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Tag: Heat waves

  • Heat is off: Sinner advances to Australian Open quarterfinals

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    MELBOURNE, Australia — Jannik Sinner may have felt lucky to survive the Australian Open third round but he rebounded quickly in a 6-1, 6-3, 7-6 (2) win Monday over fellow Italian Luciano Darderi to reach the quarterfinals for a ninth consecutive Grand Slam event.

    The two-time defending champion struggled with the extreme heat and cramping in his Saturday afternoon win over No. 85-ranked Eliot Spizzirri, and only took control after the roof was closed in the third set.

    Sinner later admitted he got a bit lucky with the timing of the extreme heat policy being invoked, leading to an eight-minute break to close the roof. He was also able to refresh in a 10-minute extra cooling break between the third and fourth sets.

    In an evening match in cooler conditions Monday, he was cruising until Darderi lifted his tempo in the third set. Second-ranked Sinner missed match points in the 10th game on Darderi’s serve but then took it up a notch in the tiebreaker.

    “I felt quite good out there physically. Everything was okay today,” said Sinner, who had limited practice on his off day between his third- and fourth-round matches. “Let’s see what’s coming in the next round.”

    Toward the end of the match Darderi, in his first official head-to-head with Sinner, increased the speed of his forehand as he went for everything, and also added intensity to his serve.

    Darderi took the first two points of the tiebreaker but then had to pause for a few moments before serving because of a baby crying in the crowd at Margaret Court Arena.

    He didn’t win another point. Sinner reeled off the next seven to triumph in 2 hours and nine minutes.

    It extended Sinner’s unbeaten streak to 18 against other Italians on tour and earned a quarterfinal against No. 8 Ben Shelton or No. 12 Casper Ruud.

    “It was very, very difficult. We’re good friends off the court,” Sinner said. “Third set I had some break chances, I couldn’t use them. I got tight, so very happy I closed it in three sets.”

    Sinner had 19 aces — a personal record — and no double-faults and said he was satisfied with the work he put into his serve over the offseason.

    He also wanted to emphasize some minor changes to his game, including going to the net and trying to mix up his game.

    In a tough hold in the third set, Sinner saved a breakpoint by changing the direction of the rally with a forehand drop shot, bending his knees low, and winning a crucial point. With a serve-and-volley, he held the game.

    “Still room to improve, but very happy with how I’ve come back,” he said. “Now for sure, it (the serve) is a bit more stable. I try to go more to the net and being more unpredictable.”

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    More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

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  • In a California farming region, researchers are mapping rural heat to protect farmworkers

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    In the summers, the sky is jet black when Raul Cruz arrives at this Imperial Valley sugarcane field to start his day. He chops, cleans and bundles the crop, taking heed as the sun rises. It’s hard work, but so is starting at 4 a.m., even though he knows it’s the safest thing when temperatures in this California desert frequently soar into the triple digits.

    “We just have to because we need to beat the heat,” said Cruz, who’s worked here for 15 years. They finish work by 9 or 10 a.m. to avoid the risk of heat stroke, he added, but when heat starts creeping up around 8 a.m., “mentally, it’s stressful.”

    The hot climate that makes this Southern California region a farming powerhouse is also what makes it dangerous for farmworkers, who are increasingly vulnerable to rising temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas. Researchers from San Diego State University are working to understand the health consequences of heat stress on farmworkers and where heat is most extreme in this rural landscape. They hope their findings can lead to a better understanding of rural heat islands, identify gaps in research and help develop interventions that better protect them in the face of climate change.

    “Workers could potentially be dying or having some serious issues,” said project leader Nicolas Lopez-Galvez, assistant professor in the School of Public Health at SDSU. “It’s better to start acting sooner.”

    Since the start of the 20th century, California temperatures have increased almost 3 F (about 1.7 C), according to state and federal data. Warming has accelerated, and seven of the state’s last eight years through 2024 were the warmest on record. While all areas of the state have warmed, Southern California is heating up about twice as fast as Northern California.

    Ana Solorio, an organizer with the farmworker advocacy group Líderes Campesinas that is working with researchers, remembered feeling “suffocated” in the Coachella Valley summer heat when she was a farmworker. “With the humidity, it felt awful,” said Solorio, who’s lived in the Imperial Valley for more than 30 years. The heat was so intense she didn’t return for another season, preferring instead the cooler winter harvesting months of lettuce in the Imperial Valley.

    “This (heat) can cause a lot of harm to their health,” she said.

    Researchers are trying to understand how farmworkers’ heat stress might vary depending on the crops, the season and the number of breaks they take.

    Over the past two years, they’ve collected year-round data from some 300 farmworkers. Body sensors measure things like core body temperature and heart rate while they work. Elsewhere in the fields, environmental monitors measure the day’s temperature, humidity, wind speed, sun angle and cloud cover, also known as the wet-bulb globe temperature, considered the best metric to understanding heat stress. Using satellite imagery along with historical and current wet-bulb globe temperature data, researchers are mapping areas of extreme heat, particularly in the Imperial and Coachella valleys.

    Researchers are learning that ground level crops can expose workers to higher heat levels compared to tree crops, for example, but it also depends on their harvesting months. In the summers, farmworkers who prepare fields for planting or help maintain irrigation systems are also more exposed.

    Rural heat can vary based on things like tree cover, proximity to a body of water and empty fields, which may be hotter. “It creates this island where people might be living or working that are higher in terms of heat stress compared to other places,” said Lopez-Galvez.

    Bordered by the Colorado River to the east, the Salton Sea to the northwest and Mexico to the south, the Imperial Valley is home to hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and produces billions of dollars in agricultural production. It grows two-thirds of winter vegetables consumed nationally and provides thousands of jobs. From 2023 to 2024 alone, about 17,579 migrant and seasonal farmworkers were employed in Imperial County, according to the state.

    It’s also extremely hot. In a given year, there are about 123 days with temperatures over 95 F (35 C), often exceeding 110 F (43 C) in August and early September, according to calculations by Sagar Parajuli, research scientist and adjunct faculty with SDSU’s geography department. The county has one of the largest Latino populations and the highest number of heat-related illnesses among workers than anywhere else in the state.

    Some of their data analysis has already been published.

    One study found that irrigating crop fields in the Imperial Valley reduced the wet-bulb globe temperature on summer days, thanks to the cooling effect of evaporating water. But on summer nights, the opposite occurred: irrigation increased the wet-bulb globe temperature as humidity spiked. Irrigation also heightened heat in nearby urban and fallow areas adjacent to crop fields due to moisture transport.

    “It is a concern because an elevated nighttime temperature restricts the ability of farmworkers to cool down,” said Parajuli, the study’s lead author. “So they can’t recover from the heat stress they could be accumulating from the daytime.”

    Through this research, the authors were able to recommend how frequently farmworkers should take rest breaks to protect themselves from heat stress, based on how often wet-bulb globe temperatures exceed safety thresholds across seasons and work shifts. While California has heat rules, they’re not strictly enforced, he added.

    “We realized that farmworkers are not getting enough rest breaks, and also there are no clear policy guidelines in terms of heat-related rest breaks,” he said.

    Lopez-Galvez said they plan to continue their research in California’s Central Valley and hope to expand it into Yuma, Ariz. and other parts of the Southwest.

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    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Study links frequent, severe heat waves to pollution from major fossil fuel producers

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    Fifty-five heat waves over the past quarter-century would not have happened without human-caused climate change, according to a study published Wednesday.

    Planet-warming emissions from 180 major cement, oil and gas producers contributed significantly to all of the heat events considered in the study, which was published in the journal Nature and examined a set of 213 heat waves from 2000 to 2023. The polluters examined in the study include publicly traded and state-owned companies, as well several countries where fossil fuel production data was available at the national level.

    Collectively, these producers are responsible for 57% of all the carbon dioxide that was emitted from 1850 to 2023, the study found.

    “It just shows that it’s not that many actors … who are responsible for a very strong fraction of all emissions,” said Sonia Seneviratne, a climate professor at the Swiss university ETH Zurich who was one of the study’s contributors.

    The set of heat waves in the study came from the EM-DAT International Disaster Database, which the researchers described as the most widely used global disaster repository. The Nature study examined all of the heat waves in the database from 2000 to 2023 except for a few that weren’t suitable for their analysis.

    Global warming made all 213 of the heat waves examined more likely, the study found. Out of those, 55 were 10,000 times more likely to have happened than they would have been before industrialization began accelerating in the 1800s. The calculation is equivalent to saying those 55 heat waves “would have been virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change, the authors wrote.

    “Many of these heat waves had very strong consequences,” said Seneviratne. She said the series of heat waves that struck Europe in 2022 that was linked to tens of thousands of deaths sticks out in her mind as one of the events with particularly grave consequences.

    Climate scientists can use complex computer programs and historic weather data to calculate the connection between extreme weather events and the planet-warming pollutants humans emit. Climate change attribution studies often focus on how climate change influenced a specific weather event, but the scientists say this new Nature study is unique because it focused on the extent to which cement and fossil fuel producers have contributed to heat waves.

    “They are drawing on a pretty well-established field of attribution science now, which has existed for about 20 years,” said Chris Callahan, a climate scientist at Indiana University who was not involved in the study. Callahan has used similar attribution methodologies in his research and said the new study is appropriate and high-quality.

    Scientists say the new study could be taken into consideration in legal cases. Globally, dozens of lawsuits have been filed against fossil fuel companies by climate activists, American state governments and others seeking to hold the companies accountable for their role in climate change.

    For example, Vermont and New York have passed laws that aim to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their emissions and the damage caused.

    “For a while, it was argued that any individual contributor to climate change was making too small or too diffuse a contribution to ever be linked to any particular impact. And this emerging science, both this paper and others, is showing that that’s not true,” said Callahan.

    Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth College climate scientist who wasn’t involved in the study, said the findings provide insight into the origins of the heat waves and how potential hazards from them could be minimized in the future.

    “As we contend with these losses, the assessment of who or what’s responsible is going to become really important,” Mankin said. “I think there are some really appropriate questions, like who pays to recoup our losses, given that we’re all being damaged by it.”

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • As summers grow deadlier, here’s what to know about utility shutoffs

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    NEW YORK — As the cost of electricity outpaces inflation and summers grow deadlier, consumer advocates are sounding alarms about the risks to low-income people who can’t afford consistent air conditioning in dangerous temperatures.

    While about half of U.S. states offer protections from utility shutoffs during extreme heat, the rest do not. In contrast, 41 states have “cold weather rules,” which forbid utility companies from shutting off household heat during extreme cold. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) provides funds for vulnerable groups who have trouble affording heating bills in the winter, but the program has less funding available to meet consumers’ increasing needs in the summer months.

    Shylee Johnson, 27, based in Wichita, Kansas, saw firsthand the protection that the local Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP) brought to her community during the three years she worked as a case manager for families who were behind on utility bills.

    “It was amazing at keeping people’s electricity on in the winter,” she said of the program, which subsidizes costs for households who can’t afford utility expenses. “Families would be deciding between paying their heating bill or another bill, and this took that decision away.”

    In the summer, though, Johnson said she’s seen how late or missed utility payments can result in the shutoff of electricity and the removal of vital services, despite air conditioning becoming increasingly essential to families’ health and well-being.

    “It’s terrifying,” she said. “There’s a ‘cold weather rule’ — in freezing temperatures, your heat can’t be turned off. But there isn’t an equivalent for summer in Kansas.”

    The clients Johnson served were often the most vulnerable, including families with young children, pregnant people, and those with sick or disabled family members, including some who need electricity to operate essential medical equipment in their homes. LIHEAP also sometimes provides air conditioning units in the summer for households that can’t afford to purchase their own units.

    Recent studies show that extreme heat in the summer is now the leading cause of weather-related deaths, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That’s ahead of deaths due to extreme cold in the winter or other weather emergencies, like hurricanes or tornadoes. The frequency, duration and intensity of extreme heat waves has significantly increased over the past several decades, according to the EPA, and insignificant support for low-income households contributes to the danger.

    In 2023, the death certificates of more than 2,300 people who died in the summer mention the effects of excessive heat, the highest number in 45 years of records, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. And that figure is only a fraction of the real death toll, according to coroner, hospital, and ambulance records, also analyzed by the AP.

    Nationally, the cost of electricity has risen at twice the pace of the average cost of living, exacerbating the problem.

    According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), which represents state program managers of LIHEAP, almost 20% of very low-income families lack consistent access to cooling. Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia offer assistance with summer energy bills, while 21 states plus D.C. have policies protecting low-income families from utility disconnections during summer months.

    Still, roughly 85% of LIHEAP resources are used for heating in the winter, leaving little support for households seeking cooling, according to Mark Wolfe, executive director of NEADA.

    “Rules that were written thirty years ago, that were adequate for winter, are not adequate for the summer,” he said. “How do we protect vulnerable households both during periods of extreme heat and extreme cold? The rules haven’t caught up.”

    Karen Lusson, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center who focuses on energy and utility affordability, said that many deaths from extreme heat in the summer months are preventable.

    “The impression we’ve all had is that weather is most dangerous in the wintertime,” she said. “Not any more.”

    While the Trump administration fired the entire staff of the LIHEAP program in April, Wolfe and Lusson are hopeful Congress will approve slightly more funding for the program in the fall compared to the previous fiscal year, they said.

    To protect households during increasingly hotter summers, Lusson recommends individuals seek information about their rights when it comes to utility shutoffs. State utility commissions, which regulate public utilities, dictate local rules. To find your relevant commission, consult the government site operated by the national association of regulatory commissions, which has a state-by-state look-up tool.

    Lusson also encourages people to look into whether their state protections are calendar- or temperature-based, which can make a difference in planning. While some states forbid shut-offs during certain months of the year, others base the protections on the temperature of a given day or the presence of a heat advisory. This LIHEAP site has a break-down of every state’s policies.

    Some state attorney generals’ offices also have public utility bureaus that advocate on behalf of consumers, Lusson said.

    Lastly, it can be helpful to determine if your utility company offers discount rates or percentage-of-income payment plans to help with electricity bills. Both commission and utility websites have specific information about how to access LIHEAP assistance and whether or not the utility company itself offers assistance.

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    The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

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  • US heat wave smothers Pacific Northwest, poses extreme risk in California and Arizona

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    SEATTLE — Residents of the Western U.S. sweltered in a heat wave Saturday that hospitalized some people, with temperatures forecast to hit dangerous levels throughout the weekend in Washington, Oregon, Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

    About 1.2 million people were under extreme heat risk, meaning temperatures were expected to stay dangerously high with no relief overnight. The largest area under the warning was around Tucson, Arizona, where the National Weather Service forecast highs between 102 and 107 degrees Fahrenheit (39 and 42 degrees Celsius). Areas of inland Southern California also faced extreme risk.

    Another 18.6 million were under major heat risk nationwide, affecting workers and anyone without regular cooling and hydration, including in Miami.

    Portland, Oregon, reported a record high for Aug. 22, according to preliminary data: 102 degrees (38.9 Celsius). If upheld it would break the 98-degree (36.7-degree Celsius) high for the date, set in 1942, according to the NWS.

    Struggling through the smothering heat were long-distance runners in a Portland’s annual Hood to Coast relay race, which goes from inland Mt. Hood to the Pacific Ocean. At least one runner competing as part of a group of athletes over 50 lost consciousness after running 4 miles (6.4 kilometers).

    David Loftus said he does not remember collapsing but his companions told him it happened shortly after he passed the baton. “Some other stranger saw me wobbling and caught me before I hit the ground,” Loftus said.

    When he regained consciousness, he saw an ambulance there to pick him up. Loftus, a writer and amateur actor from Portland, said Saturday that he hydrated and doused himself with water before his leg of the race but it wasn’t enough. He was held for observation overnight at a hospital but recovered.

    Around the time Loftus took the baton, a notice of extreme heat emergency was posted for Portland and the surrounding county. Emergency visits and 911 calls were up.

    “Typically, we see a single visit or no visits. Yesterday, we had 16 visits, six of them from Hood to Coast participants,” Brendon Haggerty of the Multnomah County Health Department said via email. “The Portland metro area is facing the highest heat risk of 2025.”

    In June 2021 the city recorded a high of 116 (46 Celsius) during a heat wave that resulted in more than 100 deaths. Most of the victims lived alone, and the vast majority were 60 or older, but the youngest was 37, officials said at the time.

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    The quote from David Loftus has been corrected to show that someone caught him before he “hit the ground,” not “left the ground.”

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  • Green spaces are key to combating record heat in marginalized communities

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    Keith Lambert and his family cope with the extreme heat of summertime Chicago by going in and out of their house as quickly as possible and making sure their insulated shades are always drawn.

    “It’s really just minimizing the exposure,” Lambert said. “Its about doing your best to manage your cooling touch points.”

    Lambert is like tens of millions of Americans navigating major heat waves, with temperatures consistently exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). More often than not, the heat hits hardest for people of color and low-income residents, although Lambert and his family consider themselves middle class.

    “The reality is there is a financial tie as to your comfort level and your well-being when it comes to extreme heat conditions,” Lambert said. ““If If you don’t have the means and or effort to cool, you have three choices you bake, you’re suffering and dealing with it, or do the best to go out and find places that have air conditioning.”

    Mortality records from cities across the country have shown that heat kills along socioeconomic and racial lines.

    Environmental justice advocates trace this inequality back to decades of discriminatory housing policy, especially redlining — the 1930s government practice of rating neighborhoods’ investment worthiness using race as a determining factor and denying mortgages to minority buyers.

    “The redlining and all of the historic environmental injustices that happens to black and brown communities in this country are now coming to a head because its impacting everyone,” said Alicia White, founder of Project Petals an environmental nonprofit that serves Black and brown communities.

    “It’s impacting our communities the most,” White said.

    The extreme heat isn’t just uncomfortable; it’s the top cause of weather-related fatalities nationwide. According to a New York City mortality report, extreme heat kills an average of 350 New Yorkers each year. While heatwaves are “incredibly deadly,” according to Eric Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University, they are also “largely ignored.” Heat is invisible and makes for less spectacular imagery than hurricanes or floods.

    “But also the people heatwaves affect are often made invisible in our public life,” said Klinenberg, the author of “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago.” “They’re disproportionately poor, Black and elderly. They often live in segregated neighborhoods.”

    Environmentalists say one solution to beating the heat in sprawling cities is planting more trees, creating green spaces like parks and meadows and covering rooftops with plants.

    In Arizona, the nonprofit Unlimited Potential, which focuses on promoting health and wellness, maintains a program to develop the urban forestry workforce to grow and maintain the tree canopy in Phoenix.

    Tawsha Trahan, director of healthy communities at Unlimited Potential, said growing the tree canopy in Phoenix, especially in low-income neighborhoods is needed as the lack of trees contribute to their hotter temperatures.

    “(There) are many reasons that contribute to having hotter neighborhoods but one of those reasons is they simply have much less trees,” Trahan said. “It’s visual. You can drive around in a neighborhood and see a substantial difference with the tree canopy cover.”

    Last fall, the New York City Council passed laws adding trees to the city charter’s sustainability plans and requiring the city to develop an urban forest plan to increase tree cover from 22 to 30 percent by 2035. Still many predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods do not have green spaces within a five mile radius.

