World News

Key points

• A heat wave in Europe killed more than 2,300 people in 12 cities in late June.
• A study conducted in Barcelona, Madrid, London and Milan points to a temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius due to climate change.

Heatwaves kill thousands in Europe / Getty Images

In mid-summer, Europe was hit by a heat wave. About 2,300 people died as a result of the high temperatures.

Reuters reports this, citing a study by scientists from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Channel 24 reports.

Thousands died from heat

In 12 European cities, about 2,300 deaths were attributed to the heatwave in late June. About 1,500 of these were due to climate change, which increased the intensity of the heatwave. The death toll was increased by heat-induced worsening of chronic conditions.

The hottest period was the 10 days ending on July 2, when temperatures in Spain reached over +40 degrees Celsius and forest fires raged in France.

The studies were conducted in major cities, including Barcelona, Madrid, London and Milan, where temperatures have risen by 4 degrees Celsius due to climate change.

Climate change has made it much hotter than it otherwise would be, which in turn makes such conditions much more dangerous, said researcher Ben Clark.

The scientists used epidemiological models and historical statistics to quickly estimate the death toll. They note that most heat-related deaths are not officially recorded, and governments do not always publish the data.

June was the third hottest on record, according to the European Copernicus Service. Western Europe experienced its hottest June ever. Many regions were in conditions of “severe heat stress”, when the perceived temperature exceeds +38 degrees Celsius.

By the way, Ukraine will also be hit by abnormal heat. On Wednesday, July 9, thermometer readings will reach +39 degrees Celsius.

The American admitted that he went to Washington to support Trump because he was “obsessed” with him.

US Navy veteran Jason Riddle, convicted of participating in the January 2021 storming of the Capitol, has rejected a pardon offered by President Donald Trump, but he expressed hope that the current US president will also end up in prison one day.

He made this statement on air on ABC radio in New Hampshire, Law and Crime reports.

“I did a lot of damage being there [at the Capitol assault]. I hurt a lot of people, I said a lot of bad things,” Riddle said in an interview.

By accepting Trump's pardon, he said, he would be denying that reality.

Riddle, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years of probation, said he sought help from Sen. Maggie Hassan's office to formalize his refusal of clemency.

“I was obviously obsessed with Trump. Psychologically, I was a hostage to something that was just draining me. It's a terrible thing that happened, and I deserve to go to jail, and so does Donald Trump. He deserves to go to jail for causing this. I think he might end up there one day,” he said.

In the interview, Riddle said he believed at the time that Trump had rightfully lost the 2020 election but wanted to attend the trip to Washington to support him. He said he had previously attended the incumbent president's rallies and noticed a sense of community among his supporters.

Jason Riddle is not the only one who refused the pardon that Donald Trump announced for those who stormed the Capitol immediately after returning to office on January 20 of this year.

Pamela Hemphill, 71, a convicted assault defendant, also rejected a presidential pardon, saying she felt like she was part of a “cult” that led her to believe Trump was the victim of election fraud in the 2020 election.

“Accepting a pardon would be an affront to the Capitol Police, to the rule of law and to our nation,” Hemphill told reporters.

Let us recall that the pardon announced by Donald Trump concerned about 1,500 people who participated in the storming of the Capitol.

In early July, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels carried out a series of brazen attacks on Greek commercial vessels, resulting in casualties and the sinking of two ships.

Houthi attacks have sunk two Greek ships in the Red Sea. The first victim was the bulk carrier Magic Seas, which was attacked and sunk on July 6. The following day, a similar fate befell the bulk carrier MV Eternity C, which managed to stay afloat until Wednesday, July 9. Both ships were attacked using naval drones and speedboats off the coast of Yemen.

Greek Reporter writes about this.

