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Authored by Adam Dick via RPI

The United States government minted its final penny in November of 2025. This came after fiat money inflation succeeded in depriving pennies of nearly all their value. Pennies are still circulating, but it is increasingly common for stores to round cost totals to avoid giving pennies in change.

Also, people seeing that the metal content of their pennies is worth more than the face value are deciding that it is better to store pennies in a jar than to spend them.

The same issues that caused the US government to give up on pennies may soon encourage it to make a major change in regard to nickels.

In an August of 2025 article, I noted that each nickel valued at five cents was costing almost 14 cents to produce. What would the government do in regard to nickels? I suggested two likely options:

The writing seems to be on the wall for nickels. As their metallic value and production costs further and further exceed their face value, there will be more pressure to make changes in nickels’ composition to significantly reduce their cost of production.

Alternatively, the government may, as is being done with the penny, just stop making new nickels.

With penny production ended, it looks like nickel production may soon have a shakeup as well, though one that could buy nickels some time.

Two different versions of the Common Cents Act passed this summer, one in the United States House of Representatives (HR 3074) and the other in the Senate (S 1525).

Both legislative bodies will need to agree on the same bill before it can be sent on to the president for consideration.

Something the two bills have in common is permitting changing the composition of nickels from 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel to portions to be determined of zinc inside and nickel outside.

The bills specify the composition change must reduce the cost of production of the coins and, "to the greatest extent practicable" have "a minimal adverse impact on machines designed to accept coins."

Such a change for nickels would mirror what happened in the early 1980s with pennies, when newly minted pennies started being 97.5 percent zinc instead of the prior 95 percent copper. The resulting cost savings helped keep penny production going for over forty more years.

Will the US government keep minting nickels for another 40-plus years, or will inflation be so strong that the government much sooner sends the nickel off to the same fate the penny met last year?

Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times,

The United States will send a military hospital ship to Peru’s Pacific coast next year to help the country cope with the impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon.

Plans to send the hospital ship USNS Comfort to the northern Pacific coast of Peru in February 2027 were confirmed by U.S. Ambassador to Peru Bernie Navarro on Aug. 19 during a press conference at Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami, Florida.

Appearing alongside Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Espá, Navarro told reporters that “one of the biggest things the United States is doing is bringing the military vessel Comfort, which we are going to bring in February.”

The ambassador said that February is when they believe the problem with El Niño will peak.

Espá told reporters that officials were already starting to develop a road map.

“We are concerned, but we’re not just concerned; we’re taking action,” Espá said.

“That’s why we’re so grateful to the ambassador, because thanks to him, the day before yesterday we met at Southern Command with all the U.S. agencies that will be assisting us, along with civil society and the business sector, to develop our roadmap.”

Following the press conference, Navarro said in a post on X:

“The United States will stand with Peru in facing El Niño. With a strategy focused on prevention rather than reaction, we will set an example for regional cooperation.”

El Niño is a warming of the Pacific Ocean near the equator that affects global weather patterns. According to meteorologists, it could soon equal or surpass the 1997 phenomenon, which caused damage from heat waves, heavy rains, floods, and forest fires.

Peru, which lies on the western coast of South America, has been subject to flooding this year as a result of the weather phenomenon.

Aid to South America

The planned deployment of USNS Comfort, which was already in Peru in 2018 and 2019, was announced in an earlier statement from the U.S. Embassy in Peru on Aug. 17 following the summit at SOUTHCOM.

The summit on disaster preparedness for El Niño was attended by the U.S. ambassador, Espá, SOUTHCOM, representatives from the U.S. and Peruvian governments, and individuals from academia and civil society.

The U.S. Embassy in Peru said in a statement that during the summit, Navarro highlighted that the United States has demonstrated its support for the South American country through its aid and assistance.

This includes the construction of 18 Regional Emergency Operations Centers; the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration training provided to its officials in emergency response and risk management; and scientific and medical cooperation, such as the upcoming arrival of the hospital ship.

The United States has also been sending increased humanitarian aid for earthquakes in Colombia and Venezuela.