    White, the Project Petals founder, said her organization is working to change that by providing the communities with resources they need to create green spaces, such as community gardens. Since 2015, Project Petals has helped open 10 green spaces, ranging from a quarter of an acre (1,000 square meters) to five acres (20,200 square meters).

    “These spaces really help to filter our air and they lower our temperature,” White said.

    But these spaces, like one in the Jamaica section of Queens with its abundant greenery, aren’t just an area to cool down or find shade. They are a place where community can grow. White said you can often find residents and volunteers sitting down for conversation, finding a quiet space to read a book, studying for school and growing their own food.

    “In a place like New York, we are called the concrete jungle, (some) people don’t have access to green spaces at all,” White said.

    With increasing temperatures and development patterns, experts say its only going to get hotter, unless something is done. Some are using data as a way to alert communities to the growing dangers.

    For example, Kevin Lanza, an assistant professor of environmental sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Austin, is helping cities mitigate heat exposure at bus stops. Because Texas’s communities of color rely heavily on public transportation systems, this increases their exposure to heat, Lanza said.

    In 2019, Lanza’s study found that the hottest days saw lower bus ridership. But when the bus stops were shaded by trees, the area was twice as cool and prevented steep ridership lost. The findings prompted the Houston transit authority, METRO and other agencies to begin work to redesign their bus stops to provide relief from the heat, Lanza said.

    As of June, according to reporting from Houston Public Media, six shelters have been redesigned to allow more airflow, with more stops expected to be replaced over the next six months.

    In 2023, Cap Metro, the transit authority in Austin, also used Lanza’s study to develop a plan to mitigate heat impacts by planting more tree across the city and near existing bus stops.

    Julia Silver, a lifelong resident of California, used to spend her summers with her family at an outdoor public pool. Now, amid record-breaking heat waves, Silver and her family have spent the majority of the summer inside their Los Angeles home, the local mall or other air-conditioned facilities.

    “It’s just kind of become unbearable during those hot summer days to spend time outside,” said Silver, a researcher at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute.

    In June, Institute launched a Latino Climate and Health Dashboard, which creates a centralized source that shows the climate disparities Latino neighborhoods across California. Developed with guidance from a statewide advisory committee of climate justice, public health, and data equity experts, the dashboard shows 90% of California’s Latino population faces climate inequities, from higher air pollution to more days of extreme heat than white residents.

    “The disparities shown in the dashboard are not random,” said Silver, a senior research analyst at the LLPI and the project’s leader.

    Silver said the main purpose of the dashboard is to ensure local leaders, community groups, government agencies and others have access to trustworthy data that reflects the experience communities in California and so many other states are facing.

    “The more climate change intensifies the more difficult it is for people to live, and the more dangerous it is for people to be outside,” Silver said.

    The dashboard will help create a shift to more inclusive climate planning by helping organizations understand who is most affected and where the greatest needs are.

    “By shining a light on these patterns, we can start correcting them,” said Arturo Vargas Bustamante, research faculty director at LPPI and principal investigator for the project.

    AP writer Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.

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  • Bosnia’s mountain resorts pivot to summer tourism as climate changes

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    SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — A short drive from the Mediterranean coast, mid-altitude mountain resorts near Sarajevo — traditionally dependent on snow sports — are slowly but steadily pivoting to attract summertime tourists.

    Despite Bosnia’s notoriously poor record-keeping, tourism officials in the mountainous Balkan country of 3.3 million say a clear trend is emerging.

    “We used to rely on snow, but there is no escaping the fact that snow is now likely to fall and accumulate at altitudes above 2,500 meters (8,000 feet) and our mountains are simply not that high,” said Haris Fazlagic, the Sarajevo tourism board president.

    Fazlagic believes that by expanding their summer offerings, mountain resorts can lure tourists away from the scorching heat and high costs of traditional seaside vacations along the Adriatic coast of Croatia and Montenegro. He said increasing the area’s year-round appeal is “the future of tourism,” but acknowledged it’s a long-term strategy.

    In 2017, after several winters with little snow, the Jahorina and Bjelasnica mountains near Sarajevo began to expand their summer offerings. These mountains, which hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, have elevations of 1,906 meters (6,253 feet) and 2,067 meters (6,781 feet), respectively.

    They now operate ski lifts year-round for scenic views and are steadily adding new hiking, biking and ATV trails and tours.

    “The weather here is fantastic — it’s not hot at all,” said Dusko Kurtovic, a visitor from the Bosnian town of Doboj, while on a walk during a short vacation in Jahorina last week.

    Like other visitors exploring the forest trails and riding ski lifts around Sarajevo, Kurtovic was dressed for balmy summer weather. Temperatures here typically stay between 24 and 30 degrees Celsius (75-86 degrees Fahrenheit).

    The weather is a welcome change for tourists, as coastal regions in Central and Eastern Europe have experienced increasingly frequent and prolonged heat waves, with daily temperatures often reaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past few years.

    Vasilije Knezevic, who leads quad tours of Jahorina’s highest peaks, noted that while the ski season was “bleak” because of the snow shortage, they are “having a fabulous summer so far.”

    Business might be growing in the mountains of Sarajevo, but it remains far less profitable than seaside destinations in neighboring Croatia, where tourism accounts for up to 20% of the country’s gross domestic product.

    Just a five-hour drive from Sarajevo, the ancient city of Dubrovnik is grappling with an abundance of tourists. Unlike their Bosnian counterparts who are trying to increase visitors, Dubrovnik’s tourism authorities are focused on managing crowds, limiting the number of tourists from cruise ships in the city to 4,000 at any one time during the day and restricting traffic around the Old Town to local permit holders.

    Despite these restrictions and extreme summer heat, Dubrovnik recorded nearly two million overnight stays in the first seven months of 2025, almost double that of the Sarajevo region.

    While climate change is driving Bosnia and Croatia toward different tourism strategies, both countries share a common objective: to “extend the season” and become a “year-round tourist destination,” in the words of Aida Hodzic of the Dubrovnik tourism board.

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    Associated Press writer Sabina Niksic in Sarajevo contributed.

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  • Extreme heat is impacting most Americans’ electricity bills, AP-NORC poll finds

    Extreme heat is impacting most Americans’ electricity bills, AP-NORC poll finds

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    WASHINGTON — During the summer, Levena Lindahl closes off entire rooms, covers windows with blackout curtains and budgets to manage the monthly cost of electricity for air conditioning. But even then, the heat finds its way in.

    “Going upstairs, it’s like walking into soup. It is so hot,” Lindahl said. “If I walk past my attic upstairs, you can feel the heat radiating through a closed door.”

    Lindahl, 37, who lives in North Carolina, said her monthly electricity bills in the summer used to be around $100 years ago, but they’ve since doubled. She blames a gradual warming trend caused by climate change.

    Around 7 in 10 Americans say in the last year extreme heat has had an impact on their electricity bills, ranging from minor to major, and most have seen at least a minor impact on their outdoor activities, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

    As tens of millions of Americans swelter through another summer of historic heat waves, the survey’s findings reveal how extreme heat is changing people’s lives in big and small ways. The poll found that about 7 in 10 Americans have been personally affected by extremely hot weather or extreme heat waves over the past five years. That makes extreme heat a more common experience than other weather events or natural disasters like wildfires, major droughts and hurricanes, which up to one-third of U.S. adults said they’ve been personally affected by.

    Sizable shares of Americans – around 4 in 10 – report that extreme heat has had at least a minor impact on their sleep, pets or exercise routine.

    Jim Graham, 54, lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and worries about the safety of his dog’s paws when going on walks outside, especially when it gets above 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). To protect her feet, they head out for walks at 5:30 a.m. “This year it seems hotter than usual,” said Graham. His single-level home has central air conditioning and even setting the thermostat to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) runs him over $350 a month in electricity bills, a big jump from what he used to pay about a decade ago.

    He’s not the only one watching the dollars add up: About 4 in 10 Americans say they’ve had unexpectedly expensive utility bills in the past year because of storms, flood, heat, or wildfires, including nearly half of homeowners.

    Like Lindahl, many see a link to climate change. About 7 in 10 U.S. adults who have experienced some type of severe weather events or weather disasters in the last five years say they believe climate change was a contributing factor. Three in 10 think climate change was not a cause.

    Last year Earth was 2.66 degrees Fahrenheit (1.48 degrees Celsius) warmer than it was before pre-industrial times, according to the European climate agency Copernicus. Some might perceive that increase as insignificant, but temperatures are unevenly fluctuating across the planet and can be dangerous to human health. Several regions of the U.S. set all-time temperature records this summer, and Las Vegas reached a scorching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 degrees Celsius) on July 7.

    According to the poll, about 1 in 10 Americans say that extreme heat has had a major impact on their sleep in the past year, while about 3 in 10 say it’s had a minor impact and 55% say it’s had no impact. Hispanic Americans are more likely than white Americans to say their sleep has been affected, and lower-income Americans are also more likely than higher-income Americans to report an effect on their sleep.

    The effects of extreme heat are more widely reported in the West and South. About half of people living in the West say their sleep has been impacted at least in a minor way by extreme heat, while about 4 in 10 people living in the South say their sleep has been impacted, compared to about 3 in 10 people living in the Midwest and Northeast. People living in the West and South are also more likely than those in the Northeast to say their exercise routines have been affected.

    Other aspects of daily life – like jobs and commutes, the timing of events like weddings and reunions, and travel and vacation plans – have been less broadly disrupted, but their impact is disproportionately felt among specific groups of Americans. About one-quarter of Americans say that their travel or vacation plans have been impacted by extreme heat, with Hispanic and Black Americans more likely than white Americans to say this.

