The European Union is preparing for the possibility that Russia will stop delivering natural gas needed by many member states to heat homes, generate electricity and power factories.

In a statement Wednesday, the EU Commission asked countries to voluntary reduce their consumption and to grant the EU the power to impose reductions in case of emergency.

The goal is to reduce demand by 15% from August to the end of March.

“Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon. And therefore, in any event, whether it’s a partial, major cutoff of Russian gas or total cutoff of Russian gas, Europe needs to be ready,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. 

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February, EU countries have stopped importing Russian coal and most Russian oil. The bloc has sought to find other sources of gas, while also ramping up plans to rely more on alternative energy sources to move away from reliance on Russian supplies.

But those efforts are not expected to keep up with energy demand once winter arrives.

The EU Commission statement urged people to save energy now, saying using other fuels will make more gas available in the winter.

“Acting now will reduce the negative GDP impact, by avoiding unplanned actions in a crisis situation later. Early steps also spread out the efforts over time, ease market concerns and price volatility, and allow for a better design of targeted, cost-effective measures protecting industry,” the statement read.

EU members are set to consider the requests at a meeting next Tuesday.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia was ready to facilitate Ukrainian grain shipments from ports along the Black Sea, but that he wants Western countries to lift their sanctions against Russian grain exports. 

Putin spoke in Iran after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about a proposed plan to resume the Ukrainian exports. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted Ukrainian trade, and with pressures on the global food supply, the United Nations has been involved in the talks to unblock the shipments. 

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters Tuesday that Guterres remained optimistic that a deal can be completed. He added that Guterres had discussed the ongoing negotiations in a phone call Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Putin also met Tuesday with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, signaling closer links between the two countries. 

“The contact with Khamenei is very important,” Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, told reporters in Moscow. “A trusting dialogue has developed between them on the most important issues on the bilateral and international agenda.” 

“On most issues, our positions are close or identical,” Ushakov said. 

As Moscow faces ongoing Western economic sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is trying to strengthen strategic ties with Iran, China and India. 

Iran, also facing Western economic sanctions and ongoing disputes with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program, expressed hope for closer ties with Russia. 

“Both our countries have good experience in countering terrorism, and this has provided much security to our region,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said after meeting with Putin. “I hope your visit to Iran will increase cooperation between our two independent countries.” 

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that intelligence indicated Russia is “laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory that it controls in direct violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.” 

Kirby said the areas involved in plans that Russia is reviewing include Kherson, Zaporizhia, and all of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. 

He also urged the U.S. Congress to ratify the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, saying the Biden administration wants to see the two countries “brought into the alliance as soon as possible.” 

Both Sweden and Finland broke with longstanding non-alliance positions to seek NATO membership as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations gave its approval Tuesday, setting the stage for a vote in the full Senate. 

All of NATO’s 30 member states must approve Finland and Sweden joining the military alliance. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

U.S. lawmakers are set to hear Wednesday from Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska as she delivers remarks on Capitol Hill. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of the address that Zelenska would be speaking on behalf of all Ukrainian mothers and women. 

“And I really believe that it will be heard by those on whom decision-making in the U.S. depends,” the president said. 

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi encouraged all members of the House and Senate to attend, saying it would be an “important and timely opportunity to hear directly from First Lady Zelenska, to learn more about the terrible toll of the Russian invasion and to express our gratitude to the people of Ukraine for their fight for Democracy.” 

Zelenska met with U.S. first lady Jill Biden at the White House on Tuesday. 

The two last saw each other during Biden’s unannounced visit to western Ukraine in May when they visited a school and joined children who were making Mother’s Day gifts. 

President Joe Biden presented the Ukrainian first lady with a bouquet of flowers — yellow sunflowers, blue hydrangeas and white orchids — the colors of Ukraine’s flag. 

The White House said Zelenska is visiting Washington “to highlight the human cost of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. They will discuss the United States’ continued support for the government of Ukraine and its people as they defend their democracy and cope with the significant human impacts of Russia’s war, which will be felt for years to come.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters
…

The United States on Tuesday placed Russia on lists of countries engaged in a “policy or pattern” of human trafficking and forced labor or whose security forces or government-backed armed groups recruit or use child soldiers.

The U.S. State Department included the lists in its annual human trafficking report, which for the first time featured under a 2019 congressional mandate a “State-Sponsored Trafficking in Persons” section.

Russia appeared frequently throughout the report because of its February 24 invasion of Ukraine and what the document called the vulnerability to trafficking of millions of Ukrainian refugees in countries to which they have fled.

“Millions of Ukrainians have had to flee their homes … some leaving the country altogether, most with just what they were able to carry,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a ceremony as he presented the report. “That makes them highly vulnerable to exploitation.”

The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the report’s allegations.

Blinken said that currently there are nearly 25 million trafficking victims worldwide.

In addition to Russia, the new state-sponsors section listed Afghanistan, Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and five other countries with a “documented ‘policy or pattern’ of human trafficking,” forced labor in government-affiliated sectors, sexual slavery in government camps or that employ or recruit child soldiers.

The report contained a separate list of 12 countries that employ or recruit child soldiers that included Russia and a number of those included in the new state-sponsors section.

It did not elaborate on why each government was included. But the report’s individual country chapters detailed the scale of trafficking in each and how they are addressing it, with the report ranking each nation’s efforts according to four tiers.

Moscow, the Russia chapter said, was “actively complicit in the forced labor” of North Korean migrant workers, including by issuing visas to thousands in an apparent bid to circumvent United Nations resolutions demanding their repatriation.