Eternity C sinking

The Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Eternity C, operated by Greek company Cosmoship and en route from China to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was targeted by naval drones and Houthi boats on July 7 off the coast of Hodeida. Rebels on board speedboats launched an attack using rocket launchers and two drones, which hit the vessel and exploded. The missiles hit the bridge and engine room, leaving the vessel “blind” and uncontrollable. Contact with the vessel was lost after the attack.

The ship's armed guards were reportedly trapped in the wreckage on the bridge while trying to repel the Houthis who were circling the damaged ship in their boats. Although immediate orders were given to abandon ship, the situation made this impossible.

According to the publication, citing Greek government officials, the crew consisted of 22 Filipinos and three Indian armed guards. But DW reported that there was one Russian among the crew members.

As of July 9, at least five sailors had been rescued, while several crew members were still in the water in life jackets, their exact number is still unknown.

According to journalists, at least four crew members died as a result of the attack and sinking of the vessel.

Attack on Magic Seas

Hours before the attack on Eternity C, the Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on the Greek, Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Magic Seas on July 6 in the Red Sea off the southwest coast of Yemen.

Houthi spokesman Yahya Sari said the ship was attacked for “violating the ban on entering ports in occupied Palestine.”

According to media reports, the Magic Seas was attacked by drones, missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, forcing the crew to abandon ship. The bulk carrier subsequently sank. The crew was rescued by a passing vessel a few hours later and taken to Djibouti.

gCaptain reported that Yemen's Houthis even released a video of the Magic Seas sinking after their attack. The ship was carrying iron and fertilizer from China to Turkey when it came under attack for four hours.

Escalation of the conflict

The Secretary General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Council, Arsenio Dominguez, said that “after months of silence, the resumption of egregious attacks in the Red Sea is a new violation of international law and freedom of navigation.”

This is the first fatality in shipping in the Red Sea since June 2024.

The incidents came just months after a ceasefire agreement between the US and the Houthis in May 2025, although Israel was not part of the deal. The Houthis have said they will continue to attack ships they believe are linked to Israel.

Maritime traffic through the Red Sea has dropped by around 50% compared to normal levels since the Houthi campaign began in late 2023. Vessels transiting the southern Red Sea are advised to exercise extreme caution and shipping companies are urged to register with the Indian Ocean Maritime Security Centre's Voluntary Registration Scheme.

The two attacks highlight the high risk to shipping in the Red Sea region and vital shipping lanes around Yemen. The area remains a hotbed of geopolitical instability and armed group activity, and the incident is a stark reminder of the ongoing threats to commercial shipping.

Let us recall that, according to journalists, Russia is helping the Houthis to strike ships in the Red Sea. The Kremlin regime is transmitting coordinates to terrorists to attack civilian ships.

Key points

• Donald Trump has made critical statements about Vladimir Putin and announced the resumption of aid to Ukraine.
• Trump realized that the forceful scenario was the only one that could bring results in the war, so he moved from a mediator role to supporting Ukraine.
• Trump's shifting rhetoric toward Russia and statements about increasing aid to Ukraine indicate his new approach to the conflict.

Donald Trump made some interesting statements. First, he criticized Vladimir Putin for not wanting to end the war, and then he announced the resumption of aid to Ukraine.

As political scientist and partner at the consulting company Good Politics Maxim Dzhigun noted to Channel 24, we have seen a radical change in the narratives that Trump has been voicing since the first days of his presidency. Now he speaks differently.

What the US leader finally understood

As soon as Trump got into the Oval Office, he began to convince that Vladimir Putin allegedly was not understood. He returned the dictator to the international political arena, tried to negotiate with him about something.

We have now reached the point where Trump has realized what everyone knew long before February 24, 2022. The American leader has finally realized that it is impossible to come to an agreement with the head of the Kremlin, he only wants to conquer Ukraine and is not going to retreat.

For some time, Trump was focused on domestic issues, the Middle East, but now he has returned to the Russian-Ukrainian war with renewed vigor. This is confirmed by his latest statements and rhetoric, which has become much harsher towards Putin, – emphasized Maxim Dzhigun.