    Even simply enjoying time outside has become more difficult for some. The poll found that about 6 in 10 Americans say extreme heat has impacted outdoor activities for themselves or their family.

    In general, people who don’t believe climate change is happening are less likely to report being affected by various aspects of extreme heat compared to people who do. For instance, about 8 in 10 Americans who believe that climate change is happening say extreme heat has had at least a minor impact on their electricity bills, compared to half of Americans who aren’t sure climate change is happening or don’t think it’s happening.

    Mario Cianchetti, 70, is a retired engineer who now lives in Sedona, Arizona. His home has solar panels and heat pumps, which he installed because he was interested in lowering his electricity bills to save money. “When you retire, you’re on a single fixed income. I didn’t want to have to deal with rising energy costs,” said Cianchetti, who identified himself as a political independent.

    Cianchetti noted that temperatures feel unusually warm but said installing sustainable technologies in his house was a matter of finance. “It’s not that I don’t believe in climate change, yeah I believe we’re going into a hot cycle here, but I don’t believe that it’s man-caused.”

    When it comes to general views of climate change, 70% of U.S. adults say climate change is happening. About 6 in 10 of those who believe climate change is happening say that it’s caused entirely or mostly by human activities, while another 3 in 10 say it’s caused equally by human activities and natural changes to the environment and 12% believe it’s primarily caused by natural environmental change. Nine in 10 Democrats, 7 in 10 independents and about half of Republicans say climate change is happening.

    Those numbers are essentially unchanged from when the question was last asked in April and have been steady in recent years, although about half of Americans say they have become more concerned about climate change over the past year.

    ___

    The poll of 1,143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

    ___

    O’Malley reported from Philadelphia.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Heat deaths of people without air conditioning, often in mobile homes, underscore energy inequity

    Heat deaths of people without air conditioning, often in mobile homes, underscore energy inequity

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    PHOENIX — Mexican farm worker Avelino Vazquez Navarro didn’t have air conditioning in the motor home where he died last month in Washington state as temperatures surged into the triple digits.

    For the last dozen years, the 61-year-old spent much of the year working near Pasco, Washington, sending money to his wife and daughters in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, Mexico, and traveling back every Christmas.

    Now, the family is raising money to bring his remains home.

    “If this motor home would have had AC and it was running, then it most likely would have helped,” said Franklin County Coroner Curtis McGary, who determined Vazquez Navarro’s death was heat-related, with alcohol intoxication as a contributing cause.

    Most heat-related deaths involve homeless people living outdoors. But those who die inside without sufficient cooling also are vulnerable, typically older than 60, living alone and with limited income.

    Underscoring the inequities around energy and access to air conditioning as summers grow hotter, many victims are Black, Indigenous or Latino, like Vazquez Navarro.

    “Air conditioning is not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which represents state energy assistance programs. “It’s a public health issue and it’s an affordability issue.”

    People living in mobile homes or in aging trailers and RVs are especially likely to lack proper cooling. Nearly a quarter of the indoor heat deaths in Arizona’s Maricopa County last year were in those kinds of dwellings, which are transformed into a broiling tin can by the blazing desert sun.

    “Mobile homes can really heat up because they don’t always have the best insulation and are often made of metal,” said Dana Kennedy, AARP director in Arizona, where many heat-related deaths occur.

    Research shows mobile home dwellers are particularly at risk in blistering hot Phoenix, where 113-degree Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) weather is forecast for this weekend.

    “People are exposed to the elements more than in other housing,” said Patricia Solís, executive director of the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University, who worked on mapping hot weather impacts on mobile home parks for a state preparedness plan.

    Worse, some parks bar residents from making modifications that could cool their homes, citing esthetic concerns. A new Arizona law required parks for the first time this summer to let residents install cooling methods such as window units, shade awnings and shutters.

    In Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, 156 of 645 heat-related deaths last year occurred indoors in uncooled environments. In most cases, a unit was present but was not working, was without electricity or turned off, public health officials said.

    One victim was Shirley Marie Kouplen, who died after being overcome by high temperatures inside her Phoenix mobile home amid a heat wave when the extension cord providing her electricity was unplugged.

    Emergency responders recorded the 70-year-old widow’s body temperature at 107.1 F (41.7 C). Kouplen, who was diabetic and had high blood pressure, was rushed to a hospital, where she died.

    Kouplen apparently was struggling financially, if the shabby condition of her mobile home was any indication. It still sits on Lot 60, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a locked gate and a dirt driveway overgrown with weeds.

    It’s unclear how the cord got unplugged, if Kouplen had an electricity account or how she got her power.

    “Losing your air conditioning is now a life-threatening event,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who grew up in hot, humid Houston in the 1970s. “You didn’t want to lose your air conditioning, but it wasn’t going to kill you. And now it is.”

    Arizona’s regulated utilities have been banned since 2022 from cutting off power during the summer, following the 2018 death of a 72-year-old woman after Arizona Public Service disconnected her electricity over a $51 debt.

    Ann Porter, spokesperson for Arizona Public Service, which provides electricity to homes in the park where Kouplen lived, said “due to privacy concerns” the company could not say if she had an account at the time of her death or in the past. Porter said the utility does not cut power from June 1 to Oct. 15.

    Cutoffs can occur after those dates if mounting debts are not paid.

    Arizona is among 19 states with shut-off protections, leaving about half of the U.S. population without safeguards against losing electricity during the summer, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association said in a new study.

    Almost 20% of very-low income families have no air conditioning at all, especially in places like Washington state where they weren’t commonly installed before climate-fueled heat waves grew increasingly stronger, frequent and longer lasting.

    In the Pacific Northwest, several hundred people died during a 2021 heat wave, prompting Portland, Oregon, to launch a program to provide portable cooling units to vulnerable, low-income people.

    Chicago, better known for its cold winters, saw a heat wave kill 739 mostly older people over five days in 1995. Amid high humidity and temperatures over 100 F (37.7 C), most victims had no air conditioning or couldn’t afford to turn on their units.

    In 2022, Chicago adopted a cooling ordinance after three women died in their apartments in a building for older adults on an unusually warm spring day. Certain residential buildings must now have at least one air conditioned common area for cooling when the heat index exceeds 80 F (26.6 C) and cooling is unavailable in individual units.

    Nonprofits in historically hotter areas like Arizona also are trying to better address the inequities low-income people face during the sweltering summers. The Phoenix-based community agency Wildfire recently raised money to buy over $2 million worth of air conditioning equipment to help 150 households statewide over three years, Executive Director Kelly McGowan said.

    Laws protect renters in some places. Phoenix landlords must ensure air conditioning units cool to 82 F (28 C) or below and that evaporative coolers lower the temperature to 86 F (30 C).

    Palm Springs, California, and Las Vegas, both desert cities, have ordinances requiring landlords to offer air conditioning in rental dwellings. Dallas, where temperatures can pass 110 F (43.3 C) in the summer, has a similar law.

    But most renters pay their own electricity costs, leaving them to agonize whether they can afford to even turn on the cooling or how high to set the thermostat.

    A new report estimates the average cost for U.S. families to keep cool from June to September will grow nationwide by 7.9% this year, from $661 in 2023 to $719 this summer.

    Wolf noted the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which grants money to states to help families pay for heating and cooling, is underfunded, with 80% going to heat homes in winter.

    At Kouplen’s mobile home park, Spanish-speaking neighbors had little interaction with “Señora Shirley,” who used a walker to take her two small dogs outside. Neighbors said the animals were adopted after her death.

    Kouplen was buried in northern Phoenix at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona alongside her husband, JD D. Kouplen, who died in 2020.

    “Never Forgotten,” their shared marker reads.

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  • Greece shuts Acropolis, 2 firefighters killed in Italy as southern Europe swelters in a heat wave

    Greece shuts Acropolis, 2 firefighters killed in Italy as southern Europe swelters in a heat wave

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    ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A heat wave across southern Europe forced authorities in Greece to close the Acropolis Wednesday for several hours and two firefighters died while putting out a fire in the Basilicata region in southern Italy, Italian authorities said.

    Italy added Palermo, Sicily, to the list of 13 cities in the country with a severe heat warning. Elderly people in the city of Verona were urged to stay indoors, while sprinklers were set up to cool passersby.

    Greece’s Culture Ministry ordered the closure of the Acropolis — the country’s biggest cultural attraction — from midday for five hours.

    Tourists hoping to visit the Parthenon temple atop the Acropolis queued early in the morning to beat the worst of the heat, while the Red Cross handed chilled bottled water and information fliers to those waiting in line.

    “We got it done and got out quick, and now we’re going to some air conditions and some more libation and enjoy the day,” said Toby Dunlap, who was visiting from Pennsylvania and had just toured the Acropolis. “But it’s hot up there, it really is. If you don’t come prepared, you’re going to sweat.”

    Meteorologists said the hot air from Africa was forecast to continue through Sunday, with heat wave temperatures expected to peak at 43 degrees C (109 F).

    In Albania, the heat led the government to reschedule working hours for civil servants, making it easier for some to work from home. Neighboring North Macedonia struggled with dozens of wildfires that had broken out in the previous 24 hours. One major blaze stretched across nearly 30 kilometers (21 miles). Firefighting aircraft from Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania and Turkey responded to the country’s call for assistance.

    In western Turkey, firefighters — aided by more than a dozen water-dropping aircraft — managed to bring a wildfire near the town of Bergama under control several hours after it ignited. The cause of the blaze, which was fanned by strong winds, was not immediately known.

    The municipality of Turkey’s largest city Istanbul issued a heat warning on Tuesday, saying temperatures would rise between 3-6 degrees C (5.4-10.8 degrees F) above seasonal norms until July 28.