It also cited reports that after seizing parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in 2014, Russian-led separatists used children to man checkpoints and serve as fighters and in other posts.

Following this year’s “full-scale invasion,” “media highlighted new uncorroborated reports of Russian forces using children as human shields,” it said.

It cited reports that Russian-led forces have forced thousands of Ukrainians, including children, through “filtration camps,” where their documents are seized, they are compelled to take Russian passports and then transported to remote areas of Russia.
…

Azerbaijan on Tuesday began the process of returning its people to land recaptured from Armenian separatists in what Baku calls “The Great Return” following a 2020 war over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.

The oil-rich country has vowed to repopulate lands recaptured in the six-week war with its arch-foe and Caucasus neighbor Armenia that killed more than 6,500 people two years ago.

President Ilham Aliyev had for years promised to retake lands lost in the 1990s, and the first returns marked a symbolic moment for Azerbaijan.

An official said almost 60 people moved back to a village they had had to flee in 1993, when ethnic Armenian separatists broke away from Baku, triggering a conflict that claimed around 30,000 lives.

Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis quit the area during the fighting.

“Fifty-eight people returned to the district of Zangilan” recaptured by Baku in October 2020, Vahid Hajiyev, special presidential representative in the region, told reporters.

More than 30,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis fled Zangilan, near the Iranian border, in 1993.

“At this stage, a total of 41 families will return” over the next five days to the newly rebuilt village of Agally in Zangilan, Hajiyev said.

‘Native land’

The government has pledged to provide jobs for the returnees, Hajiyev said. It has already built dozens of houses in Agally equipped with solar batteries, a brand-new school and a kindergarten, he added. “Over the next months the village will be fully repopulated.”

Emotions ran high as repatriates stepped down from buses in Agally’s windswept central square, where a new fountain sparkled under a sweltering sun.

“We are so happy to be back,” one of the returnees, 64-year-old Mina Mirzoyeva, told Agence France-Presse. “This is our homeland, our native land.”

Rahilya Ismayilova, 72, said that back in 1993, she had been forced to ford a river into Iran with her small children, fleeing for her life from the Armenian separatist forces.

“May all the refugees return to their homes, just as we did today,” she said. “I fled my village with my four children, and today, I am back with my big family, with my nine grandchildren.”

Baku has vowed to spend billions of petrodollars on the reconstruction of Nagorno-Karabakh and nearby recaptured areas.

It allocated $1.3 billion in last year’s budget for infrastructure projects such as new roads, bridges and airports in the region.

But a large-scale return of refugees remains a distant prospect given the scale of the devastation and the danger from landmines.

Peace talks

In autumn 2020, Azerbaijan and Armenia went to war for a second time for control of Karabakh. The fighting ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement.

Under the deal, Armenia ceded swaths of territory it had controlled for decades, and Russia deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.

Armen Grigoryan, chair of Armenia’s security council, said Tuesday that Yerevan’s forces would complete their withdrawal from areas that had been under separatist control by September.

This weekend, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, for their first one-on-one talks since the war.

They were expected to build on an agreement which Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reached under European Union mediation in May to “advance discussions” on a future peace treaty.

The two leaders met in Brussels in April and May. European Council President Charles Michel has said their next meeting is scheduled for July or August.

Following its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, an increasingly isolated Moscow lost its status as the primary mediator in the conflict.

The EU has since led the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization process, which involves peace talks, border delimitation and the reopening of transport links.
…

Britain is under a heat warning – reportedly stretching from London in the south to Leeds and Manchester in the north – as the mercury climbs to record levels amid an intense heat wave plaguing Europe.

Some reports say the temperature climbed to 40.2 Celsius (104 F) in Britain on Tuesday, with other media reporting a high of 40.3 C (104.5). The high temperatures break a record of 38.7 C (101.7 F) set in 2019.

Due to the heat, fires are blazing in major cities, including in the London area. Elsewhere, in the West Midlands area, a fire forced the evacuation of more than a dozen people.

Households are turning off their washing machines in an attempt to conserve water for future use.

London has seen fewer people outside and on roads, instead trying to stay cool in the scorching heat. To avoid the sun, many tourist attractions, like the British Museum with a full glass ceiling, and outdoor activities have been canceled or closed early.

Airports have seen damaged runways due to the extreme weather, while Britain’s Network Rail has warned passengers not to travel north of London. The rail system says on its website that buckled rails are reported and overhead wire systems are failing.

Hospitals, the Supreme Court, and other public buildings are feeling the high temperatures. Buildings are either having air conditioning outages or don’t have air conditioning at all.

“Infrastructure, much of it built in Victorian times, just wasn’t built to withstand this type of temperature,” said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

While members of the public have been seeking ways to cool off, authorities are warning people not to swim in open waters, citing fatalities.

Many other countries across Europe are experiencing the same extremes in weather. Cities in Spain and Portugal are feeling the effects of record-breaking temperatures as fires erupt throughout their cities. Over 750 heat-related deaths have been recorded in Spain and Portugal, said the Associated Press.

Climate experts believe the high temperatures are warnings of climate change progressing more quickly, something they say will risk the lives of European citizens for the next 30 years.

A professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, Hannah Cloke, said the record high temperature was a “grim milestone” and a “slide into unknown territory for humanity as we heat our planet,” reported The Guardian newspaper.

Climate experts also believe the extreme temperatures will continue across Europe for years to come.
…

The World Meteorological Organization, WMO, warns heatwaves, raging wildfires and record-breaking temperatures are becoming normal because of climate change.

