Tennis players collapsing and barfing at the Australian Open, fire alerts everywhere, and it’s only going to get hotter on Thursday and Friday.  Folks, do take care in this heatwave.
Meanwhile, Egypt tries again on a constitution – Rolf pleads in a London Court – America has too damned many guns – And shock over the rapid decline of an animal seen by many as the symbol of a continent.

Wednesday is the second of two days set aside to vote on a new constitution in Egypt.  Day One didn’t go too well.  The health ministry says at least eleven people were killed in violence.  Passage of the new constitution is seen by some as an endorsement of the military crackdown on Islamists that began with the ouster of former president Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last year.  Morsi’s supporters are giving up their voice, they’re boycotting the poll.

A Syrian official is claiming that western intelligence agencies have visited Damascus to discuss how to control radical Islamist groups.  Deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad is not naming which countries have done so, but claims it shows schisms between defense and intelligence agencies, and politicians.  He also claims other nations have expressed interest in talking with Damascus about the terrorists among the rebels, but is waiting until after next week’s peace conference in Geneva.

Rolf Harris appeared at a hearing at London's Southwark Crown Court, and pleaded Not Guilty to 12 counts of sex crimes alleged to have happened between 1968 and 1986.  The 83-year old is expected to face trial on 30 April.  One girl was aged 7 or 8, the others 14, 15 and 19 years old.

At his first news conference since messy details of his personal life bubbled over, French President Francois Hollande sidestepped the question of whether his girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler is still France’s “First Lady”.  He told reporters that “private matters should be dealt with privately.”  A magazine last week reported Hollande was having an affair with a younger actress.  Trierweiler checked into hospital shortly after the revelations.

One army officer is dead in an explosion at Argentina’s Esperanza Base on Antarctica.  The defense ministry says the blast happened when officers were trying to retrieve “inflammable material”, but didn't provide further details.  Esperanza base is one of six Argentine facilities in the Antarctic that conduct reconnaissance, exploration, and scientific missions.

A 12-year old boy smuggled a shotgun in his backpack, and opened fire at a middle school in New Mexico, the state in between Texas and Arizona in America’s southwest.  Two students were hurt – an 11-year-old boy in critical condition and a 12-year-old girl in serious condition – before a staff member talked the kid into putting down the gun.  The boy’s motives are unclear.

71-year old retired cop Curtis Reeves is behind held without bond in Florida, after shooting and killing a man because he was texting during the previews at a local theater.  Seriously, this is the kind of crap that happens in Florida.  43-year old ex-Navy man Chad Oulsen was killed, his 33-year-old wife Nicole was hurt when she instinctively reached out to try and block the bullets. 

North of Hollywood, Los Angeles County cops arrested a member of Justin Bieber’s entourage on drug charges.  Investigators were searching the alleged singer’s mansion after his next-door neighbor complained his house had sustained US$20,000 in damage from an egging delivered by Bieber and his crew.  I know, WTH were they throwing, pterodactyl eggs?  Weird.  Anyway, one of the over-privileged little jerk’s pals had drugs in plain sight while the cops were roaming around, alternatively reported as cocaine or ecstasy.  Cops say Bieber is neither arrested, nor exonerated.

The Mighty Lion is near extinct in Western Africa.  A new survey shows that only 250 breeding age Lions are confirmed in a handful of pockets scattered over thousands of kilometers from Senegal to eastern Nigeria – just 1.1 percent of their past historic range.  Most of that region has been converted over the agriculture.  The conservation group Panthera says the results came as a complete shock and is calling for the Lion to be listed as “critically endangered” in Western Africa.