    Several Spanish cities, including Granada and Toledo, are bracing for temperatures as high as 44 degrees C (111 F) forecast for later in the week in the country’s hottest spots in the south.

    ___

    Barry reported from Milan, Italy. Srdjan Nedeljkovic in Athens, Greece, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Konstantin Testorides in Skopje, North Macedonia, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey and Llazar Semini in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

    ___

    This story corrects Fahrenheit conversion to 5.4-10.8 degrees F.

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  • Spain heats up under 1st heatwave of the year as Southern Europe swelters

    Spain heats up under 1st heatwave of the year as Southern Europe swelters

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    BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain sweated under its first official heatwave of the year with temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees Celcius (104 Fahrenheit) in a large swathe of the country on Thursday, while Italy, Greece and other areas of southern Europe also struggled to stay cool.

    After a relatively bearable spring compared to record heat in 2023 and 2022, millions of Spaniards will be sweltering at least through Saturday before feeling any relief. The nation’s weather authority said the only areas to be spared will be the northwest and northern Atlantic coasts.

    Weather forecasters said a large mass of hot air travelling across the Mediterranean from northern Africa will settle over central and southern Spain. That, combined with the typical harsh summer sun, will make cities like the beautiful medieval cites of Sevilla, Toledo, and Granada bake.

    The hottest area will be the southern Guadalquivir River basin where thermometers could reach 44C (111F). Six regions are under alerts for high temperatures.

    2022 was the hottest year for Spain since it started keeping records in 1961. 2023 came in as the second hottest year. The first heatwave for last year arrived in June.

    Authorities and experts agree that climate change is behind the rise in temperatures that is also feeding prolonged droughts and wildfires in the Mediterranean and other parts of the world.

    In Spain, a heat wave is a minimum of three consecutive days during which at least 10% of weather stations register highs above the 95% percentile of average maximum temperatures for July and August.

    Hot, dry winds scorched Greece, where a prolonged heatwave was at its peak on Wednesday and Thursday. Temperatures touched 43C (109F) in several parts of the country, while night-time temperatures in parts of Athens remained above 30C (86F) for the past 10 days.

    Firefighters were fighting two large blazes on Thursday, one near a village on the outskirts of the northern city of Thessaloniki, and a brush fire on the island of Kea, near Athens. Emergency services ordered the evacuation of two areas on Kea, while local media said the fire near Thessaloniki had damaged several homes.

    “We appeal to the public to be particularly careful as over the next few days there is a very high risk of the outbreak of serious wildfires,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said. “Even one spark can cause a major catastrophe.”

    Italy put 14 cities put under the highest level of alert and temperatures are expected to climb above 40C, especially in the central and southern regions. The health ministry said it will further extend the red alert to 17 Italian cities on Friday, as the intense heat was forecast to continue until Sunday.

    On Tuesday, Serbia’s state power company reported record consumption due to the use of air conditioning.

    ___ Elena Becatoros in Athens and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

    ____

    Follow AP’s climate coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Tourists still flock to Death Valley amid searing US heat wave

    Tourists still flock to Death Valley amid searing US heat wave

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    DEATH VALLEY, Calif. — Hundreds of Europeans touring the American West and adventurers from around the U.S. are still being drawn to Death Valley National Park, even though the desolate region known as one of the Earth’s hottest places is being punished by a dangerous heat wave blamed for a motorcyclist’s death over the weekend.

    French, Spanish, English and Swiss tourists left their air-conditioned rental cars and motorhomes Monday to take photographs of the barren landscape so different than the snow-capped mountains and rolling green hills they know back home. American adventurers liked the novelty of it, even as officials at the park in California warned visitors to stay safe.

    “I was excited it was going to be this hot,” said Drew Belt, a resident of Tupelo, Mississippi, who wanted to stop in Death Valley as the place boasting the lowest elevation in the U.S. on his way to climb California’s Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Kind of like walking on Mars.”

    Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds cautioned visitors in a statement that “high heat like this can pose real threats to your health.”

    The searing heat wave gripping large parts of the United States also led to record daily high temperatures in Oregon, where it is suspected to have caused four deaths in the Portland area. More than 146 million people around the U.S. were under heat alerts Monday, especially in Western states.

    Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records over the weekend and are expected to keep doing so into the week.

    The early U.S. heat wave came as the global temperature in June was record warm for the 13th straight month and marked the 12th straight month that the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, the European climate service Copernicus said.

    In Oregon’s Multnomah County, home to Portland, the medical examiner is investigating four suspected heat-related deaths recorded on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, officials said. Three of the deaths involved county residents who were 64, 75 and 84 years old, county officials said in an email. Heat also was suspected in the death of a 33-year-old man transported to a Portland hospital from outside the county.

    Portland broke daily record temperatures on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and was on track to do so again on Monday with a forecast high of 102 F (38.9 C), National Weather Service meteorologist Hannah Chandler-Cooley said. High temperatures were expected in Portland through Tuesday evening.

    The temperatures aren’t expected to reach as high as they did during a similar heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, which killed an estimated 600 people across Oregon, Washington and western Canada. But the duration could be problematic because many homes in the region lack air conditioning.

    Heat illness and injury are cumulative and can build over the course of a day or days, officials warn. In San Jose, California, a homeless man died last week from apparent heat-related causes, Mayor Matt Mahan reported on the social platform X, calling it “an avoidable tragedy.”

    In eastern California’s sizzling desert, a high temperature of 128 F (53.3 C) was recorded Saturday and Sunday at Death Valley National Park, where a visitor, who was not identified, died Saturday from heat exposure. Another person was hospitalized, officials said.

    They were among six motorcyclists riding through the Badwater Basin area in scorching weather, the park said in a statement. The other four were treated at the scene. Emergency medical helicopters were unable to respond because the aircraft cannot generally fly safely over 120 F (48.8 C), officials said.

    More extreme highs are in the near forecast with a high of possibly 130 F (54.4 C) around midweek,

    The largest national park outside Alaska, Death Valley is considered one of the most extreme environments in the world. The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021.

    “It’s impressive,” Thomas Mrzliek of Basel, Switzerland, said of the triple digit heat. “It like a wave that hits when you get out of the car, but it’s a very dry heat. So it’s not as in Europe.”

    Across the desert in Nevada, Las Vegas set a record high of 120 F (48.8 C) on Sunday and was forecast to hit a record high of 115 F (46.1 C) on Monday. The National Weather Service forecast a high of 117 F (47.2 C) in Phoenix.

    Extreme heat and a longstanding drought in the West has also dried out vegetation that can fuel wildfires

    In California, a wildfire in the mountains of Santa Barbara County grew to more than 34 square miles (88 square kilometers) by Monday night. More than 1,000 firefighters were on the lines of the Lake Fire, and areas under evacuation orders included the former Neverland Ranch once owned by the late pop star Michael Jackson. The blaze was just 8% contained.

    A small but smoky blaze, dubbed the Royal Fire, burned through more than 150 acres (60 hectares) of forest west of Lake Tahoe and sent ash raining down on the tourist town of Truckee, California. There was no containment Monday night.

    Rare heat advisories were extended even into higher elevations including around usually temperate Tahoe area, with the weather service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains.” For the third straight day, the town of South Lake Tahoe, California, hit a high of 91 F (32.7 C), beating the previous record of 89 F (31.6 C) set in 2017.

    And for the first time in records dating to 1888, Reno reached 105 F (40.5 C) for the third consecutive day. A short time later on Monday, the city set a record high of 106 F (41.1 C), leap-frogging the previous mark of 104 F (40 C) set in 2017.

    People flocked Monday to the beaches around Lake Tahoe, especially Sand Harbor State Park, where the record high of 92 F (33.3 C) set on Sunday smashed the old record of 88 F (31.1 C) set in 2014. For the fifth consecutive day, Sand Harbor closed its gates within 90 minutes of opening at 8 a.m. because it had reached capacity.

    “It’s definitely hotter than we are used to,” Nevada State Parks spokesperson Tyler Kerver said.

    ___

    Rush reported from Portland, Oregon, and Snow reported from Phoenix. AP journalists Christopher Weber and John Antczak in Los Angeles; Janie Har in San Francisco; and Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.

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  • Torrid heat bakes millions of people in large swaths of US, setting records and fanning wildfires

    Torrid heat bakes millions of people in large swaths of US, setting records and fanning wildfires

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    LAS VEGAS — Roughly 130 million people were under threat over the weekend and into next week from a long-running heat wave that broke or tied records with dangerously high temperatures and is expected to shatter more from East Coast to West Coast, forecasters said.

    Ukiah, north of San Francisco, hit 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) on Saturday, breaking the city’s record for the date and tying its all-time high. Livermore, east of San Francisco, hit 111 F (43.8 C), breaking the daily maximum temperature record of 109 F (42.7 C) set more than a century ago in 1905.

    Las Vegas tied the record of 115 F (46 C), last reached in 2007, and Phoenix topped out at 114 F (45.5 C), just shy of the record of 116 F (46.7 C) dating to 1942.

    The National Weather Service said it was extending the excessive heat warning for much of the Southwest through Friday.

    “A dangerous and historic heatwave is just getting started across the area, with temperatures expected to peak during the Sunday-Wednesday timeframe,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said in an updated forecast.

    In Las Vegas, where the mercury hit 100 F (37.7 C) by 10:30 a.m., Marko Boscovich said the best way to beat the heat is in a seat at a slot machine with a cold beer inside an air-conditioned casino.

    “But you know, after it hits triple digits it’s about all the same to me,” said Boscovich, who was visiting from Sparks, Nevada to see a Dead & Company concert Saturday night at the Sphere. “Maybe they’ll play one of my favorites — ‘Cold Rain and Snow.’”

