USA - During a recent endocrinology course at a top medical school in the University of California system, a professor stopped mid-lecture to apologize for something he’d said at the beginning of class. “It was certainly not my intention to offend anyone. The worst thing that I can do as a human being is be offensive.” His offence: using the term “pregnant women.”

ALASKA - Alaska has been rocked by a major earthquake, registering at magnitude-8.2, with authorities issuing a tsunami warning shortly after. An earthquake stuck just off the coast of the Alaskan Peninsula, near Sandpoint, Aleutians East, at 10.15pm on Wednesday local time (7.15am Thursday BST), the USGS reported. The major tremor was measured at a depth of 29 miles (46.7km), and has sparked a major tsunami warning which has been issued for as far away as Hawaii. The US Tsunami Warning System said: "Based on all available data a tsunami may have been generated by this earthquake that could be destructive on coastal areas even far from the epicentre."

USA - Shutting down the economy triggers a depression? Print money.

Stock market experiences fastest 30% crash in history? Print money.

Municipal bonds collapse because the bond markets don’t believe cities and states will be able to meet their debt obligations? Print money.

The economy still hasn’t come back because state officials continue to keep their economies on partial or complete lock downs? Print money.

The economy isn’t coming back fast enough despite vaccines and states reopening? Print money.

USA - $10 Trillion! That's the market cap of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Microsoft and Tesla these days. Not only is that 25% of the S&P 500's market cap, it's closer to 1/3 of their earnings and, over at the Nasdaq, the Big 6 make up over 50% of that index's market cap… If we are heading into that Dystopian Future where a few dozen corporations control every aspect of life on this planet - it makes perfect sense that, at some point, 6 companies should be worth 1/3 as much as the other 12,000. That's just a natural progression.

CHINA - The Chinese government relocated 1.65 million people from areas at high risk of floods in eastern China’s Zhejiang province as of Sunday night, China’s state-run Global Times reported Monday. “The province has sent rescue teams to transfer residents from risky areas to emergency shelters as it upgraded its typhoon emergency response to level 1. As of Sunday night, more than 1.65 million residents have been transferred,” according to the newspaper. “As Typhoon In-Fa made its second landfall on the coast of Pinghua, East China’s Zhejiang Province, on Monday morning, China’s National Meteorological Center (NMC) said it is estimated that Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu Province and other East China areas may be hit by strong winds, rain and storm tides,” the Global Times reported. “More than 12.9 million people have been affected by the latest round of downpours,” Henan’s information office further revealed. “A total of 933,800 residents in Henan have been relocated to safer places, and about 972,000 hectares of crops damaged,” the office added.

USA - Devastating 'Bootleg' fire rips through southern Oregon forcing more than 2,000 people to flee their homes. A wildfire roaring through drought-parched Oregon is now so large it covers an area the size of Los Angeles and is generating its own weather. The so-called Bootleg fire is the largest so far this year in the United States, having already burned more than 530 square miles of forest and grasslands and displaced more than 2,000 people. The blaze, which has been burning for more than two weeks, has begun affecting winds and disrupting the surrounding atmosphere. “The fire is so large and generating so much energy and extreme heat that it’s changing the weather,” said Marcus Kauffman, a spokesman for the state forestry department. “Normally the weather predicts what the fire will do. In this case, the fire is predicting what the weather will do.” Experts say the blaze is cresting Pyrocumulus clouds, which form when extreme heat from the flames of a wildfire force the air to rapidly rise, condensing and cooling any moisture on smoke particles produced by the fire. These clouds essentially become their own thunderstorms and can contain lightning and strong winds.

UK - Every time there is a so-called ‘freak’ weather event, we hear from politicians and scientists about how it is down to climate change. But my time as an MEP showed me how the issue is hijacked to further individual interests. London, like parts of Germany and China, has suffered a series of flash floods over the past few weeks. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, warned that the recent flash flooding “shows that the dangers of climate change are now moving closer to home.”

