USA - Devastating 'Bootleg' fire rips through southern Oregon forcing more than 2,000 people to flee their homes. A wildfire roaring through drought-parched Oregon is now so large it covers an area the size of Los Angeles and is generating its own weather. The so-called Bootleg fire is the largest so far this year in the United States, having already burned more than 530 square miles of forest and grasslands and displaced more than 2,000 people. The blaze, which has been burning for more than two weeks, has begun affecting winds and disrupting the surrounding atmosphere. “The fire is so large and generating so much energy and extreme heat that it’s changing the weather,” said Marcus Kauffman, a spokesman for the state forestry department. “Normally the weather predicts what the fire will do. In this case, the fire is predicting what the weather will do.” Experts say the blaze is cresting Pyrocumulus clouds, which form when extreme heat from the flames of a wildfire force the air to rapidly rise, condensing and cooling any moisture on smoke particles produced by the fire. These clouds essentially become their own thunderstorms and can contain lightning and strong winds.

UK - Every time there is a so-called ‘freak’ weather event, we hear from politicians and scientists about how it is down to climate change. But my time as an MEP showed me how the issue is hijacked to further individual interests. London, like parts of Germany and China, has suffered a series of flash floods over the past few weeks. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, warned that the recent flash flooding “shows that the dangers of climate change are now moving closer to home.”

USA - This is a summer that none of us will ever forget. There has been one apocalyptic disaster after another, and we haven’t even reached the halfway point yet. The following are 10 plagues that our world has had to deal with so far this summer…

USA - There are few people left alive today that remember the last time a severe drought that destroyed crops combined with a collapse of the financial system left millions of Americans hungry and homeless, back in the 1930s.

USA - We are witnessing an epic global struggle for freedom, and the outcome of that struggle is going to greatly shape what our world is going to look like in the years ahead. Ultimately, one of the most fundamental rights that we have is the right to make our own health decisions. If someone else has the authority to make those decisions for you, then you aren’t really free.

USA - Dell is no longer shipping energy-hungry gaming PCs to certain states in America because they demand more energy than local standards allow. Customers seeking to purchase, for example, an Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 Gaming Desktop from Dell's website and have it shipped to California are now presented with a message that tells buyers they're out of luck. "This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states," the website says. "Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled." Dell confirmed to The Register that the California ban was down to power consumption regulations, saying: Yes, this was driven by the California Energy Commission (CEC) Tier 2 implementation that defined a mandatory energy efficiency standard for PCs – including desktops, AIOs and mobile gaming systems. This was put into effect on July 1, 2021. Select configurations of the Alienware Aurora R10 and R12 were the only impacted systems across Dell and Alienware.

USA - A supply-chain crisis has been brewing off the coast of Southern California for many months as massive freighters wait for dock space to open up. Current port delays are near a record high. On Friday, 33 ships were anchored off the coast waiting for a spot to open up to unload at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, according to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California. California ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach account for about one-third of US imports. These ports operate as a primary source of imports from China and have been heavily congested for months. Some of the container ships have been waiting off the shore for weeks, pushing back delivery dates and driving up the cost of transportation. Of the ships waiting to dock, half of them are what Marine Exchange calls "mega-container ships" or ships with the carrying capacity of 10,000 TEUs. "Part of the problem is the ships are double or triple the size of the ships we were seeing 10 or 15 years ago," Louttit told Insider. "They take longer to unload. You need more trucks, more trains, more warehouses to put the cargo."

USA - Science has become a political catchword. But what does it mean to believe in science? The British science writer Matt Ridley draws a pointed distinction between “science as a philosophy” and “science as an institution.” The former grows out of the Enlightenment, which Mr Ridley defines as “the primacy of rational and objective reasoning.” The latter, like all human institutions, is erratic, prone to falling well short of its stated principles. Mr Ridley says the Covid pandemic has “thrown into sharp relief the disconnect between science as a philosophy and science as an institution.” He asks: “If you think biological complexity can come about through unplanned emergence and not need an intelligent designer, then why would you think human society needs an ‘intelligent government’?” Science as an institution has “a naive belief that if only scientists were in charge, they would run the world well.” Perhaps that’s what politicians mean when they declare that they “believe in science.” As we’ve seen during the pandemic, science can be a source of power.

