IPMA has every mainland district except Faro under a yellow heat warning from Monday into Tuesday, with highs of 40C expected in Santarem, Beja and Evora.

By Marta Carneiro

Image: Jocelyn Erskine-Kellie from London, UK / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

A third straight night without US or Iranian strikes, but Tehran says it rejected the proposal tabled in Islamabad and is keeping Hormuz closed.

Three quiet nights are not the same thing as peace, and Iran went out of its way to say so. Tehran announced it had rejected the proposal the United States brought to the table in Islamabad, and that it has no intention of sitting back down with Washington any time soon. The pause itself is real. After thirteen days of near-continuous strikes, the weekend went by without American attacks, and an Iranian official said the country will hold fire for as long…

Continue reading

Ukraine's security service claimed a strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea. Iran calls it a hostile act against a commercial ship, with one sailor killed, and summoned Ukraine's representatives.

For months this war had two hot spots on the map: the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. This weekend it acquired a third, and it is the least predictable of them all — the Caspian Sea, an inland body of water ringed by five countries with no outlet to any ocean. Ukraine's security service claimed responsibility on Saturday for a strike on an Iranian vessel in those waters. Kyiv describes the target as a ship used to move military cargo between Iran and…

Continue reading

For the first time in nearly two weeks the US announced no fresh strikes on Iran. Regional mediation is moving, and the compromise on the table is about how ships transit the Strait of Hormuz.

One quiet night, and in this war that counts as news. On Saturday the US military announced no new strikes on Iran for the first time in almost two weeks of bombardment, and countries hosting American bases in the region reported no fresh Iranian fire either. After thirteen straight nights of counting explosions, there is suddenly room for something else: talking. Because diplomacy got a foothold. An official involved in the regional mediation effort…

Continue reading

Australian utility Origin Energy has confirmed attackers accessed names, addresses, birthdates and portions of banking information. It serves around 4.8 million accounts.

A company that sells you electricity knows a great deal more about you than your kilowatt-hours. That is the uncomfortable part of the Origin Energy story, after the Australian utility confirmed it was hit by a cyberattack. Names, addresses, birthdates, telephone numbers, account details and portions of credit card or bank information. The company serves roughly 4.8 million customer accounts, though it has not yet confirmed how many people were actually…

Continue reading

On its 13th test flight Starship deployed 20 genuine Starlink V3 satellites and settled gently into the Indian Ocean. The booster had a rougher time of it.

After two scrubbed attempts, the largest rocket ever built finally left Starbase in south Texas on Friday. And Starship's 13th test flight came with the detail that had been missing all along: there were real satellites inside it. Twenty third-generation Starlink satellites, the V3s, and all of them deployed smoothly. That sounds like a footnote and is not one. Earlier flights carried mass simulators, blocks with the right weight and no function…

Continue reading

Portugal sent a 128-strong joint force to fight the wildfires burning in Ávila, Spain, under the mutual civil-protection aid protocol between the two countries.

The convoy left Guarda at three in the afternoon on Saturday. That is 128 Portuguese emergency workers heading for the Spanish province of Ávila, where rural fires have spent days outrunning local crews, and the army sent 500 combat rations along with them so nobody has to fight a wildfire on an empty stomach. It is called a Joint Operational Force and it pulls people from several places at once: the command structure and Special Civil Protection Force of…

Continue reading

A Russian missile struck a defence-industry exhibition near Kyiv on Friday, killing at least ten. Moscow claimed the strike and Ukraine's prosecutor opened an inquiry into the event itself.

This one was not a miss. On Friday a Russian missile came down on a private training ground in the Kyiv region where a defence-industry showcase was under way, killing at least ten people and wounding close to a hundred — and Russia's defence ministry then said, in plain language, that this was the point. A drone exhibition. Moscow said the display featured Ukrainian and foreign-made unmanned aircraft, including models still in development, which it…

Continue reading

The United States has started charging an extra 10% on everything the European Union sells it. What the Section 301 tariffs are, who got hit and what it means for exporters in Portugal.

Since Friday, everything the European Union sells to the United States carries an extra 10% at the border. This is not a threat or a proposal: it took effect on 24 July and American customs is already collecting it. The measure comes out of a Section 301 investigation, the tool Washington uses to punish what it considers unfair trade practices. This time the charge is forced labour: the US trade representative concluded that 60 economies, the EU, China…

Continue reading

The escalation between the United States and Iran has reached a 13th straight night of strikes, with Iran hitting back at Gulf bases and Brent crude climbing past $100 a barrel.

The war grinding on in the Persian Gulf is not letting up. The United States has now reached a 13th straight night of strikes on Iran, with blasts reported across several Iranian cities, while Tehran hit back with drones and missiles against American bases in neighbouring countries. And, as always when that region burns, the effect reached fuel pumps half a world away in a hurry. Washington has stepped up the bombing and the US president again threatened…

Continue reading

Portugal dispatched two Air Tractor planes to help France battle wildfires in the southwest, through the EU civil protection mechanism. Macron confirmed the reinforcement.

A few weeks ago it was Portugal asking for help with its own fires. Now it's the other way round: the country has sent two planes to southwestern France, where wildfires are eating through hectares and forcing thousands of people to flee. And it wasn't just any thank-you — it was President Emmanuel Macron himself naming Portugal on the list of reinforcements on their way. Two Air Tractor planes — the small yellow aircraft that dump water on the flames and…

Continue reading

Portugal's recovery fund (PRR) is weeks from closing, and the government has filed its seventh and final reprogramming in Brussels to avoid losing EU money.

Portugal's recovery fund is genuinely running out of road, and the government has no intention of reaching the finish line with money still sitting unspent. This week it filed its seventh — and, it insists, final — reprogramming of the plan in Brussels, the last tweak to the books that exists for one reason: to avoid handing EU cash back because the country couldn't spend it in time. The logic is easy enough to follow. The Recovery and Resilience Plan…

Continue reading

Portugal's SNS enters summer 2026 with its contingency plan active but emergency-room rosters not fully secured; the health minister has admitted a shortage of staff, and there are new incentives for doctors' overtime.

Summer in Portugal means beaches, festivals and packed roads — and, every single year, hospital emergency rooms under strain. This year is no exception, and the National Health Service has laid its cards on the table: the rosters aren't fully covered. The health minister admitted she does not have "the complete roster for the next three months", pointing to a shortage of staff. In plain terms: in some units, especially overnight and in the most…

Continue reading

Wildfire danger has risen to very high in around 80 municipalities as the heat builds. See which districts are at risk and how to stay safe.

The heat won't let up and the scrub is bone-dry — the combination that worries firefighters most. Wildfire danger has climbed again across mainland Portugal, with around 80 municipalities at very high risk and dozens more at high risk, as temperatures rise through the week. The danger is concentrated mainly in the northern and central interior and parts of the south: districts such as Viana do Castelo, Braga, Vila Real, Viseu, Bragança, Guarda, Coimbra,…

Continue reading

France's parliament approved a ban on social media for under-15s and a phone ban in schools. The law still needs the Constitutional Council's sign-off.

France took a step this week that no other European Union country had taken: both chambers of parliament approved a law banning under-15s from social media. It's a flagship of Emmanuel Macron's second term, and it puts the country at the front of a debate raging worldwide — the effect of social platforms on the health and safety of the young. The law doesn't stop there. It also bans mobile phones inside schools and brings new advertising rules for…

Continue reading