UK - Senior Conservative MPs have made clear they are preparing to bring down Theresa May’s government if she compromises on Brexit. Ahead of a crucial summit with her warring cabinet on Friday to finalise policy, pro-Brexit MPs including, crucially, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson defended Jacob Rees-Mogg after he warned Mrs May will face a coup unless she sticks to her Brexit red lines. The backbencher was criticised by several Tories, including Mr Johnson's Foreign Office deputy Sir Alan Duncan who accused Mr Rees-Mogg of "insolence". But Mr Johnson openly supported his fellow Brexiteer, Tweeting: "It's vital that all MPs are able to air their views on Brexit. Whatever your position, I hope we can all agree that Jacob Rees-Mogg is a principled and dedicated MP who wants the best for our country."

GERMANY - Some 600 AfD representatives gathered in Augsburg for the start of a two-day congress of the German populist party on Saturday, as left-wing protesters staged demonstrations in the Bavarian city.  Addressing the delegates, senior AfD lawmaker Jörg Meuthen slammed multiculturalism as a "quixotic ideology" and "the great ideological fallacy of the early 21st century."  Meuthen also pushed for a new immigration policy that would turn the EU into "Fortress Europe."  As potential allies in this endeavor, Meuthen named Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, his populist vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, Italian right-wing leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, and Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.  The AfD "wants to, has to" cooperate with these leaders, Meuthen said.

ITALY - Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy's right-wing League, said Sunday he wanted to expand its success to create a pan-European association of nationalist parties, as Italy again refused to accept a boat of migrants stranded in the Mediterranean. In a keynote speech at the League's annual gathering in countryside north of Milan, Mr Salvini predicted the League would govern Italy for the next 30 years, receiving rapturous applause from thousands of flag-waving supporters. "To win we had to unite Italy, now we will have to unite Europe," Mr Salvini said. "I am thinking about a League of the Leagues of Europe, bringing together all the free and sovereign movements that want to defend their people and their borders."

GERMANY - Angela Merkel has held onto power as the German Chancellor secured an agreement in a humiliating compromise with her Bavarian ally who threatened to quit and bring down her government in a row over the EU migrant crisis. Angela Merkel said transit centres will be created in Germany to process migrants to return to previous countries. The German Chancellor said she has “found a really good compromise on migration” with Horst Seehofer’s (Christian Social Union) CSU party. The Germany Chancellor said the compromise would secure the principle of freedom of movement within the EU while allowing Germany to take "national measures" to limit migrant arrivals.

UK - Boris Johnson has publicly backed the MP who warned Theresa May of a rebellion if she failed to deliver on her Brexit promises as a fresh Tory row over Europe took hold. The Foreign Secretary said the Eurosceptic MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who told the Prime Minister that she could face the collapse of her Government if she concedes too much ground to Brussels, "wants the best for our country". It came as Mrs May was accused of treating her Cabinet like "idiots" after Downing Street trumpeted a "third option" for Britain's customs arrangements with the EU but failed to tell a single minister what it was. Senior Cabinet ministers were “deeply sceptical” yesterday about the viability of any new plan...

USA - We haven’t seen anything like this since the financial crisis of 2008.  Investors are taking money out of global stock funds at a pace that we haven’t seen in 10 years, and many believe that this is a harbinger of tough times ahead.  Global stocks lost about 10 trillion dollars in value during the first half of 2018, and an even worse performance during the second half of the year will almost certainly push the global financial system into panic mode. 

USA - The Trump administration did not rise, prima facie, like Venus on a half shell from the sea. Donald Trump is the result of a long process of political, cultural and social decay. He is a product of our failed democracy. The longer we perpetuate the fiction that we live in a functioning democracy, that Trump and the political mutations around him are somehow an aberrant deviation that can be vanquished in the next election, the more we will hurtle toward tyranny. The problem is not Trump. It is a political system, dominated by corporate power and the mandarins of the two major political parties, in which we don’t count. We will wrest back political control by dismantling the corporate state, and this means massive and sustained civil disobedience, like that demonstrated by teachers around the country this year. If we do not stand up we will enter a new dark age.