GERMANY - Ahead of Germany’s federal election on 27 September, the federal grand coalition government is pressing ahead with military rearmament. In its last sitting of the legislative session, the parliamentary budgetary committee approved spending for 27 rearmament projects with a total value of close to €20 billion at the end of June. The projects include major purchases for the navy, air force and land-based armed forces.

USA - Months before the megachurch Hillsong opened its new outpost in Atlanta, its pastor sought advice on how to build a church in a pandemic. From Facebook. The social media giant had a proposition, Sam Collier, the pastor, recalled in an interview: to use the church as a case study to explore how churches can “go further farther on Facebook.” For months Facebook developers met weekly with Hillsong and explored what the church would look like on Facebook and what apps they might create for financial giving, video capability or livestreaming. When it came time for Hillsong’s grand opening in June, the church issued a news release saying it was “partnering with Facebook” and began streaming its services exclusively on the platform. Beyond that, Mr Collier could not share many specifics — he had signed a nondisclosure agreement. “They are teaching us, we are teaching them,” he said. “Together we are discovering what the future of the church could be on Facebook.”

USA - Those that prey on elderly people just because they are easy targets should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, we live at a time when violent criminals are roaming the streets of our major cities in packs, and many of them seem to have no sense of honor at all. Women are being attacked, children are being attacked, and those that are advanced in age are often specifically targeted. Reading that may make your blood boil, but they don’t care what you think. Many of these criminals don’t have respect for anyone or anything, and a lot of them have hearts that are as cold as ice.

USA - The unthinkable is happening with alarming regularity at the Frankenbank JPMorgan Chase. Over the last seven years, with Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon at the helm, JPMorgan Chase has managed to do what no other federally-insured American bank has managed to do in the history of banking in the United States. The bank has admitted to five separate felony counts brought by the US Department of Justice, while regulators took no action to remove the Board of Directors or Jamie Dimon. Now, once again, the outrageous hubris of this Board is on display. Just last fall the bank forked out over $920 million of shareholders' money to settle its fourth and fifth felony counts brought by the Department of Justice, this time for rigging the precious metals and US Treasury market. Now, in the dog days of summer, rarely a time for bonuses on Wall Street, the JP Morgan Chase board announced on July 20 that it is giving Dimon 1.5 million stock options which, according to a specialist cited at Bloomberg News, have a total value of $50 million on paper.

CHINA - A senior Chinese diplomat on Monday bluntly warned the visiting American deputy secretary of state, Wendy R Sherman, that the Biden administration’s strategy of pursuing both confrontation and cooperation with Beijing was sure to fail. China’s vice foreign minister, Xie Feng, told Ms Sherman that the United States’ “competitive, collaborative and adversarial rhetoric” was a “thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China,” according to a summary of Mr Xie’s comments that the Chinese foreign ministry sent to reporters. Mr Xie’s remarks underscored the anger that has been building in China toward the United States, undermining the chances that the approach will work.

RUSSIA - Vladimir Putin has bragged his war machine can now deliver an "unpreventable strike" against its enemies as he paraded his naval might. The Russian strongman’s boast comes days after military officials announced tests of advanced new hypersonic weapons — from an arsenal Putin has described as "invincible". Putin's chilling warning follows an incident in the Black Sea in June when Russia said it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British warship HMS Defender to chase it out of Crimean waters. Speaking at a parade of warships in St Petersburg yesterday, the president said: "The Russian navy today has everything it needs to guarantee the protection of our country and our national interests. We are capable of detecting any underwater, above-water, airborne enemy and, if required, carry out an unpreventable strike against it." Putin added Russia had secured its place among the world's leading naval powers, including by developing "the latest hypersonic precision weapons still unrivalled in the world".

USA - The United States will not lift any existing travel restrictions "at this point" due to concerns over the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant and the rising number of US coronavirus cases, a White House official told Reuters. The decision, which comes after a senior level White House meeting late Friday, means the long-running travel restrictions that have barred much of the world's population from the United States since 2020 will not be lifted in the short term. "Given where we are today with the Delta variant, the United States will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point," the official told Reuters, citing the spread of the Delta variant in the United States and abroad. "Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated and appear likely continue to increase in the weeks ahead."