1,800 firefighters battle wildfires in central Portugal

Firefighters help to put out a forest fire near the village of Vila de Rei, Portugal, on Sunday. About 1,800 firefighters were struggling to contain wildfires in central Portugal that have already injured 20 people, including eight firefighters, authorities said on Sunday. The fires broke out Saturday across three fronts in the district of Castelo Branco, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) northeast of Lisbon.SD-Agencies

Abe falls short of supermajority in election win

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claimed victory in Sunday’s upper house election while falling short of securing a supermajority to quickly push through his plans to make the first revisions to the country’s pacifist* constitution.

With the final vote tally not yet complete, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its partner Komeito have won at least 69 of the 124 seats up for grabs, public broadcaster NHK projected.

Given the 70 seats they hold in the uncontested section of the chamber, this amounts to a simple majority of the total 245 seats.

Israeli crews demolish

Palestinian homes

Israeli work crews on Monday began demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes in an east Jerusalem neighborhood, in one of the largest operations of its kind in years.

The demolitions capped a years-long legal battle over the buildings, built along the invisible line straddling* the city and the occupied West Bank. Israel says the buildings were erected too close to its West Bank separation barrier. Residents say the buildings are on West Bank land, and the Palestinian Authority gave them construction permits.

Christensen sentenced to life imprisonment

Brendt Christensen, the former University of Illinois student who confessed to killing Chinese scholar Zhang Yingying, 26, was sentenced to life in prison for her murder.

The jury was unable to make a unanimous* decision, so the court imposed a life sentence. While Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011, Christensen was charged in federal court, which made him eligible for a death penalty case.

“The jury has spoken, and the trial is over, but Yingying is not home,” said Zhang’s father, Zhang Ronggao, at a brief news conference following the sentence. “We ask the defendant to unconditionally tell us what he knows about Yingying’s location,” the father said.

Germany marks 75th anniversary of plot to kill Hitler

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Europeans to confront populism*, nationalism*, racism and anti-Semitism* as she paid tribute to the Nazi resistance in her own country.

Speaking on Saturday at a solemn ceremony marking the anniversary of the failed attempt to kill Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Merkel said the courage and sacrifice of the conspirator* should serve as an example to people today.

Massive heat wave blamed for at least 6 deaths in US

Soaring temperatures are continuing to scorch two-thirds of the United States with the brutal heatwave blamed for causing at least six deaths in a week, as well as an emergency in New York as roads begin to buckle.

Such is the extreme heat that police officers in Braintree, Massachusetts, said on Saturday in a tongue-in-cheek* Facebook post: “Folks. Due to the extreme heat, we are asking anyone thinking of doing criminal activity to hold off until Monday.(SD-Agencies)