USA - The White House has described the latest Hamas ceasefire proposal for Gaza as a “breakthrough” establishing a framework for a possible hostage deal, but warned that difficult negotiations remained over the implementation of the agreement. A senior US official said the Biden administration received the latest Hamas offer “a couple of days ago” and had been studying it ahead of a 30-minute telephone call between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. “The conversation was detailed, going through the text of the agreement, constructive and encouraging, while also clear-eyed about the work ahead [and] the steps that must be put in place to finalise this deal and then begin the implementation,” the US official said of the call.

USA - Top Democrats are so alarmed about Joe Biden's ailing health some fear a shadowy cabal is keeping him in power so they can pull levers behind the scenes, it is claimed. The astonishing theory was detailed in the liberal New York magazine. Its reporter Olivia Nuzzi revealed that even Democrat elites are stumped as to how and why the fast-declining 81 year-old is being allowed to continue his re-election bid. Nuzzi said she had heard questions being posed by high-ranking Democrats on the east and west coasts about whether Biden is a puppet whose strings are being pulled by another group of secretive Democrats. She highlighted the irony that this is the same theory espoused by many on the MAGA right, with Donald Trump himself previously alleging that former President Barack Obama is the real power behind the Biden White House.

CHINA - Experts fear a Chinese bond bubble could be about to burst in what would be a disastrous outcome for the economy. China's economy has been dogged by a downturn in the property market and volatile stocks over recent months, but now it could be on the precipice of a bond bubble burst. The yield on China’s onshore 10-year government bond, which is a benchmark for a wide range of interest rates, plummeted to 2.18 percent on July 1 - the lowest since records began in 2002. Last year Joe Biden described the Chinese economy as “a ticking time bomb”, with slow growth and soaring youth unemployment threatening to spark resentment towards Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

USA - Texas officials added 81 additional counties to the state’s disaster declaration in preparation for Hurricane Beryl’s arrival. The storm’s forecasted path shifted the expected landfall to the north and east of previous projections. The latest addition to the disaster declaration list brings the total number of Texas counties to 121.

IRAN - Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran's presidential election, securing 53.3% of the vote and defeating his conservative rival Saeed Jalili, the national election authority announced on Saturday. The snap election was called after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province on May 19. The candidates were approved by Iran’s Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists that holds veto power over legislation passed by parliament and determines who can seek office in the Islamic Republic.

UK - Sir Keir Starmer will become the prime minister after Labour won the general election with a landslide and the Tories suffered a historic wipeout. Rishi Sunak conceded the election just before 5am, congratulating Sir Keir on his victory and telling Tories who had lost their seats: “I am sorry.” The Tories were braced for a terrible night after the exit poll showed Labour was on course to return 410 MPs, with the Conservatives expected to return just 131 seats - a fraction of their 365 MPs in 2019. It would be the worst result for the Tories in terms of seats in modern history, with Mr Sunak expected to resign. Sir Keir will enter No 10 as the seventh Labour prime minister with vast power, with his party on course to secure a huge majority of 170.

EUROPE - Guy Verhofstadt has slammed Brexiteers for their decision to leave the EU single market, claiming it had backfired disastrously and that the UK would most likely seek re-entry to the bloc in the near future. The former Belgian prime minister has been a vocal critic of Brexit and the UK's decision to leave the European Union. He has once again taken aim at Tory hardliners and their decision to go for a hard Brexit. In an interview with Politico, Mr Verhofstadt claimed the biggest mistake Brexiteers made was to leave the EU's single market. Mr Verhofstadt believes that after the General Election, the UK will gradually return to the EU fold, a process he claims is already happening.

LEBANON - Lebanese militant group Hezbollah claims to have launched more than 200 rockets and drones targeting Israeli military positions on Thursday in response to the killing of a senior commander. A Hezbollah source told Al Jazeera that Thursday’s barrage, the second major attack in as many days, was retaliation for Israel’s killing of Muhammad Nasser in southern Lebanon a day earlier. His death prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 100 rockets into Israel on Wednesday. followed by Thursday's barrage. Nasser, also known as Hajj Abu Nimah, was the third high-ranking Hezbollah fighter killed in almost nine months of cross-border fighting sparked by the Israeli war in Gaza. The growing tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been causing concern of an escalation into an all-out war in the Middle East.

GERMANY - Berlin must not back any call for a truce that would see Kiev admit defeat, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said. As Scholz took questions from members of the Bundestag on Wednesday, Left lawmaker Gesine Loetzsch asked about Germany’s involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the possibility of a ceasefire. “In my view, a ceasefire that involves Ukraine’s capitulation is one that we as Germany must never support,” Scholz replied, according to the state broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The German chancellor argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s truce terms amounted to Ukraine’s surrender, calling Moscow “cynical” and not interested in ending the conflict. The chancellor admitted that “many people do not agree with the support for Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia,” but refused to change his policy.

CHINA - World Economic Forum founder and director Klaus Schwab, speaking at the WEF’s recently concluded summer meeting in China, has informed his elitist followers that ushering in the globalist agenda will require humanity to be “forced” into a “collaboration” with the unelected organization. And the time for forced collaboration has now arrived.

USA - If you are really struggling with the high cost of living, I want you to know that you aren’t alone. In recent months, I have been hearing from so many people that feel like they are drowning financially. Have you experienced a palpable sense of panic when you compare your rising bills to the level of income that you are currently bringing in? So many people out there are stressed out of their minds because it has become such a struggle to pay the bills each month. As I discussed a few days ago, a typical US household must now spend $1,069 more a month just to buy the exact same goods and services that it did three years ago. Over the course of an entire year, that is almost an extra $13,000 dollars. Month after month, prices just keep going higher, but those that are running things continue to insist that everything is just fine.

UK - This morning, I ran across an article by Gregory Adaka on BioLogos that claims you can reconcile faith in the living God with the religion of evolution — an increasingly popular claim in Christendom, yet a claim that is as absurd as it is dangerous. BioLogos, a nefarious organization masquerading as a bridge between faith and science, is dedicated to undermining the authority of Scripture by promoting such horrors as “theistic evolution.” Adaka’s article is a prime example of this deception, attempting to blend the clear, unchanging Word of God with the ever-evolving fancies of human speculation.

USA - Vice President Kamala Harris is “the future of the Democratic Party,” the White House declared Wednesday as leading Democrats and their allies position themselves to replace President Biden as the party’s nominee if the 81-year-old president steps aside. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pronounced Harris as Biden’s political heir, at one point referring to her as “president,” when asked about his 2020 campaign remark that he would be a “transitional” candidate. “One of the reasons why he picked the vice president, President [sic] Kamala Harris, is because she is indeed the future of the party,” Jean-Pierre said at her regular briefing. Harris, 59, faces stiff potential competition for the Democratic presidential nomination, including from Governors Gavin Newsom of California, 56, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, 52, if Biden steps aside following his disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump.

USA - California Democratic delegate Areva Martin told media personality Stephen A Smith that passing over Vice President Kamala Harris as President Biden’s replacement should he withdraw from the race would destroy the party. “If you pick a White man over Kamala Harris, Black women, I can tell you this, we are going to walk away,” Martin said Tuesday. “We are going to blow the party up.” As speculation over Biden’s status as leader of the party grows, Democrats are openly divided over who is qualified to run against former President Trump in the months before the election.

RUSSIA - The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is expanding to become a power center in a world that is evolving towards multipolarity, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Putin made the statement during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday at the SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. The members of the SCO account for some 20% of global GDP. The grouping was founded in 2001 by China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran became the newest member of the organization last year, after India and Pakistan joined in 2017.