RUSSIA - Ukraine has hit the Moscow region with a swarm of 400 drones in what is believed to be one of its biggest attacks of the war. Hundreds of drones were sent to strategic sites across the region surrounding the Russian capital. The Russian Defence Ministry said air defence systems had shot down 381 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov overnight. Huge fires raged around this region ringing Moscow city in the latest blitzkrieg by Ukraine aimed at taking the war to where the pro-war Kremlin elite live. The aim is that they should directly feel the consequences of the conflict they espouse, suffering as do Ukrainians under Putin's barrage. The attacks followed Russia's most powerful ballistic missile attack of the war directed at Kyiv on Sunday.

USA - Mamdani desperately seeking legal loophole to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu when Israel PM visits NYC. Netanyahu, however, remains unfazed by Mamdani’s threats. In a recent radio appearance, he accused Mamdani of supporting Hamas. “I think he should look at who he’s condemning, who he’s praising. He’s condemning Israel, the one democracy that stands shoulder to shoulder with American values,” the prime minister said during an interview this week with Sid Rosenberg on 77 WABC. “Who does he champion? Hamas, that calls openly to massacre every Jew on earth, that conducted that horrible massacre [on October 7, 2023], the worst massacre on Jews since the Holocaust.” He also said Mamdani “doesn’t care” that “those who hate the Jews and Israel ultimately hate America.” “And in fact, I think secretly, he hates America,” the prime minister said.

TAIWAN - It’s the million-dollar question in Taipei: if China attacked Taiwan, would the US intervene? Most analysts agree that Washington would. The US supplies the island with virtually all of the weapons and support that would be crucial to its survival in the event of an invasion. But there is a crucial blind spot in Taiwan’s defence. The US and Taiwan’s militaries have not trained together for decades and have no combined command structure, making it a formidable task to fend off one of the largest and most powerful militaries in the world. Mark Montgomery, the former commander of the US’s sole continuously deployed carrier strike group in Japan, said: “It’s clinically insane to me that the country which we are most likely to fight with against our highest-level adversary, China, we intentionally are deconflicted.”

UK - Last week Ed Miliband approved One Earth, the second-largest solar farm in Britain. Britain is now carpeting farmland with glass panels at startling speed, in pursuit of very ambitious solar power goals. All of which sounds worthy, even sensible, until you remember one salient fact. A World Bank study ranks Britain second from bottom in the world for practical solar potential (only Ireland is worse). Because we are relatively dark, cloudy and northerly. Conversely, our mild climate and plentiful rain make us exceptionally good at growing grass and crops. We are therefore taking land that nature has optimised for food production and using it to harvest something much harder. It’s like Saudi Arabia converting oilfields into garden centres and watercress beds. And the madness doesn’t stop there. The list goes on. The importing of oil as we prohibit new exploration in the North Sea. The £100 million bat tunnel for HS2 that cost £400,000 per bat. The wood – yes, wood – we burn in power stations. Sometimes it feels as if Britain has gone uniquely mad. And we are certainly exceptional in our readiness to impose painful and expensive sacrifices upon ourselves at the altar of decarbonisation... So we can become self-sufficient in moral vanity.

USA - Experts are alarmed: The line between independent medical advice and paid promotion has vanished. If nothing changes, patients will continue to receive sponsored health guidance disguised as organic content. New research reviewed by investigative journalists reveals that doctors hyping drugs on social media are overwhelmingly on pharmaceutical payrolls. A JAMA study cited by independent outlets found that over 90% of physicians promoting brand-name medications on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) had financial ties to the manufacturers. These doctors are not outliers; they are the new norm. As Lance D Johnson reported in NaturalNews.com, young, virtue-signaling doctors who posted pictures of themselves getting Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) shots are the same types who accept gifts, freebies and bribes from drug companies and then prescribe accordingly. This is not a matter of a few bad apples. It is a systemic infection of the medical profession by an industry that prioritizes profit over patient health.

USA - Saronic Technologies is preparing to build a massive shipyard on the Texas coast capable of producing autonomous surface vessels at scale, a project expected to create more than 10,000 jobs. Bloomberg reports that the Austin-based technology company, which specializes in maritime drones, is building a $3.2 billion shipyard at the Port of Brownsville on the Texas coast. The facility will manufacture medium- and large-class autonomous vessels. Earlier this week, the US military used Saronic's Corsair one-way attack vessels in a swarm strike against a submarine and ship-maintenance facility at Iran's Bandar Abbas naval base. Saronic CEO and co-founder Dino Mavrookas told Bloomberg that the new shipyard reflects a broader revival of the US industrial base as the country shifts toward a wartime economy. "Built from the ground up to deliver ships at a speed and scale not seen since World War II, this investment is about more than constructing a shipyard," Mavrookas said.

