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NHS faces more challenging winter than normal, health secretary warns
Yvette Cooper has announced £140m investment in England's urgent care system, after summer heatwaves piled pressure on the NHS.
NHS faces more challenging winter than normal, health secretary warns
Yvette Cooper has announced £140m investment in England's urgent care system, after summer heatwaves piled pressure on the NHS.
Jean-Marc Jancovici: 'As long as there is no shared understanding that the impact of a heatwave is lasting, politicians will not act'
The energy engineer and founder of the Shift Project think tank lays out the major climate challenges facing future governments, with six months to go before France's 2027 presidential election.
French services sector returned to growth for first time since December, PMI shows
France's dominant services sector grew in September for the first time since the end of last year, helped by a rebound in output after businesses had been impacted in August by an intense summer heatwave, a business survey showed on Monday.
Santa Barbara County Health Department Issues Health Alert Due to Extreme Heat Warning
High temperatures anticipated for parts of Santa Barbara County.
Situation Report No.11: Earthquakes in Venezuela 2026 (M7.2 and M7.5)
Nearly three months after the 24 June 2026 earthquakes in Venezuela, the response has moved into early recovery while sustaining essential emergency operations. Efforts now center on maintaining continuity of care across mental health, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and neonatal care, NCDs, and rehabilitation, alongside restoring affected facilities, supporting transitional camps, and strengthening Health Cluster coordination as Emergency Medical Teams and international partners withdraw. Health system recovery is advancing, with 16 ASICs and 356 health facilities assessed (61% operational) and rehabilitation progressing under CERF, CFE and US funding, while fluctuating electricity, medication refrigeration and emergency-generator gaps continue to challenge the safe continuity of essential health services. Public health surveillance and prevention remain active, with 47,145 cumulative vaccine doses administered and 556 health professionals trained, while intensified surveillance in La Guaira and Miranda and mounting environmental risks from tropical rains and heatwaves continue to require sustained vector-control and water/sanitation action. Contraception remains the most consistent unmet need across assessed shelters, particularly among adolescents and young women, while mental health needs continue to rise across the transitional camps amid limited supplies and specialized personnel. PAHO/WHO continues to support the response with critically needed medical supplies and medicines, having shipped 46.6 metric tons to Venezuela to date, benefiting 72 actors and reaching 117,714 people with treatment through PAHO and partner donations, while sustained technical and logistical support to the Ministry of Popular Power for Health (MPPS) has strengthened the national supply chain and ensured the continuity of health services through the coordination, reception, and mobilization of international donations of essential medical products.
Why politicians should pay more attention to the polls (reprise)
Welcome to the 231st edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP), a polling newsletter that always welcomes new readers. So please don’t keep TWIP a secret; share it with your friends and colleagues: Share The Week in Polls With all the stories swirling around Reform, JL Partners and political polling, I am finally tearing myself away from talking about the regulation of polling this week - and instead re-running a previous piece reminding us why the solution to problems with polls isn’t simply to ban or ignore them. Rather, we need them to play a vital role in making our politics - and politicians - better. This is followed by summaries of the latest national voting intention polls, seat projections from MRPs and the most recent party leader ratings. Subscribers who pay for the full edition can also read ten insights from the latest polls and analyses, including: A trio of organisations and a pair of professors have been casting their eyes over the Liberal Democrats ahead of the party’s autumn conference; What impact did the summer heatwave have on views on climate change? and Which wins out between chocolate and cheese? If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can read all ten by starting a free trial now: Get FREE 7-day trial For more polling news as it comes in ahead of next week’s edition, you can also follow The Week in Polls on Bluesky. Picking up on my doubt last week about whether or not 35% of British train travellers have tried to order a takeaway for delivery to a railway station or carriage, thank you to reader Iain, who has been in touch to say he has done just that… in India. Another quick pair of updates, this time on the controversies around Reform and polling. Politico has a further scoop - “Farage aide caught in donor sting attended Egypt retreat with JL Partners” - and Ian Dunt has written about the problems with polling too: “Seeing the response of many polling experts in the last few weeks suggests that they are nervous about what is happening and keen to mitigate against it. Seeing the response of journalists, which has been basically non-existent, suggests the precise opposite.” My usual reminder as well: please do hit reply if you’ve spotted a poll, focus group or new piece of poll-based research that you think should be in contention for coverage in a future edition. Thank you! And with that, on with the show. How politicians get public opinion wrong I have written before about the benefits that come from widespread availability of high-quality political polling. We need more polls and more good coverage of polls. However, what I’ve not dug into before is the research into how accurately politicians estimate public opinion on issues. Thankfully we have academic research to tell us. First, the bad news: We present results from a study of 866 politicians in four countries.1 Politicians were asked to estimate the percentage of public support for various policy proposals. Comparing more than 10,000 estimations with actual levels of public support, we conclude that politicians are quite inaccurate estimators of people’s preferences. They make large errors and even regularly misperceive what a majority of the voters wants. Politicians are hardly better at estimating public preferences than ordinary citizens. Walgrave, S., Jansen, A., Sevenans, J., Soontjens, K., Pilet, J.B., Brack, N., Varone, F., Helfer, L., Vliegenthart, R., van der Meer, T., Breunig, C., Bailer, S., Sheffer, L. & Loewen, P.J. (2023a), “Inaccurate Politicians: Elected Representatives’ Estimations of Public Opinion in Four