UK - The crusade for Britain to quit the EU has received a massive boost after a shock poll revealed the full scale of voters' frustration with Brussels. Two-thirds of people believe the multi-billion annual cost of EU membership is too high and does not represent value for money, the survey found.
UK - Britain could be kicked out of the European Union if David Cameron continues pushing his demands on fellow leaders while refusing to help in ongoing crises. While the focus has been on what concessions the Prime Minister will come back with from his much-heralded negotiations on Britain's EU membership, a leading expert on European politics believes Mr Cameron could well return empty-handed as leaders across the continent become fed up with his actions.
UK - No bank or brokerage has taken enough action to enforce good behaviour, the Financial Conduct Authority says. Market-fixing scandals could happen again because banks and brokerages have not taken enough steps to monitor their staff, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, three years on from the Libor interest rate fixing scandal.
UK - A man has been hauled before the courts on religious charges after he went into a supermarket and stuck stickers on packets of halal meat warning that it "funds terrorism". Liam Gary Edwards covered packs of the ritually slaughtered meat with red stickers bearing the slogan 'Beware! Halal is barbaric and funds terrorism #BanHalal'.
ISRAEL - Israeli police have been handed another loss in their attempts to distance Jews from the Temple Mount - the holiest site in Judaism - and thereby concede to the demands of the Jordanian Waqf that continues to hold de facto control of the holy site. The Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday rejected a police request to distance two Jewish youths from the Temple Mount area for a period of sixty days.
HUNGARY - “The question now is not merely what kind of Europe we, Hungarians would like to live in, but whether that which we call Europe today will at all survive”, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán said at the 26th Bálványos Summer School and Student Camp held in Tusnádfürdő (Baile Tusnad) of Transylvania (Romania).
ITALY - A priest has performed an exorcism from a helicopter to banish evil from an Italian seaside town said to be beset with social and moral decay. Worshippers organised the airborne battle against evil after several churches were robbed and defiled in Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples.
USA - A graphic that reportedly breaks down the effects a can of Coca-Cola has on a person’s body is going viral. The graphic claims to detail what happens to the body after 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 45 minutes and 60 minutes.
UK - Climate scientists warned temperatures in the Pacific have increased by THREE degrees Fahrenheit in recent weeks as ocean winds have weakened. The so-called El Nino phenomenon, which has a huge impact on the world's weather, has only been stronger twice before in recorded history - the last time in 1997, when a series of violent 100MPH Atlantic storms slammed into the UK.
INDONESIA - Eruptions of ash at five volcanoes shrouded the skies over parts of the Indonesian archipelago several days ago, forcing three airports to close. More airports have since closed due to the ash clouds. Mount Raung on Java Island blasted ash and debris up to 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) into the air after rumbling for several weeks, government volcanologist Surono said.
UK - The full cost to the economy of obesity, drug addicts and alcoholics will be assessed for the first time, David Cameron is to announce. Overweight people could have benefits worth around £100 a week reduced or ended altogether if they refuse to lose weight, the Prime Minister will announce on Wednesday.
USA - The state of Kentucky is doubling down on a decision to ban volunteer pastor counselors in its youth division from calling homosexuality “sinful,” as it is defined in the Bible. In a statement sent Monday to WND, Stacy Floden of the state’s program services in the Department of Juvenile Justice said her agency “seeks to protect the rights of all youth in its care and custody regardless of sexual orientation or committing offense.”
USA - Two recent items in the news reflect the continuing fallout from Obergefell vs Hodges, the case barring states from restricting marriage to the union of a man and a woman. Senator Ted Cruz is holding hearings in response to what he takes to be the "lawlessness" of the decision. And in the New York Times, law professor William Baude asks a question many have been asking in the wake of Obergefell: "Is Polygamy Next?" (Are we sliding down a slippery slope?)
USA - We are witnessing a watershed moment in American cultural history: the sabotaging of family and marriage. Extreme-left radicals have made their arguments and tried different tactics, from the early nineteenth century to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, but at long last they have the vehicle to make it happen: gay marriage.
UK - Lord Sewel is facing a police inquiry after quitting as House of Lords deputy speaker over a video allegedly showing him taking drugs with prostitutes. Lords Speaker Baroness D'Souza said he had also quit as chairman of the Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee in the wake of the Sun on Sunday's story.