FRANCE - 'Apocalyptic' fire bears down on Bordeaux: Inferno so big it generates its own thunderstorms threatens entire city with 38C heat set to fan the flames. More than 325,000 people have fled the region in southern France as the inferno burns down forests and destroys villages. Some 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and around 1,200 police have been deployed to the Gironde region. It ranks among one of the worst fires to hit France in peacetime as Italy and Spain also continue attempts to suppress their own terrifying infernos. The Bordeaux blaze has caused an unprecedented 'pyrocumulonimbus' - a gigantic fire cloud that creates its own winds and packs lightning that causes more fires. But despite the efforts of emergency services, who have been battling the fire for days now, 38C temperatures threaten to spread the flames.

EUROPE - The European Union has urged all citizens to prepare a survival kit for use in extreme emergencies, that includes bottled water, torches, matches and energy bars in case of an attack. Households in the EU have been urged to prepare three-day survival kits for use in the event of a future conflict. The European Union has encouraged all citizens across its 27 member states to be equipped for 72 hours of self-reliance, advising people to stockpile essentials such as food, bottled water, torches, matches, energy bars, and ID documents in a waterproof pouch.

USA - A newly published peer-reviewed study has found measurable levels of the abortion drug mifepristone in municipal tap water samples collected from three American cities. The research, titled “Anti-Progesterone in Environmental Water,” was authored by Elise Rose, PhD, of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, and Michael Varveris, M.D. The study was published in the July 20 issue of Issues in Law & Medicine. Researchers collected water samples upstream and downstream of treatment facilities as well as from municipal taps in Austin, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; and Carbondale, Illinois. The study explains that mifepristone is a synthetic anti-progesterone steroid hormone classified as an endocrine-disrupting compound. Conventional water treatment processes did not consistently remove the compound.

UK - You have a choice: either £50,000 in your pocket, or a 50-50 chance of getting £1 million. Which do you pick? If you are a typical British adult, you will take the first option. And that, I am sorry to say, is part of why we are in such a mess. Britain, which pioneered the market economy and gave the world the industrial revolution, has sunk into safetyism. We have become risk-averse to a degree that astonishes not only our Anglosphere cousins, but our European neighbours. According to YouGov, 73 per cent of Britons would take the 50 grand, and only 21 per cent the shot at the million. Which, in a nutshell, is why we are not growing, why we care more about redistributing than creating wealth and even, to a degree, why a defensive England football team lost to Argentina in the World Cup semi-final. Normalise risk-taking, applaud boldness, recognise courage. We’ll start growing again soon enough.

USA - We are literally watching a slow-motion apocalyptic event play out right in front of our eyes, but most people in the general population don’t seem too concerned even though we are being warned that this apocalyptic event could cause trillions of dollars in economic losses. Large numbers of fish are being cooked to death, unprecedented wildfires are ripping across the United States and Europe, severe drought is greatly harming agricultural production in many areas, and the northern hemisphere is being slammed by one crazy heatwave after another. A lot of people out there may be able to ignore what is going on outside by sitting in their air-conditioned homes, but the truth is that what is happening to us is going to cause a tremendous amount of pain for the whole world for an extended period of time. The Super El Niño that we are currently experiencing is setting new water temperature records in the Pacific Ocean on a daily basis, and one expert is warning that it appears that “it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin”…

USA - The drought gripping the Western Plains is rapidly becoming one of the most devastating agricultural disasters producers have faced in decades. From southern Colorado to Montana, farmers and ranchers are battling a crisis that extends far beyond dry fields. Water supplies are dwindling, wheat crops are failing, hay production is shrinking and cattle producers are being forced into difficult herd liquidation decisions. While recent rainfall has provided temporary relief in some areas, many producers say the damage is already done. Crop insurance agent and market analyst Ben Rand says. “I travel. I drive 125,000 miles a year. I don’t know. I can’t show you a good wheat crop anywhere in my draw.”

USA - Lake Powell was 23.4% full on July 19. It was last full in 1983. If its level falls more, that could create environmental catastrophe by stopping the river flowing through the Grand Canyon, a situation known as “dead pool.” The crisis could create ripple effects nationwide. Nearly half of the country’s vegetables and more than three-quarters of its fruits and nuts are grown in California, according to the state’s Food and Agriculture Department. A substantial amount of California crops are irrigated with Colorado River water. Meanwhile, California and the six other states that collaboratively manage the river have been unable to reach a compromise on what to do about the problem.

UK - Over the past 24 hours, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Iranian regime’s ideological army, has explicitly threatened to attack Britain. In an official statement – which also singled out the “British Monarchy” – the IRGC issued a threat to strike RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, whilst making it clear that all bases housing US forces engaged in military operations are “legitimate targets”. The latest example of this is The Telegraph’s revelation that the IRGC’s Unit 700 branch has been exploiting the small-boats crisis to smuggle “Islamic revolutionary agents” into the UK and position them across London. As one Iranian regime official brazenly told The Telegraph on Friday: “We do not need a missile to target London.” While shocking, the report should not be surprising. If the IRGC seeks to attack Britain, it could – at least in theory – activate this radicalised Islamist contingency for acts of home-grown violence and terror.

GERMANY - Berlin has been facing soaring fuel prices and some of the world’s highest industrial energy costs. Germany’s prolonged energy crisis was caused by the loss of Russian gas supplies, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has admitted. German industry has been hit particularly hard by soaring energy costs, which are now the third-highest in the world after those in the UK and Japan. Once Europe’s industrial powerhouse, Germany abandoned cheap Russian gas imports in 2022 while phasing out nuclear power in favor of renewables, driving up production costs and accelerating the decline of energy-intensive industries. Moscow has repeatedly said it remains ready to resume gas deliveries through the remaining string of the Nord Stream pipeline, but the offer has received no response from Berlin. Despite the mounting pressure, the EU has ruled out returning to Russian gas.

RUSSIA - Long-term contracts with Moscow were not vulnerable to external shocks or market fluctuations, Berliner Zeitung has said. Germany is paying five times as much for imported gas as it did before abandoning its long-term Russian supply contracts as part of the EU sanctions, Berliner Zeitung has reported. Berlin now has to rely on the volatile international energy market, which is reeling from the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran, the newspaper wrote on Wednesday. According to Berliner Zeitung, Germany’s gas import price has risen from €12 ($13.65) per megawatt-hour in 2020, when long-term contracts with Russia were still in force, to more than €60 ($68.25) this week amid the continued exchange of strikes between the US and Iran.