Meteorologists say the scorching heatwave sweeping Europe is likely to last well into the middle of next week, smashing more temperature records as it continues.

They warn the time between heatwaves is becoming shorter, noting the current event was preceded by a similar one in June. And they say the likelihood of a third heatwave occurring before summer ends is strong.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said he has no doubt as to what is behind the phenomenon.

“Thanks to climate change, we have started breaking records nationally and also regionally,” Taalas said. “In the future, these kinds of heatwaves are going to be normal, and we will see even stronger extremes.”

He said people have pumped so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that the negative trend will continue for decades. Those who will suffer most, he said, are the elderly and sick. The WMO chief said more frequent, intense heatwaves also will have a major adverse effect on agriculture.

“In the previous heatwaves in Europe, we lost big parts of harvest, and under the current situation we are already having this global food crisis,” Taalas said. “Because of the war in Ukraine, this heatwave is going to have a further negative impact on agricultural activities.”

The World Health Organization’s director of environment and health, Maria Neira, said heat compromises the body’s ability to regulate its internal temperature. She warned that will lead to a cascade of illnesses, including heat cramps, heat stroke and hyperthermia.

“We are very much concerned that when this heatwave coincides as well with high levels of pollution in the form that will exacerbate the respiratory, cardiovascular and general diseases and conditions,” Neira said. “And this is a major concern, as well for those big urban spaces where the cities that are not well adapted to cope with these high temperatures.”

Scientists emphasize climate change is happening even faster than drafters of the Paris climate change agreement anticipated. They note warming in many regions already has surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The WMO’s Taalas said the world is heading for 2.5 degrees Celsius warming, which means heatwaves and other extreme weather events will become a normal part of life. He said that should be a wake-up call for human beings.
…

A swath of Europe is battling soaring temperatures, wildfires and a severe drought, with a new report predicting the parched conditions will shrink crop yields — including in agricultural heavyweight France — at a time when Russia’s blockade of grain from Ukraine is already hurting consumers.

On Tuesday, youngsters took a water break in Paris, where the temperature sizzled at around 37 degrees Celsius.

But elsewhere in France, there is no reprieve from the heat.

Firefighters in the southwestern Gironde area are battling massive blazes that have decimated thousands of hectares of land and covered the wine city of Bordeaux in a blanket of haze.

A European Union report out this week finds nearly half of EU territory risks drought, with France among half a dozen countries most severely affected. The dry weather is stressing nature and expected to dampen food and energy production — two areas where Europe is already feeling the fallout of the war in Ukraine.

The EU’s executive arm expects grain output across the bloc will be 2.5 percent lower than last year — although they’ll still have an export surplus.

Many are bracing for a bigger hit. Climate scientists predict heatwaves and droughts in Europe will be more frequent and intense.

More immediately, one farmer from the Alpes region told French TV he fears water shortages will trigger an irrigation ban in the coming weeks. If that happens, he says, it will be catastrophic for area harvests.
…

A Dutch court sentenced two men to five years in prison Monday after convicting them of attempted murder and arson for throwing a Molotov cocktail into a journalist’s home in a late-night attack last year.

The court said the two men, identified by Dutch media as Tjeerd P. and Jaimy W. in line with privacy guidelines, launched the attack because one objected to what he considered the negative tone of the reporter’s coverage of demonstrations against the Dutch government’s coronavirus lockdown measures.

The court in the northern city of Groningen said the attackers threw a beer bottle filled with kerosene through a window in the front door of the reporter’s home in the early hours of Aug. 19, last year, causing a small fire.

Nobody was injured in the attack, but the reporter, Willem Groeneveld, said in a victim impact statement during the trial that since the attack “he has always been on his guard and feels partly deprived of his journalistic freedom,” the court said.

It added that: “Journalistic freedom is an important pillar of the democratic constitutional state. Journalists have an important role in shaping social discussions and must be able to express themselves freely, without having to fear for their safety.”
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived Tuesday in the Iranian capital, Tehran, where he was due to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and discuss an agreement to resume grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Monday there has been incremental progress with the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations, “but nothing to announce at this stage.” He said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is ready to travel to Istanbul if need be.

Guterres spoke on the phone Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the ongoing negotiations, according to the United Nations.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called Tuesday for a price cap on Russian oil exports while urging countries to unite in opposition to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Yellen said “economic integration has been weaponized by Russia,” adding that Russia has threatened to spark a global food crisis by blocking Ukrainian ports.

“All responsible countries must unite in opposition to this war and work together to end it swiftly,” Yellen said. “And that’s why the United States and other responsible allies and partners are seeking to reduce Russia’s revenue to wage its war without causing a necessary volatility in global energy markets.”

Ukraine’s military said Tuesday Russian attacks continued in multiple parts of the country, including shelling in Sumy, as well as blasts in Mykolaiv and a missile strike in Odesa.

Britain’s defense ministry said Russia “may still make further territorial gains” as it pursues its state goal of taking control of all of Donetsk province in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. But the ministry said in its daily assessment Tuesday that Russia’s “rate of advance is likely to be very slow without a significant operational pause for reorganization and refit” of its forces.

In Washington, Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska is due to meet with U.S. first lady Jill Biden at The White House, a day after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

A statement released by the State Department Monday night said “Secretary Blinken commended First Lady Zelenska’s work to help Ukrainians impacted by the war.”

Blinken “reiterated that the United States will continue to provide assistance to help Ukraine respond to the significant economic and humanitarian challenges it faces, including supporting the First Lady’s mental health initiative for citizens affected by the war,” the statement said.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said Blinken assured Zelenska of U.S. support of Ukraine and commended the first lady for her work helping civilians traumatized by the war.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska is set to meet with U.S. first lady Jill Biden at the White House on Tuesday. 

The two last met during Biden’s unannounced visit to western Ukraine in May when they visited a school and joined children who were making Mother’s Day gifts. 

Zelenska on Monday met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington. 

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Zelenska and Blinken talked about “the immense and growing human costs of Russia’s full-scale invasion,” and that Blinken emphasized the U.S. commitment to supporting Ukraine. 

“Secretary Blinken commended first lady Zelenska’s work to help Ukrainians impacted by the war,” Price said. “He reiterated that the United States will continue to provide assistance to help Ukraine respond to the significant economic and humanitarian challenges it faces, including supporting the first lady’s mental health initiative for citizens affected by the war.” 

Zelenska’s schedule also includes going to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to address lawmakers. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Tehran on Tuesday for a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the first trip by the Kremlin chief outside Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. 

Putin casts the West’s attempt to cripple Russia’s economy with the most severe sanctions in recent history as a declaration of economic war and says Russia is turning away from the West to China, India and Iran. 

Just three days after U.S. President Joe Biden finished a visit to Saudi Arabia, Russia’s leader arrives in Tehran to hold his fifth meeting with Khamenei, Iran’s second supreme leader who came to power in 1989. 

“The contact with Khamenei is very important,” Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, told reporters in Moscow. “A trusting dialog has developed between them on the most important issues on the bilateral and international agenda.” 

Putin’s visit to Iran will coincide with one by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the two leaders will meet in Tehran to discuss a deal aimed at resuming Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports, and Erdogan’s threat to launch another operation in northern Syria which Moscow opposes.   

In Syria, Russia and Iran prevailed in their support for President Bashar al-Assad against the West, which called repeatedly for him to be toppled since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. 

The 69-year-old Kremlin chief has made few foreign trips in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then the crisis triggered by his February 24 invasion of Ukraine. His last trip beyond Russia was to China in February. 

By heading to the Islamic Republic for his first major foreign trip since the Ukraine war, Putin is sending a clear message to the West that Russia will seek to build ties with Iran, a foe of the United States since the 1979 Revolution. 

Before the trip, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia and Iran had long been subject to Western sanctions: the price, he said, of sovereignty. 

For Tehran, building ties with Putin’s Russia is a way to balance the clout of the United States and its alliances across the Gulf with Arab rulers and Israel. Putin will meet with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was elected last year. 

Emboldened by high oil prices, Tehran is betting that with Russia’s support it could pressure Washington to offer concessions for the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal. 

Still, Russia’s tilt toward Beijing has significantly reduced Iran’s crude exports to China — a key source of income for Tehran since then-President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions in 2018. 

Talks with Erdogan will focus on a plan to get Ukrainian grain exports moving again and Turkey’s threat to launch new military operations in Syria to extend 30-kilometer-deep “safe zones” along the border. 

Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations are expected to sign a deal later this week aimed at resuming the shipping of grain from Ukraine across the Black Sea.  

Any Turkish operation in Syria would attack the Kurdish YPG militia, a key part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that controls large parts of north Syria and is regarded by Washington as an important ally against the Islamic State. 

 
…

EU officials warned against shrinking European Union support for Ukraine, as the bloc’s foreign ministers agreed Monday to earmark half-a-billion more dollars in military aid to Kyiv and consider banning imports of Russian gold. 

European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned against what he called “democratic fatigue” which Russia would try to exploit.

“European societies cannot afford fatigue,” he said. “European societies and European Union member states, governments have to continue standing behind the decisions they have taken. They took decisions on restrictive measures on the Russian economy and they have to stick to it.”

Borrell insisted energy and other sanctions the bloc has taken against Moscow are working — although experts note Russia continues to rake in billions selling its oil and gas elsewhere.

“The Russian economy is severely affected. Certainly, it’s not going to stop the war overnight, but the consequences of the sanctions will create a lot of economic trouble to Russia,” Borrell said.

Analysts warn of fading EU support for more tough sanctions amid worries about rising consumer prices and a cold winter ahead, with less Russian oil and gas.

Germany is also feeling the more immediate fallout of a recent Russian gas pipeline cut, ostensibly for maintenance reasons.

 
…

At the Tehran summit Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to overcome Iranian and Russian objections to Turkey’s military operation in Syria. The meeting also comes as Erdogan seeks to finalize a deal to allow for the export of trapped Ukrainian grain. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
…

Millions of people in Britain stayed home or sought shade Monday during the country’s first-ever extreme heat warning, as hot, dry weather that has scorched mainland Europe for the past week moved north, disrupting travel, health care and schools.

The red heat alert covers a big chunk of England and is due to last through Tuesday, when temperatures may reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time, posing a risk of serious illness and even death among healthy people, according to the Met Office, Britain’s weather service.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Britain is 38.7 C (101.7 F), a record set in 2019. The country is not at all prepared to handle such heat — most homes, schools and small businesses in Britain do not have air-conditioning.

London’s Kew Gardens hit 37.5 C (99.5 F) by 3 p.m. and Wales provisionally recorded its highest-ever temperature, the Met Office said, a recording of 35.3 C (95.5 F) at Gogerddan on the west coast.

At least four people were reported to have drowned across the U.K. in rivers, lakes and reservoirs while trying to cool off.

While Monday may bring record highs to southeastern England, temperatures are expected to rise further as the warm air moves north on Tuesday, Met Office CEO Penelope Endersby said. The extreme heat warning stretches from London in the south to Manchester and Leeds in the north.

“So it’s tomorrow that we’re really seeing the higher chance of 40 degrees and temperatures above that,” Endersby told the BBC. “Forty-one isn’t off the cards. We’ve even got some 43s in the model, but we’re hoping it won’t be as high as that.”

Hot weather has gripped southern Europe since last week, triggering wildfires in Spain, Portugal and France. Almost 600 heat-related deaths have been reported in Spain and Portugal, where temperatures reached 47 C (117 F) last week.

Climate experts warn that global warming has increased the frequency of extreme weather events, with studies showing that the likelihood of temperatures in the U.K. reaching 40C is now 10 times higher than in the pre-industrial era. Drought and heat waves tied to climate change have also made wildfires harder to fight.

Officials in southern France’s Gironde region announced plans to evacuate an additional 3,500 people from towns threatened by the raging flames. More than 1,500 firefighters and water-bombing planes are trying to douse the flames in the region’s tinder-dry pine forests.

In Britain, train operators asked customers not to travel unless absolutely necessary, saying the heat was likely to warp rails and disrupt power supplies, leading to severe delays. Some routes were running at reduced speed or shutting down entirely from mid-afternoon, when temperatures were expected to peak.

Some medical appointments were canceled to relieve strains on the health service. Some schools closed, and others set up wading pools and water sprays to help children cool off. Most British schools have not yet closed for the summer.

The extreme heat even led Parliament to loosen its strict dress code. The Speaker of the House of Commons said male lawmakers could dispense with jackets and ties for the week.

The high temperatures are even more of a shock since Britain usually has very moderate summer temperatures. Across the U.K., average July temperatures range from a daily high of 21 C (70 F) to a low of 12 C (53 F).

But nightfall on Monday will bring little relief from the heat, with the Met Office forecasting temperatures of 29 C (84 F) at midnight in London. Monday night will be “very oppressive” and it will be difficult to sleep, Chief Meteorologist Paul Davies said.

“Tomorrow is the day where we are really concerned about a good chance now of hitting 40 or 41C, and with that all the health conditions that come with those higher temperatures,” he said.
…

When Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, many ordinary Ukrainians started helping their military, even if they did not join the fight. Kateryna Markova has the story. Camera – Viktor Petrovych.
…

Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who shot to prominence for interrupting a live TV broadcast to denounce Russia’s military action in Ukraine, said Monday she had been released after a few hours in custody.

“I am at home. Everything is fine,” she wrote on Facebook overnight. “Now I know it’s better to leave home with my passport and my bag,” she added.

Her lawyer, Dmitri Zakhvatov, said she was detained because she was suspected of having “discredited” the army in remarks outside a Moscow court last week in support of opposition activist Ilya Yashin, who is accused of spreading false information about the army.

After sending troops to Ukraine, Moscow adopted laws imposing sentences of up to 15 years for spreading information about the military deemed false by authorities.

So far, Russian authorities have not announced the opening of any criminal investigation against Ovsyannikova.

Her brief detention came several days after she demonstrated alone near the Kremlin, holding up a sign criticizing the military intervention in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin.

Ovsyannikova became known internationally in March after interrupting a live TV broadcast on the channel for which she worked to denounce Russia’s military action in Ukraine.

She barged onto the set of at Channel One’s flagship Vremya (Time) evening news program, holding a poster reading “No War” in English.

Briefly detained, she was fined and subsequently released.

Images of her protest swept around the world, and she was applauded by people for her courage at a time when Russia is clamping down hard on dissenting voices.

The Russian opposition, however, did not universally welcome her protest. Some critics pointed out that she worked for years for another channel, Pervy Kanal, which they deemed a mouthpiece for the Kremlin.

In the months following her March protest, Ovsyannikova spent time abroad, including a brief period working for the German newspaper Die Welt.

In early July, she announced that she was returning to Russia to settle a dispute over the custody of her two children.
…

A Ukrainian cargo plane carrying 11 tons of munitions from Serbia to Bangladesh crashed in northern Greece late Saturday. The munitions had been bought by the Bangladeshi defense ministry. 

Explosives disposal experts have been called to the scene. Authorities will not be able to retrieve the Meridian airline plane’s black boxes until the disposal experts finish their work. 

Ukrainian officials have confirmed all eight Ukrainian crew members died in the crash near the city of Kavala. 

Local residents said they heard explosions for nearly two hours after the crash. They also said they saw the plane engulfed in a ball of fire before it crashed. 

“I wonder how it didn’t fall on our houses,” Aimilia Tsaptanova, told journalists. “It was full of smoke, it had a noise I can’t describe and went over the mountain. It passed the mountain and turned and crashed into the fields.” 

The pilot had asked Greek aviation authorities for permission for an emergency landing, but Greece lost contact with the plane soon after the request. 

Initial reports of the crash said the plane’s destination was Jordan, but officials say that the plane was headed to Jordan’s Queen Alia international airport only to refuel
…

France was on high alert on Monday as the peak of a punishing heatwave gripped the country, while wildfires raging in parts of southwest Europe showed no sign of abating.

Forecasters have put 15 French departments on the highest state of alert for extreme temperatures as neighboring Britain was poised to set new heat records this coming week.

The heatwave is the second to engulf parts of southwest Europe in weeks, and blazes burning in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain have destroyed thousands of hectares of land and forced thousands of residents and holidaymakers to flee.

Scientists blame climate change and predict more frequent and intense episodes of extreme weather such as heatwaves and drought.

In France’s Landes forest, in the southwest Aquitaine region, temperatures “will be above 42 degrees Celsius” Monday forecaster Olivier Proust said.

And Brittany, which until recently has escaped the worst of the heat, could register temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius, say experts, which would be a record for the region.

In the southwestern Gironde region, firefighters over the weekend continued to fight to control forest blazes that have devoured nearly 11,000 hectares since Tuesday.

Meanwhile Spanish authorities reported around 20 wildfires still raging out of control in different parts of the country from the south to Galicia in the far northwest, where blazes have destroyed around 4,500 hectares of land.

The fires have already killed several civilians and emergency personnel since last week, most recently a fireman who died late on Sunday while battling a blaze in northwestern Spain.

A heat apocalypse’

The wildfires in France forced more than 16,000 people — residents and tourists combined — to decamp. Seven emergency shelters have been set up for evacuees.

France’s interior ministry announced it would send an extra three firefighting planes, 200 firefighters and more trucks.

“In some southwestern areas, it will be a heat apocalypse,” meteorologist Francois Gourand told AFP.

The chapel of a historic hospital in the southeastern city of Lyon, Grand Hotel Dieu, offered refuge to tourists on Sunday including Jean-Marc, 51, who was visiting from Alsace.

“We came back to admire the place, but we can’t leave, it’s too hot outside. We say a prayer before the fire!” he quipped.

French cyclist Mikael Cherel, taking part in the Tour de France’s 15th stage between Rodez and Carcassonne in southern France on Sunday, described “very, very difficult conditions”.

“I’ve never known such a hot day on a bike. It really was no picnic.”

‘Risk to life’ in UK

In Spain, firefighters managed to stabilize a wildfire that ravaged 2,000 hectares of woods and bushes in the southern region of Andalusia, regional leader Juan Manuel Moreno said.

The blaze started on Friday in the Mijas mountain range inland from the southern coastal city of Malaga and it spurred the evacuation of about 3,000 people.

Around 2,000 people had since returned home and now that the blaze has stabilized, Moreno said the remaining evacuees may do the same.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is due to visit the hard-hit eastern region of Extremadura on Monday where various fires have been raging for days.

In Portugal, almost the entire country remained on high alert for wildfires despite a slight drop in temperatures, after hitting 47C — a record for the month of July — on Thursday.

Only one major fire was burning on Sunday in the north.

The fires have killed two, injured around 60 and destroyed between 12,000 and 15,000 hectares of land in Portugal.

In the United Kingdom, the weather office issued a first-ever “red” warning for extreme heat, cautioning there was a “risk to life”.

The Met Office said temperatures in southern England could exceed 40C on Monday or Tuesday for the first time, leading some schools to say they would stay closed next week.

The mercury is set to reach 38C in parts of the Netherlands on Tuesday.
…

Cameron Smith charged his way into history on the Old Course, a Sunday stunner at St. Andrews that sent the Australian to his first major by overcoming Rory McIlroy to win the British Open.

The stage was set for McIlroy to end his eight-year drought in the majors and cap off a week of celebration at the home of golf in the 150th Open.

Smith stole the show by running off five straight birdies to start the back nine and delivering more clutch moments at the end. His 8-under 64 was the lowest final round by a champion in the 30 times golf’s oldest champion has been played at St. Andrews.

Smith won by one shot over Cameron Young, who holed a 15-foot eagle putt on the final hole. It wasn’t enough, and neither was anything McIlroy could muster.

He couldn’t make a putt early. He couldn’t hit it close enough late. His last good chance was a 15-foot birdie attempt on the scary Road Hole at No. 17, and it narrowly missed to the left.

Smith, who saved par on the 17th with a 10-foot putt, was at the front of the 18th green with his tee shot. From 80 feet away, his pace up the slope and toward the cup was close to perfect, leaving him a tap-in birdie to finish at 20-under 268.

Smith matched the major championship record to par, last reached by Dustin Johnson in the 2020 Masters held in November.

McIlroy needed eagle to tie him, and his putt through the Valley of Sin had no chance. He missed the birdie and wound up with a 70 to finish third.

Smith is the first Australian to win at St. Andrews since Kel Nagle in 1960, when he topped a rising American star named Arnold Palmer, the people’s choice.

That’s what McIlroy is now, and all day there was an energy along the humps and hollows of the Old Course, all of them waiting to celebrate McIlroy as an Open champion at St. Andrews.

He gave them little to cheer — two birdies, 16 pars, more disappointment.
…

Diplomatic tensions soared Sunday between Balkan rivals Serbia and Croatia after Croatia refused to allow a private visit by Serbia’s populist president to the site of a World War II concentration camp where tens of thousands of Serbs were killed by pro-Nazi authorities in Croatia.

Croatia’s authorities said they learned about the planned visit to the Jasenovac camp by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic through “unofficial channels.” Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman told reporters that the fact that the Croatian government had not been formally notified of the visit was “unacceptable.”

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to stress that in the planning of any visit by foreign officials the time, nature and program of the visit should be subject of official communication and agreement by both sides,” said Grlic Radman. “This was not a trip to the seaside. The president of a country is a protected individual.”

Croatia’s decision sparked outrage in neighboring Serbia, where officials described it as “scandalous.” Serbia’s hardline Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said all Croatian officials from now on would have to announce any transit or visit to Serbia and would be placed under “special regime of control.” He did not elaborate.

“This was an anti-European and anti-civilization decision and brutal violation of the freedom of movement,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic told the pro-government Pink television. “I don’t know what our relations will look like in the future … This is sending a frightening message.”

Relations between Serbia and Croatia have remained tense since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the 1991-95 war in Croatia that erupted when its Serb minority, backed by Serbia, rebelled against Croatia’s independence. More than 10,000 people were killed in the war.

Although the two nations have pledged to work to resolve remaining problems from the conflict — such as finding those still missing — occasional diplomatic spats have marred the postwar efforts. Serbia’s populist authorities have insisted that Croatia’s government has not done enough to acknowledge its World War II past, while Zagreb accuses Serbia of using the issue for internal politics and refusing to deal with own role in the 1990s’ war.

“We see this as a provocation,” Grlic Radman said. He added “such a visit is not sincere, it is not about honoring the victims” of the Jasenovac camp, where tens of thousands of Croatia’s Serbs, Jews and Roma perished in brutal executions during the WWII rule of the pro-Nazi authorities.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist who supported the Serb rebellion in Croatia in the 1990s, has scheduled a news conference for Monday. He responded Sunday in an Instagram post featuring a photo of the Jasenovac monument.

“You (Croatia) just do your job! The Serbian people will live and never forget!” said Vucic.
…

Beautiful and serene in a crown of white flowers, 4-year-old Liza Dmytrieva, who was killed by a Russian missile strike, was buried Sunday in central Ukraine as an Orthodox priest burst into tears and told weeping relatives that “evil cannot win.”

Liza, who had Down syndrome, was en route to see a speech therapist with her mother when Russian missiles struck the city of Vinnytsia on Thursday, far from the front lines. At least 24 people were killed, including Liza and two boys ages 7 and 8, and more than 200 were wounded, including Liza’s mother.

“Look, my flower! Look how many people came to you,” Liza’s grandmother, Larysa Dmytryshyna, said, caressing Liza as she lay in an open coffin with flowers and teddy bears in Vinnytsia’s 18th-century Transfiguration Cathedral.

Liza’s father, Artem Dmytriev, stood silent, tears flowing down his face.

Liza’s mother, 33-year-old Iryna Dmytrieva, remained in an intensive care unit in grave condition. The family didn’t tell her that Liza was being buried Sunday, fearing it could affect her condition.

“Your mommy didn’t even see how beautiful you are today,” Dmytryshyna said, weeping.

Helena Sydorenko, a longtime family friend, said Liza’s mother “invested a lot of effort in socializing Liza.”

“She wanted her kid to have a full life,” Sydorenko added.

When the war started, Dmytrieva and her family fled Kyiv, the capital, for Vinnytsia, a city 270 kilometers (167 miles) to the southwest, which until Thursday was considered relatively safe.

Shortly before the explosion, Dmytrieva had posted a video on social media showing her daughter straining to reach the handlebars to push her own stroller, happily walking through Vinnytsia, wearing a denim jacket and white pants, her hair decorated with a barrette.

After the Russian missile strike, Ukraine’s emergency services shared photos showing her lifeless body on the ground next to her blood-stained stroller. Ukraine’s first lady remembered how cheerful and happy the little girl was when she met her. The videos and photos have gone viral, the latest images from the brutal war in Ukraine to horrify the world.

Liza’s closest relatives sat on both sides of the coffin, and many more crowded Vinnytsia’s Orthodox cathedral to pay their last tributes to the girl.

“I didn’t know Liza, but no person can go through this with calm,” Orthodox priest Vitalii Holoskevych said, bursting into tears. ”Because every burial is grief for each of us. We are losing our brothers and sisters.”

He paused and continued in a trembling voice: ”We know that evil cannot win.”

Later, at a windswept cemetery, relatives and friends bid farewell to Liza under gray skies.

“You loved this song very much, you danced every day. This song sounds for you now,” Dmytrushyna, Liza’s grandmother, said. The song was, “Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow,” which has become a symbol of resistance in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.

“It’s suffering and despair. There is no forgiveness for them,” said Ilona, another family friend.

A 7-year-old boy killed in the same Russian airstrike was also buried Sunday along with his mother in a village near Vinnytsia. They were at a medical center when the missiles hit the building. Another young boy slain in the same airstrike is to be buried in Vinnytsia on Monday.
…

Soprano Angel Blue says she won’t perform in an opera in Italy this month because blackface was used in the staging of a different work this summer on the same stage.

The U.S. singer posted a note on her angeljoyblue Instagram page saying she will be bowing out of “La Traviata” at Verona’s Arena this month because the theater recently mounted another Giuseppe Verdi opera, “Aida,” that had performers in blackface.

She blasted such use of “archaic” theatrical practices as “offensive, humiliating, and outright racist.” 

Angel Blue, however, was still listed Saturday on the Arena’s website as singing the role of Violetta in “La Traviata” on July 22 and 30. 

The theater said it was hoping that Blue, who is Black, would accept an invitation to meet with Arena officials in a “dialogue” over the issue. The Arena, in a statement Friday, said it had “no reason nor intent whatsoever to offend and disturb anyone’s sensibility.”

For decades, U.S. civil rights organizations for decades have publicly condemned blackface — in which white performers blacken their faces — as dehumanizing Blacks by introducing and reinforcing racial stereotypes.

The Arena this summer has mounted performances of “Aida” based on a 2002 staging of the opera “Dear Friends, Family, and Opera Lovers,” began the soprano’s Instagram post. “I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I will not be singing La Traviata at Arena di Verona this summer as planned.”

Referring to Arena’s decision to use blackface makeup in “Aida,″ the singer wrote: “Let me be perfectly clear: the use of blackface under any circumstances, artistic or otherwise, is a deeply misguided practice based on archaic theatrical traditions which have no place in modern society. It is offensive, humiliating and outright racist.”

She wrote that she couldn’t “in good conscience associate myself with an institution which continues this practice.”

The theater’s statement said “Angel Blue knowingly committed herself to sing at the Arena” even though the “characteristics” of the 2002 Zeffirelli staging were “well known.”

Still, the theater stressed its hope that her protest would ultimately improve understanding between cultures as well as educate Italian audiences. 

“Every country has different roots, and their cultural and social structures developed along different historical and cultural paths,” said the statement by the Arena of Verona Foundation. “Common convictions have often been reached only after years of dialogue and mutual understanding.”

The Arena statement stressed dialogue, “in effort to understand others’ point of view, in respect of consciously assumed artistic obligations.” 

“Contraposition, judgments, labeling, lack of dialogue only feed the culture of contrasts, which we totally reject,” said the statement, appealing for cooperation “to avoid divisions.”

It’s not the first time that the use of blackface makeup for a staging of “Aida” in Verona has sparked a soprano’s protest. In 2019, opera singer Tamara Wilson, who is white, protested darkening her face to sing the title character of an Ethiopian woman in the opera at the Arena.
…

Family by family, house by house, French police rounded up 13,000 people on two terrifying days in July 1942, dispatching them to Nazi death camps simply because they were Jewish. Eighty years later, France is honoring the victims, and trying to keep their memory alive.

For the dwindling number of survivors of France’s wartime crimes, commemoration ceremonies Sunday are especially important. At a time of rising antisemitism and far-right discourse sugarcoating France’s role in the Holocaust, they worry that history’s lessons are being forgotten.

A week of ceremonies marking 80 years since the Vel d’Hiv police roundup on July 16-17, 1942, culminates Sunday with an event led by President Emmanuel Macron.

The raids were among the most shameful acts undertaken by France during World War II, and among the darkest moments in its history.

Over those two days, police herded 13,152 people — including 4,115 children — into the Winter Velodrome of Paris, known as the Vel d’Hiv, before they were sent on to Nazi camps. It was the biggest such roundup in western Europe. The children were separated from their families; very few survived.

In public testimonies over the past week, survivor Rachel Jedinak described a middle-of-the-night knock on the door and being marched through the streets of Paris and herded into the velodrome, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

She recalled her desperate mother shouting at police. Some neighbors informed on Jews; others wept as they watched them corralled like livestock.

Chantal Blaszka’s aunts and uncle were among the children rounded up: 6-year-old Simon, 9-year-old Berthe, 15-year-old Suzanne. Their names are now engraved on a monument in a garden where the velodrome once stood, along with some 4,000 other children targeted in the raids. Photos of the children hang from tree trunks, the result of years of painstaking research to identify and honor the long-anonymous victims.

Of the children deported from the Vel d’Hiv 80 years ago, only six survived.

“Can you imagine?” Blaszka asked, pointing at the names and shaking her head. “Can you imagine?”

Serge Klarsfeld, a renowned Nazi hunter whose father was deported to Auschwitz, spoke Saturday in the garden, calling it an “earth-shaking testimony to the horrors lived by Jewish families.”

He stressed the urgency of passing on living memory. “The youngest of us are in our 80s,” he said of the children of deportees.

The father of Micheline Tinader was among the 76,000 Jews deported from France under the collaborationist Vichy government. As a child, Tinader herself had to hide from Nazis.

She took part in a commemoration ceremony this week at the Shoah Memorial in the Paris suburb of Drancy and is part of an association based at the site that organizes educational trips to Auschwitz.

Drancy held a transit center that was central to French Jews’ deadly journey to Nazi camps. Some 63,000 people were held over the course of the war.

The Drancy Shoah memorial actively documents the Holocaust, especially for younger generations. This work is especially important at a time when Jewish communities are increasingly worried about rising antisemitism in Europe. France’s Interior Ministry has reported a rise in antisemitic acts in France over recent years and said that while racist and anti-religious acts overall are increasing, Jews are disproportionately targeted.

Anxiety has worsened for some since the far-right National Rally party made a surprising electoral breakthrough last month, winning a record 89 seats in France’s National Assembly.

Party co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted of racism and downplaying the Holocaust. His daughter Marine, who now leads the party, has distanced herself from her father’s positions, but the party’s past still raises concerns for many Jews.

During the campaign for this year’s French presidential election, far-right candidate and pundit Eric Zemmour propagated the false claim that Adolf Hitler’s Vichy collaborators safeguarded France’s Jews.

It took France’s leadership 50 years after World War II to officially acknowledge the state’s involvement in the Holocaust, when then-President Jacques Chirac apologized for the French authorities’ role in the Vel d’Hiv raids.

On Sunday, Macron is visiting a site in Pithiviers south of Paris where police sent families after the Vel d’Hiv roundup, before sending them on to camps.

“The policy, from 1942 onward, was to organize the murder of the Jews of Europe and therefore to organize the deportation of the Jews of France,” said Jacques Fredj, director of the Paris Shoah Memorial.

“Most of the time, the decisions were made by the Nazis and implemented by the French administration,” he said. “But the management was French. [French] Gendarmes or policemen were managing and supervising.”

 
…