USA - The US Africa Command will seek to move its headquarters as the Pentagon plans a major reduction of American forces based in Germany. The German Defense Ministry is now considering how to help regions after the US withdrawal. Since its establishment in 2008, the US Africa Command has been headquartered in Stuttgart, the capital of Germany’s southwestern Baden-Wurttemberg state.

ISRAEL - A major step towards fixing the broken heart of the Jewish people on the Temple Mount was made on Tish B’Av, the day commemorating the destruction of the Temples: the Israeli flag was displayed for the first time since Israel conquered its holiest site in the 1967 Six-Day War. Despite coronavirus restrictions and threats of Muslim violence, almost 1,000 Jews ascended to the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av. A similar attempt on Jerusalem Day in 2018 ended in Muslim violence and the police arresting the Jews. “This is the first time that a Jew has waved an Israeli flag on the Temple Mount and the police did not arrest him,” Brosh emphasized.

USA - Families trying to squeeze in a summer vacation before school starts better do some homework on COVID-19 restrictions before loading up the minivan. The web of state and local quarantines is growing more tangled by the day: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have ordered visitors from a whopping 34 states to quarantine for 14 days. Chicago and Washington, DC, have each singled out travelers from about two dozen states. Other states have their own lists. Some have an option for visitors to get tested instead. “Complicated doesn’t begin to describe it. I feel sorry for people. They just want to go to Cape Cod. They want to go to Vermont. I don’t know what to tell them. People are pretty much left on their own to figure out,” said Kathy Kutrubes, owner of a travel agency in Boston. The restrictions — and maybe the confusion, too — are contributing to a sharp drop in travel, dealing a blow to a key industry.

JAPAN - After initial success, Japan is facing a reality check on the coronavirus. The country garnered global attention after containing the first wave of Covid-19 with what it referred to as the “Japan Model” - limited testing and no lockdown, nor any legal means to force businesses to close. The country’s finance minister even suggested a higher “cultural standard” helped contain the disease. But now the island nation is facing a formidable resurgence, with Covid-19 cases hitting records nationwide day after day. Infections first concentrated in the capital have spread to other urban areas, while regions without cases for months have become new hotspots. And the patient demographic - originally younger people less likely to fall seriously ill - is expanding to the elderly, a concern given that Japan is home to the world’s oldest population.

UK - A senior executive for pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has confirmed that his company cannot face legal action for any potential side effects caused by its Covid vaccine. Those affected will have no legal recourse. AstraZeneca is one of 25 pharmaceutical companies worldwide already testing their Covid vaccines on humans, in preparation for injecting hundreds of millions of people. These are flush times for Britain’s largest pharmaceutical company, worth something in the order of £70 million. They have just reported bumper profits of $12.6 billion in the last six months alone. But despite its healthy balance sheet, AstraZeneca is unwilling to be held responsible for any potential side effects of its ‘hopeful’ vaccine candidate. In other words, the company is completely protected, or indemnified, against lawsuits from people who are injected with their vaccine and experience negative effects, regardless of how severe or long-lasting they are.

USA - A CDC report released Friday reveals that hundreds of campers at a north Georgia YMCA camp were infected with coronavirus in just days before the camp was shut down. According to the report, of the 597 residents who attended the camp, 344 were tested and 260 tested positive for the virus. The camp was only open for four days before being shut down because of the virus, and officials followed all recommended safety protocols. In total, the virus attacked 44% of the children, staff members and trainees who attended the camp.

With back-to-school fast approaching, it’s important to point out that this was an overnight camp. “Relatively large cohorts sleeping in the same cabin and engaging in regular singing and cheering likely contributed to transmission,” officials said. MacArthur said strict adherence to wearing a mask and social distancing is hard for kids, but the study makes it clear that those guidelines are important.

UK - Christians in Scotland have warned new hate speech legislation could enshrine “cancel culture” in law while rendering expression of biblical morality illegal. The Scottish Parliament is currently debating the “Hate Crime and Public Order” bill that would criminalize communicating “threatening, abusive or insulting material” that is “likely” to stir up hatred against a protected group, which Christians fear could easily include traditional Christian teaching on sexual morality, marriage, and human nature. “A new offence of possessing inflammatory material could even render material such as the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church inflammatory,” Mr Horan said. “The Catholic Church’s understanding of the human person, including the belief that sex and gender are not fluid and changeable, could potentially fall foul of the new law.”

