The UK will finally see rain and cooler temperatures across the country after last week’s heatwave – but we may not have seen the last of the heat.
A long-range weather forecast from the Met Office suggests that while the rest of August will remain cooler and see more rain, higher temperatures could return as we head into September.
However, the much-needed showers could be short-lived. The Met Office predicts there is a “chance that late-season hot spells or heatwaves develop, especially in the south” in the first 12 days of September.
British couple on honeymoon killed in helicopter crash in Greece
Greek police believe a mechanical fault may have caused a helicopter to crash before it was due to land on the island of Sifnos.
The crash on Monday evening killed a British couple on honeymoon and the pilot.
What we know so far
- London-based couple Marie Ebert, 30, and Alexander Cromie, 31, died in the incident. They were celebrating their honeymoon.
- The pilot, Giorgos Raikos, 53, was a former air force officer and was “extremely experienced”. He also died in the crash.
- “The focus of the inquiry is now on the helicopter and possible engine failure. What has happened is nothing short of a tragedy,” a source told The Guardian.
How the crash unfolded
The private helicopter crashed just metres from a landing pad. CCTV footage showed the aircraft spinning out of control before plummeting to the ground and igniting a fireball. A thick plume of dark smoke was seen billowing into the sky from the site of the crash.
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A closer look at what may have gone wrong
People in the area have testified hearing the helicopter making a noise, a strange noise, probably a mechanical fault in the air and because the propeller was doing something strange.
Manolis Fountolakis, deputy mayor of Sifnos
Tribute paid to couple
- Asset management firm Blackstone, where Cromie worked, said it was “shocked” by the couple’s death.
- “We are shocked by the tragic passing of three people including our colleague Alex Cromie and his wife Marie Ebert, who were celebrating their honeymoon,” the firm said.
- “Alex was beloved by everyone who knew and worked with him at Blackstone, and our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones.”
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Meta goes on federal trial for social media addiction
Dozens of states are seeking damages worth as much as $1.4trn in the federal trial kicking off in the US.
It is the biggest case of its kind to reach the courts.
What do we know so far
- Meta is accused of designing features which it knew would make children addicted to its social media platforms.
- The lawsuit alleges the tech giant illegally collects data on child users under 13 without parental consent.
- The trial will take place in front of a jury in Oakland, California
- CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify in the unprecedented trial.
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What does each side say?
Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general said: “Meta designed a dangerous product for young users, knew it to be dangerous, and then lied to children, families and the community about how dangerous it was.”
Meta denies any wrongdoing. It said it was “proud of our record in protecting teens on our platforms and the amount of effort that we’ve put into developing protections over the years”.
Russia and Ukraine trade more deadly strikes – the latest
Mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, said Ukraine sent 620 drones towards the city overnight, with 180 downed by Russian defence systems.
Ukraine faces drone attacks
Ukraine was also hit as the warring countries traded blows overnight. The state emergency service said a 59-year-old woman was injured in the Russian attacks.
Pictures posted on Telegram show firefighters battling blazes in two outbuildings hit by a drone in the northern Chernihiv Oblast.
Major e-commerce giant hit
- Yet another Wildberries warehouse was struck near Moscow.
- It is the latest in Kyiv’s campaign to take out Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, which it accuses of supplying Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
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go deeper on this topic
Putin’s fury at the UK could escalate his sabotage campaign
The news that Ukraine is using British-made drones in its deep strike campaign has prompted scornful words from Russia and talk of potential retaliation.
Less than half know how to stop someone from choking
St John Ambulance has warned too many people are choking to death because bystanders “do not have the knowledge or confidence to intervene”.
What the survey tells us
- Around 300 people die in England every year due to choking.
- A poll has revealed only 42 per cent know how to stop someone choking, by giving back blows and abdominal thrusts.
- 32 per cent did not know choking can become life-threatening in minutes without first aid.
- Jordan Davison from St John Ambulance said: “Choking is often dismissed as a minor incident.”
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‘Everyone should have first aid training’
Marine engineer Calum Glen was enjoying dinner when he noticed a woman at a neighbouring table choking. Following first aid training at work, he gave the woman five back blows before moving on to abdominal thrusts, when her airway was cleared.
