Berlin, which this week hit out at Britain for not taking a quota of those arriving, has admitted it has also had enough. Around 150 migrants an hour, mostly said to be from Syria, are reaching Germany each hour causing it to impose checks on its border with Austria. Stephan Mayer, a senior member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, who led calls for David Cameron to act, said the escalating issues "directly erodes and endangers Schengen".

As European countries engaged in bitter exchanges last night over how best to resolve the crisis, the EU’s treasured Schengen Agreement of free movement across most of the continent - but which the UK has refused to join - was beginning to crumble. But it is now clear that many European member states are now blaming the EU’s Schengen Agreement for the scale of the crisis now overwhelming several of them.

Last night Tory MP Peter Bone, the former chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, laid the blame firmly at Brussels’ door. He said: “The EU has undoubtedly contributed to this crisis. Years ago we warned that the EU’s freedom of movement rules allowed traffickers to move people across Europe unimpeded. But because Brussels was so wedded to the idea of freedom of movement it would do nothing about it. The only way to combat this crisis is to reinstate border controls. The Schengen system of passport-free borders means traffickers are driving people across the Continent to reach the countries of their choice.”

Allowing Kim Davis, who previously has said she is an Apostolic Christian, to defy a court order could create a ripple effect among other county clerks, Bunning said. Two other clerks in the state — Casey Davis in Casey County and Kay Schwartz in Whitley County — also had stopped issuing marriage licenses but have not had lawsuits filed against them. "Her good-faith belief is simply not a viable defense," said Bunning, who said he also has deeply held religious beliefs. "Oaths mean things."

Kim Davis was tearful at times in her morning appearance before the judge but testified that she could not obey Bunning's order because God's law trumps the court. "It's very unjust," said the Rev Randy Smith of Morehead, Kentucky, where the Rowan County Clerk's Office is located. "Religious liberty has been trampled on today." Roger Gannam, a lawyer with the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel that represents Kim Davis, said Bunning's decision shows that elected officials no longer have religious liberties in light of the Supreme Court ruling — and that private citizens are next.

“Today, for the first time in history, an American citizen has been incarcerated for having the belief of conscience that marriage is between one man and one woman,” he said to the crowd outside. “It’s unprecedented in American law, and it answers the question, 'What will same-sex marriage mean for people of faith?' "

Growing Underground is the world’s first underground eco-farm and there isn’t a tractor in sight. Stacked, 2×1-meter trays house a variety of micro herbs, from mustard to pea shoots, all of which are grown in a tightly controlled, completely artificial environment. Aside from the herbs, and the small Growing Underground team, nothing else fills the tunnels.

How much food, and what kind, you ask? At the moment, Growing Underground produces 10 different micro herbs, which will be sold to traders at the New Covent Garden Market before ultimately gracing the dishes made by chefs at many of London’s best and biggest restaurants.

Take mustard, as an example. It’s about seven days between planting and harvesting, and the farm can produce 700 wholesale cases each day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. It’s fresher too, because the mustard is seeded and harvested once each day, and reaches the market in a matter of hours, not days. Eating some straight from the growing bed, it tasted pretty good to me. The 10 herbs are just the start.

During the GLACIER event, which stands for Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience, Obama blamed the recent rash of wildfires sweeping parts of Washington State on global warming, insisting that “climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it.”

Overall, the speech painted a fairly doom-and-gloom outlook for America and the rest of the world. So if you’re a Doomsday Prepper, here are a few excerpts from the president's speech explaining the climate-related disasters heading to a town near you:

“Your house might slide off into the ocean …or it might be engulfed in flames.

And if it doesn’t, it will definitely get sucked into a sinkhole.

Your city will either look like Atlantis or something out of the zombie apocalypse.

You might run out of fresh salmon en croûte.

Or just food, in general.

You may simultaneously die of thirst and drown, all at the same time.

You might have to begin training for the Hunger Games.

And if the famine, flood, fire and fighting doesn’t get you, the fumes definitely will.

After all, we’re running out of time. On this issue, of all issues, there is such a thing as being too late. That moment is almost upon us.”

Perhaps the president got some of his research from the crew of the Canadian CCGS Amundsen during their four-month global warming expedition - you know, before they had to bail on their mission due to ships getting stuck in ice.

He reached another post reading "1951", a marker for the edge of Alaska's Exit Glacier that year, and gazed up toward where the rock-rutted ice mass has since receded, a quarter mile away. "This is as good a signpost of what we're dealing with on climate change as just about anything," Obama told reporters near the base of the glacier.

