USA - They are land rich and resource poor. Most have hundreds of acres of fertile soil, some thousands, but little money in the bank and – most importantly – no water. Now the young farmers of the Klamath Basin, an agricultural community on the border of Oregon and California, fear they might be the last generation of their kind. “It sounds like a sad country song, but that’s the current situation we’re in,” said Bryce Balin, 28, who manages his family’s 2,200-acre farm. An all-organic enterprise, Balin raises grass-fed cattle, livestock feed, winter hay and potatoes, all set against a panorama of dry, alpine hills. The area has struggled with water scarcity for years – but this year has been unlike any other. Amid a historic drought, in May the federal government cut off all irrigation to farmers for the first time in more than a century, in an effort to conserve water for the endangered fish that also share this landscape.

GERMANY - It’s August, and the living ought to be easy. But Germany votes in eight weeks, and all three candidates vying to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel seem eminently resistible. In a recent poll asking who should be their next leader, 45% of Germans chose “none of the above.” Was it always this way? Compared to Germany's past chancellors, all of the candidates to replace Angela Merkel are untested; whether they are prepared for the challenges of being Germany's ninth chancellor remains to be seen, writes Constanze Stelzenmüller. This post originally appeared in the Financial Times.

UK - A quarter of all pregnancies in England and Wales end in abortion, according to updated data released Thursday from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). “The percentage of conceptions leading to a legal abortion among all women in England and Wales increased from 24 per cent in 2018 to 25.2 per cent in 2019, the second year in a row this has increased for all age groups,” said the ONS, according to a report at the Daily Mail. About 207,000 out of 821,000 pregnancies conceived in 2019 were terminated, the highest number since 1990, when ONS began keeping records. The number of teen abortions is at its highest level, with nearly two-thirds of pregnancies terminated among those 16 years of age and under.

USA - A large scale California hydropower plant was shut down on Thursday after ongoing drought conditions reduced water levels in Lake Oroville to historic lows, according to the Sacramento Bee. Why it matters: It is the first time the Edward Hyatt hydroelectric power plant has ceased operations since it was constructed in 1967, at a time when California is warning about the potential for rolling blackouts.

USA - Officials say Northern California's Dixie Fire grew by 110 square miles (285 square kilometers) between Thursday night and Friday morning, making the blaze the largest wildfire currently raging in the country. The Dixie Fire has consumed 432,813 acres — an increase of 71,000 acres from the night before. The Bootleg Fire in Oregon had previously been the nation's largest active wildfire, at 413,765 acres. The Dixie Fire is only 35% contained and is expected to grow. It currently stands as California's third-largest wildfire in history. The Bootleg Fire, which sparked July 6, is 87% contained. Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled. Now, it's ashes. “It’s just completely devastating. We’ve lost our home, my business, our whole downtown area is gone,” said Gorman.

USA - Firefighters working the massive Dixie Fire burning in several Northern California counties are having to deal with another challenge: residents who refuse to evacuate and are brandishing guns at fire crews. Flames from the Dixie Fire advanced into the town of Greenville, burning an estimated 75% of homes and businesses in the historic Gold Rush-era town of about 1,000 residents. Fire crews have encountered property owners who were refusing to leave their homes as the flames approached and threatening firefighters with weapons. California Incident Management operations section chief Jake Cagle made the stunning revelation at the end of the Thursday morning news briefing. “We have firefighters getting guns pulled out on them because people don’t want to evacuate. Not trying to place the blame on the landowners. We understand, our hearts go out to them.”

USA - Crushed by a devastating drought and new water restrictions, Daniel Hartwig had no choice but to pull thousands of precious, fragrant almond trees from his California farm. "It breaks your heart," he sighed as he surveyed the once vibrant landscape before him — curled, yellowed leaves covering the shrunken husks that would have been this year's crop of almonds, had the water arrived. Their exposed roots are already starting to turn powdery with rot, and the temperature of almost 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) on this summer morning speeds their decomposition. Moving among them are huge machines that will turn Hartwig's "beautiful prime almond trees" into large piles of woodchips. Hartwig is in charge of water management for the mega-property of Woolf Farms, an estate of over 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) around the small market town of Huron. California produces 80 percent of the almonds consumed worldwide, a market that has doubled in 15 years driven by demand for substitutes for animal products, such as almond milk.

