UK - It seems that actually understanding things is no longer necessary. Congratulations if you are reading this. And have got this far. You are in possession of a rare and archaic skill: the art of reading. We are now entering the post-literate age. If anybody from the distant future delves back through our remains and finds that most obscure of things, a book, they will be as entranced and mystified as we are when we stumble across the fossilised remains of a brachiosaurus. Reading is dead meat. It is vanishing before our eyes.

SOUTH AMERICA - The earthquake struck more than 700 km (435 miles) southeast of Argentina's city of Ushuaia, with a population of about 57,000, the USGS said. There was no tsunami threat after Thursday's earthquake of magnitude 7.5 in the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said, following its brief warning for Chilean coastal areas. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) revised down the quake magnitude, initially reported at 8, adding that it hit at a depth of 11 km (7 miles).

UK - The Chancellor’s response has been to target wealth-creators in an attempt to prop up a bloated welfare state. The rise in inflation to 3.8 per cent in July, almost double the target set for the Bank of England, should sound alarm bells everywhere, not least in the Treasury. The increase was blamed on higher food prices, which can only go up further after an expected poor harvest, and air fares.

UK - After months of drought and sunshine British peas harvested this year will be “exceptionally” sweet. But for farmers in the driest parts of the country, it is shaping up to be a bitter harvest. Martin Williams, 60, a third-generation arable farmer on the River Wye, in Herefordshire, said the “devastatingly dry” growing season had led to a 50 per cent drop in his cereal and potato crop yields, and between a 70 and 80 per cent drop in grass grown for animal feed. Standing in the middle of a desert-dry field of brittle yellow grass, which has yielded nothing worth harvesting for animal fodder this summer, Williams said: “In 2024 we had 192mm of rain between March 1 and August 1, and this year I have had 71mm and its still not raining and we have a dry forecast for another two weeks."

UK - Farmers across the UK are grappling with extreme conditions across the country, as five areas are officially in drought, and six more are experiencing prolonged dry weather. A Lincolnshire farmer has labelled the situation as “catastrophic” due to a significant decrease in crop yields. In the South East of England, Winter Barley yields are down almost 20%, as rural workers fear for the knock-on effect to both livestock and the UK’s food security. Andrew Ward MBE who farms near to Leadenham is one agricultural worker with “a very, very reduced amount of grain due to the dry weather”. By this time of year, the farmer explained that he would usually have a heap “three feet higher and it would be full to the door”. “The lack of rain has been catastrophic, especially to spring crops,” he told GB News, adding that he also faces selling his wheat and barley for less than the price more than 10 years ago.

ISRAEL - Thousands of Palestinians told to leave their homes as Israeli military enters ‘new phase of combat’ in the Strip. The first stages of Israel’s operation to capture Gaza City are under way, Israel has said. Troops are circling the outskirts of the city according to Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the military spokesman. After a clash with Hamas south of Khan Yunis on Wednesday, he told reporters: “We have begun the preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack on Gaza City, and already… forces are holding the outskirts.”

ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he had approved plans to take over the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza City — while also pursuing negotiations for the release of all Israeli hostages. In a statement translated from Hebrew and released by the Government Press Office, Netanyahu, speaking during a visit to troops deployed to Gaza, said: I came here to approve the IDF plans for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas. In parallel, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and the end of the war, on conditions that are acceptable for Israel. We’re at the decisive stage. I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the Defense Minister for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas.

UK - The ‘Godfather of AI’ has issued a terrifying warning the tech he created will take over the world - and there is ‘no chance’ it can be stopped. In a chilling new interview Brit computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton said he fears "super-intelligent psycho scumbag chatbots" will realise they have no "use" for mankind in their society. Hinton, a cognitive scientist and psychologist whose pioneering work on artificial neural networks paved the way for thinking ‘bots, worked for Google for 10 years before quitting so he could speak out about the dangers of AI. Last year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks. “The risk I’ve been warning about the most, because most people think it’s just science fiction, but I want to explain to people that’s not science fiction - it's very real - is the risk that we develop an AI much smarter than us and it would just take over. It won’t need us anymore."

