The successor of Openboard, Heliboard finally comes out in 1.0 my favorite open source keyboard out there.

Extreme heat was forecast across the globe on Wednesday, as wildfires raged and health warnings were in place in parts of Asia, Europe and North America.

Firefighters battled blazes in parts of Greece and the Canary Islands while Spain issued heat alerts and some children in Italy's Sardinia were told to stay away from sports.

From California to China, authorities warned of the health dangers brought by searing temperatures, urging people to drink water and shelter from the sun. "You can't be in the street, it's horrible," said Lidia Rodriguez, 27, in Madrid.

Temperature records tumbled around the world, with new heat streaks set in China and the United States, and fresh highs in France.Beijing broke a 23-year-old record with 27 consecutive days of temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), forecasters said.

Phoenix broke a similar record, in place for 49 years, with its 19th consecutive day of temperatures of 43.3 Celsius or higher, weather officials said.

In southern France, a record 29.5C was recorded in the Alpine ski resort of Alpe d'Huez, while 40.6C had been recorded for the first time in Verdun in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

In a stark reminder of the effects of global warming, the UN's World Meteorological Agency (WMO) said the trend showed "no signs of decreasing".

"These events will continue to grow in intensity, and the world needs to prepare for more intense heatwaves,"

John Nairn, a senior extreme heat adviser at the WMO told reporters in Geneva.

Heatwave on horizon

Northwest of the Greek capital Athens, columns of smoke loomed over the forest of Dervenohoria, where one of several fires around the capital and beyond was still burning.

Fire spokesman Yannis Artopios called it "a difficult day", with another heatwave on the horizon for Thursday, with expected temperatures of 44C.

A forest fire by the seaside resort of Loutraki, where the mayor said 1,200 children had been evacuated Monday from holiday camps, was still burning.

In the Canary Islands, some 400 firefighters battled a blaze that has ravaged 3,500 hectares of forest and forced 4,000 residents to evacuate, with authorities warning residents to wear face masks outside due to poor air quality.

Temperatures were unforgiving in Italy and in Spain, where three regions were put under hot weather red alerts.

The Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily have been forecast to possibly surpass a continent-wide record of 48.8C recorded in Sicily in August 2021.

At Lanusei, near Sardinia's eastern coast, a children's summer camp was restricting beach visits to the early morning and forbidding sports, teacher Morgana Cucca told AFP.

In the Sardinian capital of Cagliari, pharmacist Teresa Angioni said patients were complaining of heat-related symptoms."They mainly buy magnesium and potassium supplements and ask us to measure their blood pressure, which is often low," Angioni said.

Many throughout Italy sought escape by the sea, including outside Rome, where the midday heat hit 40C.

"Certainly it's better at the beach, you can at least get a little wind from the sea. It's not even possible to remain in the city, too hot," said Virginia Cesario, 30, at the Focene beach near the capital.

Climate change impact

Tens of millions of Americans experienced dangerous heat levels on Tuesday.

In the town of San Angelo, Texas, where temperatures were expected to reach 104-108F (40-42C), the National Weather Service said it was "running out of ways to say that it's gonna be hot out there today.

""With temperatures across the area likely topping the 105 mark yet again, we implore you to continue to practice heat safety and try to stay cool," the agency said on Twitter.And in Arizona, the mercury at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport again reached 110F on Tuesday, breaking the previous record of 18 consecutive days at or above that temperature, set in 1974.

The heat waves across Europe and the globe are "not one single phenomenon but several acting at the same time", said Robert Vautard, director of France's Pierre-Simon Laplace climate institute.

The heat waves across Europe and the globe are "not one single phenomenon but several acting at the same time", said Robert Vautard, director of France's Pierre-Simon Laplace climate institute.

"But they are all strengthened by one factor: climate change.

"The record-setting heat came as US climate envoy John Kerry met with Chinese officials in Beijing, with the world's two largest polluters reviving stalled diplomacy on reducing planet-warming emissions.

Speaking Tuesday at Beijing's Great Hall of the People with China's top diplomat Wang Yi, Kerry called for "global leadership" on climate issues.

Nearly 10 months after Iran’s so-called “morality police” disappeared from the streets during mass protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian police announced July 16 that they had resumed patrols targeting “immoral clothing.” Amateur videos and first-hand reports from our Observers in Iran indicate that the patrols had resumed in the days before the announcement. But with many Iranian women having gotten used to going out with their heads uncovered in recent months, it remains unclear whether the patrols will be able to stop them.