“I hope I never have to use those skills again, but you never know when someone’s life could depend on you knowing what to do,” Calum said.
What to do if someone is choking
- 1Cough it out. Encourage them to cough and remove any obvious obstruction from their mouth.
- 2Hit it out. If coughing fails, you need to give five sharp back blows between their shoulder blades.
- 3Squeeze it out. If back blows fail, give five abdominal thrusts. Stand behind them with your hands just above their waist.
- 4If the blockage has not cleared, for emergency help straight away. Repeat steps until help arrives.
The flaws in Reform’s plan to scrap PIP and slash £50bn from benefits bill
Reform Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said it would stop some claimants “taking everyone else for mugs” by slashing personal independence payments, banning foreign nationals from receiving benefits and forcing long-term claimants to do community work.
What is in the plan?
- Under the plans, foreign nationals would be excluded from most benefits – including EU nationals with settled status in the UK.
- It would also shake up disability benefits through a new system of “Return to Work Cover”.
- Lastly, people on universal credit for more than 12 months who are fit to work would be required to provide 20 hours a week of community work.
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Renegotiating with the EU
Reform’s ban on foreign nationals receiving benefits would require a renegotiation of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
However, it is not clear that Brussels would want to rewrite the agreement, and the bloc would probably respond with countermeasures such as stripping British expats of benefits.
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Making employers pay
Making employers liable for sick employees for two years could have unintended consequences. It is not clear whether Jenrick’s promise that cutting 0.2 per cent to employer national insurance contributions would be enough to make up for the extra costs employers would be incurring.
It could also create a perverse incentive for employers to not hire people with disabilities or previous experiences of ill-health.
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Voter backlash
- The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the new disability needs assessment plans are vague and savings could fall significantly short of expectations.
- This policy may not be very popular in many of Reform’s top target seats which have large PIP caseloads. It could also open up a vulnerable new flank for Andy Burnham’s resurgent Labour Party.
The fastest home-selling hotspots in Britain revealed
Your house could sell up to seven times faster in some parts of the country, property site Zoopla has found.
It comes as around half of local authority areas record longer times to sell than a year earlier.
What you need to know
While the average time to sell remains at 42 days in the year to July, houses in some areas take significantly longer.
For example, properties in Melton in the East Midlands took 76 days on average to sell – a 21-day increase compared with July 2025.
Sitting in stark contrast is Falkirk in Scotland, where the average selling time is around seven times faster at just 11 days – one day less for the area than a year earlier.
Is your home in a selling hotspot?
Zoopla said 180 of the 363 local authorities it analysed had seen an increase in the average number of days taken to sell a property in the past year.
Here are the fastest-selling hotspots in July:
- Falkirk, with 11 days
- Renfrewshire, with 13 days
- Stirling, with 15 days
- Clackmannanshire, with 16 days
The Scottish lure
Many of the faster markets are in Scotland, according to Zoopla, due to the Scottish sales market working differently to the rest of Britain, and homes generally being relatively affordable.
Homes in Scotland are typically marketed as “offers over” a price, with homes having a valuation and home survey available, Zoopla added.
Locations with sluggish sales
It comes as house prices fall, according to figures published by Rightmove yesterday, with homeowners struggling to flog their bricks and mortar.
According to Zoopla, these are the slowest-selling local areas in July:
- Melton, with 76 days
- Westminister, with 63 days
- Teignbridge, with 63 days
- Torridge, with 61 days
- Isle of Wight, with 60 days
- Thanet, with 60 days
- Elmbridge, with 58 days
How AI can reveal invisible patterns in breast tumours
Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that can reveal patterns inside breast cancer tumours that were previously invisible.
Researchers believe the technology could help doctors predict how the disease might progress and pave the way for more personalised treatments.
What are these patterns?
- The patterns are caused by centrosomes – tiny structures that help divide DNA. Studying them has been “extremely challenging” because they are tiny and multiply regularly, which is what drives the disease.
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Distinct abnormalities discovered
The AI platform, known as CenSegNet, was developed to analyse hundreds of thousands of cells in tumour samples.
