Category World News

India’s Shubman Gill played a masterful captain’s knock to rescue India with his second century of the series on the opening day of the second Test against England as the tourists finished on 310-5 at stumps at Edgbaston.

Gill was under pressure due to his team selection on Wednesday after pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah was rested, but the skipper played a dogged knock and barely put a foot wrong as he wore down the England bowlers while playing confident strokes.

Gill had taken 199 balls to bring up his seventh test hundred, the slowest of his career, but authoritative in the circumstances as he ended the day unbeaten on 114 while he had Ravindra Jadeja (41 not out) for company at stumps.

After Ben Stokes won the toss and put India in to bat, opener Yashasvi Jaiswal looked well set for a big score but fell in the second session to the England skipper when he was on 87 to miss out on his second ton in the series.

India have never won a Test at Edgbaston in eight attempts, and when they were reeling at 211-5, England threatened to reopen wounds from the first test at Headingley, where the tourists’ lower order collapsed in both innings.

But Jadeja walked in to steady the ship and consolidated the innings with a 99-run partnership with Gill as the all-rounder rotated strike without taking any undue risks, propelling his skipper towards triple figures.

As England eagerly waited for the new ball, Joe Root bowled the 80th over in a bid to surprise the set batters, but after four dot balls, Gill executed two fine sweeps to bring up a second century in the series.

Earlier, India lost opener KL Rahul cheaply when he played on a rising delivery from Chris Woakes while Karun Nair, who was promoted up the order, fell for 31, caught in the slips just before lunch after playing some exquisite drives.

Jaiswal saw off the new ball early on in cloudy conditions, but once the lush green outfield was bathed in sunshine, he got into his groove and scored at nearly a run a ball, with Josh Tongue bearing the brunt of his onslaught.

Gill took the majority of the strike in the second session while Jaiswal watched on, and that was when Stokes made the breakthrough.

Having scored a century in the opening test, Jaiswal was on 87 when he sliced at a wide delivery and was caught behind by an ecstatic Jamie Smith to leave India on 161-3.

That brought Rishabh Pant to the crease and the wicketkeeper-batter, who smashed two centuries in the first test, launched spinner Shoaib Bashir over the deep mid-wicket boundary for the first six of the match.

Bashir had the last laugh, however, as Pant (25) lived dangerously and the batter made another attempt to clear the ropes, only to find Zak Crawley in the deep, opening the door to the lower order.

Nitish Kumar Reddy came in and lasted six balls when Woakes struck again, tempting the India batter to leave a superb delivery that nipped back in and hit the top of off stump to send the bails flying.

England had named the same team and India made three changes, resting Bumrah as they manage his back issues through the series – a decision that baffled former players and coaches.

At least eight people have died across Europe as an early summer heatwave grips much of the continent, triggering health alerts and forest fires and forcing the closure of a nuclear reactor at a Swiss power plant.

Authorities in Spain’s Catalonia region said about 14,000 people were ordered to stay indoors due to two wildfires that broke out almost simultaneously in the province of Lleida.

In one of the blazes near the city of Cosco, “two people were found lifeless by firefighters,” the fire and emergency service said in a statement on Wednesday.

The exact cause of the fire was unclear, but the service said the recent heat, dry conditions and strong winds increased the intensity of the flames.

Tuesday’s fire in the Catalonia region burned several farms and affected an area stretching about 40km (25 miles) before being contained, officials said.

On Wednesday, Spanish officials reported two more people died due to the heatwave in Extremadura and Cordoba.

Spain is in the midst of an intense heatwave with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in many places, and several heat records were set for the month of June.

France also experienced its hottest June since 2003.

Its energy minister reported two deaths linked to the heat with 300 others taken to hospital on Wednesday.

Weather forecaster Meteo France said red alerts remained for several areas of central France, and Catherine Vautrin, the health and families minister, said authorities should remain vigilant.

“In the coming days, we’ll see the consequences, particularly on the most vulnerable, and I’m thinking particularly of the elderly,” she said.

Two men over the age of 60 also died from the heat on beaches in Sardinia in Italy, the ANSA news agency reported.

In Germany, temperatures were forecast to peak at 40C (104F) in some areas, making it the hottest day of the year. Fire brigades were also tackling several forest fires in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony on Wednesday.

Storm warnings issued

Italy, France and Germany have also warned of the risk of powerful storms due to excessive warming in unstable atmospheres.

Violent storms in the French Alps late on Monday triggered mudslides, disrupting rail traffic between Paris and Milan.

The Swiss utility Axpo shut down one reactor at the Beznau Nuclear Power Plant and halved output at another on Tuesday because of the high temperature of river water.

Water is used for cooling and other purposes at nuclear power plants, and restrictions were expected to continue as temperatures are monitored.

