UK - One of the features of our form of democracy is it has remained remarkably stable for hundreds of years. Not only have we developed a system with built-in checks and balances to ensure the sovereignty of the people, but also conventions determining political behaviour. Chief amongst these has been the expectation that the losers in a vote or an election accept defeat gracefully and make way for the group or party which has won.

USA - Food shortages can happen almost INSTANTLY in America, which has become dangerously dependent on complex logistics and fragile supply lines. Worldwide, famine was responsible for around one million deaths each year in the century between the late 1880s and the end of the 1980s. Now, many of us may mistakenly believe that humanitarian policies and better infrastructure mean that this type of famine is a thing of the past.

USA - In 2018, 94 percent of the soybean crops in the United States were genetically modified to be herbicide tolerant. Genetically modified crops have taken agriculture in the US by storm. By comparison, only 17 percent of soybean crops were genetically modified in 1997. Other crops grown in the United States which are mostly genetically modified are cotton and corn.

IRAN - A full-fledged war with Tehran will tank the US economy because the fighting will immediately make the price of oil skyrocket, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned. US leaders will not go to war against Tehran if they care for the economic wellbeing of their country, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, aide and adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told Fars News Agency. The first bullet fired in the Persian Gulf will push the oil prices well above $100. It will be unbearable for the US and Europe, as well as American allies like Japan and South Korea. Safavi, who has led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the past, stated that Washington prefers to wage “economic and psychological war” against the nation. The US knows there will be “significant costs” should a full-fledged conflict erupt, he said.

VATICAN - Pope Francis called for the revival of the ideals of its founders on Sunday, saying ideologies and fear-mongering politicians were threatening its very existence as a bloc. His strong warning came as he travelled on a plane while returning from a three-day trip to Romania, one of the more recent EU members, were his first since European elections last month. The leader of the Catholic Church, who was quizzed about the elections, Italian far-right leader Matteo Salvini and other European topics, urged believers to pray for European unity and non-believers to hope for it "from the bottom of your hearts". He said: "If Europe does not look carefully to future challenges, Europe will dry up. Europe is ceasing to be 'Mother Europe' and is becoming 'Grandmother Europe'. It has aged. It has lost the goal of working together. Someone could ask under their breath 'Is this perhaps the end of a 70-year adventure?'"

CHINA - China, the world’s largest soybean buyer, has put purchases of American supplies on hold after the trade war between Washington and Beijing escalated, according to people familiar with the matter. State-grain buyers haven’t received any further orders to continue with the so-called goodwill buying and don’t expect that to happen given the lack of agreement in trade negotiations, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private.

INDIA - Temperatures passed 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in northern India as an unrelenting heatwave triggered warnings of water shortages and heatstroke. The thermometer hit 50.6 degrees Celsius (123 Fahrenheit) in the Rajasthan desert city of Churu on Saturday, the weather department said. All of Rajasthan suffered in severe heat with several cities hitting maximum temperatures above 47 Celsius. Several major cities, led by Chennai, have reported fears of water shortages as lakes and rivers start to dry up. In the western state of Maharashtra, farmers struggled to find water for thirsty animals and crops. "We have to source water tankers from nearby villages as water reserves, lakes and rivers have dried up," said Rajesh Chandrakant, a resident of Beed, one of the worst-hit districts. "Farmers only get water every three days for their livestock." The Indian peninsula has seen a drastic change in rainfall patterns over the past decade, marked by frequent droughts, floods and sudden storms.

USA - President Donald Trump tweeted Friday in celebration of LGBT Pride Month, which begins in June, and repeated his administration’s call for the international community to decriminalize homosexuality in countries where it is illegal. Trump has frequently been attacked by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) activists on the left, particularly for his administration’s policies on transgenderism. Trump has barred transgender individuals from serving in the military, and reversed Barack Obama’s policies encouraging public schools to provide for transgender bathrooms. His administration also recently insisted on sticking to a definition of sexual discrimination that refers to biological sex. More broadly, however, President Trump has championed gay rights at home and abroad.

ISRAEL - The Israeli military has confirmed striking “a number” of Syrian Army targets in cross border raids that, according to Damascus, left at least three soldiers dead and seven others wounded. "Israeli warplanes and combat helicopters attacked several military targets belonging to the Syrian army, including two artillery batteries, a number of observation and intelligence posts on the Golan Heights front," the IDF said in a rare press release, noting that it also targeted Syrian Army air defense posts. The raids came in response to two rockets, allegedly fired from Syrian territory into Hermon in the northern Golan Heights on Saturday night, the IDF explained, posting a video of the attack.

USA - About 1,000 people arrive in Texas each day, drawn by jobs, newly built homes and other opportunities. But in a state where prolonged drought is a regular occurrence, officials are struggling to ensure they can sate everyone's thirst. As the planet warms and weather patterns turn more extreme, droughts - as well as floods - in the state generally have worsened.

MALAYSIA - For years, gold bulls had speculated that China has been quietly piling up physical gold, awaiting the moment to unveil a gold-backed currency, either after the dollar's reserve status falters or before. Today, the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took one large step in that direction when he proposed the launch of an Asian version of the euro: a common trading currency for East Asia that, unlike the euro, would be pegged to gold, describing the existing currency trading in the region as manipulative (perhaps in reference to China's currency setting framework). According to the Malaysian PM, the proposed common currency could be used to settle imports and exports, but would not be used for domestic transactions.

USA - In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an estimated 400,000 American soldiers and sailors also observed nuclear explosions — many just a mile or two from ground zero. From 1946 to 1992, the US government conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, during which unwitting troops were exposed to vast amounts of ionizing radiation. For protection, they wore utility jackets, helmets, and gas masks. They were told to cover their face with their arms. After the tests, the soldiers, many of whom were traumatized, were sworn to an oath of secrecy. Breaking it even to talk among themselves was considered treason, punishable by a $10,000 fine and 10 or more years in prison.

USA - A lawyer for Facebook argued in court Wednesday that the social media site’s users “have no expectation of privacy.” According to Law360, Facebook attorney Orin Snyder made the comment while defending the company against a class-action lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. “There is no invasion of privacy at all, because there is no privacy,” Snyder said. In an attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out, Snyder further claimed that Facebook was nothing more than a “digital town square” where users voluntarily give up their private information. “You have to closely guard something to have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” Snyder added.

USA - An infestation of vermin at a building in Downtown Los Angeles is allegedly making people sick. CBS2’KCAL9’s Sara Donchey reports that the people getting sick at work are at one of LAPD’s stations. LAPD’s Central Division is in the heart of Skid Row. It appears the troubled areas problems are, in this case, stemming from inside the building. The LAPD says an employee at that station contracted salmonella typhi, which typically comes from infected food or water. A second employee is believed to have now contracted the same thing.

USA - The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) unearthed information showing the site of the Virginia Beach shooting was a gun-free zone for city employees. This incident comes just months after an Aurora, Illinois, attacker opened fire in Henry Pratt Company, which was also a gun-free zone. CPRC examined mass public shootings for the time period of 1950 to May 2018 and found that 97.8 percent of them occurred in gun-free zones. Yet Democrat politicians respond to these shootings by pushing laws that make it even harder for law-abiding citizens to be armed to shoot back.