The figure comes from a study using the widest available datasets to try to produce a global view. The results are, to say the least, surprising. For example, it suggests that even in the hottest parts of the world, more people die of cold than from heat. In fact, sub-Saharan Africa appears to have the world’s highest rate of deaths from cold and the world’s lowest rate of deaths from heat. The figures suggest that 58 times as many people there die of cold than of heat. While it’s true that in hot places people are less adapted to cold, can this really be so?The paper explains that its dataset “covers 750 locations in 43 countries or territories”. But the only African country covered is South Africa. Nor are there any data from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, the Gulf states (except Kuwait), Indonesia or Melanesia. In other words, most of the world’s hottest countries are not represented. Nor are most of the places in which healthcare is weakest, either for the population as a whole (as in some African nations) or for the most vulnerable people (as in the Gulf states, where citizens might be well covered, but migrant workers scarcely at all). This is in no way the fault of the authors – it’s simply a matter of where records are available. 

Trump  trying to Change how Midterm Elections are Conducted. Many Eendeavors go far Beyond Typical political persuasion, challenging long-established democratic norms.Wapo Patrick Marley Yvonne Wingett Sanchez 1-12-2026 Five years ago, President Donald Trump pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he’s seeking to change the rules before ballots are castFive years ago, President Donald Trump pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he’s seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast. Trump, openly fearful that a Congress controlled by Democrats could investigate him, impeach him and stymie his agenda, is using every tool he can find to try to influence the 2026 midterm elections and, if his party loses, sow doubt in their validity. Many of these endeavors go far beyond typical political persuasion, challenging long-established democratic norms. They include unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots.

The administration has gutted the role of the nation’s cybersecurity agency in protecting elections; stocked the Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and FBI from top to bottom with officials who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election; given a White House audience to people who, like the president, promote the lie that he won the 2020 election; sued over state and local election policies that Trump opposes; and called for a new census that excludes noncitizens.The wide-ranging efforts seek to expand on some of the strategies he and his advisers and allies used to try to reverse the 2020 results that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol  “I’m concerned about chaos and uncertainty in the administration of the 2026 election,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford Law School professor who specializes in democracy and elections-related law. 

“There is a kind of avalanche of potential changes that are being proposed, and it’s at a time when people have lost trust in the election infrastructure and everybody’s on edge. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration is focused on ensuring that only citizens vote and criticized Democratic-run states for how they maintain their voter rolls. “President Trump’s only motivation is doing what’s best for the American people and ensuring each of their votes count,” Jackson said. Trump cast this year’s elections in existential terms in a speech to House Republicans this month, telling them that Democrats would impeach him if they win a majority. He teased the notion of canceling the elections but said he wouldn’t because he’d be accused of being a dictator if he did. Trump can’t cancel elections and he lacks the authority to carry out some of his most far-reaching plans because local and state officials oversee elections, rather than the federal government. Trump has already ignored those constraints and signaled he will continue to do so, which means courts will probably have to determine what rules are in place for the midterm elections. “All across the powers of the executive, he’s attempting to do things that maybe he doesn’t have the authority [to do] — or certainly have never been tried,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky. Here’s a look — based on documents and interviews with more than three dozen election officials and experts over the past year — at how Trump and the administration are trying to reshape how the midterm elections will be conducted......it's important so read on             https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/12/trump-midterms-elections-voting-redistricting/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=acq&utm_campaign=RH-ACQ&utm_content=dtpannual_20250112_RH&campaign_id=16445682 

The most it can do is potentially ease environmental rules that limit some of the pumping, which farmers have long opposed.But even some farm advocates are skeptical of the sweeping scope of Trump’s most recent order, and its specious connection to wildfire. "I am always appreciative of attempts to create more flexibility for moving water around the state, but [federal] water by and large goes to agricultural contractors,” said Alex Biering, the senior policy advocate at the California Farm Bureau Federation, the state’s leading agricultural lobby. “I don’t believe that any amount of additional water coming from the federal project would be able to be applied to stop that fire. It’s an attempt to tie water supply to a natural disaster, but those connections don’t exist in reality.”,,,,,read on     https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/donald-trump-order-routing-water-los-angeles-fires-false-central-valley-megafarms-big-agriculture/

This Patagonian village has glacier-fed rivers and majestic scenery. The only problem? Sewage.  El Chaltén is a paradise for hikers. But the seasonal influx of tourists stretches the sanitation infrastructure to breaking point – and even a legal victory has not provided a solution. Guardian hen people in the Patagonian village of El Chaltén saw untreated waste flowing into waterways and found the sewage plant was faulty, they grew increasingly concerned about the health risks from pollution in two glacier-fed rivers, the Fitz Roy and Las Vueltas. The incident in 2016 led Marie Anière Martínez, a conservationist with the Patagonian environmental organisation Boana, and Lorena Martínez, a Los Glaciares national park official, to form a group to investigate water contamination at the Unesco world heritage site. Last year, they secured a landmark court ruling against water pollution in the Argentinian national park. Supported by the Escazú agreement, a regional treaty on environmental rights, residents filed a collective lawsuit, forcing authorities to acknowledge failures in waste management and commit to upgrading systems by January 2025. Yet despite this victory, the pollution persists and activists are still calling for more robust enforcement. “What have the authorities done to prevent environmental damage?” asks Marie Anière Martínez.  Nestled in a 135-hectare (330-acre) valley in the shadow of Mount Fitz Roy, El Chaltén is home to up to 2,900 people during high season in the area, which is a paradise for hikers exploring Patagonia’s spectacular trails.

Los Glaciares protects part of the southern Patagonian ice field – a massive freshwater reservoir in South America. Spanning 600,000 hectares of lakes, forests and glacier-fed rivers, the national park includes the Las Vueltas River sub-basin, where 231 ice bodies feed the watercourses running through El Chaltén. But environmental problems escalate during the peak tourist season, from November to April, when the village hosts up to 10,000 people a day, putting pressure on sanitation infrastructure. Complaints were first filed in 2022 by the community in El Chaltén, concerned about the sewage system’s collapse and the lack of clean energy. “In 2019, the Los Glaciares national park guidelines plan was developed with input from residents and experts,” says Lorena Martínez. “We had already warned about the lack of data and water monitoring.”We don’t know how, over time, sewage discharges into the river can impact ecosystems Paula Chaparro, guide.In 2023, 21 residents sought an injunction to defend their constitutional right to a healthy environment. “We gathered previous studies, which already indicated that sewage effluent from the treatment plant of the public utility was reaching the Vueltas and Fitz Roy rivers without proper treatment,” she says. Local residents together with Martínez’s group, called Guardians of the El Chaltén Basin, proved that untreated sewage and resistant bacteria from overflowing treatment plants were contaminating waterways, threatening public health, according to judges. But still residents are waiting for action.......https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/oct/06/argentina-el-chalten-los-glaciares-park-guardians-water-pollution-glacial-rivers