ISRAEL - The Israeli defense minister threatened to destroy Syrian air defenses after they shot at Israeli warplanes, which violated Syrian airspace and bombed targets on Syrian soil. “Next time, if the Syrian aerial defense apparatus acts against our planes, we will destroy it,” Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli Public Radio on Sunday. “We won't hesitate. Israel's security is above everything else; there will be no compromise.” Syria shot surface-to-air S-200 missiles at the Israeli planes as they were flying back from the night mission. Damascus claims it shot down one of the planes, while Israel denies it.

UK - Women should be able to abort their babies simply because they are the “wrong” sex, a leading ethicist at Britain’s doctors’ union has said. Professor Wendy Savage, a member of the ethics committee of the British Medical Association, said women should be able to have an abortion at any stage of pregnancy for whatever reason, even when the child would be able to survive outside of the womb.

RUSSIA/CHINA - Russia and China are increasingly challenging the military superiority that the United States has held since the early 1990s. Since the end of the Cold War, America’s naval, air, land and space capabilities, paired with key bases in Europe and Asia, have created a strategic advantage over other major superpowers.

USA - Josh Tolley interviews a woman from Missouri who explains how refugees are flown in at night and given Social Security Numbers and Passports completely non-vetted. The woman started attending meetings last year sponsored by Missouri Social Services that are under the auspices of the UN Refugee Resettlement Organization – the Office of Refugee Monitoring out of Washington DC.

FRANCE - More than a quarter of marriages in 2015 were between French nationals and a foreign partner, the latest figures from France’s national statistics agency show. Nearly four in ten of so-called mixed marriages, unions between a French citizen and a foreign national, that took place in France in 2015 involved a North African spouse according to National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) figures. Noting longer term trends in France, the national statistics office stated that while the number of weddings has almost continuously declined since the 1970s, mixed marriages have been on the rise since the 1950s.

GERMANY - Eight out of every ten Germans polled in a survey believe the EU needs reforming. The news is an ill omen for Chancellor Angela Merkel as she campaigns for a fourth term in office in September against a rising tide of European Union animosity. A YouGov poll shows only seven per cent believe the EU should “keep doing what it is doing”.

USA - Documents obtained by Judicial Watch show the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) fast-tracked tax-exempt status for an “After School Satan Club” in Tacoma, Washington, while the federal agency was discovered to be either denying conservative and Christian groups the same status or making them wait for years. According to the watchdog group that uncovered the IRS scandal during the Obama administration, the After School Satan Club at Point Defiance Elementary in Tacoma applied for its tax-exempt status designation on October 21, 2014 and received it only 10 days later on October 31, 2014. Breitbart News reported in October of 2016 the announcement by the Satanic Temple of Seattle of its proposal for the After School Satan Club in the Point Defiance Elementary school.

USA - Several countries are developing nanoweapons that could unleash attacks using mini-nuclear bombs and insect-like lethal robots. While it may be the stuff of science fiction today, the advancement of nanotechnology in the coming years will make it a bigger threat to humanity than conventional nuclear weapons, according to an expert. The US, Russia and China are believed to be investing billions on nanoweapons research

USA - Near the end of his meticulously formal, utterly impersonal news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Trump finally sought a sliver of common ground with his guest: They both, he said, had been wiretapped by former President Barack Obama.

USA - Donald Trump left Angela Merkel looking awkward again at their joint press conference in the White House when he insisted immigration should be seen as an honour - and not a "right". Mr Trump said as far as he is concerned, the safety of US citizens will always "come first" before helping those from abroad.

EUROPE - Scotland has established an investment center in Berlin, thereby reinforcing its economic ties to the EU and causing - with German support - new tension in Great Britain. According to critics, in its intended secession from the United Kingdom, for which it must establish economic security, the Scottish government is relying on German help.

USA - Using data from human "quality raters," Google hopes to teach its algorithms how to better spot offensive and often factually incorrect information. Google is undertaking a new effort to better identify content that is potentially upsetting or offensive to searchers. It hopes this will prevent such content from crowding out factual, accurate and trustworthy information in the top search results. “We’re explicitly avoiding the term ‘fake news,’ because we think it is too vague,” said Paul Haahr, one of Google’s senior engineers who is involved with search quality. “Demonstrably inaccurate information, however, we want to target.”

CHINA - China pledged to have a “firm response” if Japan further fans regional tensions and “threatens China’s sovereignty and security.” The statement comes after a Reuters report that Japan will send its largest warship to the disputed South China Sea. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a press briefing on Thursday that based on its own interests, Japan has recently been compromising stability in the South China Sea, “causing strong dissatisfaction and opposition from the Chinese people.” “If Japan persists in taking wrong actions, and even considers military interventions that threaten China’s sovereignty and security… then China will inevitably take firm responsive measures,” she said.

USA - The  US has increasing security concerns about China’s first overseas military base close to the hub of operations for US Africa Command in Djibouti, a US commander told Congress Thursday. Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, commander of AfriCom, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he expected the Chinese base on the Horn of Africa to be operational later this summer. Without getting specific, Waldhauser said he recently met with Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh “and expressed our concerns about some of the things that are important to us about what the Chinese should not do at that location.” The Chinese base would be about four miles from the US base at Camp Lemonnier, one of the Pentagon’s largest and most important foreign military installations.

USA - This may be the closest that we have been to war with North Korea since the original Korean War ended in 1953. The North Koreans are feverishly working to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike the US mainland, and meanwhile Donald Trump has not moved from his position that North Korea will simply not be allowed to have ICBMs.