of california, as record high temperatures in continue to fuel wildfires. hundreds of people have been forced from their homes. a surge in household electricity consumption, as people try to keep cool, has also led to localised power cuts. in australia, a man has taken on a great white shark, apparently punching it to save his wife during an attack. chantelle doyle was attacked by a shark, thought to be up to three metres long, while surfing at shelly beach in port mcquarrie in new south wales. phoebe hopson reports. it's a surfer‘s worst nightmare and it's an encounter you're lucky to survive. chantelle doyle was enjoying a day on the waves with her husband when she was attacked by a shark on shelly beach at port macquarie, new south wales. she made a lucky escape after her husband jumped off his surfboard and punched the shark repeatedly until its released its grip on her leg. he then helped her to safety. yes, she was conscious and breathing. she seemed to be doing

fairly well, considering the lacerations to her leg. she obviously needed some pain relief. but, yeah, the ambulance were keen to get her straight to hospital for treatment as soon as possible. chantelle was quickly airlifted to hospitalfor surgery and is described to be in a stable condition. the coast guard and local ambulance service have praised her husband for his bravery. it's believed the shark was a juvenile great white of up to three metres in length. local media reports say it's the third serious attack on the stretch of coast in recent months. although special shark patrols keep a watchful eye over popular beaches, great whites are a common sight in new south wales, however attacks are rare. after the attack, the beach was closed to the public. phoebe hopson, bbc news. now it's time for a look at the weather with tomas schafernaeker.

downpours for some of us again today, there is bound to be some thunder and lightning as well. but there's some other parts of the country which just have another cloudy, murky, drizzly day, a bit like in the last couple of days. you can see how much cloud there is gci’oss can see how much cloud there is across the uk. also a lot cloudier in the north—west of the country co m pa res to in the north—west of the country compares to what we had yesterday. but in scotland is not doing so bad, some sunshine in the western isles. the early evening temperatures, 23 in london, pleasant enough, but fairly cool on the north sea coast. here moving across the south and into the north through the night, it will be another muggy night. 16 degrees, we have had some very warm nights in the last week or so, that is not going to change. in tomorrow's weather forecast, the showers will become more widespread across northern parts of the uk. again, very hit and miss so some of us again, very hit and miss so some of us will miss the storms altogether.

hello, this is bbc news. the headlines. more uncertainty and confusion for thousands of a—level and gcse students in england as the exam regulator withdraws its guidance on appealing against grades hours after publishing it. the search for two teenagers who went missing in the sea near lytham st annes in lancashire is called off by the coastguard. an enormous cloud of opposition supporters had gathered in the centre of minsk, belarus capsule, to dispute the election result of last week. president trump pays tribute to his younger brother robert who has died in new york aged 71. now on bbc news, the travel show. this is the mighty river sava, flowing for nearly 1,000 kilometres from the alps in slovenia,

right across to belgrade, in serbia. it's the longest river within the balkans. a vital artery that's borne witness to so much history, stretching all the way back to ancient and medieval times and of course the turmoil of recent decades. today, the sava connects four countries that just a generation ago were at war. 0n myjourney i'll be exploring how today this river is healing wounds by boosting trade and tourism and creating a new identity for the region. and finding out why locals call this the ‘vital heart of the balkans‘.

a nation ofjust 2 million people, slovenia prides itself on its close relationship with nature. it's one of the most densely forested countries in europe and nearly two thirds of its landscape is green space. this river, the sava, has been a crucial trading route for centuries, dating back to 400 bc, when the celts named it after their river god savus, protector of merchants and travellers. and this is the river's source, the magnificent savica waterfall, bursting from two separate points on the cliff face there. and my intention is to follow the river from here, at its very beginning, until it meets the danube, in belgrade. it's a near 1,000 kilometre course,

flowing through four countries that just over 25 years ago were joined as part of yugoslavia. the emerald waters snake through the cliffs and then widen into one of the sava's main tributaries, which has now become famous for watersports. and i'm getting a face first perspective. this is bellyaking. and, yep, there's a hint in the name. it looks like a kayak, but you lay on top of it and use your hands to paddle. like many slovenian kids, luka grew up in the countryside and the sava was a huge part of his childhood. i spent my whole life in the same house about 50 metres away from the river, so when i wake up, if i had my window open,

i can already hear it. here in slovenia, the river isn't just used for watersports — it's an important source of hydropower, and luka thinks the river also has an important role to play in uniting the communities who live throughout its course. we were formerly part of yugoslavia, so we are sort of still connected. while our languages may not be that similar, they still have the same origin, so we are still sort of one nation and it's sort of nice to have the sava river connect us all. the river isn't always this placid. it can rise a metre higher in the autumn and winter and turn a lot more aggressive. frankly, the relative calm of these rapids is more than enough for me to deal with.

argh! oh, my god! 0k... not sure if bellyaking is the sport for me. further down the valley, two tributaries merge and the sava starts its journey proper. and at the fork in the rivers lies this majestic castle, lake bled, and its historic castle of the same name. this is slovenia's oldest castle, first built in medieval times. it's got a kind of fairy tale ambience to it and, because of its location, it's been a strategic lookout for 1,000 years. and standing here, i can kind of get why. you can see for miles!

