ITALY - Mount Etna, Italy's largest volcano located in Sicily, has been erupting over recent days. The volcanic activity has escalated, with incredible images captured of lava spewing from its largest crater. Travellers at Catania airport - a major international gateway to Sicily - experienced significant delays. A minimum of 90 flights departing and arriving at Catania airport were cancelled, causing disruption for approximately 15,000 passengers. Ryanair was hit the hardest, being forced to cancel 42 flights - the highest number among all airlines. Meanwhile, Italy's Stromboli volcano - one of the most active in the world - has been spilling lava into the sea following a major eruption.

FRANCE - Violence has erupted on the streets of France after a shock exit poll predicted that a left-wing coalition is leading the snap election battle - dashing Marine Le Pen's hopes of forming the country's first hard-right government since the war. Shocking footage shows hooded and masked protesters running through the streets, launching flares and setting France ablaze - after 30,000 riot police were deployed across France amid high political tension. This comes after the second round of polls predicted the hard right National Rally (RN) is on track to come third - having led the race after the first round.

UK - Boris Johnson has warned the UK is "on the road to serfdom" amid reports Sir Keir Starmer will start to renegotiate the post-Brexit deal with the EU within weeks. The new Prime Minister is expected to use a major summit at Blenheim Palace later this month to unofficially get the ball rolling. Sir Keir is said to want lower trade barriers and have more relaxed freedom of movement rules. EU sources believe he is willing to sign Britain up to some of Brussels's rules in exchange. But Mr Johnson warned against any renegotiation of the five-year pact he signed in 2020. The former prime minister told the Mail on Sunday: "The great sell-out begins. Sir Keir, who backed Remain and a second referendum, has previously said he would seek a better deal with the EU if he won power." But the Labour leader has insisted he would not drag the UK back into the Single Market or customs union.

EUROPE - EU leaders yesterday offered to help Labour unpick Boris Johnson's Brexit deal. Irish premier Simon Harris said his country would help 'facilitate' a closer deal with the UK 'every way we can around any European table'. Mr Harris said there was a 'willingness to have those conversations' in Brussels about a new deal, which could include a form of free movement for young people. Germany said it was working with Labour 'to see how the UK can move closer to the EU'. Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, said work had 'already begun' on negotiating changes to the 'botched' Brexit deal. The Prime Minister told reporters in Edinburgh: 'We intend to improve our relationship with the EU and that means closer trading ties with the EU.' He added: 'I do think that we can get a much better deal than the botched deal that Boris Johnson saddled the UK with.'

YEMEN - The head of the Yemeni Ansarallah terrorist organization, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, boasted in a national address on Thursday that his jihadists had turned American aircraft carriers into “obsolete weapons.” Houthi’s group, which controls the Yemeni capital of Sana’a and received significant backing from state sponsor of terror Iran, declared war on Israel in October in support of fellow jihadist terrorists Hamas. The Houthis’, as they are commonly known, main contribution to terrorism in the Middle East has been a campaign against commercial shipping in the Red Sea in which they use drones, missiles, and other often rudimentary weapons to attack random civilian vessels in the region.

IRAN - Given the calamitous track record of Iran’s so-called “moderate” leaders, it would be naive in the extreme to believe that the election of former heart surgeon Masoud Pezeshkian as the country’s next president will lead Tehran to adopt a less confrontational approach towards the West. On the contrary, with the Iranian regime edging ever closer to developing its own nuclear weapons, and Iranian-backed terrorist movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah continuing to destabilise the Middle East, Pezeshkian’s victory should be seen as nothing more than a token gesture to the millions of ordinary Iranians who long for an end to their rulers’ brutal repression.

USA - A long-running heatwave that has already broken records, sparked dozens of wildfires and left about 130 million people under a high-temperature threat is about to intensify enough that the National Weather Service has deemed it “potentially historic”. The NWS on Saturday reported some type of extreme heat or advisory for nearly 133 million people across the nation – mostly in western states where the triple-digit heat, with temperatures 15F to 30F higher than average, is expected to last into next week. By midday Saturday, Las Vegas ended up tying its daily heat record of 115F, the NWS said, as it pleaded with people to be mindful of leaving children or pets inside vehicles in the extreme heat.