Amini, 22, was arrested by members of Iran’s Guidance Patrol on September 13, 2022 for allegedly not wearing a headscarf, and died three days later. Her death sparked months of mass protests that resulted in more than 500 deaths, thousands of injuries, and tens of thousands of demonstrators arrested.

Now the Iranian regime is cracking down.On July 16, Saeed Montazer Al-Mahdi, spokesman for the Iranian police, announced that the morality police would resume conducting morality patrols. “Following massive demand by several groups of people, and the urging of the president and the head of the judiciary to achieve a safer society and enforce family values, police patrols will, from today, alert persons wearing immoral clothing and, if they insist, report them to the courts.”

The protests, under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” led many Iranian women to refuse to wear the Islamic hijab in public, defying Iran’s mandatory hijab laws. Guidance Patrol units stopped patrolling, and Iran’s regular police had to focus on breaking up the protests, not enforcing hijab rules.

In this video posted on Twitter the man filming says the woman in black is an officer of Iran's Gasht-e-Ershad morality police making an arrest in the Gisha neighbourhood of north Tehran on July 15, 2023.

Many Iranians on social media report seeing police conducting morality patrols on the streets in recent days. They have posted images showing women with their heads uncovered being stopped by women in black chadors accompanied by uniformed male police officers. Police vehicles are visible in the images, along with unmarked white vans.

Most of the posts on social media report seeing the patrols merely order women to put on a headscarf, but there are also videos suggesting arrests are being made.

Montazer Al-Mahdi did not specifically mention the Guidance Patrol (known as Gasht-e-Ershad in Persian), and it was unclear whether the new patrols are being conducted by regular police or personnel from the religious police unit. Iran’s attorney general had announced in January that the Guidance Patrol was being disbanded, but it was denied by state media.

Iranian authorities have for months been using traffic-surveillance cameras to detect women drivers and passengers without hijabs, and using the vehicles’ licence plates to identify the women and summon them to court to pay fines.

“Young women aren’t afraid of arrest or fines”

Niusha [not her real name], an Iranian woman in Tehran who has refused to wear Islamic clothing in public places for more than a year, explains what is now happening on the streets of Iran:

“I go outside as I please, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. However, I have seen patrols of the morality police in several places in Tehran in the north and in the city centre, although I have not seen or heard of them arresting anyone yet.

I have seen their female officers in black chadors as usual. But now they are in white vans, whereas their vehicles used to be white and green [official colours of Iranian police vehicles].

On the other hand, I know many women who have been summoned to court. The Islamic Republic agents have reported them to the authorities for not wearing Islamic dress in public places and the women have been brought before a judge and are now waiting for their verdict.

The caption of this video posted on Twitter 17 July 2023 says it shows officers of Iran's morality police checking women for hijab violations in the western city of Kermanshah.

And the number of threatening text messages to women drivers in cars has increased. Traffic cameras are used to check whether the women in the car are wearing an Islamic hijab or not, and if not, they send a text message and fine the car owner, sometimes impounding the car for a while.

But middle-class families who have to go to work every day need their car, and some of them might fold. One of my friends, who has not once worn a headscarf in the last few months, put one in her car as a precaution.

”This video posted on Telegram shows Iranians in the city of Rasht protesting following the arrest of three women on 16 July 2023 for not wearing Islamic hijab on the street.

On July 17, media outlets close to the state claimed a judge in the Tehran province sentenced a woman to work in a morgue in Tehran for not wearing a headscarf in her car.

The Islamic Republic has once again set out to push back Iranian women with the help of police forces, but many political analysts call this latest act a shot in the Islamic Republic’s own knee.

For the extremists, enforcing Islamic hijab is the last bastion before the regime's collapse

Tara [not her real name] is a political analyst in Iran. She has been arrested several times for her criticism of the Islamic Republic. She is also one of the Iranian women refusing to comply with the Islamic dress code imposed by the mollahs in Tehran. She explains why, just two months before the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death and amid an unprecedented crumbling of legitimacy for the regime, the Islamic Republic is adding fuel to the fire after decades of economic, environmental, political, diplomatic and human rights crises.

