America

On Tuesday, multiple media outlets jumped at the opportunity to report that China has built radar facilities at Cuarteron Reef, Beijing’s southern-most South Pacific sandcastle.

“New radar facilities being developed in the Spratlys, on the other hand, could significantly change the operational landscape,”  Gregory Poling of CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said, explaining why the radar installations are actually a bigger deal than the deployment of HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island.

Do not show this chart to Melinda Zabritski:

For those unfamiliar, Melinda is Experian’s senior director of automotive finance and she’s never, ever worried. Or at least not that she lets on.

“We're not seeing anything that would be a red flag,” she said earlier this month in response to data that showed the percentage of auto loans made to buyers with the poorest credit ratings is growing faster than the rest of the auto finance market. As a reminder, here’s the chart that shows the trend:

Donald Trump is on an electoral roll.

After sweeping to victory in New Hampshire, the bellicose billionaire steamrolled into South Carolina and as we noted on Saturday, served notice that “this is no longer a matter of whether he can make a serious run at the presidency, it’s now a matter of whether Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio can mount a serious challenge.”

Submitted by MiddleEastEye via TheAntiMedia.org,

Weapons imports by Saudi Arabia and Qatar have rocketed by over 275 percent over the past four years, a new report found on Monday.

Between 2011 and 2015, Gulf states were the most significant market for sales by the United States, the world’s biggest arms exporter, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) found.

The Director of national intelligence, James Clapper, recently revealed that US intelligence agencies are using various “smart home” devices in order to spy on citizens. The ever growing list of smart devices such as thermostats, cameras, and other appliances that are connected to the internet, provide authorities with the ability to spy on its citizens…..and that includes refrigerators Kristan T. Harris from The Rundown Live reports: New refrigerators that connect to the internet are now entering homes with cameras installed in them that can be used to surveil you.