USA - The Pentagon’s DARPA lab has announced a milestone, but it doesn’t involve drones or death missiles. Scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency say they’ve produced 10 million doses of an influenza vaccine in only one month. Scientists with DARPA say they’ve reached an important step in being able to combat a flu pandemic that might someday decimate the Earth’s population. By working with the Medicago Inc vaccine company, the Pentagon’s cutting edge research lab says that they’ve used a massive harvest of tobacco plants to help produce a plethora of flu-fighting vaccines.

USA - The US government is indirectly contributing to the nation’s obesity problem, according to one consumer advocacy group, by providing billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies that help produce junk food. A recent study by the US Public Interest Research Group, says the US Department of Agriculture gave out $18.2 billion from 1995 to 2011 to subsidize four common food additives: corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, corn starch and soy oils (hydrogenated vegetable oil). These additives “provide a cheap dose of sweetness and fat to a wide variety of junk food products,” the research group reported.

USA - The Pentagon said yesterday it plans to send a US air force detachment to Poland to support fighter jets and transport planes, marking the first time that US soldiers have been stationed there. The announcement was made at the end of talks between US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his Polish counterpart Tomasz Siemoniak. The detachment “will arrive this fall to support quarterly F-16 and C-130 deployments beginning in 2013 and will be the first US forces stationed on Polish soil,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - As Tisha B’Av (the 9th of the Jewish month of Av) arrives, and with it, the mourning caused by the absence of the Holy Temple which would serve as the center of spiritual life for the Jewish people – and according to the tradition, all the nations of the world – a renewed outcry for "Temple consciousness" has arisen with a flurry of activity.

TEMPLE MOUNT, ISRAEL - As Jews fast and mourn the Temple, Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt will be protesting about their “holiest site” on Temple Mount. The Arab League has released a statement warning Israel to stay away from the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The mosque is located on the Temple Mount, which Judaism teaches is the holiest site in the world.

UK/EUROPE - The Fresh Start group of Conservative MPs launched its green paper on EU reform last week which sets out a range of options to either reform or repatriate EU policy areas. The launch was attended by Foreign Secretary William Hague.

USA - New details from court documents and sources close to the Libor scandal investigation suggest that groups of traders working at three major European banks were heavily involved in rigging global benchmark interest rates.

USA - After setting sights on creating a heavily modified apple that ‘never browns’ and doing their very best to hide the fact that they are indeed genetically altered, a biotech corporation known as Okanagan Specialty Fruits is now pushing for their new genetically modified apples to hit the market.

TOLEDO, OHIO, USA - There are 100 days left in what, at times, has seemed like an endless presidential election. And these are the bewildered sounds of the Undecided American, trying to decide. “I’m definitely not voting for [Mr] Obama. Our country’s in the worst mess ever, and certainly he needs to take some responsibility,” said Bobbie Hodge, 71, a retired nurse from Iron County, Missouri. “And yet, I’m not sure about Romney.” In these next 100 days, President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney and their political allies will spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to sway uncommitted voters in a few key states. These are the people they’re after.

USA - The former University of Colorado graduate student accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 others in a shooting rampage at a cinema last week had been under the care of a psychiatrist who was part of a campus threat-assessment team. The disclosure came in court documents filed yesterday by lawyers for James Holmes, 24, who is accused of opening fire last Friday on a packed showing of the latest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises," in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

NORTH KOREA - Severe flooding across North Korea has killed 88 people and left tens of thousands homeless, state media reported late on Saturday, threatening to make the poverty-stricken country's already chronic food shortage still worse. The floods caused by torrential rains and a typhoon this month caused "big human and material losses", North Korea's official KCNA news agency said, stranding nearly 63,000 people.

UK - Britain's families will pay more for peas this summer as the year of unpredictable weather leaves growers with a heavily reduced harvest. The drought conditions earlier this year followed by the record rainfall in April and June have harmed the prospects of this year's British pea crop. British shoppers consume 150 million kilos of frozen peas every year worth over £200 million at retail prices. Over 90 per cent of these are grown in the UK.

USA - Andrew M Cuomo, the governor of New York declared a state of emergency in Chemung County after a tornado reportedly touched down in Elmira, where author Mark Twain is buried. Most of the damage from yesterday's event occurred in New York and Pennsylvania where the weather front may have created a rare wind storm known as a derecho. A derecho is defined as an event that has wind gusts of at least 58 miles per hour and leaves a swathe of damage for a minimum of 240 miles, according to the US Storm Prediction Centre.

USA - What was measured was reflectivity of water on the surface of the ice that, in some cases, is thousands of feet deep. Surface ice melt happens every year. As soon as freezing temperatures return, the surface water will return to ice and so-called global warming will be over. Do not expect mainstream media to report it.

USA - Last Friday's mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, in which 12 people were brutally gunned down and more than 50 people injured, is only the latest tragedy involving rampant gun violence sweeping the nation, according to a prominent anti-gun group. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, has compiled an extensive list of the last 431 shootings with more than one victim since 2005. The organization's data says that since 2005, there has been a multiple-victim shooting every 5.9 days in the United States, with 87 people dying of bullet wounds each day.