Torrential rain set to batter south-eastern Sweden on Friday
After sunshine comes rain.
Sweden’s heatwave had barely ended when weather agency SMHI warned of a downpour set to batter the south-east.
The yellow warning covers an area including cities such as Stockholm, Västerås, Örebro, Norrköping, Växjö, Kalmar and Karlskrona.
“A front brings heavy rain or thundershowers during Friday, locally hail may also occur. 30-60 millimetres of rain can fall in a short time. The heaviest showers look set to come during the afternoon and evening,” said SMHI in an update on its website.
There’s a risk of flooded basements, stormwater systems, roads and viaducts.
Swedish vocabulary: a downpour – ett skyfall
Top candidates abandon failed Swedish party Folklistan
Folklistan, a new party started up by ousted Christian Democrat MEP Sara Skyttedal and former Social Democrat MP Jan Emanuel this spring, with the aim of grabbing a spot in the European Parliament, received just 0.6 percent of votes in the May election.
Emanuel is now leaving the party and hopes to rejoin the Social Democrats.
“I tried to change things and it went straight to hell,” he said, speaking on newspaper Expressen’s stage at Sweden’s annual political festival, Almedalen Week. “I thought that if we in these two months would manage to get our message out, we could have made it, but because the response was so weak we failed.”
Skyttedal also told Swedish media that she was also leaving Folklistan, but didn’t have any concrete future plans yet.
Folklistan’s press officer, Tim Sundblad, however, told the TT newswire that it will continue to operate.
According to TT, former Sweden Democrat and MEP Johan Nissinen is expected to be the new top name of the party.
Swedish vocabulary: straight to hell – the words Emanuel used were det gick åt pipsvängen. Pipsvängen is a word made famous by Astrid Lindgren’s Ronia the Robber’s Daughter and isn’t easily translated (in fact the English translation of the book usually avoids translating it), but it’s a euphemism for “hell” and could be translated as something going straight to hell, or perhaps going to the dogs.
Gotland mayor proposes tourist tax for summer visitors
Imposing extra taxes on tourists is not allowed in Sweden, unlike tourism hot spots such as for example Venice, Italy.
The regional mayor of Gotland, Meit Fohlin, wants to change that, reports public radio broadcaster SR Ekot.
Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the Baltic Sea island every summer, a beautiful and popular destination. Many mainlanders own a second home and stay there for months, using the island’s resources while their tax money ends up in their home municipalities.
“It’s important that tourism continues to be an important industry, and local industries then need contributions,” said Fohlin.
She said it should be possible to “pay tax for those months that goes to Gotland or where you own a summer house. Other places do that and it would be a fairly straightforward solution”.
Swedish vocabulary: a tourist tax – en turistskatt
Is Umeå the best place to live in Sweden?
Umeå in northern Sweden is the best place to live in Sweden, at least if a new ranking by the magazine Fokus is to be believed.
The research was carried out by Infostat on behalf of Fokus and looked at factors such as household economy, safety, jobs, education, childcare, healthcare, infrastructure, services, leisure and public economy.
“This is of course great. All of northern Sweden and not least Umeå is on fire right now and offer residents extremely good opportunities to live good lives,” Umeå mayor Hans Lindberg said in a press statement.
Luleå, also in northern Sweden, and Karlstad on the shores of Lake Vänern make up the rest of the top three.
The worst municipalities are Tanum, Älvdalen and Vansbro.
Swedish vocabulary: a municipality – en kommun
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