USA - Drones have the Pentagon turning on itself: One day, it’s seeking fleets of ever-cheaper uncrewed planes to wage war. Two days later, it’s pleading for lasers to shoot them down. The current conflicts involving Ukraine and Iran — where drones have helped both nations counter the superior force of Russia and the US, respectively — show that drones are here to stay. Continuing miniaturization, increasingly sophisticated navigation, better networking, and ever-clearer remote viewing have turned drone warfare into the Next Big Thing in the Pentagon’s airborne arsenal. The Current Big Thing in the Defense Department’s arsenal, of course, remains costly fighters, bombers, and spy planes with real humans at the controls. But their grip on the stick is ineluctably loosening.

USA - The US military said that it carried out new airstrikes against Iran on Sunday to “swiftly punish” the country’s Revolutionary Guard after an attack on a base in Jordan killed two American service members, left one missing and four requiring hospitalization. The strikes were designed to further degrade Iran’s ability to restrict the traffic of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, US Central Command said. Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started with US and Israeli strikes on February 28. The new strikes came after the US military announced its first troop deaths from direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, following a drone and missile attack on a base in Jordan on Friday. Since the war began, 16 US service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.

GERMANY - Germany has raised its national terror threat level from “abstract” to “high” after intelligence agencies detected an increase in potential attack plans, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has said. The move comes as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government prepares to expand the powers of the country’s intelligence services. Speaking to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Dobrindt said the revised assessment was based on a growing volume of intelligence indicating possible terrorist threats. “This means Germany must expect the risk of terrorist attacks at any time,” he added.

USA - The US State Department on Saturday issued a worldwide travel alert for Americans abroad, citing heightened tensions in the Middle East and warning that groups supportive of Iran could target US citizens and interests overseas. The global "Worldwide Caution" alert comes as active fighting between the United States and Iran intensifies. Earlier Saturday, the US military announced that an Iranian missile and drone strike in Jordan killed two American service members and left another missing. "Due to heightened tensions in the Middle East, the security environment remains complex with the potential for unforeseen escalation," the State Department said in its advisory.

USA - As the US-Iran conflict escalates again, desalination plants and water infrastructure have emerged as strategic targets alongside military bases and oil facilities. Here’s why Gulf nations’ dependence on desalinated water has turned access to drinking water into a critical security issue with major humanitarian consequences. Water production and distribution systems have become targets because they represent an indispensable service in a region where natural freshwater is exceptionally limited. Unlike oil exports, which mainly influence international markets, damage to desalination facilities directly affects civilian populations by disrupting access to drinking water.

USA - Two support columns on the 21st floor of a 37‑story tower under construction near Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan began to buckle Tuesday morning, destabilizing several upper floors and triggering a rapid evacuation of the building and surrounding blocks, officials told Newsweek. By late afternoon, city officials said the situation inside the former Pfizer headquarters had begun to stabilize, noting that inspections showed the damaged columns had not shifted and that emergency shoring work would continue into the evening and take several days, according to PIX11 reporter Henry Rosoff. The alarm was first raised just before 8 am ET, when debris was reported falling from 235 East 42nd Street, now being converted into a luxury residential complex expected to hold between 1,500 and 1,600 apartments.

UK - Britain cannot afford a fresh spending binge, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned Andy Burnham. The Washington-based body said the UK Government should be “very selective in accommodating new demands” for spending and instead focus on reducing the deficit. It cautioned that the UK faces serious “challenges” from high debts, rising interest bills and the increasing costs of healthcare and pensions linked to an ageing population. However Mr Burnham will use a speech on Friday to pledge to be “unashamedly” Labour, suggesting he will tax and spend more. Speaking at a special conference that will see him crowned as Labour’s leader, he will argue that rebuilding the economy will require “a new path to the one we’ve been on for the last 40 years”.

UK - More than 600,000 people in Britain are too fat to work, research suggests. A University of York study has demonstrated the impact of Britain’s weight problem on the economy and its contribution to worklessness. Official data show 15 million adults in Britain are obese and the researchers found that around four out of every 100 obese people were likely to be unemployed solely because of their body weight. The effect of obesity on employment was also stronger in men than women, data showed. Experts warned of “substantial economic losses” because of the number of people whose weight was hindering daily activity, and driving them out of work. The Government has announced pilot schemes in which the unemployed will be given weight-loss jabs to get more people back to work.

UKRAINE - The Ukrainian drones hovered over the shipping lanes in the Sea of Azov until they caught sight of their prey. Spread out on the waters below, Russian tankers – sluggish, defenceless vessels of around 7,000-ton capacity – were sailing towards the occupied Crimean peninsula. Explosions lit up the night sky as the drones swooped down, one after another, after another. In the morning, satellite imagery picked up smoke still rising from the hull of one of their crippled victims. This July 14 attack brought the number of Russian vessels hit in the Sea of Azov to 116 in a week-long campaign, according to Ukraine’s drone forces. These intense strikes on a maritime trade route – equivalent to one every two hours – have effectively halted traffic on a key supply line, in a campaign with few parallels in the history of modern warfare.