Countries”, The Journal of Politics, 85(1): 209-222. The bad news is not quite as bad as that makes it sound because, when asked whether the majority of public opinion was for or against various policies, politicians picked the wrong option ‘only’ 29% of the time. However, this included getting it wrong even when public opinion is far from evenly split on an issue: They do not only get it wrong when the public is divided and hard to read (e.g., when there is a 51%:49% distribution). Seventy percent of the misplacements occur for policies with a relatively clear distribution of at least 60% (dis)agreeing citizens. Moreover, the public scored only slightly worse than politicians, picking the wrong option 2.7 out of 8 times on average, compared with 2.3 times for politicians. Turning to the other measure of accuracy (not which side is in the lead but what the percentage support is for each side), politicians on average were 18 percentage points out in their guesses. Again, this was only slightly better than the public, whose error came in at 21 percentage points.2 Further research, using the same mix of countries, gives a little more comfort about how (in)accurate perceptions are: We show that politicians have a better understanding of public opinion when they think the issue matters to voters. Further, when an issue is personally important to politicians they more accurately estimate their party supporters’ opinions. The results confirm that politicians hold more accurate perceptions of voters’ preferences when they think it is important to do so but not necessarily when the issues actually are important to voters. Butler, C., Walgrave, S., Soontjens, K. & Loewen, P.J. (2024), “Politicians are better at estimating public opinion when they think it is more salient”, Party Politics: 1–13. Even so, it’s not a good picture. The remedy for this? Politicians should spend more time reading the polls. So forward this newsletter to someone you know… Share For a more general argument against banning polls, see my 2024 piece. Is “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” good advice or not? The latest episode of my Political Fictions podcast heads across the Atlantic for a dip into one of the political TV classics: Mark and Cory talk about a giant of American political drama for the first time this week, as they tackle The West Wing. They talk about Let Bartlet Be Bartlet, the nineteenth episode of series one. In it, Mark wonders if The West Wing is actually the epitome of the “Boris Johnson school of politics”, Cory outmanoeuvres Mark into confirming we will record a Christmas Special about Love, Actually and they debate whether the central message of this episode has been misunderstood. Cory’s email newsletter is Paperback Rioter and Mark has a family of email newsletters. Subscribe to our newsletter for some additional bonus content and to get alerted whenever a new episode comes out. Our theme tune is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod/incompetech.com and licensed under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. You can also listen to our episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the web or YouTube. Elsewhere from me… [ A Lord's Eye View How to fix the problem of money in our politics Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords. This time I am taking a look at how our political system is regulated, and the protections we need to keep democracy safe from becoming simply a contest to see who has the biggest bank account… Read more 5 days ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Mark Pack ](https://lordseyeview.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-the-problem-of-money-in?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=1269283) If you spot a factual error… Borrowing an idea from Stuart Ritchie and others, if you spot a factual error in an edition of this newsletter, I will give you a free 12-month subscription to the paid-for version (or an extra 12 months on your existing one). Factual errors qualify, but grammatical errors or disagreements over interpretation do not, and my decision is final. Messages about both of those are always welcome, though. Voting intention and leadership ratings Here are the latest voting intention polls from different pollsters. It is all pretty static at the moment, with a small and consistent Labour lead in nearly all the polls. The table is also online here, along with explanations about what is included. It is updated regularly throughout the week as new polls are released. Next are the seat projections from MRPs, also sorted by fieldwork dates, listing those which are based on dedicated fieldwork (rather than models based on averages of other polls). Because such MRPs are published infrequently, some of the entries below are quite old. Finally, here is a summary of leadership ratings, with a graph from PollCheck: Detailed numbers from the latest polls are online here, and both that and the graph are updated regularly throughout the week as new data comes out. For historical figures on both voting intention and leader approval stretching back to the 1930s, including Parliamentary by-election polls, see PollBase. Catch up on the previous two editions [ ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/a-crisis-point-for-political-polling) [ A crisis point for political polling Sep 13 ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/a-crisis-point-for-political-polling) [ Read full story ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/a-crisis-point-for-political-polling) [ ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/extra-questions-about-the-polls-in) [ Extra questions about the polls in Reform’s funding scandal Sep 6 ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/extra-questions-about-the-polls-in) [ Read full story ](https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/extra-questions-about-the-polls-in) My privacy policy and other legal information are available here. Links to purchase books or other items are usually affiliate links which pay a commission for each sale. Quotes from social media messages are occasionally lightly edited for punctuation and clarity. If you are subscribed to other email lists of mine, please note that unsubscribing from this one will not automatically remove you from the others. If you wish to be removed from all my lists, simply reply to this email to let me know. A quintet of Lib Dem polling analyses, and 9 other polling insights you shouldn’t miss The following ten findings from the most recent polls and analyses are only for subscribers who pay for the full edition, but you can sign up for a free trial to read them straight away. Ahead of the start of Liberal Democrat conference, we have a trio of organisations and a pair of professors with pieces out about Ed Davey’s party:
‘Summer of truth’: will political leaders act as climate chaos comes knocking?
