EUROPE WILDFIRES Massive wildfires are spreading across France and Spain. Multiple fires have already engulfed fields, forests and homes forcing more than 250,000 people across both countries to evacuate. In France one fire has already burned through 42,000 hectares of land. The blaze is also creeping pretty close to the city of Bordeaux, but officials say there's no plans for an evacuation at this stage. Meanwhile in Spain, fire fighters are battling some of the biggest wildfires the country's seen in recent history and authorities have declared the country's first ever civil national emergency. With more hot weather on the way, authorities warn the danger isn't over yet and countries like Greece and Italy have stepped in to help with fire fighters and locals working around the clock to try and stop the fires from spreading. AUSALERT If your phone made a siren sound and got a notification like this today, you're not alone. In fact, almost everyone in Australia had the same thing happen to them, Including us here at BTN. It was part of a big nationwide test of something called AusAlert, which is set to become Australia's new emergency alert system. The idea is for it to deliver alerts similar to today's, in emergency situations like wild weather events, to get people's attention and get important information out quickly. Now that the test is done, prep is underway to have the system ready for use in real emergencies starting from October. COMMONWEALTH GAMES The Aussies have been dominating in the opening days of the Commonwealth Games. Our women's artistic gymnastics team led by Georgia Godwin stunned the field taking home gold. Meanwhile, over in swimming it's been a gold rush with the Aussies securing 16 gold medals including world record holder Cam McEvoy who topped the Men's 400 metre freestyle. TOUR DE FRANCE At the top of the podium is where Tadej Pogačar found himself after winning this years Tour De France. The final stage of the race was shortened and re-routed to reduce pressure on emergency services who are dealing with the country's wildfires. It was Matthieu van der Pol who was first past the finish line, but after 23 days and 21 stages Pogacar took his record tying fifth Tour De France title. SUPER RUGBY The New South Wales Waratahs have just took out their seventh Women's Super Rugby Championship title, defeating the Fijian Drua's 34 to 17 in the final. The Waratahs dominated from the get go and it was Amelia Whitaker who came in clutch scoring two tries in an 8 minute span. LEBRON JAMES LeBron James has signed on to new team after moving on from the LA Lakers, LeBron's joining the Philadelphia 76ers. He's just signed a two year deal with the team worth 8 million US dollars. The news comes after LeBron announced earlier this month that he would be leaving the LA Lakers after 8 seasons. ALPHORNS First up and an abundance of alphorn players have gathered high in the Swiss Alps for the International Alphorn Festival. If you couldn't tell, an Alphorn is a very long wooden musical instrument with a curved bell at the end. They were traditional used by Shepherds for long distance communication, herding cattle and evening prayers. HOT AIR BALLOONS To Russia where an abundance of Hot air balloons, 50 to be exact, were launched at the Russian Golden Ring Festival. Those 50 hot air balloons just so happened to break the Russian Record for most hot air balloons launched from a single launch pad... PUNCH BIRTHDAY To everyone's favourite macaque, Punch, who just celebrated his 1st birthday. The little guy went viral earlier this year and as you can see from the abundance of birthday cards, he's still very much loved by many.
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