Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries drive one of the world’s largest energy giants to implore China and others for fuel

Sputnik/AFP/Getty

{Newsweek 1 October} ‘Russia has a fuel problem after series of Ukraine strikes’

Karma is a bitch, yeah?

“Russia is set to import gasoline from Asia to offset a growing fuel shortage since Ukrainian attacks have disrupted nearly 40 percent of the country’s oil refining capacity, it has been reported.”

{alternate text} Vladimir Putin seated against a backdrop of the Russian tricolour, the vivid red and blue of the flag contrasting sharply with the pallor of his complexion. Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and patterned red tie, he leans slightly to one side in a high-backed, ornate chair, the gilt trim and patterned upholstery suggestive of ceremonial authority. His expression is one of weary detachment, the downturned mouth and heavy-lidded eyes conveying an impression of morose calculation rather than animation. The lighting accentuates the sallow planes of his face, highlighting age and strain, yet the posture remains rigidly controlled, projecting the cold restraint for which he is known. The overall composition conveys not vitality but the weary gravity of a man both entrenched in power and isolated by it, a portrait steeped less in grandeur than in the brittle opacity of autocracy.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. On X-TWITTER: @Sunking278 and @DollsFallen. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/user/SiberianKhatru278/. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. FULL LIST OF LINKS - linktr.ee/arthurnewhook. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED on Cash App ($ANewhook), PayPal (paypal.me/Sunking278), and at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

ADP reports firms in the former United States shed some 32,000 posts in September

{NBC News 1 October} ‘U.S. companies shed 32,000 jobs in September in latest sign of labor market weakness’ 

Bleak news all around:

ADP may be the only jobs data reported this week. The government shutdown, which began Wednesday, means that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is closed and unable to publish the official government jobs report Friday.

Companies with fewer than 50 employees were among those hit the hardest in September, with firms employing 20-49 employees shedding 21,000 jobs and those employing fewer than 19 workers losing 19,000 jobs.

ADP said the negative number was due in part to recently revised BLS data but "the trend was unchanged; job creation continued to lose momentum across most sectors." Additionally, "pay gains for job-changers slowed to 6.6% from 7.1% in August."

ADP also revised down August's employment growth of 54,000 to a loss of 3,000.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. On X-TWITTER: @Sunking278 and @DollsFallen. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/user/SiberianKhatru278/. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. FULL LIST OF LINKS - linktr.ee/arthurnewhook. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED on Cash App ($ANewhook), PayPal (paypal.me/Sunking278), and at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

The essence of the Quantico address: a calculated rite of humiliation, with Trump imperilling the patience of US generals

Alex Wong/Getty Images

{USNI News 30 September} 'Pentagon issues fresh edict on physical fitness and grooming standards in the wake of the Quantico address'

An assembly of generals, all feigned enthusiasm, hanging rapt upon each syllable uttered by the Secretary of War and the President of the United States. (/obvious sarcasm). 

To be fair, the new directives, taken on their own, possess a surface logic—most notably in prescribing stricter standards of physical fitness and ensuring combat readiness. Yet what is far more disquieting is the pageantry of their unveiling, staged unmistakably as a ritual of humiliation. For years—since his first tenure in the White House—Trump has inveighed against generals who honoured their oaths. His disdain for the military is unvarnished, at once putting them on a pedestal and emasculating them. Thus to assemble them, and then subject them to over an hour of his typical rambling irrelevance, was to reduce the nation’s senior commanders to the theatre of abasement. They recognised as much; their stony demeanours and reluctant postures betrayed the truth.

It may yet be these very generals—men, and a diminished handful of women, many of the latter already purged by this regime—who preserve the republic. For they did not appear as a cadre inclined to betray their oaths, nor to contort the Constitution into sanctioning a presidential war against his own citizenry and all whom he capriciously names ‘enemy’. One suspects, or at least strongly hopes, they confer in private, formulating strategy for the inevitable hour—fast approaching—when the Commander-in-Chief’s commands trespass so egregiously into unlawfulness that they cannot, in conscience, be obeyed.

{alternate text) In this photograph taken on 30 September 2025, rows of senior US military officers, clad in dark dress uniforms heavy with insignia, ribbons, and medals, sit in stony formation at Quantico. Their faces, rigid and unsmiling, betray an air of discomfort that undercuts the ceremony of their appearance. Some look downward, others stare blankly ahead, while a few allow the faintest flicker of exasperation to cross their features. The sea of green and blue uniforms, punctuated by the glint of brass and polished cloth, forms a tableau of disciplined composure masking inner disquiet. Against the gravity of their bearing, the mood is unmistakably strained, the officers’ silent demeanour reflecting a collective unease at being compelled to endure the rambling oratory of President Donald Trump. It is an image less of military pomp than of professional stoicism tested by political theatre, each face a study in the art of concealing disdain under the iron weight of duty.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. On X-TWITTER: @Sunking278 and @DollsFallen. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/user/SiberianKhatru278/. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. FULL LIST OF LINKS - linktr.ee/arthurnewhook. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED on Cash App ($ANewhook), PayPal (paypal.me/Sunking278), and at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.