Syria's fighting spills into Lebanon (Second Coming Watch Update #158)

Syria's fighting spills into Lebanon. According to Reuters, Syria's conflict spilled further into Lebanon on Saturday when mortar fire from President Bashar al-Assad's forces hit villages in the north, killing five people after rebels crossed the border to seek refuge. Rebels fighting to unseat Assad have used north Lebanon as a base and his forces have at times bombed villages and even pursued insurgents over the border, threatening to stoke tension in Lebanon, whose sectarian rifts mirror those in Syria.

Huge swaths of the United States swelter amid prolonged outages and new storms. According to Reuters, weary Americans dumped rotting food from their refrigerators and tried to clear fallen trees from the roads as new storms prolonged the power outages that have already lasted a week. Over the weekend there was more record-breaking heat across the Midwest and into the Eastern United States, with heavy rains and severe storms in the upper Midwest. At least 406,000 people were without electricity and at least 30 people had died from the extreme heat

Floods disrupt Great Britain as wet weather continues. According to the Associated Press, rain gradually eased across parts of Britain after weeks' worth of it fell within hours, flooding homes, washing out roads and disrupting train travel. The Environment Agency issued more than 200 flood warnings. Southwest England was worst affected and hundreds of residents were put on alert for possible evacuation as the River Yealm burst its banks. Britain is even more prone to flooding than usual following the wettest June on record.