Vatican City
Reuters
They were not “Get out of jail free” cards but they were possibly one of the next best things.
An ice cream shop sells ice cream dedicated to Pope Francis, a mascarpone and strawberry flavoured creation, in Cassano allo Jonio, southern Italy, on 20th June, 2014. PICTURE: Reuters/Giampiero Sposito/File photo.
EUROPE HAD WARMEST SUMMER ON RECORD, SAY EU SCIENTISTS
Europe had its warmest summer on record this year, though only by a small margin over two previous highest temperatures for June-August, European Union scientists said on Tuesday.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said the average surface air temperature in June-August was close to 1.0 degree Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, making it the hottest in its dataset. The previous warmest summers, 2010 and 2018, were 0.1 degree cooler.
Copernicus’ records go back to 1950 but are cross-checked with other data sets that trace back to the mid-19th century.
It said in a statement that, globally, August, 2021 was, together with August, 2017, the third-warmest on record at a little over 0.3 degrees warmer than the 1991-2020 average.
For Europe, August, 2021, was near the 1991-2020 average, but with contrasting conditions across the continent. These included record-breaking maximum temperatures in Mediterranean countries, warmer-than-average temperatures in the east and generally below-average temperatures in the north.
– JOHN CHALMERS, Reuters
During one of Italy’s hottest summers on record, Pope Francis sent 15,000 ice creams to inmates in Rome’s two prisons, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
A statement from the Pope’s charity office said they were sent to the two prisons – the older Regina Coeli jail on the Tiber River in the centre and the modern Rebibbia prison in the city’s outskirts.
They were delivered in his name by Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who is known as “the Pope’s Almoner” or one who distributes alms to the poor.
Krajewski, at 57 one of the youngest cardinals, has also set up medical and bathing facilities for the homeless near the Vatican at Francis’ direction since the pontiff’s election in 2013.
The summer was one of the hottest on record in Italy, with one city in Sicily reporting 49 degrees Celsius in August, believed to be the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe.
Krajewski’s office also sent a $US600,000 computerised tomography scan machine to a health facility in Madagascar and about €2 million in funds to improve medical facilities in three unnamed African countries during the summer, the statement said.