Finally, Trump’s entourage and the president himself realized that only a forceful scenario of unleashing a war could lead to results that would satisfy the United States and Ukraine.

“We have found ourselves, perhaps for the first time during Trump's second presidency, in a situation where the American leader has moved from the position of mediator to supporting one of the parties,” the political scientist emphasized.

When we hear his aggressive rhetoric towards Russia, statements about increasing aid, this is a sign of a change in the US President's position. Of course, aid needs to be scaled up, but even its restoration is a good signal.

The next stage should be the strengthening of joint sanctions pressure on Russia by Europe and the US. Perhaps we will see this at the next G7 summit.

Mount Rainier in Washington State is worrying scientists again – more than 100 tremors have been recorded beneath it.

More than 100 small earthquakes were detected beneath Washington state's Mount Rainier on Tuesday, the most seismic activity in the region in 15 years. The volcano is located just 50 miles from Seattle, and thousands of people live on its slopes.

The Daily Mail writes about this.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the series of tremors began at 4:29 a.m. on July 9. None of the quakes exceeded magnitude 1.7, but their number and depth (ranging from 1.2 to 3.7 miles below the volcano's summit) have drawn the attention of scientists.

USGS reassures: there is no reason to panic. The current alert level for Mount Rainier remains “normal,” with no ground deformations or abnormal signals recorded. However, this is the largest “swarm” of earthquakes on the volcano since 2009, and the region has seen increased activity since 2020.

Mount Rainier is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the United States. Although it has not erupted for over a thousand years, its slopes contain huge amounts of snow, ice, and volcanic soil. If it erupts, this could lead to the formation of lahars—powerful mudflows that could literally wipe out entire communities.

Hundreds of thousands of residents of Tacoma, South Seattle and other cities are effectively living on the remains of ancient lahars – in areas that will likely be the first to be affected.

“Mount Rainier is the volcano that keeps me up at night,” volcanologist Jess Phoenix has previously admitted. In her opinion, the greatest threat is not lava flows, but lahars, which can form even without an eruption – due to heavy rains or gradual destabilization of slopes.

Lahars have caused major disasters in the past. In particular, the 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia killed 25,000 people and a mudflow inundated the entire town of Armero. In the United States, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, 50 miles from Rainier, also released salt that destroyed hundreds of homes and claimed dozens of lives.

Volcanologists are currently closely monitoring activity beneath Rainier. They say an eruption is inevitable, but seismic activity is a reminder of potential risks. The region is being monitored for ground movement, temperature, infrasound signals, and slope deformation.

At the same time, experts are calling on residents of nearby areas to be vigilant and know what to do in case of an emergency.

Over the past two decades, Mount Rainier has seen significant improvements to its lahar monitoring system, officially called the Mount Rainier Lahar Detection System. It includes seismometers and other sensors located both on the volcano's flanks and along potential mudflow pathways, particularly in the Puyallup River and Tahoma Creek valleys.

When the system was introduced in 1998, the technical capabilities left much to be desired – due to the limitations of the technology of that time, there was a delay between the appearance of a lahar and its detection by the devices. Modern equipment installed in recent years has made it possible to ensure almost instantaneous detection of the threat and transmission of a signal in real time.

Meanwhile, regional governments are refining their evacuation plans and emergency procedures. On March 21, 2024, more than 45,000 students from the south Seattle suburbs and areas west of Rainier participated in a large-scale lahar evacuation drill. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, it was the largest such exercise in the world.

Such efforts are aimed at increasing the region's preparedness for a possible eruption, a threat that experts believe is quite real in the near future.

The confiscated enterprises are sold to new owners, and the proceeds from the sale go to the treasury of the aggressor state.

The Kremlin has been actively confiscating private business assets in Russia to fill the state coffers and finance military spending. The total value of confiscated property since 2022 has reached 3.9 trillion rubles or $49.5 billion.

