HUNGARY - Hungary needs strong people to survive as the world’s foundations are starting to crumble, the Hungarian PM has said. Hungary is being pressed in several directions due to the Ukraine conflict and surge in migration, and must strive to overcome these challenges, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday.

UK - Nigel Farage has said life in Britain is “becoming completely unlivable” after claiming his bank accounts were closed in revenge for Brexit. The former UKIP leader said the banking group he has been with for 43 years phoned him two months ago to say “we are closing your accounts”. Mr Farage described the bank as a “subsidiary of a big banking group with a very prestigious name”, but said he “would not name them just yet”.

UK - A building society with 3 million customers today admitted it does dump customers with views they consider discriminatory, MailOnline can reveal today. Yorkshire Building Society has been accused of closing an account of a client after he asked why their branches were festooned with Pride flags. Journalist Toby Young told Nigel Farage on GB News that the unnamed man who contacted him about the case was told in response that his account would be closed down. It came as lenders were accused of axing customers who say things they don't like on gender and LGBT issues or Brexit, including Mr Farage himself.

GERMANY - Russia's war in Ukraine — and the German and US response to it — will drive the future of the relationship between Washington and Berlin, Germany's outgoing ambassador to the US, Emily Haber, told Deutsche Welle. According to Haber, it is Russia's aggression against Ukraine — "and our capacity for resolve and determination and perseverance in responding to that aggression" — that will turn out to be an engine that will define the trans-Atlantic relationship in the future.

UKRAINE - Ukraine urgently needs to show progress on the battlefield, Polish MEP Witold Jan Waszczykowski has suggested. Many EU nations are not interested in the country and would rather restore trade with Russia, he told the Ukrainian media outlet UNIAN. “Most European nations, such as Germany and France, do not need Ukraine. They need Russia to return to the world economy. They need Russian gas and oil,” the veteran politician told UNIAN on Thursday. He added that Kiev had “three to four months” to show progress in its counteroffensive against Russia. If it fails to deliver, “Europe will push you to freeze the conflict and start negotiations with Russia, as happened in 2015,” he explained, calling the scenario “pessimistic.”

USA - More than 120 million Americans are now under 'very unhealthy' air quality alerts, with Chicago, Cleveland, Maryland and Pittsburgh the worst affected. Smoke from Canada's raging wildfires have drifted south over the past few days leaving dozens of states in the north east of the country under a thick smog. A Code Red alert, a warning of unhealthy air, was issued for much of the Midwest and Washington DC on Wednesday. Several cities across Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Iowa were also experiencing 'very unhealthy air' according to AirNow. The National Weather Service has warned that, with no end in sight to the Canadian wildfires, poor air quality is likely to continue. It comes amid fears that the smoke could compound already ongoing travel chaos over the July 4 weekend.

USA - Tiny aphids have arrived alongside a lighter bout of Canadian wildfire smoke with horrified New Yorkers sharing clips of the insects burrowed in their hair. Videos have been posted online at rapid fire to document the infestation with one man recording the bugs lodged in his beard. Another frightened woman turned her head around to show how scores of the insects had embedded themselves in her hair. In other videos commuters walking through the streets or riding bikes can be seen furiously swatting the air around them. The tiny insects could be green or black but their size has made it difficult to tell with the naked eye as their species is yet to be determined. Speculations that they could be among the pyrophilous, or 'fire-loving,' species has been floated.

FRANCE - French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said overnight chaos has resulted in 2,000 cars burned, 500 buildings damaged, hundreds of businesses looted, and violent clashes with police. He said over 800 people were arrested, with nearly 250 officers injured. Earlier, Macron blamed social media for fueling 'copycat violence,' and said state agencies would ask Twitter, Snapchat, and Tiktok to ban the most "sensitive content." Riots and vandalism continued throughout the day Friday. Darmanin said buses and trams would be shut down by 9 pm local time nationwide to suppress the overnight unrest. The police killing of a 17-year-old during a traffic stop on Tuesday has unleashed three consecutive days of social unrest across France. Bloomberg reports more than 600 people were arrested Thursday night into Friday, with a majority of them between the ages of 14 and 18.

