A severe ⁠heatwave gripped much of Europe on Sunday, with temperatures nearing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), prompting nationwide warnings, transport disruption and signs of strain on wildlife and at tourist hotspots. The heat surge on June 21, the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and typically the start of the three hottest months of the year, raised concerns of an early and persistent onset of ‌extreme conditions. After several days of temperatures above 35 degrees,...

Telling a Harbin Z-20 and a Sikorsky UH-60 “Black Hawk” apart can be challenging – the two helicopters look almost identical and their dimensions are very similar. The striking resemblance underscores China’s decades-long effort to close the technological gap with the United States and Russia in the important aviation sector of helicopters. Yet, there are differences: the Z-20 has five main rotor blades compared with the UH-60’s four, and its cabin features two front windows instead of the...

Bolivia began showing signs of returning to normalcy on Sunday, a day after President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency to resolve a 50-day social crisis that ‌had blocked the nation’s main highways. Early on Sunday, the Legislative Assembly overwhelmingly approved Paz’s decree, which aimed to restore transit and supply essential goods after protesting groups cut off key roads for weeks, stranding trucks and choking supplies of food, fuel and medicines to many areas. Sunday’s vote in...

Hong Kong police have arrested an elderly man and his son for allegedly assaulting public officers after they threw a parking ticket at two traffic wardens in Tuen Mun, the South China Morning Post has learned. A source said on Sunday that police arrested the 61-year-old man and his 31-year-old son outside cooked food stalls in Sam Shing at 11.40am. Earlier, at around 11.30am, a traffic warden had issued a parking ticket when the two men returned and disputed the penalty. During the...

A 54-year-old Hong Kong man died after reportedly losing control of an electric bike and falling from an unloading platform in Yuen Long early on Sunday, with the incident only discovered more than five hours later. Police received a report at 9.21am that a man was lying unconscious on Tong Yan San Tsuen Road. Officers arrived at the scene and found the man, surnamed Lam, with head and hand injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the force, Lam was riding the e-bike eastbound...

Chen Weiqiang, formerly a tenured professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at New York University (NYU), has joined the school of biomedical engineering at Nanjing University as a distinguished professor. “Professor Chen has long been deeply engaged in top overseas universities, achieving remarkable results in cutting-edge fields such as cellular biomechanics and organ chips,” Nanjing University assistant president Jiang Tian said, while introducing him. “He chose to join Nanjing...

The spectacle of US President Donald Trump thanking China for staying “neutral” with regard to the US-Israeli war against Iran would have been unthinkable a year ago. Yet at the Group of Seven summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on June 17, he credited Beijing – alongside Moscow – with preventing a full-blown catastrophe. His observation that China “could have sent in an oil ship with six destroyers alongside of it, on each side” but chose restraint, captured the essence of Beijing’s strategic...