This was reported by Bloomberg.

According to estimates by lawyers from the Moscow firm Nektorov, Savelyev and Partners, the total value of confiscated assets has tripled over the past year.

The Russian authorities come up with various grounds for confiscation: problems with the privatization of the enterprise, accusations of corruption and even extremism, or simply “protection of public interests.”

The confiscated enterprises are sold to new owners, and the proceeds from the sale go to the treasury of the aggressor state, which is losing its fill due to falling oil prices and the strengthening of the ruble.

According to Andrei Yakovlev, an economist and fellow at Harvard University's Davis Center, confiscating property that is later resold serves two purposes: it creates a new source of revenue for the budget and “changes the business elite in such a way that its fate is tied to the survival of the regime.”

Analysts say the increased asset seizures may help shore up Russia's public finances but are weakening the economy's resilience and hollowing out the private sector that has helped the Kremlin weather sanctions and the turmoil of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Let us recall that Russia’s oil economy has gone into decline due to sanctions, falling oil prices and the abnormal strengthening of the ruble.

Key points

• The media reported that the US allegedly has only 25% of the required Patriot missiles. This could have influenced the suspension of arms supplies to Ukraine.
• This is rather dubious information. It is unlikely to correspond to reality.
• Israeli military analyst David Sharp has speculated whether the US really has a shortage of Patriot missiles.

The media speculated that the United States had suspended military aid to Ukraine due to a shortage of Patriot missiles. Allegedly, the United States had only 25% of the required number of these missiles left because they had exhausted their stockpiles in the Middle East. But this is very dubious information.

Israeli military observer David Sharp told Channel 24 about this, noting that the wording is important here. It is unlikely that the United States has depleted its stockpiles of Patriot missiles to 25% of what is needed.

Is the US Short of Patriot Missiles?

As Sharp noted, when they talk about Patriot missiles, they are talking about PAC-3, which are capable of shooting down ballistics. And here it is difficult to imagine that the United States had an emergency reserve, but they spent it so that 25% of the permissible minimum remained.

During the standoff with Iran, the US used other missiles. I have not heard of Israel using them either. The missiles that were launched at Israel were not the ones that Patriots are effective against. The US base in Qatar was hit with 14 missiles. Even if the US used 20 missiles against the Patriot, it would hardly have significantly depleted its stockpiles, Sharp noted.

It is quite possible that the information about 25% of the minimum is false data. Or the US believes that under current conditions they need to increase the number of these missiles in their own warehouses.

Another important point is that it wasn't just Patriot that was turned away for Ukraine. They also suspended supplies of ammunition and missiles for other systems that have nothing to do with missile defense. So it's not all that simple. I hope that everything will become clear soon, Sharp said.

Let's add that later the US State Department reported that they had resumed arms supplies to Ukraine. Donald Trump himself said that he did not know who had suspended military aid to our country. The media reported that this decision was made unilaterally by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, which surprised both Congress and the State Department, European allies and Ukraine.

More than 2,300 people have died in Europe in just 10 days due to heat waves. Researchers attribute most of the deaths to climate change.

During the heat wave that swept Western Europe in late June, about 2,300 temperature-related deaths were recorded in 12 major cities.

This was reported by Reuters, citing a rapid study conducted by scientists from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The study covers a 10-day period ending July 2, during which temperatures exceeded 40°C in parts of Spain, massive forest fires broke out in France and “very severe heat stress” was recorded in many regions.

Scientists estimate that 1,500 of these 2,300 deaths are due to the impact of climate change, which has made the heat wave more intense. In particular, in the cities studied, including London, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, the temperature due to climate change has increased by 4°C compared to what it would have been without global warming.

The researchers used proven epidemiological models and historical mortality data to account for deaths where heat may have been the underlying cause or a factor that worsened existing conditions.

