It's a truism in newsrooms that summer is a time for fluffy news – for stories about friendly turtles, or about the weather. But weather news isn't what it used to be – or, at least, not what it was when I was growing up in the 90s.
Covering the news this past July week has indeed meant doing a fair number of weather stories, but they've been anything but fluffy: from the heat of the sun causing "bleeding asphalt" on roads and bending railway tracks, causing train derailment to Sweden's largest political party making an election issue out of reforming home insurance policies in the face of increasing extreme weather events, pretty much every weather story has been about an effect of climate change that I hadn't known about before.
And what we've published on-site has been only a relatively small fraction of the climate crisis stories we could have covered this week. As a small newsroom with a focus on issues that particularly affect foreign-born people in Sweden, we're not going to report every extreme weather story in the country.
But behind the scenes we still see them: Swedish healthcare professionals warning about small children suffering from heatstroke, a wind turbine fire, and animal behaviour changing as they too suffer in unusually high temperatures. Then there are my Local colleagues in central and southern Europe, showing up to online meetings looking like they're in a sauna.
Probably none of this marks any change in the climate crisis beyond the expected ongoing worsening of extreme weather events, so as someone covering the news (who is definitely not a scientist) it's a matter of managing what news will be most helpful to readers.
And then, on a personal level, it's being able to step away from the news, go sit on my little European balcony, and wonder how I got lucky enough to live in the north of Sweden, where I can take a deep breath of the cool fresh air. Then checking in with my family in Toronto, where the smoke from raging Ontario wildfires has turned the sky orange for days.
What else have we been writing about this week?
Tighter requirements for Swedish residence permits came into force as of July 13th, meaning foreign nationals that are deemed to have a "flawed way of life" can be deported from Sweden.
We also put our readers' questions on whether you can defer a citizenship application to the head of the Migration Agency's citizenship unit in Gothenburg (along with a few questions of our own). And this week the EU launched legal action against Sweden and 16 other member states for failing to implement the single-permit directive for third-country nationals.
On a more welcoming note for foreigners, Richard wrote about what was on offer at the new International Citizen Day Lund event that he and Emma attended this year. It's the first welcome day for international workers hosted by a city in Sweden.
We also gave readers some tips on how to stay cool in the heatwave, and gave you the low-down on whether, in Sweden, your boss is allowed to call you back to work in the middle of a vacation (the short answer is yes, but only for a really good reason).
That's it for now – trevlig helg, and stay cool.
Mandy
Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It's published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.