    In more humid parts of the country, temperatures could spike above 100 F (about 38 C) in parts of the Pacific Northwest, the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, said Jacob Asherman, a weather service meteorologist.

    Meteorologists predicted that temperatures would be near daily records in the region through most, if not all, of the coming week, with lower desert highs reaching 115 to 120 degrees F (46.1 to 48.8 C).

    Rare heat advisories were extended even into higher elevations including around Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, with the National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains.”

    “How hot are we talking? Well, high temperatures across (western Nevada and northeastern California) won’t get below 100 degrees (37.8 C) until next weekend,” the service posted online. “And unfortunately, there won’t be much relief overnight either.”

    Indeed, Reno hit a high of 104 F (40 C) on Saturday, smashing the old record of 101 F (38.3 C).

    More extreme highs are in the near forecast, including 129 F (53.8 C) for Sunday at Furnace Creek, California, in Death Valley National Park, and then around 130 F (54.4 C) through Wednesday.

    The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, eastern California, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021.

    Triple-digit temperatures are likely in the West, between 15 and 30 F (8 and 16 C) higher than average into next week, the National Weather Service said.

    The Eastern U.S. also was bracing for more hot temperatures. Baltimore and others parts of Maryland were under an excessive heat warning as heat index values could climb to 110 F (43 C), forecasters said.

    “Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors,” read a National Weather Service advisory for the Baltimore area. “Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances.”

    In Arizona’s Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix, there have been at least 13 confirmed heat-related deaths this year, along with more than 160 other deaths suspected of being related to heat that are still under investigation, according to a recent report.

    That does not include the death of a 10-year-old boy last week in Phoenix who suffered a “heat-related medical event” while hiking with family at South Mountain Park and Preserve, according to police.

    Firefighters dispatched aircraft and helicopters to drop water or retardant on a series of wildfires in California.

    In Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles, the Lake Fire has scorched more than 19 square miles (49 square kilometers) of grass, brush and timber. Firefighters said the blaze was displaying “extreme fire behavior” and had the “potential for large growth” with high temperatures and low humidity.

    At the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon, music fans coped by drinking cold water, seeking shade or freshening up under water misters. Organizers of the weekend revelries also advertised free access to air conditioning in a nearby hotel.

    Angela Quiroz, 31, kept her scarf and hat wet and applied sunscreen.

    “Definitely a difference between the shade and the sun,” Quiroz said Friday. “But when you’re in the sun, it feels like you’re cooking.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Julie Walker contributed from New York. Boone reported from Boise, Idaho, and Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada. Associated Press journalists Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, John Antczak in Los Angeles, Rio Yamat in Las Vegas, Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, contributed.

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  • Sizzling sidewalks, unshaded playgrounds pose risk for surface burns over searing Southwest summer

    Sizzling sidewalks, unshaded playgrounds pose risk for surface burns over searing Southwest summer

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    PHOENIX — Ron Falk lost his right leg, had extensive skin grafting on the left one and is still recovering a year after collapsing on the searing asphalt outside a Phoenix convenience store where he stopped for a cold soda during a heat wave.

    Now using a wheelchair, the 62-year-old lost his job and his home. He’s recovering at a medical respite center for patients with no other place to go; there he gets physical therapy and treatment for a bacterial infection in what remains of his right leg, too swollen to use the prosthesis he’d hoped would help him walk again.

    “If you don’t get somewhere to cool down, the heat will affect you,” said Falk, who lost consciousness due to heat stroke. “Then you won’t know what’s happening, like in my case.”

    Sizzling sidewalks and unshaded playgrounds pose risks for surface burns as air temperatures reach new summertime highs in Southwest cities like Phoenix, which just recorded its hottest June on record. The average daytime high was 109.5 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius), without a single 24-hour high below 100 (37.7 C).

    Young children, older adults and homeless people are especially at risk for contact burns, which can occur in seconds when skin touches a surface of 180 degrees Fahrenheit (82 C).

    Since the beginning of June, 50 people have been hospitalized with such burns, and four have died at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, which operates the Southwest’s largest burn center, serving patients from Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Southern California and Texas, according to its director, Dr. Kevin Foster. About 80% were injured in metro Phoenix.

    Last year, the center admitted 136 patients for surface burns from June through August, up from 85 during the same period in 2022, Foster said. Fourteen died. One out of five were homeless.

    “Last year’s record heat wave brought an alarming number of patients with life-threatening burns,” Foster said of a 31-day period, including all of last July, with temperatures at or above 110 degrees (43 C) during Phoenix’s hottest summer ever.

    In Las Vegas, which regularly sees summer-time highs in the triple-digits, 22 people were hospitalized in June alone at the University Medical Center’s Lions Burn Care Center, said spokesperson Scott Kerbs. That’s nearly half as many as the 46 hospitalized during all three summer months last year.

    As in Phoenix, the desert sun punishes Las Vegas for hours every day, frying outdoor surfaces like asphalt, concrete and metal doors on cars and playground equipment like swings and monkey bars.

    Surface burn victims often include children injured walking barefoot on broiling concrete or touching hot surfaces, adults who collapsed on a sidewalk while intoxicated, and older people who fell on the pavement due to heat stroke or another medical emergency.

    Some don’t survive.

    Thermal injuries were among the main or contributing causes of last year’s 645 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix.

    One victim was an 82-year-old woman with dementia and heart disease admitted to a suburban Phoenix hospital after being found on the scorching pavement on an August day that hit 106 degrees (41.1 C).

    With a body temperature of 105 degrees (40.5 C) the woman was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns on her back and right side, covering 8% of her body. She died three days later.

    Many surface burn patients also suffered potentially fatal heat stroke.

    Valleywise hospital’s emergency department recently adopted a new protocol for all heat-stroke victims, submerging patients in a bag of slushy ice to quickly bring down body temperature.

    Recovery for those with skin burns was often lengthy, with patients undergoing multiple skin grafts and other surgeries, followed by months of recovery in skilled nursing or rehabilitation facilities.

    Bob Woolley, 71, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his hands, arms, leg and torso after he stumbled onto the broiling backyard rock garden at his Phoenix home, wearing only swim trunks and a tank top.

    “The ordeal was extremely painful, it was almost unbearable,” said Woolley, who was hospitalized at the Valleywise burn center for several months. He said he considers himself “95% recovered” after extensive skin grafts and physical therapy and has resumed some former activities like swimming and motorcycle riding.

    Some skin-burn victims, both in Phoenix and Las Vegas, were children.

    “In many cases, this involves toddlers walking or crawling onto hot surfaces,” Kerbs said of those hospitalized at the Las Vegas center.

    Foster said about 20% of the hospitalized and outpatient skin-burn victims seen at the Phoenix center are children.

    Small children aren’t fully aware of the harm a sizzling metal door handle or a scorching sidewalk can cause.

    “Because they’re playing, they don’t pay attention,” said urban climatologist Ariane Middel, an assistant professor at Arizona State University who directs the SHaDE Lab, a research team that studies the effects of urban heat.

    “They may not even notice that it’s hot.”

    In measuring surface temperatures of playground equipment, the team found that in 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.7 C) weather without shade, a slide can heat up to 160 degrees (71.1 C), but a covering can bring that down to 111 degrees (43.8 C). A rubber ground cover can hit as high as 188 degrees (86.6 C), a handrail can heat up to 120 degrees (48.8 C) and concrete can reach 132 degrees (55.5 C).

    Many metro Phoenix parks have covered picnic tables and plastic fabric stretched over play equipment, keeping metal or plastic surfaces up to 30 degrees cooler. But plenty do not, Middel said.

    She said cooler wood chips are better underfoot than rubber mats, which were designed to protect kids from head injuries but soak up heat in the broiling sun. Like rubber, artificial turf gets hotter than asphalt.

    “We need to think about alternative surface types, because most surfaces we use for our infrastructure are heat sponges,” Middel said.

    Hot concrete and asphalt also pose burn risks for pets.

    Veterinarians recommend dogs wear booties to protect their paws during outdoor walks in summer, or keeping them on cooler grassy areas. Owners are also advised to make sure their pets drink plenty of water and don’t get overheated. Phoenix bans dogs from the city’s popular hiking trails on days the National Weather Service issues an excessive heat warning.

    Recovering at Phoenix’s Circle the City, a respite care facility he was sent to after being released from Valleywise’s burn unit, Falk said he never imagined the Phoenix heat could cause him to collapse on the broiling asphalt in his shorts and T-shirt.

    Because he wasn’t carrying identification or a phone, no one knew where he was for months. He has a long road ahead but still hopes to regain part of his old life, working for a concessionaire for entertainment events.

    “I kind of went into a downward spiral,” Falk acknowledged. “I finally woke up and said, ’Hey, wait, I lost a leg.’ But that doesn’t mean you’re useless.”

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  • Biden proposes new rule to protect 36 million workers from extreme heat

    Biden proposes new rule to protect 36 million workers from extreme heat

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    WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday proposed a new rule to address excessive heat in the workplace, warning — as tens of millions of people in the U.S. are under heat advisories — that high temperatures are the country’s leading weather-related killer.

    If finalized, the measure would protect an estimated 36 million U.S. workers from injuries related to heat exposure on the job — establishing the first major federal safety standard of its kind. Those affected by excessive heat in the workplace include farmworkers, delivery and construction workers, landscapers and indoor workers in warehouses, factories and kitchens.

    Biden highlighted the proposed rule as one of five steps his Democratic administration is taking to address extreme weather as Hurricane Beryl is already ripping through the Caribbean in an ominous sign for the summer.