The researchers note that most heatstroke deaths are not officially recorded, and some governments do not publish such statistics at all. That is why the results are preliminary, but based on peer-reviewed scientific methods.

June 2025 was the third hottest month on record globally, after June 2023 and 2024, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. In Western Europe, it was the warmest month on record, with temperatures in many regions feeling like they were over 38°C, which is classified as “very severe heat stress.”

Samantha Burgess, a spokesperson for the Copernicus programme, warned that heat waves in Europe would become more frequent, more intense and affect more people as global warming progresses.

Recall that in 2023, scientists said that up to 61,000 people could die in Europe during the 2022 heat wave. This indicates that measures to adapt to extreme temperatures are insufficient at the government level.

The main cause of warming remains the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly as a result of burning fossil fuels. This leads to higher baseline temperatures and, accordingly, makes heat waves more dangerous to human health.

Let us recall that due to the heat, Switzerland, which rarely experiences such weather phenomena, was forced to shut down one of the power units of the nuclear power plant due to overheating of the water used to cool the reactors.

However, these hellish records did not reach Ukraine. And although fires raged here too – in Mykolaiv region. But according to weather forecasters, rains will soon begin again.

Dmitry Peskov was surprised by such statements from the US President – he says that he allegedly had not heard about the bombing of Moscow.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did not know whether US President Donald Trump really said he could bomb Moscow if Russia went to war against Ukraine.

According to him, he does not know how true this information is, but noted that the US President makes quite harsh statements.

“Is it true that Trump said this to Putin? It's hard to say. There were no telephone conversations then. We are talking about the period when Trump was not the US president,” Peskov responded.

Earlier, CNN reported that Donald Trump told partners that he once tried to stop Russian leader Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine by threatening to bomb Moscow in response to this aggression.

“I told Putin: if you go into Ukraine, I will bomb the hell out of Moscow. I have no choice. And he was like: I don't believe you. But he believed me 10%,” the American president said.

Trump later added that he had given a similar warning to Chinese leader Xi Jinping about a possible attack on Taiwan, saying that Washington would bomb Beijing in response.

“He thought I was crazy,” Donald Trump says of Xi. “But we never had a problem.”

The statements came as Trump was trying to persuade the crowd to support him for a second term. The audio was recorded at fundraisers in New York and Florida in 2024. The file was obtained by journalists Josh Doha, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf, who included excerpts in their new book, “2024.” The recordings have not previously been made public. Trump’s campaign declined to comment on their contents.

An old bridge in Vadodara district collapsed under vehicles. People died, search for missing persons continues.

A tragic accident occurred in Vadodara district in the Indian state of Gujarat on Wednesday morning when the Mujpur Gambhira bridge collapsed, sending around seven vehicles flying into the Vishwamitri River.

Vibes of India writes about this.

At least nine people, including a child, have died. Five have been rescued, but the search operation is ongoing – the death toll may rise. NDRF teams are taking part in the rescue operations, and locals are actively helping.

The bridge, built more than 30 years ago, has long been the subject of complaints from local residents due to its state of disrepair. But, as it turns out, no action has been taken by the authorities.

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has ordered an investigation. Bridge experts have been dispatched to the site. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is abroad, has contacted the state leadership to clarify the details.

The opposition accuses the government of criminal negligence. Leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party and the Indian National Congress have called for an independent probe and demanded accountability from officials.

Recall that on July 1, in the city of Hyderabad in the southern Indian state of Telangana (India), a powerful fire occurred at a new chemical plant of the company Sigachi Industries. According to official data, at least 39 people died as a result of the tragedy.

The fire broke out after an explosion that set a large part of the plant on fire. At the time of the incident, more than 140 workers were on the plant's premises. Some of them managed to evacuate, but many were trapped between the fire and the destroyed structures.

Rescuers fought the flames for several hours, after which they began to clear the rubble in search of victims. As of Tuesday evening, the bodies of 39 dead people had been found, and another 34 people were injured and taken to hospitals.