack, alluded to Nick Fuentes as part of his answer to concerns over antisemitism.

“There's this podcaster, who goes obsessively at me and my family, and I joke with my Jewish friends, [as] he also obsessively goes after Jews; we're in good company.”

Vance also agrees with the Jewish Democrat that “they're in the same boat” when it comes to being in opposition to perceived antisemitism.