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Heatwave: Ferocious European heat heads north

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On Tuesday, a fierce heatwave moved north and scorching temperatures were felt throughout much of Western Europe. According to preliminary Met Office data, the UK recorded its hottest temperature ever at 40.2C, and forecasters warned that temperatures will continue to rise.

France issued extreme heat warnings, and the Netherlands reported July temperatures that were records. Thousands of people have had to leave their homes due to deadly wildfires in France, Portugal, Spain, and Greece.

In Spain’s northwest Zamora region, two persons perished in forest fires, and trains in the area were stopped due to burning near the tracks. In northern Portugal, an elderly couple perished while attempting to flee fires.

Due to human-induced climate change, heatwaves are now more common, more powerful, and stay longer. According to German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, the country’s plans for extremely hot weather, droughts, and flooding must be revised because of the climate problem.

A day after numerous French cities, including Nantes in the west, experienced their warmest day ever, wildfires were still raging.

A number of camp sites were destroyed, and evacuees were housed in temporary shelters as more than 30,000 people were forced to escape. Firefighters from all around France are working to put out two fires that have burned over 19,300 hectares (47,700 acres) of land in Gironde, a well-known vacation area in the southwest. Early on Tuesday, the wind shifted, and smoke engulfed the city of Bordeaux.

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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck exchange vows in Las Vegas

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Hollywood A-listers Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck wed in Las Vegas, according to Lopez.”We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,” she wrote on her fan website OntheJLo.

In January 2004, the couple called off their initial engagement.

The couple boldly expressed their newfound love on social media after news of their reconciliation broke last year, sending fans into a frenzy.In Nevada’s Clark County Clerk’s Office, which maintains records for Las Vegas, it is noted that Lopez plans to adopt the name Jennifer Affleck. The movie and singing diva, OntheJLo, wrote on her website that the couple had travelled to Las Vegas on Saturday and had lined up with four other couples for a marriage licence.

“They were right when they said, ‘all you need is love’,” she wrote.

“We are so grateful to have that in abundance, a new wonderful family of five amazing children and a life that we have never had more reason to look forward to.”

The couple, known to their followers as Bennifer, first connected while working on the film Gigli in 2002. They were engaged in 2003 but called it quits the following year, citing “excessive media attention.”

Bennifer 2.0 was given to the pair by fans after they rekindled their romance and frequently uploaded pictures and videos of their romantic getaways and time spent with their families online.

This is her fourth marriage. From 2004 to 2014, she was married to singer Marc Anthony, with whom she had twins.

From 2005 through 2018, Affleck was wed to actress Jennifer Garner, with whom he has three kids.

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German Documenta art fair chief quits in anti-Semitism row

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In an argument about a piece of art that was deemed to be anti-Semitic, the director of a well-known German art exhibition resigned. In Kassel, the Documenta 15 exhibition momentarily included a mural portraying a soldier holding a Star of David and a pig’s head.

A character with fangs, sidelocks in the Jewish Orthodox fashion, and a “SS” hat was also shown on the painting. A group of Indonesian artists created it. Soon after the episode debuted last month, there was a commotion. Sabine Schormann, the director, has since resigned.

She has apologised for failing to recognise the anti-Semitism in the painting. Since the art fair won’t end until September 25th, a temporary replacement will need to be chosen.

The scandal is particularly painful in Germany because of the Holocaust, a 20th-century atrocity committed by Nazi Germany against the Jewish people. Every five years in Kassel, Documenta is regarded as a premier exhibition of contemporary art, comparable to the Venice Biennale.

The Documenta supervisory board voiced “deep dismay” that “obviously anti-Semitic motifs were on display” during the opening weekend.

The Taring Padi art collective created the offensive mural, which they titled “People’s Justice.” After the argument broke out last month, it was first covered up and then removed. The mural “obviously crossed a line and consequently caused severe injury to Documenta,” according to the board’s statement.

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Ukraine war: Four-year-old Liza killed by Russian attack on Vinnytsia

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A pink pram covered in blood is laying on its side in a patch of grass in front of the torched, burned remnants of the Jubilee department store. It belonged to Liza, a young Liza. The centre of Vinnytsia was struck by Russian missiles on Thursday, killing three young children, including the four-year-old.

Iryna Dmytriyeva, her mother, was severely hurt during the assault. Eight more persons are still missing, bringing the total number of fatalities to 23. Hospitals are housing dozens more.

Iryna had uploaded a video online just before the missiles hit. Little Liza was beaming and pushing her pink chair in front of her as they talked about going to meet her speech therapist on this lovely sunny day. She oversees the LogoClub facility for people with disabilities, where Liza had gone to a session that morning as she typically did.

The four-year-old daughter has Down syndrome, and her mother started posting images of the girl’s life on Instagram not long after giving birth to her single child.