SOUTHCOM said in an Aug. 17 post on X that U.S. assistance to Colombia for earthquake relief is ongoing.

“Today, a [U.S. Air Force] C-17 Globemaster III delivered more life-saving assistance and supplies from the [State Department’s] disaster response warehouse in Miami to Medellín for distribution to hard-hit communities in Colombia,” the command said.

“SOUTHCOM is actively supporting the [State Department-led] humanitarian response following the Aug. 10 earthquake in western Colombia. The United States stands in solidarity with the Colombian people during this crisis.”

Heavy Rain in Peru

Heavy rains attributed to El Niño caused flooding in Peru on Aug. 19, resulting in flooded homes, collapsed sewage services, and school closures in the capital, Lima.

Authorities also closed the main route to Machu Picchu, the ancient Inca citadel, due to the overflow of waterways.

There were also road closures from landslides in the southern regions ?of Arequipa and Moquegua.

Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori, who took office on July 28, said that tackling the impact of the weather phenomenon is a priority.

Summary

• US shifts toward economic warfare, away from military strikes: Bessent says maximum sanctions likely mean no major new military campaign for now.
• Regime change rhetoric persists: Bessent says Washington intends to "collapse" Iran's regime.
• USS George Washington arrives: A new US carrier is now operating in the Middle East, relieving the over-extended USS Lincoln.
• Iran rejects US threats as a Trump "diversion": Tehran calls the campaign "economic terrorism" and says Washington is seeking an exit.
• Axios claim of 'stealth corridor' where oil is moving steadily through Hormuz results in skepticism & some pushback.

*  *  *

Bessent: Going to 'Collapse this Regime'

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a CNBC appearance seemed to give additional confirmation that further Pentagon operations targeting Iran are unlikely to happen down the line. He also furthered Trump's 'Economic D-Day' plan and threat.

"If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart," Bessent said in a "Squawk on the Street" interview. 

He previewed a press conference which the administration plans to give Monday to "talk about exactly what we're going to do." Apparently the White House is keen on resurrecting Bush-Cheney era talking points in the effort to push global countries to comply with a full economic siege and strangulation of the Islamic Republic. According to CNBC:

In a preview of the plan, he said that the U.S. will be telling all of its allies, “You are either with us or against us.”

“If you insist on doing business with [Iran], either transferring money, buying their oil or doing seaborne ship transfers, then the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. government ... will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you,” Bessent said.

“This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world,” he said.

He also said in the interview at one point that "we are going to collapse this regime." Of course, none of this is necessarily new in terms of talking points'...

Bessent: "I'm not sure why oil has popped up on this, because for now -- and it's at the president's discretion -- if we're doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large scale kinetic restart. But I would emphasize that is for now ...… pic.twitter.com/IYsWhsomgN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2026

USS Washington Carrier now in Region

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) has on Thursday confirmed the USS George Washington is now deployed in the Middle East, following the lengthy, over-extended deployment of personnel onboard the USS Lincoln, which has sparked crisis and media frenzy over poor conditions, lack of supplies, and worsening morale.

"The George Washington Carrier Strike Group is operating in Middle East during a scheduled deployment after arriving in the CENTCOM theater yesterday," the command said in a statement posted on X.

The USS Washington will now be the military's frontline carrier leading the mission in regional waters, which has featured an ongoing blockade of Iranian ports.

Iran Responds to Trump's 'Economic D-Day'

President Trump had the evening prior issued a Truth Social post describing a new "ECONOMIC D-DAY" against Iran, declaring that his total economic war against Tehran will be the "MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY."

Trump said that with Tehran's military and military-industrial base reduced to "now rubble" and its "currency worthless," he will unleash severe economic consequences against "ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran."

On Thursday Iranian leaders responded to the D-Day threat, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stating on X that Trump’s announcement is designed to distract from Washington’s "unprecedented debt & surging interest costs". He said the new economic measures will "bring further defeat" to the US. He added that "US economic terrorism threatens [the] global economy and sovereignty worldwide.

