Politicians want clampdown on toys bought from China 

Toys in Danish stores must meet EU safety standards, but this is niot the case for products purchased from Chinese webshops, which Danish politicians have called out as a potential safety risk.

Temu, Wish and Amazon are among popular online shopping platforms which don’t always have to comply with safety standards, broadcaster DR writes.

A survey conducted by DR found that several Danish candidates for the upcoming EU elections want a clampdown on such goods, which they say pose various kinds of safety hazard including chemicals and small components that small children can choke on.

“We must make platforms outside of the EU responsible for the products they sell just as we demand this of physical stores within the EU,” Social Democrat Christel Schaldemose said.

Vocabulary: vare – product

Hail is source of hazardous motorway conditions on Funen 

Hailstones peppered the E20 motorway between the Langeskov and Nyborg junctions on Funen early this morning, with several accidents reported as a result of the subsequent icy roads.

“Everyone has pulled over to the emergency lane but the section is slippery because of hail,” the P4 Trafik service for South Denmark posted in social media X, formerly Twitter.

Funen police confirmed “minor accidents” on the stretch.

“Winter is briefly visiting us again and the motorway is being extraordinarily salted between Odense and Nyborg because of the road temperature,” they said via X.

Motorists were urged to drive cautiously across Funen. The temperature is forecast to reach 8 degrees Celsius later today.

Vocabulary: hagl – hail (weather)

Agency issues recommendations for how much you should sleep

The Danish Health Authority has issued its first ever recommendations for the amount of time adults should sleep.

The agency recommends adults aged 18-25 sleep between 7-9 hours per 24-hour period, with the sleep at regular intervals. The exact same recommendation applies to 26-64 year-olds, while for people 65 years and over the amount drops slightly to 7-8 hours.

Those amounts probably sound wildly unrealistic to anyone with small children, though this is also recognised by the Health Authority. Section leader Maja Bækgaard Jørgensen said societal structure can work against healthy sleep.

“That’s why we want to strike a blow for how important it is that we prioritise our sleep because sleep is very important for our health and wellbeing,” she said in a press statement.

Vocabulary – søvnunderskud – sleep deprivation

Malmö plans location of its first three Copenhagen Metro stops

Politicians in Swedish city Malmö have decided where the first three stops will be if a new Øresund Metro is built, linking the city to Copenhagen – and they are planning on using the earth excavated to build a whole new city district.

Malmö and Copenhagen have been pushing for an Øresund Metro linking the two cities since at least 2011, but so far neither the Swedish government nor the Danish one have committed to stumping up their share of the roughly 30 billion Danish kroner (47 billion Swedish kronor, €4 billion) required.

Malmö hopes the Swedish government will take a decision on the project this autumn, and in preparation, the city’s planning board last Thursday took a decision on where the first three stops of the Öresund Metro should be placed.

They have selected Fullriggaren (currently a bus stop at the outermost tip of the city’s Västra Hamnen district), Stora Varvsgatan, in the centre of Västra Hamnen, and Malmö’s Central Station, as the first three stops, after which the idea is to extend the metro into the city.