Millions across the Midwest and parts of the South are set to face another day of dangerously high temperatures while other parts of the country brace for the next round of severe storms. Meanwhile, wildfires in Europe force thousands to flee their homes. NBC's Maggie Vespa reports and TODAY's Al Roker tracks the forecast.

#maggie #roker

BEIJING (AP) — China's leading technology companies showcased hundreds of cutting-edge products at the World AI Conference in Shanghai — from advanced robotics to artificial intelligence systems.
The nation's annual flagship AI event, which was held from July 17 to 20, took place against the backdrop of a heated U.S.-China tech rivalry. More than 1,100 companies participated.
Chinese companies have developed more than 400 humanoid robot products, more than half the world's total, state media said. Open-source AI models from China are increasingly challenging leading American ones as they are more widely adopted globally.
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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

#Companies #China

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Thursday that violent far-left political terrorism "can no longer be denied" as he urged more than 60 countries gathered in Washington to treat the threat as a global counterterrorism priority.
Speaking at the opening of a State Department summit attended by roughly 65 foreign delegations, Rubio said governments had spent too long overlooking what he described as a resurgence of transnational far-left extremist violence and called for greater international cooperation to counter it.
Rubio described radical leftism as "a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice."
Tens Of Thousands Of Far-left Protesters Clash With Police In Anti-conservative Party Riots
"Today we face a new wave of this old evil here in the United States: the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades," the secretary went on.

Americans are less concerned about dying and more perturbed by the financial implications of remaining alive.
That's one finding from an annual survey by the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement. It found that 67% of Americans worry more about running out of money than death.
"It's running out of money," said Kelly LaVigne, vice president of consumer insights at Allianz, speaking to USA TODAY in April. "It's not being able to afford healthcare. It's not being able to afford long-term care."
The Allianz survey, released in April, asked Americans to choose the bigger of two worries: death, or running out of money. In five recent annual surveys, "running out of money" has always won. This year, the margin was higher than ever. The survey reached 1,000 adults ages 25 and over with household incomes of at least $50,000 or investable ***** ets of at least $150,000.
There are several reasons, both economic and socioeconomic, why Americans may be worrying more these days about outliving their money. People are living longer. Inflation is running high. The costs of health care and long-term care are rising. Fewer workers are retiring with pensions that provide a guaranteed income stream.

With its brilliant orange wings and black markings, the high brown fritillary ***** erfly was once widespread in Wales and England.
But now it's one of the rarest of all British ***** erflies, with it numbers declining by 62% since 1970.
One reason is its incredibly specific requirements to survive.
"They are the pickiest," says Paul Dunn, who for more than 30 years has been working hard among the bracken of the Alun Valley at Old Castle Down, in the Vale of Glamorgan, to revive the ***** erfly's fortunes.
And now, the volunteers have enlisted the help of a far more common animal, by allowing cows to graze on the site.

NORTH KARELIA, Finland — Bears, wolves and moose still cross the frontier freely, but for the border guards patrolling this stretch of fields and forest, this is where NATO ends.
A line of wooden poles and painted markers cuts through the light green grass, separating Finland from Russia along the alliance's longest border with Moscow — 1,343 kilometers (835 miles) of increasingly militarized territory. The crossing has been closed since 2023, the year after the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the other side lies land Finland lost to the Soviet Union when it was left to fight largely on its own in the early months of World War II.
Reporters from Axel Springer's Global Reporters Network traveled to three exposed stretches of Europe's eastern frontier — Finland's forested border with Russia, Poland's fortified line with Kaliningrad and Belarus and Lithuania's vulnerable edge near the Suwałki Gap — to see how ready NATO's frontline states are for the possibility that Moscow will attack the alliance.
What we observed was a continent racing to harden its eastern edge against a threat it can no longer ******* ume Washington will handle. As US President Donald Trump questions old security guarantees and looks to reduce America's military footprint in Europe, the countries closest to Russia are building fortifications, expanding reserves, buying tanks and drones and preparing for the possibility that the first days of any conflict may be theirs to fight largely alone.
Since his reelection in 2024, Trump has repeatedly called into question Washington's commitment to NATO's Article 5, the foundational clause under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. The uncertainty only deepened after the war in Iran, when the president and his team threatened to reassess US membership in NATO in response to European allies' refusal to join the conflict.

Changes to the law giving councils more powers to tackle businesses selling illegal goods would be "welcome", a senior official has said.
Dan Swaine, executive director for place at Doncaster Council, made the comments after the recent rape convictions of Hexthorpe Mini Market worker Bawan Hawre, who lured underage girls to his flat with the promise of free vapes and cash.
Swaine said Trading Standards had previously seized counterfeit goods from the shop and that the wider trade in illicit tobacco, cigarettes and vapes was a nationwide issue linked to organised crime.
Reform UK councillors in Doncaster said residents had "repeatedly" raised concerns about Hexthorpe Mini Market.
Sheffield Crown Court heard Harwe, an Iraqi national, targeted girls aged 12 to 16, plied them with drink and drugs, and raped or abused them.

Controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker threw his support behind two far-left candidates running for Congress in New York City, arguing their victories would help push the country closer to socialism.
"For the longest time, I thought we were so far away from socialism, and we might still be far away from socialism, but we do have an opportunity right here, right now, more than ever before," Piker said Thursday at a Brooklyn rally for candidates endorsed by the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America ahead of the state's June 23 primary.
Leading the DSA-backed slate are State ****** emblywoman Claire Valdez, D-N.Y., and activist Darializa Avila Chevalier, whom Piker praised as "giants" of the socialist movement.
"We must seize that opportunity, and you all must continue your own disciplined organizing for that to happen," Piker told the crowd. "That is the challenge."
Democratic Socialist Mamdani Ally Mounts Bid For Us House Of Representatives

By Daniel Flynn
KYIV, June 7 (Reuters) - An opera by a Ukrainian composer that premiered in Kyiv this week tells the story of two mothers and a grandmother who risked their lives to travel 3,000 miles (4,800 km) to occupied Crimea to rescue children abducted by Russian forces.
"Mothers of Kherson", ‌co-commissioned by New York's Metropolitan Opera, is based on the true stories of women who left the city in southern Ukraine after it was liberated in ‌November 2022 to bring their children home.
They skirted around the 750-mile front line via Poland, Belarus and Russia to reach the camp in Crimea where their children were being held.
Ukraine says it has confirmed the abduction by Russia of around 20,000 children during the four-year-old war. In March, a U.N. commission concluded the deportation and enforced disappearance of Ukrainian children by Russia was a crime against humanity.