SAUDI ARABIA - It is perhaps Saudi Arabia that has moved most aggressively — not simply to confront Iran, but to shift its foreign and domestic policies into alignment with Israel and the United States. Just as concerned as the United States and other nations about Iranian threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, the Saudis are working hard to guarantee freedom of navigation. Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Khalid Al-Falih met recently with US Energy Secretary Rick Perry to discuss strengthening cooperation with the United States generally, and to defeat threats to oil markets in particular.

USA - Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is warning that bitter political divisions threaten American society, saying he views “tribalism” as a greater risk to the nation’s future than foreign adversaries. The retired Marine general, who resigned in December 2018 in a policy dispute with President Donald Trump, said he worries about the state of American politics and the administration’s treatment of allies.

USA - Cali Carlisle admits she is a heroin addict — 'but in a healthy way,' she insists, even if the visual evidence belies that claim. Her nose is the brightest shade of red imaginable. She constantly picks at scabs all over her body. Her home is a makeshift bed beneath Interstate 80 in Sacramento. And Monday was her 26th birthday. Not that you would ever guess. Anyone looking at her would think she is at least 15 years older.

USA - Not content with monitoring almost everything you do online, Facebook now wants to read your mind as well. The social media giant recently announced a breakthrough in its plan to create a device that reads people’s brainwaves to allow them to type just by thinking. And Elon Musk wants to go even further. One of the Tesla boss’s other companies, Neuralink, is developing a brain implant to connect people’s minds directly to a computer. Musk admits that he takes inspiration from science fiction and that he wants to make sure humans can “keep up” with artificial intelligence. He seems to have missed the part of sci-fi that acts as a warning for the implications of technology. These mind-reading systems could affect our privacy, security, identity, equality and personal safety. Do we really want all that left to companies with philosophies such as that of Facebook’s former mantra, “move fast and break things”?

USA - Just got laid off. I've got the best bosses ever, but they see the economy tanking in short order. I work for a donor management software company who've watched the charitable organizations we serve falling off in numbers like they've never experienced before. They simply can't afford those of us they've decided to let go, at this point. The charities have been facing much reduced donations of late and can no longer afford our company's services. Things are starting to turn in the US, and quickly. I'm watching it all around me and am now living it. There's no longer any doubt about it. I'll be filing for unemployment for the first time in my life this week. This is truly heartbreaking for all of us. My family will be devastated.

USA - Just in time to spoil Labor Day weekend, Hurricane Dorian has barreled through the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico without causing much damage, and is now headed straight for the Florida coastline. After intensifying from a tropical storm into a hurricane late Wednesday, the storm continued to strengthen as it pulled closer to the Continental US. The storm is expected to continue strengthening over the next few days, and is expected to make landfall on Florida's Atlantic coast as a CAT 3 storm late Sunday or Monday. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency Wednesday, advising residents to gather seven days of supplies, including water, food and medicine.

USA - 6.3-magnitude quake strikes off Oregon coast. The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network has detected more than 4,500 tremors over the past two weeks deep beneath the Olympic Peninsula and southern Vancouver Island and from another swarm stretching from Eugene, Oregon, to the Siskiyou Mountains. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the Northwest coast could hit at any time. How can we prepare for this impending and unpredictable disaster?

USA - A world without forests would be an apocalyptic wasteland, and right now we are losing our forests at an astounding rate. As you read this article, more than 10,000 wildfires are ripping through forested areas of South America and Africa, and global leaders seem powerless to do anything about it. Most of the media attention has been on the horrific wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, and we are being told that the number of fires in Brazil is up 85 percent compared to last year.

POLAND - Eighty years after the first Nazi bombs fell on Poland, echoes of the blasts can be heard in the bickering between Warsaw and Berlin over the possibility of billions of euros in war reparations. It was only recently that the neighbours, allies within NATO and the European Union, had appeared to have turned the page on World War II. But that changed with the 2015 election of Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party, which sees wariness of the EU and Germany as a useful political tool. And the right-wing party has reopened discussion on reparations. “Poland has yet to receive proper compensation from Germany… We lost six million people over the course of the war — many more than did countries that received major reparations,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said earlier this month. “It’s not fair. This can’t continue.”

VATICAN - The Vatican has created a special committee to draw out the principles contained in the controversial Abu Dhabi document, signed last February by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar. The text was subsequently criticized by prominent theologians for “devaluing the person of Jesus” and “undermining the gospel itself” since it seemed to propose that God willed the existence of a plurality of religions just as he wills a plurality of sexes, races, and languages, rather than willing that all people find their salvation in Jesus Christ. The passage that caused the most furor reads, “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom, through which he created human beings.” At a later date, the pope seemed to walk back that passage, but he never requested to have it amended and the entire statement reads today just as it did last February. The joint declaration will now be the foundation and reference point for a committee set up for its implementation.

USA - Marlow proposed that President Donald Trump was “one of only one or two people, at the most, who seemed to understand how big of a threat China was,” but now “everyone kind of gets it.” “I think that the Chinese are seeing now that they can’t simply fob the president off with some purchases of soybeans and a temporary reduction in the trade deficit. Consequently, I don’t think the negotiations are going well,” Olsen said of the current status of the trade war. “I think that’s a good thing, because I think it’s time for the American economy to disengage from China,” he judged. “We need to stop funding and building our geopolitical adversary with our minds, money, and market. Consequently, not having a quick deal, an end to the trade negotiations, is in the American interest, even if it’s not in the interest of every American business,” he said.

FRANCE - French President Emmanuel Macron has warned Western nations against the “strategic mistake” of alienating Russia – but in doing so, he seeks a bigger role for himself in international politics. “We are living at the end of Western hegemony,” Macron told diplomats on Tuesday, after hosting the G7 meeting in the city of Biarritz on France’s Atlantic coast over the weekend. He named the rise of Beijing and Moscow as signs of a shift on the world scene. Pushing Russia away from Europe is a profound strategic mistake. President Macron went further, even saying that the main problem in the world is no longer Russia but instead the United States. he world order is being shaken like never before. “It’s being shaken because of errors made by the West in certain crises, but also by the choices made by the United States in the past few years – and not just by the current administration.” These “choices” are impacting “the conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, making it necessary to rethink military and diplomatic strategies,” the president noted.

USA - Buffett became one of the wealthiest people in the entire country by aggressively investing his money. His keen instincts have enabled him to make the right move far more often than not, and that is why what he is doing with his money right now has so many people concerned.

USA - Los Angeles recently launched an initiative intended to improve public health, empower the destitute, and advance sanitation efforts in the epicenter of the city’s homeless crisis: Skid Row. On Monday, Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the formation of the Skid Row Clean Team - a new street cleaning program targeting the roughly 54-block area best known for rat-infested piles of garbage, a typhus outbreak, and sidewalks lined with tent encampments. He said the new project currently employs “about two dozen” homeless and formerly homeless individuals to help pick up the trash in their neighborhood. Garcetti maintained that the team members are all determined to make a better life for themselves, adding, the endeavor is “just as much about cleaning the streets as it is about lifting up the people who live on them.”

UK - The United Kingdom's National Health Service is considering a plan that would allow patients, including young children, to consult with a doctor about gender transition remotely via video conference services, according to the Daily Mail. A clinic in the UK that evaluates patients for potential gender transition treatments has seen an increase in patient volume of more than 400 percent since 2013, resulting in a waiting list of about two years. More than 2,500 children were referred to the clinic just last year, including some 3 and 4 year olds. The Daily Mail reported that the clinic has already faced criticism "from psychologists who say it uses untested drugs on troubled children and 'rushes' them toward becoming transgender."