USA - Technology is moving faster than the buildings meant to contain it. Data centers take two to three years to construct, but demand can flip in half that time. JLL warns that without a precise read on future workloads and target customers, new facilities risk opening already obsolete. Power densities are exploding. Rack loads are forecast to rise from 36kW today to 50kW by 2027, and AI training clusters could draw 80 to 100kW per rack. That level of heat forces cooling systems that most sites are not designed to handle. By 2030, nearly $7 trillion will have been poured into data center infrastructure, with more than $4 trillion going directly into computing hardware alone. That is fixed capital chasing a market that mutates every six months.

CANADA - Road closures, evacuations, travel chaos and stern warnings from officials have become fixtures of Canada’s wildfire season. But as the country goes through its second-worst burn on record, the blazes come with a twist: few are coming from the western provinces, the traditional centre of destruction. Instead, the worst of the fires have been concentrated in the prairie provinces and the Atlantic region, with bone-dry conditions upending how Canada responds to a threat that is only likely to grow as the climate warms. Experts say the shift serves as a stark reminder that the risk of disaster is present across the thickly forested nation. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes due to the wildfires. Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been the worst hit, covering more than 60% of the area burned in Canada. But the fires have also seized strained resources in Atlantic Canada, where officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling to battle out-of-control blazes. The concerns in Canada echo those emerging across the Atlantic as southern Europe grapples with one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades.

EUROPE - European and Nato leaders chose moral grandstanding over diplomacy, and now they’re being sidelined. Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of Europe have agreed to stand united. Defying Vladimir Putin’s bloody imperialism, they will back to the hilt Volodymyr Zelensky’s insistence that he will not trade land for peace. Except there is one small problem. Instead of presenting their ironclad unity to the Kremlin, they’ll be doing so to Donald Trump, urging him to impose further sanctions on Russia and not to cave to more of Putin’s demands. But when it comes to actual talks with Putin himself, they are not even in the room.

UKRAINE - EU diplomats are pleased to see tentative support for security guarantees, even if six hours of talks failed to produce little else. So, a sigh of relief from the European contingent departing Washington. It all went so much better than many had feared. Donald Trump was good-humoured and avuncular, the Europeans flattering and upbeat. Volodymyr Zelensky came across as witty, deferential and relentlessly grateful.

UKRAINE - In tone, this meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky was a considerable improvement on February’s. In substantive content, a great deal remains unclear. The two fundamental questions of this conflict remain unresolved: where will the borders between Russia and Ukraine lie when Moscow’s terrible war of aggression ends, and how can Kyiv’s and Europe’s security be guaranteed in the future? Everything else is of secondary importance. Russia continues to assert belligerent claims to territory including some still held by Ukraine, with Vladimir Putin insistent that the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk be ceded despite the failure of his forces to make progress. Mr Zelensky has correctly stated that the constitution of Ukraine forbids any such formal concessions of land without a referendum. Mr Trump has hinted that he may prefer to follow “the current line of contact”. The tragic reality is that some territorial concessions on Kyiv’s part are now effectively deemed a given, including in Europe. The only question is how much, where, and the legal status of the lost land.

SPAIN - Emergency services battle week-long infernos in Zamora, Leon and Extremadura. Spain has endured the worst fire season on record, with devastating blazes continuing to destroy homes and land across the country. In all, some 373,000 hectares (922,000 acres) have been scorched in Spain this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. That area is twice the size of London. It marks the country’s worst fire season since records began in 2006, surpassing 2022 when 306,000 hectares were consumed by flames. Spain has faced a scorching 16-day heatwave which has led to more than 1,100 deaths, according to an estimate released on Tuesday by the Carlos III Health Institute.

CHINA - China’s foreign minister has begun a visit to India as Beijing seeks to capitalise on its neighbour’s rift with Washington to build a stronger Asian alliance. Wang Yi is making his first visit to Delhi for three years, during which time the Biden administration in the US made great efforts to draw India further into the West’s orbit as a ­fellow democracy. China prefers to see India as a member of the “global south” and it is using shared grievances against the US in the developing world to forge ­informal and formal alliances. “China and India are both major ­developing countries and important members of the global south,” Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said before the trip. “A co-operative pas de deux of the dragon and the elephant as partners helping each other succeed is the right choice for both sides.”