UK - Roads have begun to melt, train tracks have reached temperatures of 49C and a hosepipe ban is set to come into force as the UK basks in the ongoing heatwave. The hot weather has led to the unusual sight of gritters being used in the summer. They are normally deployed during cold snaps to stop road surfaces from freezing, but a number of councils are using the vehicles to spread crushed rock dust as temperatures soar. Some roads have become so hot that they have started to melt and stick to tyres. Crushed rock particles are being spread by councils to create a non-stick layer between roads and vehicles.

USA - California — not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia — has the highest poverty rate in the United States. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure — which accounts for the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income — nearly one out of four Californians is poor.

GERMANY - Angela Merkel used to be viewed like the German football team - invincible, with exceptional technical skill and a steely determination that always prevailed. Or, to use another metaphor, her style of governing was reminiscent of the slogan of the car-manufacturer Audi, Vorsprung Durch Technik: ‘Advantage through technical prowess’. But all things must come to an end. Earlier this week, Audi’s CEO Rupert Stadler was arrested for his alleged role in the Volkswagen Group's diesel cheating scandal. And we all know what happened to Joachim Löw’s German football team in the World Cup…

GERMANY - Bavarian CSU leader and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said he would rather resign from both of his posts than back down in his severe rift with Chancellor Angela Merkel over Germany’s migration policy, local media report. While Seehofer, who has spearheaded the opposition to Merkel’s approach to tackling immigration problems, has not officially submitted his resignation, sources at a closed Christian Social Union presidency meeting told German media that he had made such a proposal and that other party members were trying to change his mind. A CSU press conference planned for Sunday night has, meanwhile, been cancelled, with Seehofer reportedly planning to make a final attempt at reconciliation with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union on Monday.

GERMANY - Angela Merkel’s political future is in question after her coalition allies rejected Friday’s European Union agreement on limiting immigration as insufficient, a party official said on Sunday. A row over the handling of migration in Germany has plunged her three-month-old “grand coalition” into crisis, forcing the German leader to scramble to try to strike deals with individual EU members. Horst Seehofer, head of the German Chancellor’s Bavarian allies, said on Sunday he saw no alternative to rejecting some migrants at Germany’s border, a party source said, in a move which could escalate his conflict with Mrs Merkel. Nine months after Mrs Merkel was weakened after losing votes to the far right in elections, she was left with no choice but to seek help from her European Union neighbours to settle a deep conflict with her allies which could threaten her three-month-old coalition.

USA - Donald Trump is considering scaling down or withdrawing the US military from Germany, according to a report ahead of the NATO leaders’ meeting. The US president has blasted allies for chipping in too little to the bloc’s budget. The decision to explore the option of pulling 35,000 US troops out of Germany came after Trump floated the idea during a meeting with White House and military aides, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The president was reportedly frustrated by the fact that Germany and other NATO allies don’t pay their “fair share” into the budget of the alliance.

USA - To understand the madness gripping American leftists, try to see the world through their eyes. Presto, you’re now part of the raging resistance. Like the Palestinians who mark Israel’s birth as their nakba, or tragedy, you regard Donald Trump’s 2016 victory as a catastrophe. It’s the last thing you think of most nights, and the first thing most mornings. You can’t shake it or escape it. Whatever you watch, listen to or read, there are reminders — Donald Trump really is president.

USA - Interrupted dinners, driveway confrontations, threatening leaflets. Donald Trump administration officials are increasingly facing harassment from liberals enraged by the president's words and actions. Is it a reflection of an increasingly acrimonious political environment, a sign that liberals are spinning out of control or a reasonable response by citizens faced with what some see as a historic national crisis and a president who critics say likes to stoke the fires of discord?