USA - This is a summer that none of us will ever forget. There has been one apocalyptic disaster after another, and we haven’t even reached the halfway point yet. The following are 10 plagues that our world has had to deal with so far this summer…

USA - There are few people left alive today that remember the last time a severe drought that destroyed crops combined with a collapse of the financial system left millions of Americans hungry and homeless, back in the 1930s.

USA - We are witnessing an epic global struggle for freedom, and the outcome of that struggle is going to greatly shape what our world is going to look like in the years ahead. Ultimately, one of the most fundamental rights that we have is the right to make our own health decisions. If someone else has the authority to make those decisions for you, then you aren’t really free.

USA - Dell is no longer shipping energy-hungry gaming PCs to certain states in America because they demand more energy than local standards allow. Customers seeking to purchase, for example, an Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 Gaming Desktop from Dell's website and have it shipped to California are now presented with a message that tells buyers they're out of luck. "This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states," the website says. "Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled." Dell confirmed to The Register that the California ban was down to power consumption regulations, saying: Yes, this was driven by the California Energy Commission (CEC) Tier 2 implementation that defined a mandatory energy efficiency standard for PCs – including desktops, AIOs and mobile gaming systems. This was put into effect on July 1, 2021. Select configurations of the Alienware Aurora R10 and R12 were the only impacted systems across Dell and Alienware.

USA - A supply-chain crisis has been brewing off the coast of Southern California for many months as massive freighters wait for dock space to open up. Current port delays are near a record high. On Friday, 33 ships were anchored off the coast waiting for a spot to open up to unload at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, according to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California. California ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach account for about one-third of US imports. These ports operate as a primary source of imports from China and have been heavily congested for months. Some of the container ships have been waiting off the shore for weeks, pushing back delivery dates and driving up the cost of transportation. Of the ships waiting to dock, half of them are what Marine Exchange calls "mega-container ships" or ships with the carrying capacity of 10,000 TEUs. "Part of the problem is the ships are double or triple the size of the ships we were seeing 10 or 15 years ago," Louttit told Insider. "They take longer to unload. You need more trucks, more trains, more warehouses to put the cargo."

USA - Science has become a political catchword. But what does it mean to believe in science? The British science writer Matt Ridley draws a pointed distinction between “science as a philosophy” and “science as an institution.” The former grows out of the Enlightenment, which Mr Ridley defines as “the primacy of rational and objective reasoning.” The latter, like all human institutions, is erratic, prone to falling well short of its stated principles. Mr Ridley says the Covid pandemic has “thrown into sharp relief the disconnect between science as a philosophy and science as an institution.” He asks: “If you think biological complexity can come about through unplanned emergence and not need an intelligent designer, then why would you think human society needs an ‘intelligent government’?” Science as an institution has “a naive belief that if only scientists were in charge, they would run the world well.” Perhaps that’s what politicians mean when they declare that they “believe in science.” As we’ve seen during the pandemic, science can be a source of power.

GERMANY - Ahead of Germany’s federal election on 27 September, the federal grand coalition government is pressing ahead with military rearmament. In its last sitting of the legislative session, the parliamentary budgetary committee approved spending for 27 rearmament projects with a total value of close to €20 billion at the end of June. The projects include major purchases for the navy, air force and land-based armed forces.

USA - Months before the megachurch Hillsong opened its new outpost in Atlanta, its pastor sought advice on how to build a church in a pandemic. From Facebook. The social media giant had a proposition, Sam Collier, the pastor, recalled in an interview: to use the church as a case study to explore how churches can “go further farther on Facebook.” For months Facebook developers met weekly with Hillsong and explored what the church would look like on Facebook and what apps they might create for financial giving, video capability or livestreaming. When it came time for Hillsong’s grand opening in June, the church issued a news release saying it was “partnering with Facebook” and began streaming its services exclusively on the platform. Beyond that, Mr Collier could not share many specifics — he had signed a nondisclosure agreement. “They are teaching us, we are teaching them,” he said. “Together we are discovering what the future of the church could be on Facebook.”