In doing so, it has uncovered two distinct abnormalities which had previously been thought to be the same process – one involved cells acquiring too many centrosomes while the other had abnormally enlarged centrosomes.
Defects behaving differently
Researchers found these defects behaved independently and could occupy different areas of a tumour.
The platform also helped discover that tumours with high levels of enlarged centrosomes were more aggressive, and patients whose cells had lower levels had a better chance of survival.
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The expert view
For more than a century, centrosome abnormalities have been recognised as a hallmark of , but studying them patient tissues has been extremely challenging. CenSegNet allows us to uncover that were impossible to see.
dr pauline swift, the charity chair of blood pressure uk
“Temperatures are likely to be above average overall” during this period, according to the forecast.
Niamh Murray, operational meteorologist at the Met Office, said a September heatwave “can’t be ruled out” but that it was too soon to say “with any real confidence” if it will happen, as temperatures will naturally drop as we head towards autumn.
On Monday, “showery rain” was reported across Scotland and Northern Ireland, moving into parched regions of southern England in the evening.
“By the end of Tuesday, I think most places should have seen some rainfall,” Murray added.
Wildfire alert
The British Geological Survey said the UK’s groundwater levels were in “remarkable” health. But Met Office chief meteorologist Will Lang warned that autumn rains were unlikely to spell the end of the drought.
On Friday evening, UK residents were startled by an alarm and emergency alert sent to mobile phones warning of a nationwide threat of wildfires.
It urged the public not to do anything that could spark a blaze, specifically using barbecues, lighting campfires or setting off fireworks, due to the “serious risk”.
This was the first time the government’s emergency alarm system, set up in 2023, has been used to send an alert to the whole of the UK, with firefighters battling multiple wildfires.
Last week alone, emergency services attended to wildfires in South Wales; Stourbridge, West Midlands; Goldenhill, Stoke-on-Trent; and Kettering, East Midlands. Fire crews are still tackling a blaze in the New Forest in Hampshire that broke out on 9 August.
On Friday, the number of wildfires recorded across England and Wales so far this year surpassed the total for 2025 – which was previously the worst year on record for wildfires.
The Rainham volcano
Parts of the borough of Havering, in east London, have been plagued with severe fires, with residents living in fear that their homes will be destroyed.
Fires have been a “daily” occurence in Havering this summer, Rainham resident Chris Read, 78, told The i Paper.
Read lives near a park that overlooks the infamous Launders Lane site – a former illegal landfill dump with contaminated waste that frequently bursts into flames, dubbed the “Rainham volcano“, but has never been cleared away.
Read said the fires were “getting really scary now. I think there’s one in the borough every day, sometimes twice a day.”
One fire two weeks ago came dangerously close to her house. She said: “There was smoke, the winds blowing it our way. it’s just a case of shutting the windows, shutting the doors, and hope to God the fire goes. It’s like being in prison.”
Military deployed to help firefighters
Andy Burnham launched a package of measures to respond to the wildfires, with retailers ordered to remove portable barbecues from the shelves, and the Army deployed.
Soldiers from a Gurkha regiment were pictured in South Wales digging firebreaks – strips of land cleared of trees and vegetation – to help prevent the spread of blazes.
None of Britain’s 49 fire and rescue services currently has direct access to a firefighting aircraft or helicopter to drop large quantities of water.
The i Paper revealed that the UK does have RAF Chinook helicopters which are capable of dropping up to five tonnes of water at a time from a huge bucket suspended below the aircraft.
But these and their specialist crews are currently based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus on standby to help with wildfires on the island.
The Prime Minister has announced a £65m package to support struggling farmers.
Of the funds, £50m will be directed towards supporting environmentally friendly food production, through the Sustainable Farming Incentive. The remaining £15m will go towards the construction of on-farm reservoirs to provide supplies during future dry summers.
A growing number of water reservoirs across the UK have reached critically low levels this summer.
Five are now classed by the Environment Agency as “exceptionally low” – including Wimbleball and Blagdon in Somerset, which are running at just 50 per cent and 54 per cent respectively.