    Biden used his remarks at the D.C. Emergency Operations Center to blast those Republican lawmakers who deny the existence of climate change, saying, “It’s not only outrageous, it’s really stupid.” Biden noted that there are human and financial costs from climate change, saying that weather-inflicted damage last year cost the economy $90 billion.

    “More people die from extreme heat than floods, hurricanes and tornadoes combined,” Biden said. “These climate fueled extreme weather events don’t just affect people’s lives. They also cost money. They hurt the economy, and they have a significant negative psychological effect on people.”

    The Democratic president, who’s seeking reelection in part on his environmental record, said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was also finalizing a rule to factor in possible flooding risks for federal construction projects.

    In addition, FEMA was announcing $1 billion in grants to help communities deal with natural disasters, while the Environmental Protection Agency was releasing a new report on climate change’s impacts. Lastly, Biden said his administration would hold a conference titled “White House Summit on Extreme Heat” in the coming months.

    Despite increased awareness of the risks posed to human health by high temperatures, extreme heat protections — for those routinely exposed to heat index readings above 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) — have lagged.

    “The purpose of this rule is simple,” a senior White House administration official told reporters. “It is to significantly reduce the number of worker-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses suffered by workers who are exposed to excessive heat … while simply doing their jobs.”

    Under the proposed rule, employers would be required to identify heat hazards, develop emergency response plans related to heat illness, and provide training to employees and supervisors on the signs and symptoms of such illnesses. They would also have to establish rest breaks, provide shade and water, and heat acclimatization — or the building of tolerance to higher temperatures — for new workers.

    Penalties for heat-related violations in workplaces would increase significantly, in line with what workplaces are issued for violations of Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules, a senior White House administration official said.

    An estimated 2,300 people in the U.S. died from heat-related illness in 2023. From 1992 to 2022, a total of 986 workers across all industry sectors in the U.S. died from exposure to heat, with construction accounting for about 34% of all occupational heat-related deaths, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. During that time, 334 construction workers died due to heat exposure on the job.

    As the hottest month of the year gets underway, millions of Americans will be at greater risk of heat strokes, dangerous dehydration and heat-related heart stress.

    The Labor Department has been developing a standard for how workplaces deal with heat since 2021. Last year, OSHA held meetings to hear about how the proposed measures could affect small businesses.

    The AFL-CIO union federation praised the measure. “If finalized, this new rule would address some of the most basic needs for workers’ health and safety,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler.

    Heat protection laws in the U.S. have faced steady industry opposition, including from chambers of commerce and other business associations. Many say a blanket mandate would be difficult to implement across such a wide range of industries.

    California, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota and Washington are the only states with workplace standards for heat exposure. Over the past year, Florida and Texas, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans, passed legislation preventing local governments from requiring heat protections for outdoor workers.

    If finalized, the Biden administration’s rule would override state standards, and states with existing procedures to deal with heat would have to institute measures at least as stringent as the finalized federal rule.

    The OSHA plan was announced as the EPA released a new report on climate change indicators in the U.S. The report, last updated in 2012, highlights data showing the continuing and far-reaching impacts of climate change in the U.S. This year’s report adds heat-related workplace deaths and marine heat waves as climate change indicators.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Josh Boak contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Doctors treat thousands of heatstroke victims in southern Pakistan as temperatures soar

    Doctors treat thousands of heatstroke victims in southern Pakistan as temperatures soar

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    KARACHI, Pakistan — A days-long intense heat wave has disrupted normal life in Pakistan, especially in its largest city, Karachi, where doctors treated thousands of victims of heatstroke at various hospitals, health officials said Tuesday.

    Several people fell unconscious in the city and some of them later died, local media said.

    Temperatures soared as high as 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) in Sindh province on Tuesday. Authorities in Karachi, the provincial capital, are urging people to stay indoors, hydrate, and avoid unnecessary travel.

    Weather forecasters say the heat wave, which began in May, will subside next week.

    According to local media, the days-long heat wave also killed more than two dozen people in Karachi, but no government spokesman was available to confirm the number of heatstroke-related deaths.

    On Tuesday, Faisal Edhi, the head of the Edhi Foundation, which runs the country’s largest ambulance service, said they received dozens of bodies of heatstroke victims in Karachi the previous day.

    Imran Sarwar Sheikh, the head of the emergency ward at the state-run Civil Hospital in Karachi, told The Associated Press that they treated 120 victims of heatstroke the previous day. Eight of those patients later died, he said.

    On Monday, more than 1,500 victims of heatstroke were treated at other hospitals in the city, according to local media.

    Sardar Sarfaraz, the chief meteorologist in Karachi, said temperatures will continue to rise this week across Pakistan. “Today, the weather is dry. In such conditions, the temperature starts rising,” he said.

    Pakistan’s climate is warming much faster than the global average, with a potential rise of 1.3 to 4.9 degrees Celsius (2.3 to 8.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the 2090s over the 1986–2005 baseline, according to a World Bank expert panel on climate change.

    The country, which is one of the most vulnerable in the world to climate change, also faces the risk of heavier monsoon rains, in part because of its immense northern glaciers, which are now melting as temperatures rise. Warmer air can hold more moisture, intensifying the monsoon.

    This year’s monsoon will start in July, causing flash floods, according to a statement released by Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority. The warning from the agency comes less than two weeks after a top U.N. official said an estimated 200,000 people in Pakistan could be affected by the upcoming monsoon season.

    However, officials say this year’s rains would not be as heavy as those in 2022 when devastating floods killed 1,739 people, destroyed 2 million homes, and covered as much as one-third of the country at one point.

    The 2022 floods caused more than $30 billion in damage to Pakistan’s already cash-strapped economy.

    Pakistan says despite contributing less than 1% to carbon emissions worldwide, it is bearing the brunt of global climate disasters.

    The ongoing heat in recent months also had a large impact on agriculture, damaging crops and reducing yields, as well as on education, with school vacations having to be extended and schools closed in several countries, affecting thousands of students.

    Climate experts say extreme heat in South Asia during the pre-monsoon season is becoming more frequent. The study found that extreme temperatures are now about 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 Fahrenheit) hotter in the region because of climate change, and this year Pakistan witnessed above-normal rains and heat.

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  • How does heat kill? It confuses your brain. It shuts down your organs. It overworks your heart.

    How does heat kill? It confuses your brain. It shuts down your organs. It overworks your heart.

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    As temperatures and humidity soar outside, what’s happening inside the human body can become a life-or-death battle decided by just a few degrees.

    The critical danger point outdoors for illness and death from relentless heat is several degrees lower than experts once thought, say researchers who put people in hot boxes to see what happens to them.

    With much of the United States, Mexico, India and the Middle East suffering through blistering heat waves, worsened by human-caused climate change, several doctors, physiologists and other experts explained to The Associated Press what happens to the human body in such heat.

    The body’s resting core temperature is typically about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius).

    That’s only 7 degrees (4 Celsius) away from catastrophe in the form of heatstroke, said Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney in Australia, where he runs the thermoergonomics laboratory.

    Dr. Neil Gandhi, emergency medicine director at Houston Methodist Hospital, said during heat waves anyone who comes in with a fever of 102 or higher and no clear source of infection will be looked at for heat exhaustion or the more severe heatstroke.

    “We routinely will see core temperatures greater than 104, 105 degrees during some of the heat episodes,” Gandhi said. Another degree or three and such a patient is at high risk of death, he said.

    Heat kills in three main ways, Jay said. The usual first suspect is heatstroke — critical increases in body temperature that cause organs to fail.

    When inner body temperature gets too hot, the body redirects blood flow toward the skin to cool down, Jay said. But that diverts blood and oxygen away from the stomach and intestines, and can allow toxins normally confined to the gut area to leak into circulation.

    “That sets off a cascade of effects,” Jay said. “Clotting around the body and multiple organ failure and, ultimately, death.”

    But the bigger killer in heat is the strain on the heart, especially for people who have cardiovascular disease, Jay said.

    It again starts with blood rushing to the skin to help shed core heat. That causes blood pressure to drop. The heart responds by trying to pump more blood to keep you from passing out.

    “You’re asking the heart to do a lot more work than it usually has to do,” Jay said. For someone with a heart condition “it’s like running for a bus with dodgy (hamstring). Something’s going to give.”

    The third main way is dangerous dehydration. As people sweat, they lose liquids to a point that can severely stress kidneys, Jay said.

    Many people may not realize their danger, Houston’s Gandhi said.

    Dehydration can progress into shock, causing organs to shut down from lack of blood, oxygen and nutrients, leading to seizures and death, said Dr. Renee Salas, a Harvard University professor of public health and an emergency room physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.

    “Dehydration can be very dangerous and even deadly for everyone if it gets bad enough — but it is especially dangerous for those with medical conditions and on certain medications,” Salas said.

    Dehydration also reduces blood flow and magnifies cardiac problems, Jay said.

    Heat also affects the brain. It can cause a person to have confusion, or trouble thinking, several doctors said.

    “One of the first symptoms you’re getting into trouble with the heat is if you get confused,” said University of Washington public health and climate professor Kris Ebi. That’s little help as a symptom because the person suffering from the heat is unlikely to recognize it, she said. And it becomes a bigger problem as people age.

    One of the classic definitions of heat stroke is a core body temperature of 104 degrees “coupled with cognitive dysfunction,” said Pennsylvania State University physiology professor W. Larry Kenney.

    Some scientists use a complicated outside temperature measurement called wet bulb globe temperature, which takes into account humidity, solar radiation and wind. In the past, it was thought that a wet-bulb reading of 95 Fahrenheit (35 Celsius) was the point when the body started having trouble, said Kenney, who also runs a hot box lab and has done nearly 600 tests with volunteers.

