UK - Students are completing university degrees without reading a single book because of the availability of information on the internet, a leading academic has warned. Many undergraduates no longer “see the point of wasting time with books” when they can access facts using websites such as Wikipedia and SparkNotes, it was claimed. Orlando Figes, professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, said increased access to computer games and social networking websites had “reduced the attention span” of teenagers. But he said the shift away from books was principally driven by an exams culture in schools, with many pupils being encouraged to scan texts to pass tests rather than “read in ways that advance understanding and knowledge”.

UK - A coroner has expressed “great concern” over the violent video game Call of Duty after four teenagers who regularly played it went on to kill themselves. John Pollard claimed the certificate 18 game, which includes graphic scenes of soldiers killing each other, had featured in several inquests he had presided over. His warning came after a hearing into the death of schoolboy William Menzies, who was “always” playing the game. The 16-year-old, who was studying A-levels in biology, physics, politics and psychology at one of Britain’s top grammar schools, had shown no signs of depression or distress before his sudden death. In March 2012 another teenager Callum Green, hanged himself after playing Call of Duty with his stepfather.

VATICAN - Pope Francis continues to astonish. He dares to go to Israel and pray both at the Wailing Wall, where Jews worship, and at the security wall that symbolises the great divide between Israelis and Palestinians. He then invites both sides to the Vatican, "to pray for peace". Other celebrity do-gooders challenge us to dig in our pockets and give money, or to raise our fists against authoritarian China; the Pope challenges us to change our lives. Not even George Clooney would dream of asking that.

USA - The global derivatives bubble is now 20 percent bigger than it was just before the last great financial crisis struck in 2008. It is a financial bubble far larger than anything the world has ever seen, and when it finally bursts it is going to be a complete and utter nightmare for the financial system of the planet. According to the Bank for International Settlements, the total notional value of derivatives contracts around the world has ballooned to an astounding 710 trillion dollars ($710,000,000,000,000).

ISRAEL - Will Israel be the first cashless society on the entire planet? A committee chaired by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff has come up with a three phase plan to “all but do away with cash transactions in Israel”. Individuals and businesses would still be permitted to conduct cash transactions in small amounts (at least initially), but the eventual goal is to force Israeli citizens to conduct as much business as possible using electronic forms of payment. In fact, it has been reported that Israeli officials believe that “cash is bad” because it fuels the underground economy and allows people to avoid paying taxes. It is hoped that requiring most transactions to be conducted [electronically] will reduce crime and help balance the national budget. But is a cashless society actually desirable? This is a question that people all over the world will have to start asking as governments increasingly restrict the use of cash.

EUROPE - Europe's leaders are to hold crisis talks tonight on the future of the European Union after stunning victories by populist parties on the far-Right and Left in pan-Europe elections. At a Brussels summit dinner David Cameron will demand urgent change to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty to give powers back to national governments, a task he set as a “real test” for the Government ahead of next year’s general election. “The results show a very clear message, which is people are deeply disillusioned with the EU, with the way that it’s working, with the way that it’s working for Britain, and they want change,” the Prime Minister said. “The challenge is now for my party to demonstrate that we have the plan to deliver that change: to renegotiate Britain’s place in Europe; to get a better deal for Britain; to change Europe.”

IRAN - Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, all but said on Sunday that negotiations over the country’s illicit nuclear program are over and that the Islamic Republic’s ideals include destroying America. “Those [Iranians] who want to promote negotiation and surrender to the oppressors and blame the Islamic Republic as a warmonger in reality commit treason,” Khamenei told a meeting of members of parliament, according to the regime’s Fars News Agency.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the successors to the apostles Peter and Andrew, made history in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today by holding a prayer service together in a place where Christians from different churches have previously prayed only separately. During the evening prayer service in Jerusalem, both Pope and Patriarch knelt beside each other to pray and also light candles at the tomb where Jesus Christ was buried after his crucifixion in 34 AD and rose from the dead on the third day.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - The intimate Mass celebrated by Pope Francis on Monday in the Cenacle, the hall on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion venerated by Christians as the room of the Last Supper, capped a Holy Land pilgrimage meant to promote peace and tolerance. But ancient rivalries lurk just beneath the flagstones here, and the pope’s visit has brought them to the surface. Also holy to Jews and Muslims as the traditional burial place of the biblical King David, a prophet in Islam, Mount Zion has become a crucible of competing religious claims that touch on one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East conflict.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - The official text of the speech Pope Francis gave in front of Israeli president Shimon Peres began:

“I am grateful to you, Mr President, for your kind and sage words of greeting and your warm welcome. I am happy to be able to meet you once again, this time in Jerusalem, the city which preserves the Holy Places dear to the three great religions which worship the God who called Abraham.

USA - Support for same-sex marriage in the United States has reached a “tipping point,” according to the Gallup polling organization, a significant if not surprising development in a relatively recent social phenomenon that remains jarring to some older Americans but no big deal to younger people. “For proponents of marriage equality, years of playing offense have finally paid off as this movement has reached a tipping point in recent years – both legally and in the court of public opinion,” Gallup notes in reporting that such support has “solidified above the majority level.” Substantively as well as symbolically, American society has been moving in this direction for several years.

USA - The total number of disability beneficiaries in the United States rose from 10,981,423 in March to 10,996,447 in April, setting a new all-time record, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration. The number of Americans receiving disability benefits continues to exceed the populations of Greece, Tunisia and Portugal, and is approaching the population of Cuba, which according to the CIA World Factbook is 11,047,251.

USA - The Pentagon announced Friday it was closing down 21 military facilities in Europe, a move the Department said would save $60 million annually. "This is about making sure we have the right footprint, the right posture, and frankly that we're spending taxpayer dollars the right way in Europe," Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby said at a press briefing Friday. Kirby said it is just the first round of such closures, which are taking place in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Belgium, and that more would follow. Lawmakers and some defense experts have criticized the Pentagon for pulling several combat brigades out of Europe over the past year, a move that they say renders the United States less able to protect allies in the face of resurgent Russian aggression.

UK - If you were writing a paranoid fantasy of gold price manipulation you'd be hard pressed to come up with something more on the nose than the UK Financial Conduct Authority's order against Barclays. It has everything; it is the benchmark of manipulation by which all future manipulation will be measured. Well, this or Libor. Delightfully, this manipulation occurred on June 28, 2012, the day after Barclays was fined 290 million pounds for manipulating Libor. They just really wanted to perfect their manipulating technique.

UK - British companies should send gay employees into countries like Russia where homosexuality is frowned upon to promote attitude change, Lord Browne, the Cuadrilla chairman has said. The former BP boss, who was forced to stand down from the oil giant, when his relationship with a rent boy was exposed by a Sunday newspaper, said firms must do more to champion gay rights. Speaking at Hay Festival, Lord Browne, 66, said businesses which work in other countries where homosexuality is outlawed had a unique opportunity to change opinion. He also advised young gay workers to ‘come out’ as soon as possible when they started at a new company, and said he hoped to see a gay Prime Minister within his lifetime.