United States

With little active US presence in the region (see latest naval map below), on Sunday Iran launched a massive naval drill at the mouth of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Ships, submarines and helicopters will take part in the drills across an area of about 2 million square kilometers (772,000 square miles) and marines will showcase their skills along Iran's southeastern coast, the state news agency IRNA said even as tensions with the United States continue to build after U.S President Donald Trump put Tehran "on notice".

Having surpassed gun homicides for the first time in 2015, the epidemic of heroin and opioid related deaths in the US continues to grow. Amid the dismal failure of the 'war on drugs', it seems US lawmakers are finally waking up to reality, and are pressing the nation’s drug czar for more data on the dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl, including how it is trafficked and how many people it has killed, in the latest effort to thwart a spiraling drug crisis.

Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares via Sinclair & Co.,

There's a cold war raging.

No, not the one between the US and Russia. That’s old news.

We're talking about the NEW cold war: the one for the soul of the West.

It has now become a weekly ritual: Goldman warns the market is overvalued and poised for a selloff, market proceeds to ramp to new all time highs.

Submitted by Michael McDonald via OilPrice.com,

The United States was once a projected leader in the nuclear energy race. In the 20th century, the world dreamed of finding a way to provide safe, cheap, and renewable energy, and nuclear power seemed to be the manifestation of those dreams. All of this, however, seems to be coming to an end.