What happened
A severe heatwave is driving dozens of wildfires across southern Europe, forcing thousands from their homes as temperatures exceed 40C. Red heat alerts are in place across Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans. Spain's Aemet warned that highs could reach 44C in Seville, Cordoba and southern Portugal.

Who said what
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has urged "extreme caution" as rescue services battled the blazes. France's Health Minister Catherine Vautrin said hospitals were preparing for the country's second heatwave in weeks.

The extreme heat in Europe "fits the global pattern", said Rich Booth in The Independent, but the continent is "heating far faster than the rest of the world". Europe is now "the world's fastest-warming continent", agreed CNN, and record heat and drought have "helped fuel this summer's fires".

What next?
Wildfires are also hitting Greece, Turkey, Montenegro, Albania and Croatia, prompting mass evacuations. Morocco sent planes to Portugal after local water bombers broke down. Italy has recorded two child heatstroke deaths. And the UK is facing its fourth heatwave of the year, with temperatures reaching 33C.

What happened
The NHS may be overtreating men for prostate cancer, a leading charity has claimed, blaming outdated clinical guidelines. About a quarter of cases are so slow growing that men can avoid radiotherapy and surgery (and the associated side-effects), instead opting for regular monitoring. Of the 56,000 men diagnosed in the UK every year, about 6,500 choose this – but another 5,000 are getting treatment they don't need, according to Prostate Cancer UK.

Who said what
To "build the foundations for a screening programme we need to both save lives and prevent unnecessary treatment", said Amy Rylance of Prostate Cancer UK. Many hospitals have started offering monitoring to this wider group of patients, but a quarter have not, said the charity.

"Some of this could be down to patient choice," said the BBC. Patients are "generally given the option of treatment even if they are at low risk".

What next?
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence said it was reviewing its prostate cancer guidelines so as to update them to "reflect the best available evidence".

Killer fish, "cannibal" mosquitoes and drones are just three of the tactics that China is using to fight a new virus.

After thousands of cases of the debilitating chikungunya infection were found across the southern Guangdong province, public health officials have been creative in their efforts to contain it.

China employed hardline tactics during the Covid-19 pandemic and this time the authorities are using similar "patriotic public health" measures like mass testing, mandatory quarantines, widespread surveillance and citywide lockdowns. But they are also employing more novel methods.

The virus is transmitted by infected mosquitoes, so China is using giant "compulsive killers" known as elephant mosquitoes, whose larvae "devour" the Aedes mosquito, which passes chikungunya to people, said The Telegraph.

Mosquitoes aren’t the only creatures being used. Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong have "deployed 5,000 larvae-eating fish, which consume the larvae that hatch in the city's lakes".

Insecticide is also being widely used and Chinese state television has shown masked soldiers spraying it "around city streets, residential areas, construction sites" and other areas, said The Associated Press. Meanwhile, community workers in red vests are going "door to door" to inspect homes, said The New York Times.

Another 1,387 cases of the chikungunya virus were confirmed in China last week, said the Daily Mail. This took the tally to more than 10,000 overall, with infections also reported in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Europe and the US. But last week's figure was down on the previous seven-day tally of 2,892 cases, a sign that the outbreak could be slowing.