    His tests show the wet-bulb danger point is closer to 87 (30.5 Celsius). That’s a figure that has started to appear in the Middle East, he said.

    And that’s just for young healthy people. For older people, the danger point is a wet bulb temperature of 82 (28 degrees Celsius), he said.

    “Humid heat waves kill a lot more people than dry heat waves,” Kenney said.

    When Kenney tested young and old people in dry heat, young volunteers could function until 125.6 degrees (52 degrees Celsius), while the elderly had to stop at 109.4 (43 degrees Celsius). With high or moderate humidity, the people could not function at nearly as high a temperature, he said.

    “Humidity impacts the ability of sweat to evaporate,” Jay said.

    Heatstroke is an emergency, and medical workers try to cool a victim down within 30 minutes, Salas said.

    The best way: Cold water immersion. Basically, “you drop them in a water bucket,” Salas said.

    But those aren’t always around. So emergency rooms pump patients with cool fluids intravenously, spray them with misters, put ice packs in armpits and groins and place them on a chilling mat with cold water running inside it.

    Sometimes it doesn’t work.

    “We call it the silent killer because it’s not this kind of visually dramatic event,” Jay said. “It’s insidious. It’s hidden.”

    ___

    This story has corrected to “humidity,” rather than “temperature” in a mention of how people’s function is affected by humidity.

    ___

    Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

    ___

    Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

    ______

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Much of U.S. braces for extreme weather, from southern heat wave to possible snow in the Rockies

    Much of U.S. braces for extreme weather, from southern heat wave to possible snow in the Rockies

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    After days of intense flooding in Florida, that state and many others are bracing for an intense heat wave, while the Pacific Northwest will experience unseasonably cold weather and the potential for late-season snow in the Rocky Mountains early next week.

    The chaotic weather map includes the potential for severe thunderstorms developing in between the hot and cold fronts. Forecasters said the colliding fronts could lead to areas of flash flooding between eastern Nebraska and northern Wisconsin on Saturday night, as well as strong storms across parts of eastern Montana into North and South Dakota.

    Meanwhile, a plume of tropical moisture will reach the central Gulf Coast during the next couple days, with heavy rain expected to start Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

    Forecasters said the threat of heavy rains in Florida continues to dissipate, but some thunderstorms could cause local flooding given the already saturated soil. Some areas between Miami and Fort Lauderdale were left underwater in recent days as persistent storms dumped up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) in southern parts of the state.

    The damaging no-name storm system coincided with the early June start of hurricane season, which this year is forecast to be among the most active in recent memory amid concerns that climate change is increasing storm intensity.

    With flood waters receding in Florida, temperatures were rising Saturday across much of the southern U.S.

    In Atlanta, where temperatures were forecast to near 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) on Saturday and Sunday, city officials opened a cooling center to provide relief from the heat. The city announced that a “Family and Friends Field Day” had been postponed because of the high temperatures forecast.

    And in the west Texas city of El Paso, Saturday highs were expected to approach 105 degrees F (40.6 degrees C) and the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory through Monday morning for the region. The city has opened five cooling centers that will operate daily until further notice.

    Temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic and New England will likely peak in the mid to upper 90s next week, which is “nothing to sneeze at even in the middle of the summer, let alone this early in the summer,” said National Weather Service meteorologist William Churchill.

    “That’s what’s particularly remarkable about this,” he said, noting that high humidity will also make it feel even hotter in many places.

    Last year, the U.S. had the most heat waves — abnormally hot weather lasting more than two days — since 1936. In the South and Southwest, last year was the worst on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Next week’s heat wave will ramp up Sunday in the center of the country before spreading eastward, the National Weather Service said, with some areas likely to see extreme heat in reaching daily records. The heat wave could last all week and into the weekend in many places.

    While most of the country experiences the season’s first stretch of hot weather, parts of Montana have been placed under winter storm watches with a potential for wet snow falling Monday night.

    Churchill said the northwestern cold front is connected to the heat wave because one extreme is often accompanied by the other.

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  • Forecasters warn Oklahoma may see tornadoes; Texas could bake in triple-digit temperatures

    Forecasters warn Oklahoma may see tornadoes; Texas could bake in triple-digit temperatures

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    OKLAHOMA CITY — Forecasters warned of another day of heightened risk of dangerous tornadoes in the Midwest on Saturday and told people in South Texas they could experience triple-digit temperatures — and that’s with four weeks to go before summer starts.

    The weather service in Oklahoma compared the day to “ a gasoline-soaked brush pile.” Forecasters aren’t certain storms will form, but any that do could explode with large hail, dangerous winds and tornadoes.

    “There’s a small chance most of the matches are duds and we only see a few storms today. Still, that’s not a match I would want to play with. It only takes one storm to be impactful,” the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, wrote on Facebook.

    Excessive heat, especially for May, is the danger in South Texas, where the heat index is forecast to approach near 120 degrees F (49 degrees C) during the weekend. The region is on the north end of a heat dome that stretches from Mexico to South America, National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor said.

    Sunday looks like the hottest day with record-setting highs for late May forecast for Austin, Brownsville, Dallas and San Antonio, Taylor said.

    The temperature was approaching 90 degrees F (32 degrees) and the heat index was 104 F (40 C) in Brownsville on the U.S./Mexico border by midmorning Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.

    Red Flag fire warnings are also in place in west Texas, all of New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado, where very low humidity of below 10%, wind gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph) combine with the hot temperatures.

    “We’ve got very dry air, warm temperatures and strong winds creating a high fire danger over a wide area … that can lead to rapidly spreading or uncontrollable fires,” Taylor said.

    Meanwhile, several inches of snow fell Friday into early Saturday in Rolla, North Dakota, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Canadian border.

    April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world.

    April had the country’s second-highest number of tornadoes on record. And in 2024, the U.S. is already 25% ahead of the average number of twisters, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

    Iowa has been the hardest hit so far this week. A deadly twister devastated Greenfield. And other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.

    The storm system causing the severe weather is expected to move east as the Memorial Day weekend continues, bringing rain that could delay the Indianapolis 500 auto race Sunday in Indiana and more severe storms in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.

    The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.

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  • Widespread power outages from deadly Houston storm raise new risk: hot weather

    Widespread power outages from deadly Houston storm raise new risk: hot weather

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    HOUSTON — As the Houston area works to clean up and restore power to thousands after deadly storms that left at least seven people dead, it will do so Saturday under a smog warning and as all of southern Texas starts to feel the heat.

    Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said three people died during the storm, including an 85-year-old woman whose home caught fire after being struck by lightning and a 60-year-old man who had tried to use his vehicle to power his oxygen tank.

    Houston Mayor John Whitmire previously said at least four people were killed in the city when the storms swept through Harris County, which includes Houston.

    The National Weather Service issued flood advisories and watches for parts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

    The National Weather Service in Houston warned that with temperatures hitting around 90 degrees (32.2 C) this weekend, people should know the symptoms of heat exhaustion. ”Don’t overdo yourself during the cleanup process,” it said in a post on the social platform X.

    The balmy weather is a concern in a region where more than a half-million homes and businesses remained without electricity Saturday morning — down from nearly 1 million, according to PowerOutage.us.

    Fierce storms Thursday with winds of up to 100 mph (161 kph) blew out windows downtown, while a tornado touched down near the the northwest Houston suburb of Cypress.

    Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Friday that it could take weeks for power to be restored in some areas.

    With multiple transmission towers down, Hidalgo urged patience. Another 21,000 customers were without power in Louisiana, where strong winds and a suspected tornado hit, down from a peak of 215,000.

    The Houston Health Department said it would distribute 400 free portable air conditioners to area seniors, people with disabilities and caregivers of disabled children.

    The widespread destruction brought much of Houston to a standstill. Trees, debris and shattered glass littered the streets. One building’s brick wall was ripped off.

    School districts in the Houston area canceled classes Friday for more than 400,000 students and government offices were closed. City officials urged people to avoid downtown and stay off roads, many of which were flooded or lined with downed power lines and malfunctioning traffic lights.

    Mayor Whitmire warned that police were out in force, including state troopers sent to the area to prevent looting. He said the speed and intensity of the storm caught many off guard.

    “Most Houstonians didn’t have time to place themselves out of harm’s way,” Whitmire said at a news conference.

    Noelle Delgado pulled up Thursday night to Houston Pets Alive, the animal rescue organization where she is executive director to find the dogs and cats — more than 30 in all — were uninjured, but the awning had been ripped off, the sign was mangled and water was leaking inside. She hoped to find foster homes for the animals.

    “I could definitely tell that this storm was a little different,” she said. “It felt terrifying.”

    Yesenia Guzmán worried whether she would get paid with the power still out at the restaurant where she works in the Houston suburb of Katy.

    “We don’t really know what’s going to happen,” she said.

    Whitmire signed a disaster declaration, which paves the way for state and federal storm recovery assistance. President Joe Biden also issued a disaster declaration for seven counties in Texas, including Harris, over severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes and flooding since April 26. His action makes federal funding available to people affected by the storms.

    Emergency officials in neighboring Montgomery County described the damage to transmission lines as “catastrophic.”

    High-voltage transmission towers that were torn apart and downed power lines pose a twofold challenge for the utility company because the damage affected transmission and distribution systems, according to Alexandria von Meier, a power and energy expert who called that a rare thing. Damage to just the distribution system is more typical, von Meier said.

    How quickly repairs are made will depend on a variety of factors, including the time it takes to assess the damage, equipment replacement, roadwork access issues and workforce availability. Centerpoint Energy deployed 1,000 employees on Friday and had requested 5,000 more line workers and vegetation professionals.

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Ken Miller in Oklahoma City; Jamie Stengle in Dallas; Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed to this report.

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