UK - Nigel Farage predicted the European Union may collapse within two years if Boris Johnson succeeds in securing a Brexit that delivers on demands for independence from the bloc. Nigel Farage claimed the prosperity he predicts Britain to bask in after Brexit will mark the end of the European project.

USA - We here in the US look at what China’s doing as if they’re on a reality TV show. Seeing what they’re doing with surveillance and their social credit system as if we’re watching some kind of dystopian entertainment series fashioned after the George Orwell book, 1984. Our burgeoning dystopia isn’t as overtly dystopian as Orwell warned against, and that’s the problem.

USA - Under a new law approved by Illinois Governor JB Pritker public schools will be required to teach LGBT history and the contributions of LGBTQ people. The new law, signed by the Governor three weeks ago, requires lessons highlighting noteworthy lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. The LGBTQ focused curriculum must be taught before students reach the eighth grade and is scheduled to go into effect in 2020.

UK - Food banks in some of the UK’s poorest areas are running critically low on supplies because of a spike in demand during the school holidays. Organisers say more families are seeking help in the summer holidays than in previous years, yet donations are falling. Tricia Ryder, a distribution centre manager at Leeds North and West food bank, said: “We’re running critically low on supplies. The summer months are always the time when we get the least donations, but each summer we’re getting more and more attendants.” Ryder said there had been a drop in donations over the summer, which she believed was due to people being less financially secure.

UK - Isn’t it odd that this simple fact should arouse such controversy? We voted to leave, after all, by a margin of over 1 million back in June 2016. Yet in the three years since a small, unrepresentative, but asymmetrically powerful group of Remoaner hold-outs – in government, in the Civil Service, in the media, in academe, in the legal profession, in finance, in big business – has thrown so many spanners in the works to try to thwart democracy and to stop Brexit happening that it seems almost miraculous that we’re finally getting out. The Remoaners have got themselves into an awful tizz that they will no longer be able to use the parliamentary process to block Brexit. That’s because Prime Minister Boris Johnson is going to prorogue – ie suspend parliament – for the three crucial days in October, rendering the opponents of Brexit utterly powerless. If it’s like this now, imagine how much more fun it’s going to be come October 31st – aka Independence Day!

ISRAEL - Nearly four decades after taking out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor, Israel once again faces threats emanating from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. 38 years later it appears Israel has once again carried out an attack on Iraqi territory. The August 20 strike near Balad air base in Iraq was the fourth in a series of recent explosions on bases controlled by Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. The explosions have targeted Iranian missile shipments as well as upgrade kits for advanced guidance.

SAUDI ARABIA - It is perhaps Saudi Arabia that has moved most aggressively — not simply to confront Iran, but to shift its foreign and domestic policies into alignment with Israel and the United States. Just as concerned as the United States and other nations about Iranian threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, the Saudis are working hard to guarantee freedom of navigation. Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Khalid Al-Falih met recently with US Energy Secretary Rick Perry to discuss strengthening cooperation with the United States generally, and to defeat threats to oil markets in particular.

USA - Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is warning that bitter political divisions threaten American society, saying he views “tribalism” as a greater risk to the nation’s future than foreign adversaries. The retired Marine general, who resigned in December 2018 in a policy dispute with President Donald Trump, said he worries about the state of American politics and the administration’s treatment of allies.

USA - Cali Carlisle admits she is a heroin addict — 'but in a healthy way,' she insists, even if the visual evidence belies that claim. Her nose is the brightest shade of red imaginable. She constantly picks at scabs all over her body. Her home is a makeshift bed beneath Interstate 80 in Sacramento. And Monday was her 26th birthday. Not that you would ever guess. Anyone looking at her would think she is at least 15 years older.

USA - Not content with monitoring almost everything you do online, Facebook now wants to read your mind as well. The social media giant recently announced a breakthrough in its plan to create a device that reads people’s brainwaves to allow them to type just by thinking. And Elon Musk wants to go even further. One of the Tesla boss’s other companies, Neuralink, is developing a brain implant to connect people’s minds directly to a computer. Musk admits that he takes inspiration from science fiction and that he wants to make sure humans can “keep up” with artificial intelligence. He seems to have missed the part of sci-fi that acts as a warning for the implications of technology. These mind-reading systems could affect our privacy, security, identity, equality and personal safety. Do we really want all that left to companies with philosophies such as that of Facebook’s former mantra, “move fast and break things”?

USA - Just got laid off. I've got the best bosses ever, but they see the economy tanking in short order. I work for a donor management software company who've watched the charitable organizations we serve falling off in numbers like they've never experienced before. They simply can't afford those of us they've decided to let go, at this point. The charities have been facing much reduced donations of late and can no longer afford our company's services. Things are starting to turn in the US, and quickly. I'm watching it all around me and am now living it. There's no longer any doubt about it. I'll be filing for unemployment for the first time in my life this week. This is truly heartbreaking for all of us. My family will be devastated.

USA - Just in time to spoil Labor Day weekend, Hurricane Dorian has barreled through the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico without causing much damage, and is now headed straight for the Florida coastline. After intensifying from a tropical storm into a hurricane late Wednesday, the storm continued to strengthen as it pulled closer to the Continental US. The storm is expected to continue strengthening over the next few days, and is expected to make landfall on Florida's Atlantic coast as a CAT 3 storm late Sunday or Monday. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency Wednesday, advising residents to gather seven days of supplies, including water, food and medicine.

USA - 6.3-magnitude quake strikes off Oregon coast. The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network has detected more than 4,500 tremors over the past two weeks deep beneath the Olympic Peninsula and southern Vancouver Island and from another swarm stretching from Eugene, Oregon, to the Siskiyou Mountains. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the Northwest coast could hit at any time. How can we prepare for this impending and unpredictable disaster?

USA - A world without forests would be an apocalyptic wasteland, and right now we are losing our forests at an astounding rate. As you read this article, more than 10,000 wildfires are ripping through forested areas of South America and Africa, and global leaders seem powerless to do anything about it. Most of the media attention has been on the horrific wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, and we are being told that the number of fires in Brazil is up 85 percent compared to last year.

POLAND - Eighty years after the first Nazi bombs fell on Poland, echoes of the blasts can be heard in the bickering between Warsaw and Berlin over the possibility of billions of euros in war reparations. It was only recently that the neighbours, allies within NATO and the European Union, had appeared to have turned the page on World War II. But that changed with the 2015 election of Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party, which sees wariness of the EU and Germany as a useful political tool. And the right-wing party has reopened discussion on reparations. “Poland has yet to receive proper compensation from Germany… We lost six million people over the course of the war — many more than did countries that received major reparations,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said earlier this month. “It’s not fair. This can’t continue.”