Scientists said heatwaves have arrived earlier this year, spiking temperatures by up to 10C (50F) in some regions as warming seas encouraged the formation of a heat dome over much of Europe, trapping hot air masses.

Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are a cause of climate change, they said, with deforestation and industrial practices being other contributing factors. Last year was the planet’s hottest on record.

“Extreme heat is testing our resilience and putting the health and lives of millions at risk,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, told the Reuters news agency.

A Hamas-run court in Gaza has ordered Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of a criminal group allegedly backed by Israel, to surrender himself for trial.

The Revolutionary Court of the Military Judiciary Authority in Gaza gave the 35-year-old head of the Popular Forces group, which stands accused of collaborating with Israel to loot humanitarian aid, 10 days to turn himself in.

Abu Shabab faces charges of treason, collaborating with hostile entities, forming an armed gang and armed rebellion, the court said on Wednesday, adding that he would be tried in absentia if he fails to surrender.

The Popular Forces posted a response on a Facebook page that usually carries its announcements, describing the court’s order as a “sitcom that doesn’t frighten us, nor does it frighten any free man who loves his homeland and its dignity”.

The group and its leader were thrust into the limelight last month when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu&nbsp, said&nbsp, his government had “activated” powerful local clans in Gaza on the advice of “security officials”.

Israeli and Palestinian media named the group as the Popular Forces, a well-armed Bedouin clan led by Abu Shabab, reportedly consisting of about 100 armed men.

The group later said online that its members were involved in guarding aid shipments sent to distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which Israel contracted to distribute aid in the enclave.

Mass killings of aid seekers near the US-backed GHF distribution centres, which replaced existing distribution networks run by the United Nations and other experienced aid groups, have become a routine occurrence.

The European Council on Foreign Relations think tank has described Abu Shabab as the leader of a “criminal gang operating in&nbsp, the Rafah area that is widely accused&nbsp, of looting aid trucks”.

It said he was thought to have been previously imprisoned by Hamas for drug trafficking.

The court urged Palestinians to inform&nbsp, Hamas&nbsp, security officials about the whereabouts of Abu Shabab, who has so far remained beyond their reach in the Rafah area of southern Gaza held by Israeli troops.

Tesla has reported another hefty drop in auto sales extending a difficult period amid intensifying electric vehicle competition and backlash over CEO Elon Musk’s political activities.

On Wednesday, the electric vehicle (EV) maker reported 384,122 deliveries in the second quarter, representing a 13.5 percent decline from this time a year ago. Its earnings report will be released after the market close. Sales were roughly in line with analyst expectations.

The global sales figures reflect the more contested nature of the EV market, which Tesla once dominated, but which now also features BYD and other low-cost Chinese companies, as well as legacy Western carmakers like General Motors, Toyota and Volkswagen.

However, demand for EVs has slumped amid tariff fears and the looming end of the EV tax credit in the United States.

On Wednesday, Volvo also announced that fully electric sales fell by 26 percent in June. Rivian sales also tumbled. The electric carmaker said there was a 22.7 percent drop in sales compared with to this time last year.

Musk weighing on sales and the stock

Musk’s political activism on behalf of right-wing figures has also made the company a target of boycotts and demonstrations, weighing on sales. Musk donated more than $270m to US President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, barnstorming key battleground states for the Republican.

But in the last few weeks, he has had a falling out with Trump, driven by the president’s wide-ranging tax and spending bill. Musk’s objections to the “Big Beautiful Bill” has escalated tensions between the two. In a social media post, Musk accused bill supporters of backing “debt slavery”.

In response, the president called for the Department of Government Efficiency to look at subsidies for Musk’s companies, sending the stock tumbling and it closed down 5.3 percent on Tuesday.

A brighter future?

But analysts believe that increased production of the Model Y and 3 could show a positive road ahead for the EV-maker, which produced 396,835 cars of the two models in the second quarter — up from 345,454 in the first quarter.

“We believe Tesla is on a path to an accelerated growth path over the coming years with deliveries expected to ramp in the back-half of 2025 following the Model Y refresh cycle,” Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities, said in a note to Al Jazeera.

Musk has acknowledged that his work as head of the Department of Government Efficiency and his embrace of European far-right candidates have hurt the company. But he attributed much of the sales plunge to customers holding off while they waited for new versions of Tesla’s best-selling Model Y, and recently predicted a major turnaround in sales.

The company is focusing more on robots, self-driving technology and robotaxis ferrying passengers around without anyone behind the wheel its test run of robotaxis in Austin, Texas, seems to have gone smoothly for the most part. But it also has drawn the scrutiny of federal car safety regulators because of a few mishaps, including one case in which a Tesla cab was shown on a widely shared video heading down an opposing lane.