It was the signature moment of Obama's trek to Alaska, aimed at making the world pay heed to the damage already caused by rising seas, and demand global leaders reach a deal in Paris in December to curb climate-changing carbon emissions. Last year alone, the Exit Glacier melted and retreated 187 ft (57 m) toward the Harding ice field, which itself has lost 10 percent of its mass since 1950, mainly due to climate change.

"It's spectacular," Obama said, glancing over his shoulder and pausing, as the cameras clicked. "We want to make sure that our own grandkids can see this."

He also said the People's Liberation Army would be reduced by 300,000 personnel, but gave no timeframe. China's growing military power is being keenly watched amid regional tensions. China has several territorial disputes with neighbours in the South China Sea, as well as with Japan in the East China Sea. Ahead of the parade, the US said five Chinese ships had been spotted in the Bering Sea off Alaska for the first time.

More than 30 foreign government officials and heads of state including Russia's President Vladimir Putin and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended the event. But many Western leaders and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have stayed away.

Mr Xi made the troop reduction announcement in a speech where he reassured the global community that "China will remain committed to peaceful development". "No matter how strong it becomes, China will never seek hegemony or expansion. It will never inflict its past suffering on any nation," he said.

That's according to "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America," a book from publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that will be released on September 1.

The measure of poverty isn't arbitrary - it's the threshold the World Bank uses to measure global poverty in the developed world. While it may be the norm to see families in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Ethiopia struggle to survive on such meager income, the growing ranks of America's ultrapoor may be shocking, given that the US is considered one of the most developed capitalist countries in the world.

So, how do families living on so little get by? They tend to rely on a few strategies, including selling their own plasma for $30 a pop and selling scrap metal. Some families also sell their food stamp benefits for cash, which is illegal…

The Dow fell another 468 points, or 3 percent, Tuesday, providing fresh evidence for investors the sell-off which began in August was no mirage. It is likely to continue in September. Only eight more trading days remain until the dreaded Elul 29, which is the final day of the Shemitah year, known as “wipe out day” on the Hebrew calendar.

Since Elul 29 falls on a Sunday, September 13, when the markets are closed, the rest of this week and the following week could bring the most devastating losses. Another theory is that the period of September 14-28 right after Elul 29 and leading up to a scheduled blood moon (on September 27-28) could be worth watching.

Author Jonathan Cahn points out that the years 1973, 1980, 1987, 2001 and 2008 were all Shemitah years that saw stock markets collapse. The biggest ever single-day stock market crash occurred on September 29, 2008, when the Dow fell 777.7 points and lost $1.2 trillion in value. This day also happened to be Elul 29, the last day of the Jewish year, one day before Rosh Hashana, signaling the end of the Shemitah cycle.

The first blow, it said, was the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The English-language video included archival footage from US news channels, including a 2007 clip of Ron Paul sounding the alarm over the vulnerability of the dollar.

Produced by the Islamic State’s Al Hayat Media, the extremist Sunni group positioned itself as leading the fight against fiat currency by minting caliphate gold, silver and bronze coins. It named them after historical Islamic caliphate coins: the gold dinar, the silver dirham and the bronze fals (or the plural fulus).

Its dedication to gold – and opposition to paper notes – was grounded in the Quran, excerpts of which appeared onscreen in the video. The group vowed that in the future, it would sell oil only in exchange for gold, not “fraudulent” paper bills.

Although those fleeing the Syrian crisis have for several years been crossing into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey in huge numbers, entering other Arab states - especially in the Gulf - is far less straightforward. Officially, Syrians can apply for a tourist visa or work permit in order to enter a Gulf state. This comes as part of wider obstacles facing Syrians, who are required to obtain rarely granted visas to enter almost all Arab countries. Without a visa, Syrians are not currently allowed to enter Arab countries except for Algeria, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen.

The relative wealth and proximity to Syria of the states has led many - in both social and as well as traditional media - to question whether these states have more of a duty than Europe towards Syrians suffering from over four years of conflict and the emergence of jihadist groups in the country.

The measure has provoked anger because it recalls Nazi Germany's practice of writing numbers on concentration camp prisoners. The controversy came as thousands of desperate migrants staged angry protests outside Budapest’s main international railway station today after Hungarian authorities refused to let them board trains bound for Western Europe.

The measure was used with large groups of refugees to keep record of family members, according to Katerina Rendlova, spokeswoman for a unit of the Czech police dealing with foreigners. 'We also write the code of the train they have arrived on so that we know which country we should return them to within the readmission system.'

Unlike some other EU member states, Czech authorities maintain that migrants who enter the country without first having made an asylum request should be returned to the state from which they arrived, in line with the EU's Dublin Provision.