The LogoClub Liza attended is only a block from Victory Square, the site of the missile strikes, and when the air raid siren sounded, the staff had already escorted all the kids to the shelter.

Liza and her mother were still in the street, though, like many other individuals. Since Kyiv was far from the battle lines when the war started, they had fled there for safety before returning to Vinnytsia. However, no longer is Ukraine secure anywhere. According to local officials, since Russia started its conflict, 352 children have perished and hundreds more have been injured. The most recent killings were described as a terrorist incident by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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Europe heatwave: Thousands escape wildfires in France, Spain and Greece

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As fires are driven up by strong winds and tinder-dry conditions in various nations in Europe, residents and vacationers have left towns and villages in France.

In the past few days, more than 10,000 people have been compelled to leave the south-western Gironde region. In Portugal and Spain, where temperatures have soared beyond 40C, dozens of flames are currently raging.

The heatwave was responsible for at least 281 fatalities in the two nations. In western Spain, several towns have been evacuated.

The leader of the French Firefighters Federation has issued a warning about the effect that climate change is having on civil defence. Grégory Allione stated that “firefighters and civil security are the ones who deal with the impacts on a daily basis – and these effects aren’t in 2030, they’re right now.”

Due to human-induced climate change, heatwaves are now more common, more powerful, and stay longer. Since the start of the industrial age, the world has already warmed by around 1.1C, and temperatures will continue to rise unless governments drastically reduce emissions.

Fires broke out further south in the Monfragüe national park, which is home to endangered bird species. Firefighters in Spain battled to defend the town of Monsagro. When a forest fire got close to the main N-5 road in Cáceres, it closed off access to the park to the east.
On Friday, temperatures were predicted to reach 40C in many parts of western Spain and Portugal. A record high temperature for July in mainland Portugal was reached on Thursday at Pinho in the north, where it was 47C.

However, Spanish meteorologists predicted that temperatures will start to drop on Friday.

The Carlos III Health Institute said on Thursday that the latest heatwave’s first two days, on Sunday and Monday, saw at least 43 fatalities as a result of heat. Since July 7, there have been 238 more deaths than usual in Portugal, which health experts attribute to the extremely hot and dry weather. The elderly, kids, and persons with chronic illnesses are those who are most negatively impacted.

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Feta Cheese Is Greek, Rules Europe’s Top Court In Snub To Denmark

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Greece won its battle to defend its ownership of the term “Feta” on Thursday when Europe’s top court censured Denmark for allowing local businesses to use the brand for sales outside of the European Union.
Due to its 6,000-year history of production, Greece counts feta as a component of its cultural heritage.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which has its headquarters in Luxembourg, concurred with this claim. The justices ruled that Denmark had broken its legal obligations by continuing to label cheese intended for export to foreign nations as “Feta.”

Denmark had contended that an export ban could be perceived as a barrier to commerce in the case launched by the European Commission and supported by Cyprus.

Since 2002, the EU executive has identified feta as a traditional Greek product, granting it legal protection throughout the 27-nation union. The label was approved by the CJEU in 2005. For Greece, which produces around 120,000 tonnes of feta annually, the issue goes beyond simple national pride.

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Uefa Liverpool final: Fans blamed unfairly for litany of errors, says report

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A French investigation of the security incident at the Uefa Champions League final in May concluded that a long list of administrative mistakes and failures were to blame, not Liverpool supporters.

The pandemonium in the crowd that resulted in fans being tear-gassed and robbed in Paris was initially attributed by the French authorities to supporters and false tickets. However, according to a Senate study, the authorities wrongfully accused them. It claimed that dysfunctional errors were committed at every level.

Two Senate committees looked into what went wrong on the night of the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in Paris on May 28. They gathered testimony from Liverpool fan and club representatives as well as French officials for their report, titled Champions League Final: An Unavoidable Fiasco.

According to Liverpool supporters, issues at the Stade de France turnstiles were brought on by digital tickets that did not function properly on the night of the match. The situation was made worse by a rail strike, which created congestion as fans came for the game.

Fans were robbed and beaten by neighbourhood troublemakers in addition to being tear-gassed outside the stadium. Then it was discovered that the CCTV footage had been deleted a week later since no request to save it had been made.

One of the inquiry’s two chairs, Laurent Lafon, described an uncoordinated series of events and preparatory errors by saying, “Everyone went their own way without there being any real coordination.”

The investigation criticises Paris police, Uefa, and the French government. Uefa is criticised for failing to prepare for probable ticket fraud, and the government is criticised for placing the burden on the fans.

Additionally, it concluded that the deployment of tear gas on spectators was “especially harsh.” The security measures utilised by Parisian authorities, according to Liverpool supporters who testified at the inquiry, were similar to those used against hooligans in the 1980s.