USA - Black Lives Matter protests erupted into violence across the country last night as 'explosive devices' were used against federal officers in Seattle and Portland, and a demonstrator was shot dead during a march in Austin. One protester was shot and killed when gunshots were fired during a protest in downtown Austin, Texas, Saturday night. Shocking footage showed people marching along the street holding banners demanding an end to police brutality and racism when loud shots rang out. This comes as protests gathered steam across several US cities Saturday, two months on from the Memorial Day 'murder' of George Floyd and in a show of solidarity for Portland where demonstrators and federal agents have clashed ever since Trump sent federal troops in. The president has so far deployed federal agents to Portland, Seattle and Chicago.

CHINA - Torrential rains in China continued this week, threatening even worse floods after almost 24 million people have been impacted by 433 overflowing rivers, with millions evacuated and at least 142 dead as of Tuesday. The largest of those rivers, the Yangtze, remains the focus of great concern. The third major flood of the year hit the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze on Sunday, pouring 50,000 cubic meters of water per second into its containment systems. An even larger surge was expected by Tuesday evening.

USA - The numbers: An economy badly battered by the coronavirus shrank at a record 32.9% annual pace in the second quarter, underscoring just how big a hole the US finds itself in as it labors to recover from the deepest recession in American history. The tidal wave of damage from the first global pandemic in a century was almost as bad as Wall Street expected. Analysts polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 35% decline in gross domestic product at an annual pace, the official scorecard of the US economy. The economy began to recover in mid-May after a severe contraction at the beginning of the quarter, but the US faces a long road back, analysts say. Millions of Americans are still out of work, thousands of businesses have closed and many of those that remain open have had to scale back operations because of tepid demand or ongoing government restrictions. The recent surge in coronavirus cases in about half of US states, especially large ones such as Texas, Florida and California, has also dealt a blow to a fragile economic recovery.

USA - For a very long time we have been warned that a US economic collapse was inevitably coming, and now it is here. Fear of COVID-19 and unprecedented civil unrest in our major cities have combined to plunge us into a historic economic downturn, and nobody is exactly sure what is going to happen next. On Thursday, we learned that US GDP was down 32.9 percent on an annualized basis last quarter.

GERMANY - The German economy suffered a record-breaking economic contraction in the second quarter as measures intended to stymie the coronavirus pandemic shuttered businesses and required consumers to stay home. The economy shrank at an annualized rate of 34.7 percent in the second quarter, worse than the stunning 32.9 percent decline in the US. For the whole of 2020, the German government forecasts that GDP will contract 6.3 percent before expanding by 5.2 percent in 2021. The US economy is expected to decline less than 6 percent for the full year. The outperformance of the US compared with European nations conclusively undermines claims by critics in the Democrat Party and the media that the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic has harmed the economy.

USA - President Trump on Thursday suggested delaying the November election as he continued to raise the false specter of widespread voting fraud. “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” he tweeted. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claims of voting fraud on a massive scale, and adjusting the date of the election would be difficult, if not impossible. However, the suggestion was an alarming indication that Trump is considering ways to prolong his stay in office as the country reels from a deadly pandemic and the resulting economic crisis.

USA - President Donald Trump said Thursday that he did not want to change the date of the election but again warned of the disaster that mail-in voting would cause. “No, do I want to see a date change? No,” Trump said. “But I don’t want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history, if that happens.” The president commented on the election during a press conference at the White House on Thursday evening. Earlier Thursday, he floated the idea of changing the date of the election, sending the corporate media into a frenzy over his comments. The president does not have the Constitutional power to change the date of the election, which is scheduled for November 3, 2020.

USA - Donald Trump is pulling thousands of US troops out of Germany and relocating America's European headquarters from Stuttgart to Belgium following a row with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over NATO funding. US Defence Minister Mark Esper announced plans to withdraw troops from Germany to Washington on Wednesday. Estimates suggest 12,000 troops will be leaving Germany, with half of them returning to America, and the other half heading to Italy. Mr Trump has accused Berlin of taking advantage of the US on trade and faulted the country for failing to meet NATO's defence spending targets. As well as the NATO funding, the US is not happy with Germany's trade surplus or Berlin's link up with Russia on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.