As cities turn into ovens, the heat wave body count rises and leaves little room for any other news. Steps have been taken on Tuesday towards the uninominal vote, but it is still impossible to know how long it will take for the laws to come into force.

"Urban temperature became a Bucharest trademark", Evenimentul Zilei

reads, after the public thermometers indicated as much as 49 degrees Celsius ten feet above the asphalt. The weather station official temperature - outside the town, in a protected environment - was 39 degrees.

In many areas of Southern Romania, the temperature was one degree below the all times record in 1938, the same newspaper notes. 42 people died since the beginning of the heat wave, on June 15.

The asphalt reached 70 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, determining the National Roads and Highways Company to introduce restrictions. Vehicles over 7.5 tons can't travel between 11:00h and 20:00h in over 30 counties.

The Danube has half the normal output for June, 3,200 cubic meters per second, instead of 6,450, Gandul also notes.

In politics, Liberals seem to change their mind about lowering the electoral threshold from 5% to 2%, in case the uninominal vote is introduced.

When Liberal secretary general Dan Motreanu suggested the move, most voices said PM Tariceanu is supposedly testing "the market", but even Tariceanu had to declare yesterday that Motreanu spoke in his own name, Evenimentul Zilei reads.

In Parliament, Liberals, Democrats and Social Democrats, the main three political parties, submitted the draft for the uninominal vote law. Civil groups comment that a deadline for approving the draft can not be set, since some of the MPs are sure to make whatever they can to block the law, Cotidianul reads.

Also on Tuesday, PM Tariceanu approved the 50% increase of agriculture pensions, after discussing it with the main Opposition party, Social Democrats (PSD). The problem, as Cotidianul notes, is that the announcement was made by PM Tariceanu, instead of a PSD official, which made PSD leader spit some serious nails.

In the foreign policy, Romania joined Denmark, UK, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Sweden and Finland in demanding France, Germany and Italy to dismember their energy giants. E On, EDF and Eni are considered as companies dominating the interior market of the three countries, Gandul reads.

Good news for the WWW: the Romanian youngster who broke into NASA, US Navy and US Department of Energy servers, turning offices into IRC chat rooms, was found guilty by the Romanian prosecutors, Gandul reads. Victor Faur, a member of the "WhiteHat Team", is accused of causing the US Government and the US Army 1.5 million dollars losses.