EUROPE - The European Union hit Google with a record antitrust fine for abusing the dominance of its Android mobile operating system. It ordered Google to put an end to illegal conduct within 90 days, or else face additional charges of up to 5 percent of Alphabet's average daily worldwide turnover. The ruling comes little over a year after the EU fined the company $2.7 billion for favoring its shopping service over competitors. Along with the fine, the EU aims to change the way that Google conducts its business. Although the company doesn't break out how much revenue it makes from Android, it has said that its advertising business is growing much faster on mobile than desktop. By bundling its apps together, Google has much more real estate to sell its ads.

UK - This investigative documentary in the estimable Dispatches strand sent a reporter undercover as a content moderator for a rare look at the secretive process that rules what can and what cannot be posed on the world’s biggest social network. What are their criteria for what gets deleted from the site and what stays? And what are the implications for the unwitting 2.2 billion people who use it?  Forget fake news, data harvesting or influencing elections. This was about the footsoldiers patrolling Facebook’s frontline. For Mark Zuckerberg and co, it won’t have made comfortable viewing. 

USA - Judge Brett Kavanaugh is going into the Supreme Court confirmation process with a hail of rhetorical arrows zinging by him, including a phony letter-writing campaign aimed at unsuspecting American newspaper editors. At least 21 papers were duped last week, including big-market brands like the Dallas Morning News and The Washington Times. They ran identical letters over a four-day period, each signed by a different person.

HOLLAND - Peaceful multicultural societies don’t exist and the EU won’t be able to force “equal” migrant distribution on Eastern Europe, where colored people are beaten to a pulp, the Dutch FM said according to a leaked video.

USA - There has been a lot of confusion lately in the mainstream economic media as well as in independent media circles as to the behavior of stock markets in the wake of the recently initiated global trade war. In particular, stocks suffered one of the longest runs of negative days in their history in June, only to then spike just after Donald Trump “officially” began trade war tariffs in July. The expectation by many was that the headlines would cause an immediate and continued downturn in equities markets, but this was not the case. Many analysts have been left bewildered.

CANADA - Rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) continue to soar worldwide, with average prevalence estimated to be around 1.5% in developed countries. This estimate appears to be spot-on for Canada, which reported in March 2018 that autism (as of 2015) affected 1 in 66 children and youth (1.52%). These numbers place Canada among the “top ten” for autism among North American, European and Asian countries. Canadian parents who suspect that their autistic child was vaccine-injured have nowhere to turn, because Canada remains “one of few western countries that denies the reality of vaccine injuries and provides no avenue whatsoever to compensate vaccine injury victims and their families.”

USA - A 100-foot fissure has opened up in the Grand Teton National Park – not far from the potentially catastrophic Yellowstone volcano. The giant crack in the Wyoming–based national park has prompted officials to shut down areas from tourists in case of landslides. The Grand Teton National Park said in a statement: “The Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point areas are currently closed due to elevated potential for rockfall.” The area was closed to protect human safety on July 10 after expanding cracks in a rock buttress were detected. Despite being around 100 kilometres from the Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton does sit over the Yellowstone supervolcano. If it was seismic activity beneath Grand Teton which caused the fissure, it could be a sign that Yellowstone is reawakening.

ISRAEL - Temple Institute: It is time to transform the mourning over the past into preparation for the future - the rebuilding of the Holy Temple. Temple awareness has grown immensely across Israel and the Jewish World among Religious and Secular Jews seeking to reclaim their ancient birthright. In recent years visitors to the Temple Mount and Temple Institute Exhibition have risen exponentially. "In the last decade the support for building the Third Temple has grown immensely with more and more Jews of all varieties wanting to be actively involved in our work. Likewise the numbers of Jews ascending the Temple Mount has more than doubled in recent years demonstrating the mainstreaming of the Temple movement and a new generation of interest in seeing the Jewish people's 2,000 year-old dream become reality."

UK - Every July since I can remember, the conversation has been about it being the most unstable political scene ever. Don’t believe it. Nothing but nothing compares with July 2018. This is the most perilous political crisis we’ve had in Britain since at least the General Strike of 1926. We’re going to be leaving the EU in nine months, the biggest economic and political change the country has faced since the Second World War. But until last week we didn’t have a plan. The plan we now have has been trashed from all sides including by the President of the United States. It may well fail. But there’s no workable plan B to fall back on. Except leaving the EU with no deal. It may be a risky option but...

UK - The European Union's financial system will come off worse in a no-deal Brexit, Mark Carney told MPs, as another chaotic day in Parliament threatened to tip Britain closer to a scenario he said would also have “big economic consequences” at home. The Governor of the Bank of England warned that the negative consequences on the continent of failure to agree terms would be “cold comfort” for Britain as the City would effectively be cut off from EU. Mr Carney gave evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, chaired by leading Remain rebel Nicky Morgan, that the consequence on the continent of no deal would be “extreme fragmentation of the European capital market”.

UK - Prince William and Prince Charles RSVP'd "no" to tea with President Trump last week at Windsor Castle, leaving Queen Elizabeth to go it alone, The Sunday Times reports. Both men said they had no desire to meet with Trump during his visit to the UK, a person with knowledge of the matter told the Times, and even the Queen's interaction with him was "kept to the bare minimum." Trump's trip was not an official state visit, but Prince Charles and Prince William not meeting with him "was a snub," the person said. "They simply refused to attend. It's a very, very unusual thing for the Queen to be there on her own." At 97, Prince Philip has retired from royal duties, with Charles often filling in for his father, but "he goes to what he wants to go to, and if he had wanted to be there he could have been."

USA - Trump's warm words for Russia were a marked contrast from the past week, when he repeatedly rebuked long-standing US allies at a NATO summit and during a visit to Britain. In some of the strongest words yet reflecting the unease of Washington's traditional allies, Germany's foreign minister said on Monday that Europe could no longer rely on the United States. "To maintain our partnership with the USA we must readjust it," Heiko Maas told the Funke newspaper group. "The first clear consequence can only be that we need to align ourselves even more closely in Europe."

USA - Blistered by bipartisan condemnation of his embrace of a longtime US enemy, President Donald Trump on Tuesday backed away from his public undermining of American intelligence agencies, saying he simply misspoke when he said he saw no reason to believe Russia had interfered in the 2016 US election.

USA - The meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is a "step in the right direction," former US Senator Ron Paul told RT, while also addressing the "propaganda" notion that the US must have an enemy in Russia. "I was very pleased with what went on today," Paul said. He added that if the two leaders ever had a serious discussion, "I guess it would come out on how much we've been involved when we shouldn't be involved, for instance in Ukraine, and how that occurred.” But if they don't want to concentrate on those problems and they want to look forward I think that is great… I think the next best step ever would be for us to reassess this and say that Trump's going in the right direction and talk him into getting rid of the sanctions on Russia."

USA - The trade war has barely just begun, and yet significant ripple effects are already being felt all across the US economy.  Once thriving businesses are on the verge of failure, workers are being laid off, and some sectors of the economy are witnessing enormous price hikes.