As a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the May final was moved from St. Petersburg to the local area in the middle of March, leaving local officials little time to prepare. However, it criticised Uefa for not passing legislation to prohibit bogus paper tickets. The administration was embarrassed by the tragic events outside the stadium as it prepared for the 2023 Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris as well as the June parliamentary elections.

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Ukraine claims arms depot attack in occupied Kherson with Himars rockets

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In an apparent operation using missiles supplied by the US, the Ukrainian military claims to have destroyed a Russian ammo stockpile in the southern city of Nova Kakhovka, killing scores of soldiers. However, according to Russian occupation authorities, residences and warehouses were damaged, resulting in five fatalities and up to 80 injuries.

The number of casualties or the level of damage could not be confirmed. On social media, unconfirmed video of numerous large explosions was posted.

The strike was traced to the US-provided Himars multiple rocket launcher, according to Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhaylo Podolyak, who also warned of a “reality collision” for the “second army” of the globe. Himars is credited with a number of recent attacks that went extremely deep into Russian-held territory and is much more accurate than Russia’s equivalent weaponry.

Russian soldiers conquered sizable portions of the southern Kherson region in the early weeks of the invasion, but Ukrainian forces started a counteroffensive while Russia concentrated on its military advance into eastern Ukrainian territory. In order to avoid the counterattack, Kyiv has asked the locals to flee the area. Both parties appeared to concur that a Himars launcher had been used in the strike, despite the fact that Russian claims of damage to civilian buildings could not be verified. As soon as the first M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars) touched down in Ukraine at the end of June, explosions at Russian ammo depots and command centres, some 70 kilometres from the front lines, were connected to them.

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Ukraine war: Germany fears Russia gas cut may become permanent

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German imports of Russian natural gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline under the Baltic Sea have been stopped for 10 days due to routine maintenance. But German Economy Minister Robert Habeck issued a warning that EU nations needed to be ready in the event that gas imports would not start up again.

In reaction to EU sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, he has charged that the Kremlin has been using gas “as a weapon.” Mr. Habeck acknowledged that Germany had grown too reliant on Russian gas. However, he stated that two floating terminals for LNG deliveries would be ready by the end of the year.

Russian gas giant Gazprom reduced gas flows via Nord Stream 1 to just 40% of the pipeline’s capacity in the middle of June. It attributed the delay to the equipment being maintained by Siemens Energy in Germany.

According to the Canadian government, a fixed Siemens turbine for the pipeline will now be delivered to Germany. The Ukrainian government was incensed by such action and claimed that Canada had changed the sanctions it had put in place against Moscow “at the whims of Russia.”

Despite the restrictions, Canada says it is allowing Siemens Canada a “time-limited and revocable licence” to transfer fixed turbines back to Germany. The government of Germany is concerned that gas supplies might be temporarily or permanently limited.

Every summer, when gas demand is lower than in the winter, pipeline repair is customary. The concern is that Russia might not open the taps again.

Italian energy company Eni said it would receive around a third less gas from Russia’s Gazprom on Monday compared to typical levels sent over the previous several days as a result of the pipeline outage.

Fatih Birol, the director-general of the International Energy Agency, has cautioned that Russia may completely cut off gas supplies to Europe and that the continent has to start preparing right away.

Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Finland have already stopped receiving gas from Russia because they won’t accept a new payment system.

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Russian rockets kill 15 in Chasiv Yar housing block, Ukraine says

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Officials report that after Russian rockets attacked an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar, at least 15 people have died and it is believed that another 20 are buried under the debris. Five people were recovered alive. A representative of the Ukrainian emergency services provided the dead toll.

The five-story building’s one side was torn off, creating a pile of debris. In the Donetsk region, Chasiv Yar is close to the city of Kramatorsk. The centre of a Russian push is Donetsk. Russian Uragan rockets, according to the region’s governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, were to blame for the destruction.

Reuters reported that a survivor by the name of Lyudmila said, “We hurried to the basement, there were three impacts, the first someplace in the kitchen.

“The second, I don’t even remember, there was a flash, and we immediately ran down the basement through the second entrance. From last night till this morning, we sat there.

The US M777 howitzer hangar at Chasiv Yar was destroyed by Russian forces, according to a report from the Russian defence ministry on Saturday.

Two Donetsk cities in the line of the Russian offensive, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, have seen their defences reinforced by Ukrainian forces.

The Russians want to grab the remainder of Donetsk after taking the Luhansk region. The industrial Donbas, which is made up of both regions, is claimed by President Vladimir Putin to be a part of Russia.

Despite Russian shelling of Mariupol causing greater devastation and casualties, Ms. Bakhal claimed that the Chasiv Yar civilian death toll was one of the highest in Donetsk thus far.

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