Britain was convulsed by violence for the past week as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. Right-wing activists used social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event. The violence, some of Britain's worst in years, has led to hundreds of arrests as the government pledges that the rioters will feel "the full force of the law" after hurling bricks and other projectiles at police, looting shops and attacking hotels used to house asylum-seekers.

More than a dozen towns and cities have been caught up in the unrest including London, Hartlepool, Manchester, Middlesborough, Hull, Liverpool, Bristol, Belfast, Nottingham and Leeds. Some of the worst violence occurred Sunday (Aug. 4), when hundreds of rioters stormed a hotel housing asylum-seekers in Rotherham, outside Birmingham. Hours later, another group attacked a hotel in Tamworth, 70 miles to the south. While police have worked hard to restore order, they are said to have been hurt by poor intelligence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described a Ukrainian incursion into the country's southwestern Kursk region as a "large-scale provocation" as his officials asserted that they were fighting off cross-border raids for a second day on Wednesday (Aug. 7). Ukrainian officials remained silent about the scope of the operation. Putin met with his top defence and security officials to discuss what he called the "indiscriminate shelling of civilian buildings, residential houses, ambulances with different types of weapons."

He instructed the Cabinet to coordinate assistance to the Kursk region. The fighting is about 500 kilometres (320 miles) from Moscow. Army chief of staff Valery Gerasimov told Putin at the meeting via video link that about 100 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the battle and more than 200 wounded, Russian news agencies reported. The Ukrainian shelling, meanwhile, killed at least two people - a paramedic and an ambulance driver - and injured 24, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

US Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for November's presidential election, looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states. With both major party tickets now decided, the campaign is set to play out as a 90-day sprint, and the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt are prime fronts. Both the Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance campaigns were on the trail in key states Michigan and Wisconsin Wednesday for their respective battleground state tours.

Walz was a high school social studies teacher, football coach and union member before he got into politics. He served 24 years in the Army National Guard, rising to command sergeant major, one of the highest enlisted ranks in the military. JD Vance held an event hours before Harris was to formally introduce her new running mate. He told supporters, "I absolutely want to debate Tim Walz," but not until after the Democratic convention.

A Thai court ordered the dissolution of the reformist party which won the most seats and votes in last year's election - but was blocked from forming a government. The ruling also banned Move Forward's charismatic, young former leader Pita Limjaroenrat and 10 other senior figures from politics for 10 years. The verdict from the Constitutional Court was expected, after its ruling in January that Move Forward's campaign promise to change royal defamation laws was unconstitutional.

The court had said changes to the notoriously harsh lese majeste law was tantamount to calling for the destruction of the constitutional monarchy. Wednesday's verdict again serves as a stark reminder of how far unelected institutions are willing to go to preserve the power and status of the monarchy. But the ruling does not mean an end to the reformist movement in Thai politics. The surviving 142 Move Forward MPs are expected to transfer to another registered party and continue their role as the main opposition in parliament.