this place is legendary in slovenian history. 0n the banks of the lake still sits the former holiday home of the father of post—world war ii yugoslavia, president josip broz tito. tito took the helm of the newly formed federal republic and more or less kept the country together until his death, in 1980, when yugoslavia began to fall apart. slovenia became the first to break away, with a short—lived war that lasted just ten days. it's been a sovereign nation state since 1991, and my next stop down the river sava is slovenia's capital, ljubljana. the city centre is made up of vast squares, lined with baroque buildings and the streets are packed with tourists ambling around. but it wasn't always like this. just over a decade ago ljubljana was clogged with traffic and the city's main piazza

was a car park. but in 2006, the city's mayor made the decision to ban cars from the centre. now the only vehicles allowed are these so—called cavaliers, electric cabs that give free lifts to those with luggage or who need extra help getting around. if you had to compare how this city looked ten years ago to now, can you tell me the difference?

and the children are still following you. and it's notjust the kids that are using the car—free streets as a playground. filip and blaz are ambassadors for the city. they met when one was a juggler and the other a gymnast, and together became a social media sensation with their urban acrobatic antics. we tried to put ljubljana on the map in our videos. so you can imagine running in a circle or something, we would run off a building. and you've done that? yeah. filip and blaz have good reason to keep the city centre, which doubles as their performance space, spick and span and they've been part

of the efforts to keep it that way. cheering wow! thank you! once a year we have action. the whole of slovenia is cleaned up and the river, they have divers and clean up all the bicycles out. and you've played a big part in those campaigns? yeah. we try to help. we are strong, so we lift all of the heavy stuff, help them to keep it clean and keep it on the next level. citywide clean—ups and specialist waste disposal points helped the capital win the accolade of being europe's greenest city in 2016, and filip and blaz are keen to encourage other locals and tourists to see the potential in ljubljana's spruced up streets. wow! and the gymnasts are firm believers that anyone can be taught to do this.

just change the arms. oh, sorry. yeah, like this. and three, two, one, go! see? i told you it's simple. you can move one arm as well. push ups! three, two! three... i don't know how i managed that. it's kind of superhuman strength. time to leave this urban oasis and head downstream again to radece. this region, like most of slovenia, is densely forested and has a thriving timber industry. hi. nice to meet you. welcome. hundreds of years ago, the sava was the only way to get the huge logs to major cities across the balkans. and i'm here tojoin other tourists to get a taste of those centuries—old rafting journeys.

we managed to revive this tradition, because otherwise we would forget all that and it was important because it was alive more than 500 years ago. and duska sees the sava playing a much larger role in the region in the nearfuture. now there is a perception of sava as a connector. connecting with who? with other communities along the river and, most important, connecting also across border regions. croatia, bosnia, serbia. and we already started to connect. baby steps, they are still, but, yes, we are connecting 110w along the sava river. but before i head across to my next country on the sava, duska tells me i need to be fully initiated into life on the river with this time—honoured tradition. are you going to behead me? no, we don't do that any more!

but if you want to be a member, you have to show us if you are able to sharpen that wooden stick. ah, you show me. and just when i thought the wood chopping was bad enough... here you go — on your knees. you have to leave the head down. like this. whoa! baptised by the water of the river sava.

next stop on my voyage down the longest river within the balkans, croatia's capital, zagreb. croatia was part of the austro—hungarian empire until the end of the first world war. and you can see much of that architectural influence around zagreb. the city has been fought over by competing armies for centuries. in the 15th century, so the story goes, the ottoman army was camped on the other side of the sava river, just over there, preparing to attack the city. to deter them, a cannonball was fired with such pinpoint accuracy, it landed on a chicken intended for the commander's dinner. so freaked out were the turks by this that they scarpered and never returned to the city again — so the legend goes.

but ever since 1877, as a nod to this alleged act of defiance, a cannon has been fired every day at noon from this tower. wow! incredible. alem is a trained engineer who used to work on the zagreb trams before he saw an advert for the position of cannon man in 2008, and landed the job. ah, how come — what does it do? laughs. the cannon firing has become a big tourist attraction in zagreb.

alem needs at least 15 minutes a day to prepare and in his nine years doing thejob, he's never had a misfire. maybe we should pray. no, no, no. no, no praying. 0k. um, we can... let's wait. 0k. please stay here. yep. you stay here. thank you. it's 11:58. 0k. speaks croatian. one minute to shot, please! i'm feeling a bit nervous. bit tense. he's very, uh, focused.

