Forecasters say hottest conditions spreading into central and eastern Europe
Much of Europe is facing another scorching hot day today, with the heatwave moving north-east across the continent.
The highest weather warning has been issued in France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Hungary, as scientists at the World Weather Attribution group say the heatwave gripping western Europe “is the most severe ever recorded”.
Aberdeen 22C
Belfast 21C
Birmingham 28C
Cardiff 27C
Glasgow 22C
Liverpool 28C
London 32C
Newcastle 27C
Plymouth 23C
Sheffield 28C
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06/27/2026 - 04:02
06/27/2026 - 01:00
Hotels report increase in last-minute bookings, including from families attempting to escape hot homes
Europe heatwave: latest updates
Families, including parents with newborn babies, are booking air-conditioned rooms in hotels to escape the UK heatwave, with companies reporting a surge in demand.
Data from the accommodation reservation website Booking.com shows that since 1 June, the share of searches using the “air-conditioning” filter has tripled across Great Britain coinciding with the latest heatwave in northern Europe.
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06/26/2026 - 21:50
Accumulation on Switzerland’s glaciers from last winter expected to all be gone by Monday amid ‘enormous’ melt rates across Alps
Europe heatwave: latest updates
Swiss glaciers are set to lose an enormous amount of ice due to the heatwave battering Europe, according to the head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos).
The snow and ice accumulated last winter by Switzerland’s glaciers is expected to have all melted away by Monday, marking the alarming second-earliest arrival on record of the tipping point known as glacier loss day.
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06/26/2026 - 15:38
Environmentalists and immigrant-rights advocates seek accounting of damage done by notorious detention center
While they welcome the recent closure of the controversial Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention center, leading environmental groups and their allies say they want an independent investigation into the environmental damage the facility inflicted on the surrounding wilderness during its 12 months of operations.
Those groups made that demand alongside immigrant-rights advocates and members of Florida’s Miccosukee Tribe at a news conference on Friday outside the entrance to the shuttered detention center, where the Friends of the Everglades (FOE) executive director, Eve Samples, condemned the camp as a “failure, an obscene waste of taxpayer dollars and an abuse of the Everglades”.
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06/26/2026 - 12:45
A new study reveals that goldfish can do far more than survive in the wild—they can fundamentally reshape freshwater ecosystems. Researchers found they cloud water, damage food webs, and hurt native fish populations, sometimes triggering major ecological shifts.
06/26/2026 - 12:04
Scientists say hot spell is worst ever, with nearly half of region’s 850 largest cities facing unprecedented heat stress
The number of deaths in France linked to the heatwave has climbed to four toddlers and more than 55 drownings, as the brutally hot conditions sweeping Europe were forecast to shift east, choking 150 million people under 35C (95F) temperatures.
Scientists said the heatwave was the most severe and widespread ever, leaving nearly half of the region’s 850 largest cities grappling with unprecedented heat stress. They said the extreme temperatures had been made possible by the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning.
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06/26/2026 - 11:40
Jurors in California deliberated for over 13 hours, before announcing that they were deadlocked
A federal judge declared a mistrial in the arson case against the 29-year-old man accused of sparking the deadly 2025 Palisades fire in Los Angeles, after the jury said it could not agree on a verdict.
Jurors deliberated for over 13 hours on Thursday on whether to convict Jonathan Rinderknecht on three federal charges, before announcing that they were deadlocked.
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06/26/2026 - 11:34
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06/26/2026 - 11:31
Delegates at an ‘anti-woke’ conference disparaged Ed Miliband’s net zero policies. But even they could not ignore the sweat on their foreheads
It was hardly a perfect film, but I keep thinking of Don’t Look Up. In its depiction of a world that stubbornly refuses to heed the warnings of an imminent planetary disaster, it was perhaps too on the nose. But these days, reality itself is too on the nose.
This week served up ample evidence, on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain, like much of Europe, the all-consuming concern has been intense, intolerable heat, with temperature records shattered and swathes of the country under the highest state of alert. For the first time, red warnings were issued in the UK for three consecutive days. Schools have closed; nights have become sleepless, with the mercury rising to meet the technical definition of “tropical”. There are wildfires in Derbyshire. All this in a temperate country in June.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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06/26/2026 - 11:02
Neso asks generators to provide extra electricity on Friday evening to meet demand from fans and air conditioning
Business live – latest updates
Great Britain’s energy system operator raised the alarm over electricity supplies for the second time this week as the heatwave continued to test Europe’s energy markets.
The National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued a notice late on Thursday asking generators to provide any extra electricity possible on Friday evening to help meet rising demand as households turn on air conditioners and electric fans to cope with the heat.
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