US Desperately Seeks Exit, Says Iranian Official

Another top Iranian official elsewhere asserted the US seeks exit from the region:

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited Iraq on Wednesday and said that the US was seeking to exit the region, comments that come following a report from The Washington Post that said the Pentagon is considering pulling back from the Persian Gulf after many of its bases in the area were heavily damaged by Iranian strikes.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi also weighed in with another message, saying Washington is headed towards its next defeat. "They claim Iran is on the verge of defeat, hanging by a thread, yet they are begging all their allies to help them," he posted on X.

Meanwhile Qatar is still seeking mediation and de-escalation, with Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani having said Thursday that traffic in the Strait of Hormuz must go back to what it was before. He urged that no party go back to "blackmailing" the other.

"The consequences of this war were grave, not only on the Gulf region but elsewhere in the world," Sheikh Mohammed told reporters at a press briefing following high-level discussions in El Alamein, Egypt.

"We need the situation to go back to what it used to be before" he said. "We condemn any threats in this regard in any obstacles."

Axios Report on 'Stealth' Hormuz Corridor

On the question of global shipping flows through the strait, much remains to be seen following a controversial Axios report issued Wednesday which said the Pentagon has successfully established a stealth corridor in and out of the strait. Here are the key untested claims, which await verification:

• Under the operation, which has been underway for the last several weeks, 15–20 tankers have entered and exited the strait each night through a southern channel along the coast of Oman.
• About 10 million barrels of oil a day — roughly half the pre-war volume — are being transported out of the strait and injected into the global energy market, the officials said.

If this is the case, then it's likely to lead to further rounds of war, given Iran is unlikely to sit back and allow the corridor to run smoothly...

I fully agree: "Iran is unlikely to accept a situation in which it cannot export oil while other Gulf producers continue to do so. Paradoxically, therefore, America’s relative operational success could become a driver of further Iranian escalation." https://t.co/I2IuU0deyU

— Hamidreza Azizi (@HamidRezaAz) August 20, 2026

'Stealth' Corridor Story True?

Of course, many analysts have pointed out that Axios has not been reliable on oil and Iran related reports, which tend to come out at sensitive moments timeline-wise, perhaps for maximum impact on markets.

Regional watcher and Atlantic Council author Danny Citrinowicz writes, "There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of the current U.S. approach to Iran: Washington wants to avoid another major military campaign, yet the very strategy it is pursuing to achieve that goal may make renewed military escalation increasingly difficult to avoid."

"The administration appears to believe that it can dramatically intensify economic pressure, including through aggressive enforcement of secondary sanctions, while keeping the confrontation largely within the economic domain," he continues. "But that assumption misunderstands both Iran’s position and the incentives facing its current leadership." Indeed Washington has seemed to miscalculate and underestimate Tehran at every turn of this nearly 6-month long conflict.

Ukrainian President Zelensky is once again under immense internal pressure, amid new corruption investigations which run straight through the presidential office as well as growing calls to finally hold elections despite the ongoing war with Russia.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the country's popular young former defense minister and a longtime political ally of Zelensky - who was dismissed just last month largely as a result of tensions between him and army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi - stunned Kiev's political establishment this week by issuing a video address urgently calling for a path to elections.

"We have to answer a fundamental question – how should a state function, if the war has lasted for years?" Fedorov said in the nine-minute-long YouTube video.

"Can Russia actually be entitled to define when Ukrainians can elect their authorities next time? I’m sure it’s not. Democracy can’t be Russia’s hostage," he said.

Zelensky has long argued that martial law must stay in place, leaving no room for new elections based on the current constitution.

The 35-year-old Fedorov's message was unexpected, and is being widely seen as a stab in the back to Zelensky. Al Jazeera has noted, for example:

Since he was fired, Fedorov has repeatedly emphasized his loyalty to Zelenskyy and refused to accept other jobs such as a presidential aide in charge of reforms.

He also claimed to have turned down a project with Palantir Technologies, a controversial, US-based software company that began collaborating with Ukraine’s military during Fedorov’s tenure.