waiting for that clock to change. bang. 0oh! whoa! even though i knew it was coming, that was still a bit of a shock! it's still, oof, surprised me. wow! look at this! he's milking the applause! another day, job done. well done. have a nice day. thank you. croatia's struggle for independence from yugoslavia was more prolonged, complex and bloody than the slovenians‘. today, though, it's a country of five million and a very popular travel destination, especially zagreb, dubrovnik, and the rest of its spectacular adriatic coastline. but venture away from the capital down the sava and you come across a lesser—known city. sisak lies on the confluence

of three rivers and it's home to croatia's biggest river port. the town of sisak is where the river sava actually becomes wide enough for cargo ships like these to sail downstream to belgrade and serbia, and that's what has made the town such an industrial centre. now, sisak actually has a rich and colourful history but in recent times, it's been characterised as dull and dreary. in fact, most guidebooks don't even mention it. but that is now changing. i am actually the fourth generation born here. and i lived with this town, i grew up with this town, and ijust, you know, when you're reading something about your town, you're reading the bad news and you're thinking "what are you talking about? "this is not how it is here." so, last year, dahna and her team set about creating rezthink sisak — an art festival that uses the town's

buildings as a canvas for murals. this one, by croatian artist lonac, was one of the first to be created. it's the biggest mural in croatia and took 23 days and 400 cans of spray paint to complete. and how do the locals feel about this? um, well, at first, when we had to have the permission, they were first a little bit "what are you going to do with this?" but then, when it all started, they came every day here, they brought him the lemonade and cookies, and they were very, very proud of it. they got really emotionally involved — as in people from this building call this, ‘our mural‘ — which is what we tried to accomplish, you know, for people to accept them as their own. the murals are scattered around the city, each with a different theme or message. dahna shows me one that highlights a particularly painful part of sisak‘s history. during world war two, this

was the place where the children were gathered to be put in the only concentration camp for children in europe. really? just here? yes — in this general area. in this general area? yes, yes. the camp was set up by the nazi—affiliated ustase regime during world war two. the victims were serbian, jewish and roma children. this mural by austrian artist robin abramovic is dedicated to their memory. i believe that the artist gave them a tribute that they deserved and maybe a sort of place of remembrance of all those children who didn‘t make it. we called him to be a part of our festival because we, as a team, decided that his work does have that certain dark undertone that maybe we kind of lacked in the festival. and needed to portray. and needed, of course, yes, because the art has to provoke thinking, so, notjust be pretty.

there are now 17 murals in sisak and the festival has been such a success, they‘ve decided to keep on painting. mind you, people don‘t come to this part of croatia just for the art. they come to see the country‘s largest wetland, which i‘m heading through to my next stop on the sava river — the marshlands of brodski varos, where i encounter a man on an unusual fishing expedition. because stjepan goes out every day to collect food for this family of storks. stjepan found the mother, malena, 2a years ago after she had been shot and critically disabled by hunters. she still can‘t fly. because malena can‘t hunt, stjepan has to help feed the chicks. the fact that i can get so close, incredible.

and they‘re beautiful! wow. congratulations! over the years, a male stork, klepetan, became malena‘s mate but each winter, malena has to say goodbye to klepetan and their brood of baby storks as he migrates to africa for the winter. this bond between stjepan and malena has become internationally famous and is even the subject of a brand—new documentary, the old man and the stork.

and so, the first half of myjourney down the sava is complete and i‘m beginning to grasp how important the river is to the people who live along its banks. next week, i will head to bosnia and herzegovina and then east, all the way to serbia‘s capital, belgrade.

i‘ll find out how a generation who were born by the sava after the war in the ‘90s have new priorities and why the river has become so important to the future of serbia‘s capital. and i hope you‘lljoin me.

hello. well, it‘s very cloudy across the uk, right now. really very little change on the weather front. the air has become very stagnant across the uk and quite humid ever since the heatwave ended a few days ago in the south and central areas, and we are seeing the same pattern day on the day. clouds reform in the south, they come in from the south, moving northwards, and bringing the threat of showers, downpours and thunderstorms. so this is what the picture looks like this evening. you can see whether showers are, some of them are quite small, only a few miles across, so one minute dry, the next minute, the heavens open, thunder and lightning as well. there will be a tendency for these downpours to drift northwards as we go through the evening and the overnight period. temperatures overnight once again will be pretty high, 16 degrees in norwich and london, 1a in belfast, that‘sjust an indication how much moisture

there is in the atmosphere. we have a lot of moisture in the atmosphere and the temperatures don‘t fall away much during the night. the weak low pressure still with us on monday, with the threat of showers or showers. they circle around very gently, around this area of low pressure. the winds are so light, not an awful lot to push things out of the way. we have to wait until the winds ramped up in the atlantic to waft away all the thick clouds and storms. the weather will change in the coming days but not yet. the same weather pattern continues into tuesday, so again, the threat of downpours with some sunshine in between. you will notice that the storms become a little bit more widespread across the north, and when i say storms, i mean downpours, rainstorms and thunderstorms now and then as well. now, wednesday, we see a change. this area of low pressure,

actually within it, mixed in has the remnants of tropical storm, has the remnants of tropical storm, so the weather will be unpredictable in the end of the week, there is the chance that it could warm up the south but overall unpredictable weather and unsettled.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines. anger and confusion for hundreds of thousands of a—level and gcse students in england, as the exam regulator withdraws its guidance on appealing against grades — just hours after publishing it. this is just unacceptable, in my view. people are, students and teachers, are incredibly anxious, particularly the students who are worried about their future. it has got to be sorted out. the search for two teenage brothers who went missing in the sea near lytham st annes in lancashire is called off by the coastguard.