“As far as I can tell, there is a struggle between different political factions in Iran. There are extremists, including Ahmad-Reza Radan, Iran's newly appointed police chief, who want to reintroduce the morality police. They have the upper hand. But there are other blocs who, for whatever reason – maybe fear of more mass protests – disagree. Some hardline websites such as Tasnim News and Javan [two media outlets close to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC] have denied the morality police are being redeployed, saying the amateur images showing such patrols are 'fake'.

For the extremists, enforcing Islamic hijab on the streets is critical, the last bastion before the regime's collapse. It’s a way of showing that the regime is still in control. That is why the hardliners have recently organised rallies by their supporters to protest the regime's lack of initiative to enforce Sharia law in public spaces.

We should not forget that we are approaching the anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death. Maybe they think that with such a strong presence on the streets they can stop people from marking this day in the coming weeks. But I think that will backfire on them in the end.”

Les trois plafonds tarifaires, dont bénéficient les 4,5 millions de personnes qui détiennent cette carte, vont passer à 49, 69 et 89 euros fin août, ce que la SNCF justifie par la hausse de ses coûts.

La carte Avantage de la SNCF, permettant aux 28-59 ans d’accéder à des tarifs plafonnés garantis contre un abonnement annuel sera bientôt moins rentable, a annoncé dimanche 16 juillet l’entreprise publique, justifiant la mesure par la hausse de ses coûts. En vigueur depuis deux ans et détenue par 4,5 millions de personnes, la carte Avantage permet pour 49 euros par an de bénéficier de tarifs réduits de 30 % et plafonnés, à condition d’effectuer une partie du voyage pendant un week-end.

Ces plafonds étaient de 39 euros pour les trajets de moins d’une heure trente (environ 25 % des voyages), 59 euros pour les trajets durant entre une heure trente et trois heures (50 %) et 79 euros pour les trajets plus longs (25 %).

Après le 29 août, ils vont être augmentés de 10 euros, passant donc respectivement à 49, 69 et 89 euros maximum. Le prix d’achat de la carte reste inchangé, a souligné la SNCF dans une déclaration envoyée à l’Agence France-Presse, confirmant des informations auparavant communiquées au Parisien.

« Bouclier tarifaire »

Le dispositif était sorti indemne de la dernière hausse de tarifs de la SNCF entrée en vigueur le 10 janvier, qui avait vu les billets des grandes lignes augmenter de 5 %. L’entreprise ferroviaire avait présenté ce dispositif comme un « bouclier tarifaire » sur fond de forte hausse de ses coûts (+ 13 % pour le TGV en 2023) induits par l’inflation et le bond des prix de l’électricité.

Quant au relèvement des plafonds de la carte Avantage, il « s’inscrit bien dans la limitation de la hausse tarifaire à 5 % en moyenne en 2023, qui n’est donc pas remise en cause », a insisté la SNCF. Elle a aussi fait valoir que « cela ne modifie rien pour tous [les] clients qui ne possèdent pas cette carte, ni même pour la plupart des bénéficiaires de la carte Avantage car ceux-ci paient dans la majorité des cas moins que le prix plafond ».

En parallèle, la SNCF a annoncé au Parisien la vente, les 31 juillet et 1er août, de 300 000 billets TGV et Intercités à 29, 39 et 49 euros pour des trajets effectués pendant le mois d’août. Dix jours plus tôt, le ministre délégué aux transports, Clément Beaune, avait, lui, déclaré que l’entreprise allait proposer des billets à 19 euros pour des trajets en Intercités, soit les grandes lignes hors TGV, un dispositif financé par l’Etat qui subventionne les Intercités au contraire des TGV. L’opération, qui devait prendre fin ce week-end, est prolongée et il reste « plus de 100 000 billets » disponibles, a précisé M. Beaune sur France 2 lundi.

I guess this has been said before but I want to reiterate it here.

The 3 button navigation is simpler, much faster than gestures and less prone to input errors than gessure navigation.

It's easier to use the phone one handed when using 3 buttons especially considering the size of phones nowadays.

The only real downside to the 3 button bar is the space it takes away from the screen. I can't deny you get better immersion due increased screen size and gestures being intuitive (for me at least.

With that said I understand that depending on the brand the feel of gestures and their quality can vary (like between a pixel phone and a xiaomi device), but in terms of efficiency (and maybe slightly improved battery life due to less animations) and simplicity the 3 button navigation is still miles ahead.

Welcome guys,

I'm allowing myself to post this since I'm a contributer especially for the Philippines area. I hope more people will join us and we can have a healthy community.