What happened
Britain endured a day of extreme heat and widespread emergencies yesterday as the temperature reached 38.1C at Kew Gardens, the highest recorded this year. In Stourbridge, a grass fire spread to six homes, while four houses were also destroyed near Stoke-on-Trent.

Meanwhile, a Southern train carrying about 150 passengers derailed near Lewes, with three carriages overturning. Twenty people were injured – two seriously – and some passengers remained trapped before eventually being freed.

Who said what
Stourbridge councillor Andrew Tromans described the fire there as “apocalyptic”. Fire Brigades Union general secretary Steve Wright said crews were dealing with blazes and had also helped at the rail crash.

“With temperatures soaring”, more than 100 firefighters are “tackling huge fires” around England, said Nicole Wootton-Cane and Alex Ross in The Independent. The Midlands wildfires were “one of the most significant” incidents in the history of West Midlands Fire Service, said its chief fire officer Simon Tuhill.

What next?
A team from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch is examining the derailment amid speculation that the heat may have caused rails to buckle. Fire crews remain stretched by numerous wildfires, while rail services around Lewes, Brighton and Eastbourne have been heavily disrupted.

What happened
Bumble, the dating app with the rule that women had to make the first move, is to abandon that very principle.

According to Bumble’s survey data, 66% of women quizzed said they would prefer men to send the first message, with many adding that it would make dating feel less stressful.

Who said what
Reaction across online forums “has highlighted a divide among users about whether the update will get more people using Bumble – or if it makes it ‘just like any other dating app’”, said the BBC.

The change also arrives “as Bumble tries to turn around a business that has been struggling to regain its footing”, said TechCrunch. The company’s second quarter earnings report last week showed revenue dropping 15.2% year on year.

What next?
Bumble recently said it was exploring a swipe-free future – as well as more in-person events and AI features – in order to gain greater traction with Gen Z users.

A retinal implant that can improve vision degraded by age has been given the green light for use in Europe. Researchers are also evaluating the suitability of the implant for helping to correct other eye conditions.

The Prima retinal implant, created by the Science Corporation, can “restore functional central vision” in those with geographic atrophy (an advanced form of macular degeneration), according to Stanford Medicine. The implant has shown measurable vision improvement, allowing “those who were considered legally blind to read letters and words”.

“Normal vision … is 20/20, and blindness is 20/200,” Frank Brodie, the medical director for vision and the Prima implant at the Science Corporation, told New Scientist. “Patients using Prima reached about 20/160, so they went from blind to not blind.”

The implant is “about the size of a pinhead and is inserted beneath the retina” and “used alongside glasses with a frame-mounted camera”, said New Scientist. It operates with a brain-computer interface in which the camera “captures and processes images, then projects the result on to the implant’s chips using near-infrared light”. The method “offers users black-and-white vision and the ability to zoom in on objects” without interfering with any existing vision, said Stat News.

However, price could be a barrier. “Each Prima device is expected to cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said TechCrunch. Science Corporation and “its medical partners in Europe are currently in discussion with healthcare providers over reimbursement”.