USA - Diet-related disease — which includes obesity, heart attack, strokes, cancer, and dementia — is the leading cause of early death in the UK. Driving it is a set of industrially processed products that are sold as food, known formally as ultra-processed food (UPF). This type of food is usually wrapped in plastic and has additives that you won’t find in a typical kitchen. In the US and the UK, we get on average 60 percent of our calories from UPF products like pizza, bread, breakfast cereals, biscuits, and nutritional drinks. They’re often sold as healthy options, but it’s just a way of turning our ill health into money.

USA - When Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his short-lived rebellion, many in the western media were describing it as a “coup”. But the truth is that Prigozhin did not intend to try to overthrow Vladimir Putin. He just wanted his seat at the table back. Being in Vladimir Putin’s good graces had turned Prigozhin into an exceedingly wealthy man over the years, but now everything was changing. Prigozhin was in danger of losing everything that he had worked to build, and the final straw was a decision to break up the Wagner Group and absorb those troops into the Russian military. Prigozhin realized that he was being sidelined, and so in a desperate attempt to get some leverage he hatched an ill-fated plan to kidnap Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov. Unfortunately for Prigozhin, they learned of his scheme in advance, and their travel plans were changed. When he realized that his scheme had failed, Prigozhin was willing to make a deal, because ultimately he didn’t want to see his fighters slaughtered in a pointless conflict.

USA - Hollywood elites demand big tech censor Americans for acknowledging biological sex. Over 250 celebrities in film, music and other industries signed an open letter to pressure social media companies to censor certain speech regarding transgender individuals and the transgender movement. Figures such as Alyssa Milano, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and many more signed the letter arranged by GLAAD (formerly Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which they sent to the CEOs of Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter. Among other things, the letter takes issue with “misgendering,” or referring to a person by their biological sex rather than their preferred gender, and “deadnaming,” which is calling a person by their birth name rather than their preferred name. “Targeted misgendering and deadnaming of trans and nonbinary people is a widespread mode of hate speech across all platforms, utilized to bully and harass prominent public figures while simultaneously expressing hatred and contempt,” the letter states.

FRANCE - Emmanuel Macron went to an Elton John concert the day after the fatal shooting of a teenager, which has sparked three days of violence in France. The French president was filmed at Paris’ Accor Arena for the British singer’s farewell tour on Wednesday night, the second evening of riots after the killing of Nahel M. France deployed 40,000 officers around the country on Thursday, as anger over the police shooting of the 17-year-old reached boiling point and a policeman was charged over his death.

USA - The Chinese spy balloon that President Joe Biden allowed to fly over the US earlier this year was reportedly carrying American-made hardware to capture reconnaissance imagery. The Wall Street Journal reported that the multiple federal agencies discovered that the balloon was “crammed with commercially available US gear, some of it for sale online, and interspersed with more specialized Chinese sensors and other equipment to collect photos, video and other information to transmit to China.” The report also said that the spy balloon had large solar panels to power it and that it was able to capture “radar data.” China has threatened the US against making details from its investigation into the balloon public, claiming that they will be forced to respond in a harsh manner. The Biden administration has so far cowered to China’s demands and has not shared details from the investigation with the public, even though the US has a history of doing so with other nations.

USA - A clip of a progressive Lutheran church reciting the “Sparkle Creed,” a version of the Apostle’s Creed modified to emphasize LGBTQ+ inclusion, caused controversy online this week, with critics characterizing it as “idolatry,” “heresy,” and “absolute insanity.” "This is, without qualification, idolatry,” tweeted pastor and podcaster Patrick Miller. “It is liturgical malpractice."

USA - Ken Ham, Founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis and its Ark Encounter attraction, announced July 18, 2017, that the ark replica will be permanently illuminated with rainbow lights at night. Ken Ham, CEO and founder of The Ark Encounter in northern Kentucky, said they have set up permanent rainbow lights “to remind the world that God owns it, and He decreed it’s a sign of His covenant with man after the Flood… Christians need to take back the rainbow as we do at The Ark Encounter.”