But Federov is now calling for "a legal, safe and realistic mechanism" to restart a full democratic process "even in the conditions of a long war" - which flies directly in the face of the Zelensky government's stance.

This marks the first time a high-level political ally of Zelensky has publicly pushed national elections since the war's start.

It is also significant given Federov remains well-liked among the Ukrainian public. There was a lot of anger and confusion, including rare wartime protests, upon his mid-July dismissal.

His plea has sparked a little momentum:

Former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba reportedly backed Fedorov’s idea, saying on Tuesday that elections "after war will not be more civilized, than during it."

"We don’t know when [the war] ends. What if it lasts for another three years? We will be living under the political model that was formed in 2019, which has already been emotionally exhausted," Kuleba, who helmed the Foreign Ministry in 2020-2024, was quoted by the Interfax Ukraine news agency as saying.

Back in December of last year, at a moment it was clear that the Ukrainians were backing away from Washington pressure to get to the negotiating table with Russia, President Trump had unleashed rare criticism on the Zelensky government.

Ukraine's ousted defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for wartime elections in a video address, arguing the nation faced a crisis of governance, in the biggest internal challenge to ?President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since Russia's invasion https://t.co/DJRxjcWH6t pic.twitter.com/b72CVNvj4Q

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 19, 2026

"They haven’t had an election in a long time," Trump said at the time to Politico. "You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it's not a democracy anymore."

But the reality is that American taxpayer funds, as well as US-made weaponry, continue to flow largely uninterrupted to Kiev. Trump had vowed to quickly wind down the war and achieve peace, but that has remained elusive.

Yemen's Houthis, or the Ansar Allah movement, released a statement Thursday announcing new military operations against Saudi Arabia which targeted an Aramco facility and an airport in Najran province, saying that forces "carried out two military operations using two drones."

"The first targeted a sensitive target belonging to the Saudi enemy at Najran Airport, while the second targeted Aramco in Najran. Both operations successfully achieved their objectives, by God’s grace," the Houthi statement declared.

Najran is a mid-sized city of around 400,000 and is located in southwest Saudi Arabia, bordering Saada province in northwest Yemen. The Saudis didn't immediately acknowledge the attack, or whether there's been damage or casualties from the launches has not been quickly forthcoming.

The Houthis are still complaining of Saudi airspace violations, while in the midst of a "siege for siege" operation. 

The day prior the Houthis laid out three objectives imposed on the Saudis:

• The first was described as “siege for siege,” referring to Ansarallah’s declared naval restrictions against Saudi shipping.
• The second involved “striking Saudi troop buildups wherever they are,” while the third centered on “protecting Yemen’s sovereignty and confronting any enemy incursions.”
• Ansarallah stated that its naval measures had imposed a tight blockade on Saudi interests, asserting that “not a single ship can pass through.”

Aramco facilities have been targeted several times over the past weeks, since the Saudi-Houthi conflict erupted again.

Iran has of late been much more open in boasting that its Yemeni ally is doing damage on US allies in the region. 

For example, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi told the semiofficial Mehr News Agency this week that the kingdom cannot defeat the group. 

"How can Saudi Arabia, whose military capability is less than that of the Zionist regime, be able to cope with Ansar Allah and the Yemeni fighters? This is not possible," he said.

The Thursday attack marks the fourth offensive on Aramco facilities this month...

?? ????Aramco has now been targeted by claimed Houthi drone strikes 3 times in 11 days.

Jizan refinery caught fire on August 9 (Saudi confirmed the fire, not the cause).

Najran was hit August 14. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree is now claiming a third strike on Aramco… pic.twitter.com/aaiDLuLU8X

— Jack Prandelli (@jackprandelli) August 20, 2026

Like the Iranians, the Houthis have some natural leverage given the geography of oil transit chokepoints. Al Monitor observes this week: "Traffic in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, may be on the rebound despite the Houthi blockade. The shipping data firm Kpler said 46 vessels crossed the strait on Tuesday, up 53% from the day prior. Around 50 ships typically crossed before the recent escalation. 

It notes further, "Saudi Arabia has been rerouting oil exports through the Red Sea in response to the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz."