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At least 1,000 deaths have been attributed to the heatwave in Portugal and Spain so far. Temperatures in Spain have reached as high as 45.7 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit) during the nearly week-long heat wave.

Spain’s weather agency issued temperature warnings for Sunday, with highs of 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) forecast in Aragon, Navarra and La Rioja, in the north. It said the heatwave would end on Monday, but warned temperatures would remain “abnormally high.”

Fires were raging in several other regions including Castille and Leon in central Spain and Galicia in the north on Sunday afternoon. In Malaga province in southern Spain, wildfires raged into the night, affecting local residents near Mijas, a town popular with northern European tourists.

British pensioners William and Ellen McCurdy fled for safety with other evacuees in a local sport center from their home on Saturday as the fire approached.

“It was very fast….I didn’t take it too seriously. I thought they had it under control and I was quite surprised when it seemed to be moving in our direction,” William, 68, told Reuters.

“We just grabbed a few essentials and just ran and by that stage everybody along the street was on the move,” Ellen said.

In France, wildfires have now spread over 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) in the southwestern region of Gironde, and more than 14,000 people have been evacuated, regional authorities said on Sunday afternoon.

More than 1,200 firefighters were trying to control the blazes, the authorities said in a statement.

France issued red alerts, the highest possible, for several regions, with residents urged “to be extremely vigilant.”

In Italy, where smaller fires have blazed in recent days, forecasters expect temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in several regions in coming days.

Similar temperatures are forecast in Britain on Monday and Tuesday in what would top a previous official record of 38.7 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) set in Cambridge in 2019.

Britain’s national weather forecaster has issued its first red “extreme heat” warning for parts of England. Rail passengers were advised to only travel if absolutely necessary and to expect widespread delays and cancellations.

Hundreds dead in Portugal

Portugal’s Health Ministry said late on Saturday that in the last seven days 659 people died due to the heatwave, most of them elderly. It said the weekly peak of 440 deaths was on Thursday, when temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in several regions and 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) at a meteorological station in the district of Vizeu in the center of the country.

By Saturday, there were 360 heat-related deaths in Spain, according to figures from the Carlos III Health Institute.

Portugal is grappling with extreme drought — with 96% of the mainland in severe or extreme drought at the end of June, before the recent heat wave, according to data from the national meteorological institute.

Emergency and Civil Protection Authority Commander Andre Fernandes urged people to take care not to ignite new fires in such bone-dry conditions.

In Greece the fire brigade said on Saturday 71 blazes had broken out within a 24-hour period. Local fire brigade officials on the island of Crete said on Sunday that a fire raging through forest and farm land had been partially contained.

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The Halo was criticised by several Formula One drivers when it was first introduced in 2018. We take a look at the times the safety device has proved its worth and saved lives in motorsport.

But it is a significant blow for Beijing’s ideal vision: a Europe with robust China ties that provides a counterbalance to American power and posture.

“China and the EU should act as two major forces upholding world peace, and offset uncertainties in the international landscape,” Xi told EU leaders at a summit in April, urging them to reject “rival-bloc mentality.”

But those words appeared to fall flat with the European side, which focused instead on pressing China to help broker peace in Ukraine. “The dialogue was everything but a dialogue. In any case, it was a dialogue of the deaf,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said afterward.

Downward spiral

Beijing had carefully crafted its relationships in Europe in recent decades — creating a dedicated annual summit with Central and Eastern European countries and seeking inroads for its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which won support from one G7 member when Italy signed on in 2019.

The EU declared China a “systemic rival” in 2019 and ties have continued to fray since.

“China now demands the rest of the world pay it due respect and recognize the positions China takes, without paying much regard to what the others may think,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London.

This approach made Western democracies “abandon the decades-long policy of helping China to modernize and rise with a hope that greater economic integration will encourage China to become a responsible stake holder in world affairs,” Tsang said.

Economic edge

China was the third largest export market for European goods and the largest source of products entering Europe last year, but frictions have taken their toll on the economic relationship between the EU and Beijing.

The greatest financial casualty was the long-awaited trade deal between the EU and China, which stalled last year after being caught in the crossfire of a sanctions exchange. Beijing slapped penalties on EU lawmakers and bodies, European think tanks and independent scholars after the EU sanctioned four Chinese officials for alleged abuses in Xinjiang.

But the damage was greater than just the deal.

“This overreaction (from Beijing) was not a wise move,” said Ingrid d’Hooghe, a senior research associate at the Netherlands-based think tank Clingendael, pointing to the harmful effect on public opinion.

“China’s strategy toward Europe was falling apart and it apparently didn’t understand that all these actions — the over-reactive sanctions, coercive diplomacy — in the end worked against China’s diplomatic goals … and also pushed Europe closer to the United States,” she said.

While these actions may have pushed a shift in European thinking with clear economic consequences, they added up for Beijing’s Foreign Ministry, according to Henry Gao, a professor at Singapore Management University’s Yong Pung How School of Law.

“For them, the cold relationship is a necessary price and it is more important to make political points,” he said.

Blind spot?

It is China’s most recent calculations over how to respond to Russia’s war in Ukraine that may end up the most costly when it comes to European ties.

There were leading policy analysts in China who understood the negative consequences China’s position would have on its European ties, according to Li Mingjiang, an associate professor and Provost’s Chair in International Relations at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. But that assessment may have been “underestimated” by decision makers, Li said.

“It’s a really huge dilemma for China … and they couldn’t afford any major negative consequences on the China-Russia strategic partnership. That imperative really prevailed,” Li said.

There has been acknowledgment of China’s myopia among mainland scholars,

“The geographic as well as emotional proximity of the war will fundamentally change European sentiments toward common security, economic dependencies, and national sovereignty for years to come,” Chen and his international group of coauthors wrote.

However, strong voices within many countries do continue to advocate a balanced approach to China, according to d’Hooghe. The future may bring not a decoupling, she said, but rather a recalibration within Europe of how to collaborate with China while keeping an eye on security and balance.

“But right now — and this is also true with the European relationship with Russia — normative considerations seem to weigh heavier than economic interests,” she said.

Grant Thornton is to pay a £1.3mn penalty over “serious failings” in its auditing of retailer Sports Direct, the accounting regulator said on Monday.

The findings related to Grant Thornton’s audit of the sports goods chain, now Frasers Group, for the 2015-16 and 2017-18 financial years and the work of Philip Westerman, the partner in charge of the audits. Westerman, now a former partner of the UK auditor, faces a penalty of nearly £80,000, it added.

The auditor and Westerman were issued severe reprimands over their handling of the two years’ audits. Grant Thornton will have to report to the Financial Reporting Council on its work to improve auditing standards.

The findings related to the failure by either the firm or Westerman to establish that Delivery Company A, a group involved in many of Sports Direct’s transactions, was a related party.

The regulators’ executive counsel made no finding as to whether there was a related party transaction, Monday’s statement said.

The FRC said that, while the respondents identified related parties as “an area of significant risk” for the audit, they failed to treat with “professional scepticism” management’s assertion that Delivery Company A was not a related party of Sports Direct.

“There were a number of relevant factors which should have prompted the respondents to consider and follow up matters further, but they did not,” the council said.

The findings against the firm and Westerman concerned “basic and important requirements” that were “fundamental to the work of an auditor”, the FRC said.

“As a result of the adverse findings, both the 2016 and 2018 audits failed in their principal objective of providing reasonable assurance that the 2016 and 2018 financial statements were free from material misstatement,” the council said.

The penalties against Westerman total £79,575.

Grant Thornton said it was pleased to conclude the “long-running matters”.

“Having invested significantly in the quality of our audits since this time, we have seen a marked improvement in our results and are confident that the issues identified by the FRC’s investigations . . . are not reflective of the work we produce today,” it said.

Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja pictured at Rhea Kapoor’s residence

Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja, who are soon going to embrace parenthood, spent the afternoon with Rhea Kapoor and her husband, Karan Boolani, on Sunday. The couple were pictured outside Rhea’s residence in casual yet classy outfits. For her day out, Sonam opted for a black bodycon dress and completed her look with black shoes and a matching sling bag. On the other hand, Anand looked uber-cool in a white printed t-shirt paired with black pants and white shoes. Check out the pictures below: 

Reports were doing rounds that Anil Kapoor was set to host a baby shower at Sonam Kapoor’s aunt Kavita Singh’s bungalow in Bandra. However, as per new reports, they cancelled the function owing to the rise in COVID-19 cases and instead had a small get-together at Sonam’s residence. 

Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja are expecting their first child this fall. The couple got married in 2018 after dating for several years. Announcing pregnancy news, Sonam shared a post on her Instagram handle and wrote a sweet note that read, “Four hands. To raise you the very best we can. Two hearts. That will beat in unison with yours, every step of the way. One family. Who will shower you with love and support. We can’t wait to welcome you. #everydayphenomenal #comingthisfall2022” 

Earlier, Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja were busy enjoying the babymoon in Italy and later joined Rhea Kapoor and Karan Boolani in Paris. Check out the posts below: 

On the work front, Sonam Kapoor was last seen in AK vs AK. Next, she will be seen in Blind. 
 

‘Systemic failures’ and poor leadership led to the high death toll in the school shooting in the town of Uvalde, Texas, legislators have concluded in a report published on Sunday.

An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at the local Robb Elementary School on May 24, killing 21 people, including 19 students.

Most of the victims died instantly, but it’s likely that some who succumbed to their wounds on their way to hospital could’ve survived if the police had acted swiftly and not waited for reinforcement for 73 minutes, the Texas House of Representatives said in its report.

“Law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active-shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,” the 77-page paper read.

In the course of the investigation the committee “found systemic failures and egregious poor decision making,” the lawmakers pointed out, adding that “the void of leadership could have contributed to the loss of life as injured victims waited over an hour for help, and the attacker continued to sporadically fire his weapon.”

Despite “an obvious atmosphere of chaos,” the better-trained officers from other federal and state law enforcement agencies didn’t offer any advice or specific assistance to the local police, who were in command of the scene, but turned out unprepared for the responsibility, the report found.

There were 376 officers on site but the attacker was able to fire some 100 out of his 142 rounds before any of them entered the building, it added.

The lawmakers also criticized the “regrettable culture of noncompliance by school personnel,” who have been leaving interior and exterior doors open in violation of regulations. This allowed an armed person to easily enter a school and attack the people inside.

Another reason for the tragedy was a failure in communications, according to the paper.

Children inside the classrooms where the shooting had unfolded phoned 911, but the law enforcers in charge of the operation at the school weren’t informed about those emergency calls, being unaware that “that students and teachers had survived the initial burst of gunfire.”

“Nobody in command analyzed this information to recognize that the attacker was preventing critically injured victims from obtaining medical care,” the document read.

The investigation, which was based on the accounts of 33 witnesses and 39 informal interviews with members of various security agencies, was aimed at providing a basis of facts so that lawmakers could make future policy changes to make schools more secure, Representative Dustin Burrows, a Republican who headed the committee, said during a press-conference.

“If somebody failed to exercise their training, if somebody knew there were victims in there being killed or dying and did not do more, I believe those agencies will have to find accountability for those officers,” Burrows said.

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Channel 4 Greenlights Boris Johnson Landmark From ‘Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story’ producer 72 Films

Channel 4 has greenlit a landmark documentary about disgraced UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson from prolific Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story producer 72 Films. The indie has gained access to rare archive footage for Boris (working title) and spoken with those with intimate knowledge of Johnson to chart his story across four episodes, from his meteoric rise to power to the extraordinary events of his premiership to his downfall over the past fortnight. The series will also divulge how the seeds of political rivalries still being felt in British politics all began in the corridors at Eton, where Johnson beat former Prime Minister David Cameron to the prestigious role of School Captain. Johnson became UK Prime Minister with a huge mandate to “Get Brexit done” in late 2019 but resigned 10 days ago following several scandals and the resignation of more than 50 MPs. “However the story of Boris Johnson’s political career ends he has done more to change Britain and the nature of our politics than any other recent political figure,” said Channel 4 Chief Content Officer Ian Katz. “This landmark series will try answer the question of what shaped the boy who wanted to be king of the world and how he grew to believe that he could escape the laws of political gravity.” Deadline revealed in April that 72 Films is making a similar documentary about Elon Musk.

ITV Sets Working Class Target

UK network ITV has pledged to increase its number of working class employees to 33% by 2025, launch disability access passports and proceed with a range of diversity initiatives as it unveils its Diversity Acceleration Plan Report 2022. The report details progress made so far two years on from the launch, along with the next phase. The socioeconomic 33% target is the first time ITV has had such an aim and comes as the Love Island broadcaster publishes intersectionality data for the first time, with working class representation currently at 30%. Other initiatives to be prolonged to 2025 include Step Up 60, which gives people in mid-level roles from underrepresented backgrounds the opportunity to work on ITV shows. “We want to create and showcase content by, with and for everyone, connecting and reflecting modern audiences,” said Ade Rawcliffe, ITV Group Director of Diversity and Inclusion. “We have more to do to become an anti-racist, anti-ableist organisation. The structural inequalities we see across society and the broadcasting industry are being addressed at  ITV too and we’re working to be part of the solution.”

‘The Control Room’ From ‘Sherlock’ Producer Hartswood Sells Worldwide

Following season one premiere last night, BBC thriller The Control Room from Sherlock producer Hartswood Films has sold to several European territories along with Australia and China. In Europe, the three-part thriller will air in the Netherlands on public broadcaster NPO, in Spain on Comunidad Film, and in Ireland on Virgin Media Television, while Dazzler Media has acquired home entertainment rights in the UK and Ireland. BBC Studios has taken for Australia along with ABC for second window and Chinese streamer Pumpkin Film has also acquired the show. Distributor All3Media International struck the deals for the thriller, which launched on BBC One last night to 3.2M viewers. The Control Room comes from BAFTA-winning writer Nick Leather and follows Gabe, played by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’s Iain De Caestecker, who works as an emergency call handler for the Scottish Ambulance Service in Glasgow. His world is turned upside down when he receives a desperate life-and-death call from a woman who appears to know him.

While the critics cast doubts on some of blockchain’s use cases during the crypto winter, one of the most prominent community figures laid out some points that cement blockchain’s position as a disruptive technology. 

On Twitter, FTX crypto exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried highlighted use cases for blockchain and explained how some industries could benefit from integrating the tech. According to Bankman-Fried, blockchain technology can simplify payments, solve stock market flaws and revolutionize social media.

Bankman-Fried said that there are many issues surrounding cross-border payments. The FTX CEO laid out several examples that highlighted long waiting times and intermediaries that make the fees higher and often add uncertainty to transactions.

According to the executive, blockchain solves this long-standing issue in finance by replacing the lengthy traditional process with a simple three-step process of the sender creating a wallet, the receiver creating a wallet and then sending the balance through. Bankman-Fried argued that this eliminates the waiting time, replaces the fee structure and solves the uncertainty factor.

Apart from this, the FTX CEO also pointed out that blockchain can change the entire stock trading process which has its fair share of flaws. Highlighting issues met with the infamous GameStop short-squeeze where retailers shut down because of settlement risks, Bankman-Fried said that tokenizing stocks is the answer.

26) Say you tokenize stocks.

Instead of waiting 2 days to settle, you can just swap AAPL-token <> USD-token on a blockchain. Which, remember, takes about 10 seconds and costs about $0.0002 in fees.

No remaining settlement uncertainty or risk.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) July 16, 2022

The executive argued that similar to the solutions to payments, tokenized stock trading executed on a blockchain can complete the transactions in a matter of seconds, and reduce settlement uncertainty with much lower fee structures.

Related: Nifty News: GameStop NFT’s first day, Limewire trends and game dev attacks

Lastly, the FTX CEO said that social media is isolated and not interoperable. The executive brought up how a single user has to go through many apps to manage various platform-specific applications.

Bankman-Fried argued that blockchain can potentially make social media more interoperable, allowing messaging across various platforms. Through the use of public chains, the relaying of messages from one social platform to another is possible according to the executive.