USA - Three remote Alaska volcanoes are in various states of eruption, one producing lava and the other two blowing steam and ash. So far, none of the small communities near the volcanoes have been affected, Chris Waythomas, a geologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory, said Thursday. Webcams on Thursday clearly showed episodic low-level ash emissions from Pavlof Volcano, prompting the observatory to raise the volcano’s threat level from yellow, or exhibiting signs of unrest, to orange, indicating an eruption is underway with minor volcanic ash emissions. Pavlov is a snow- and ice-covered stratovolcano on the southwestern end of the Alaska Peninsula, nearly 600 miles (965.6 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage.

USA - China has long rivaled the United States as a top global economic power, but in a Wednesday Senate Intelligence hearing, Senator Marco Rubio (Republican for Florida) made an important point, saying that China has weaponized America’s own “corporate lust for profits” against the US, and the evidence is clear everywhere from the grocery store to Hollywood. Rubio urged other Senators at the meeting to “wake up” and recognize corporate America’s reliance on the Chinese Communist Party.

ISRAEL - Tehran will be able to break out to a nuclear weapon within 10 weeks, Defense Minister Benny Gantz told diplomats from UN Security Council member states on Wednesday as tensions ratcheted up between Iran and the international community over its maritime attacks. “Iran has violated all of the guidelines set in the JCPOA [nuclear agreement] and is only around 10 weeks away from acquiring weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon,” Gantz warned.“Therefore,” he added, “it is time to act. The world must apply economic sanctions and take operative action against the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps,” which has targeted shipping vessels. In recent weeks, top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Gantz have expressed alarm to the US and others that Iran is taking advantage of a long pause in negotiations to return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to dramatically advance its nuclear program.

ISRAEL - Israel’s defense minister has said the country’s armed forces are ready to strike Iran should it become necessary, as tensions rise further after an Iran-linked attack on an Israeli tanker killed two people. On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was asked by Ynet news whether Israel was ready to strike Iran. Gantz answered simply with one word – “Yes”. The minister went on to say that Tel Aviv sees it as important to mobilize the international community to counter Iran’s influence and growing assertiveness. “We can’t tag Iran as solely an Israeli problem and absolve the rest of the world from this issue.”

USA - The elimination of baby girls through sex-selective abortions will lead to an increase in the gender gap by 4.7 million over the next nine years, according to a report Wednesday in MedicalNewsToday. The current widening of the gender gap at the expense of girls is added to the estimated 45 million “missing” female births between 1970 and 2017 as a consequence of sex-selective abortions, the report stated. “Skewed levels of the sex ratio at birth (SRB) due to sex-selective abortions have been observed in several countries since the 1970s,” declares an August 4 study published in BMJ Global Health. “They will lead to long-term sex imbalances in more than one-third of the world’s population with yet unknown social and economic impacts on affected countries.” “Sex-selective abortion is the ultimate violence against females,” said Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers. “Aborting a baby just because she is a girl is the ultimate act of gender discrimination.”

UK - The BBC’s Woman’s Hour programme has seemingly attempted to normalise the question of providing pornography to children, asking the public whether they believe “age-appropriate pornography” should be made for them. On Monday, the social media account for Woman’s Hour posited the questions: “What’s the best way to inform teenagers about porn? Should there be age-appropriate porn as has been suggested so they can learn about consent and what’s respectful and what’s not? What do you think?” “Email us your opinions,” the publicly-funded programme went on to urge.

VATICAN - Pope Francis made his first public appearance Wednesday since being hospitalized for colon surgery on July 4, telling crowds the gospel of Jesus Christ must be accepted exactly as it is. “With the truth of the Gospel, one cannot negotiate,” the pontiff told pilgrims gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. “Either you receive the Gospel as it is, as it was announced, or you receive any other thing.”

USA - Thousands of Marines and sailors are taking part in the US Navy's largest war games in 40 years as Washington "prepares" for a future world war amid rising tensions with Russia and China. Fleets began the Large Scale Exercise on Tuesday and the drills across 17 time zones will continue until August 16. Forces will participate in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the exercises are designed to show the US' "readiness" for a potential global conflict.