USA - Officials have issued evacuation warnings after a forest fire in Santa Barbara spread to nearly 5,000 acres in the span of a day. A wildfire, dubbed the Lake Fire, that erupted at around 3:45 pm yesterday has left more than 300 acres of land charred in the Los Padres National Forest. The blazing Lake Fire had spread to about 4,673 acres before 11 pm, according to Los Padres officials. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office has since issued evacuation orders for areas around Figueroa Mountain Road to the Forest Station to Chamberlin Ranch as well as areas north of Zaca Lake Road, east of Foxen Canyon Road and south of the Sisquoc River, according to the Santa Barbara Independent. Scott Safechuck, a Santa Barbara Fire Department spokesman, said temperatures had reached 90 degrees and relative humidity was nine percent in the fire area as of last night.

ISRAEL - Israel will only be able to claim complete victory over Hamas and Hezbollah once Iran's nuclear programme is wiped out, according to an Israeli politician. An Israeli politician has issued a chilling five-word warning to Iran as he argued stopping Teheran from expanding its nuclear programme is key to defeating terror organisations in the region. Avigdor Lieberman, a member of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu faction of the Knesset, insisted Israel must use "all the means at our disposal" to stop Iran.

USA - The US media has finally turned on Joe Biden. Conservative outlets always disliked him, of course, but liberal-leaning journalists have provided cover for years – hitting Trump, praising Biden and downplaying the president’s physical decline. But at the June 27 debate, the evidence became irrefutable. Biden, mumbling and confused, looked like a man who’d spotted a light and was tempted to walk towards it. The Washington Post called his performance “ninety minutes of pain”. The New York Times concluded, “To serve his country, President Biden should leave the race.” Yet Biden’s weakness had been obvious for a long time before the debate. The White House did its best to cover it up; the liberal media, say critics, colluded – even gaslit the public. The story of how reporters turned from enablers to critics of this administration is a tragedy of politics and ethics.

USA - The White House has described the latest Hamas ceasefire proposal for Gaza as a “breakthrough” establishing a framework for a possible hostage deal, but warned that difficult negotiations remained over the implementation of the agreement. A senior US official said the Biden administration received the latest Hamas offer “a couple of days ago” and had been studying it ahead of a 30-minute telephone call between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. “The conversation was detailed, going through the text of the agreement, constructive and encouraging, while also clear-eyed about the work ahead [and] the steps that must be put in place to finalise this deal and then begin the implementation,” the US official said of the call.

USA - Top Democrats are so alarmed about Joe Biden's ailing health some fear a shadowy cabal is keeping him in power so they can pull levers behind the scenes, it is claimed. The astonishing theory was detailed in the liberal New York magazine. Its reporter Olivia Nuzzi revealed that even Democrat elites are stumped as to how and why the fast-declining 81 year-old is being allowed to continue his re-election bid. Nuzzi said she had heard questions being posed by high-ranking Democrats on the east and west coasts about whether Biden is a puppet whose strings are being pulled by another group of secretive Democrats. She highlighted the irony that this is the same theory espoused by many on the MAGA right, with Donald Trump himself previously alleging that former President Barack Obama is the real power behind the Biden White House.

CHINA - Experts fear a Chinese bond bubble could be about to burst in what would be a disastrous outcome for the economy. China's economy has been dogged by a downturn in the property market and volatile stocks over recent months, but now it could be on the precipice of a bond bubble burst. The yield on China’s onshore 10-year government bond, which is a benchmark for a wide range of interest rates, plummeted to 2.18 percent on July 1 - the lowest since records began in 2002. Last year Joe Biden described the Chinese economy as “a ticking time bomb”, with slow growth and soaring youth unemployment threatening to spark resentment towards Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

USA - Texas officials added 81 additional counties to the state’s disaster declaration in preparation for Hurricane Beryl’s arrival. The storm’s forecasted path shifted the expected landfall to the north and east of previous projections. The latest addition to the disaster declaration list brings the total number of Texas counties to 121.

IRAN - Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran's presidential election, securing 53.3% of the vote and defeating his conservative rival Saeed Jalili, the national election authority announced on Saturday. The snap election was called after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province on May 19. The candidates were approved by Iran’s Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists that holds veto power over legislation passed by parliament and determines who can seek office in the Islamic Republic.