Amid record-shattering heatwaves and popular demand for climate action, why are politicians often timid or in denial?
Retail sales bounce back across Great Britain
Latest data to defy economic gloom shows 0.5% rise boosted by purchases of sports items, aircon units and fans amid heatwaves
What Does the Science of Climate Change Really Look Like?
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series on how the Right should think about environmental and climate policy. Read Chris Barnard on Reclaiming Environmental Policy from the Left. More than a decade ago, the world’s governments negotiated and signed the Paris Climate Agreement, committing to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. In the following years, climate had immense cultural power. Greta Thunberg emerged. Fortune 500 companies established net-zero plans. The U.S. got the Inflation Reduction Act. Then the pendulum swung back. President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, speaking of green energy as a “scam” and carbon footprints as a “hoax” and on all matters of international policy emphasizing bilateral engagement and power over globalism and cooperation. The technology companies that had been at the forefront of net-zero pledges and green leadership discovered the importance of all-of-the-above power to their visions for artificial intelligence and began quietly postponing or removing their targets. On the left side of the political spectrum, rising concerns about inflation and cost pushed climate lower down in the stated priorities of voters and stump speeches of politicians. The moment is ripe for a reset on the politics of climate change and for conservatives especially to chart a course that acknowledges and addresses the real challenges in plausible ways. So what should we think about climate change as we enter a post-peak climate era? If it is neither an apocalypse nor a hoax, what will hold up as a durable view of climate change? And how does it project onto the concerns and priorities of the right-of-center’s emerging coalition? New to Commonplace_? Subscribe below to get the magazine in your inbox._ Subscribe A Solid Foundation As the politics and economics of climate careened over the past ten years, the physics carried on regardless. In 2015, the year the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted, the world emitted 41.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. By 2025, emissions had risen only 2.4%, to 42.2 gigatonnes, because falling emissions from land use offset increasing emissions from fossil fuels. But slow growth in annual emissions is not rapid decline, let alone net-zero, so carbon dioxide kept accumulating in the atmosphere, going from 399 to 426 parts per million. Global temperature kept rising too, from about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 average in 2015, to 1.4 degrees above it in 2025. None of this should surprise anyone. Even most prominent skeptics, like the authors of the 2025 report commissioned by the Trump administration’s Department of Energy, accept the basic physics. Carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere at industrial volumes accumulates and traps heat that would otherwise escape to space. That heat warms the upper ocean and increases temperatures at the surface. Increased ocean heat and melting of land ice cause sea levels to rise. Changes in the climate become noticeable to us as subtle shifts in temperature and precipitation, seasons arriving early or late, changes in the surrounding ecosystem, and weather extremes. The much more meaningful debate is not about whether these things are happening, but about what it all means for human societies. (While it is a proxy measure of overall risk, no one experiences global surface temperature.) This debate invokes at least three interesting questions: how much today’s warming is showing up in regional climate trends, how much more warming we should anticipate, and how extreme weather events can be understood in the context of climate change. Recent scientific advances give us new insights into each of these, but there is still much to learn. This is the context in which the next generation of conservative leaders will be the first to deal with significant climate change as a fact, not a forecast. It will be with them for their entire careers. Our evolving scientific picture of climate change will come from weather and climate records stretching further into the past, new kinds of observations in the present, better modeling tools for the future, and simply more time to observe the emergence of climate signals and their tangible effects on ecosystems and communities in the United States and around the world. The policy landscape will be shaped by not only the impacts of changes in the climate, but also by the ways in which societies respond and by the emergence of new technologies for both altering the trajectory of emissions and adapting to new climate realities. Global climate records now show the fingerprints of warming in different phenomena around much of the world. The IPCC, in its most recent assessment report, documents warming trends over all land regions, even as natural variability adds substantial variance to local trends. And the highest temperature extremes have become more intense and frequent, almost everywhere, since the 1950s. Scientists are highly confident that these changes are attributable to human influence. But confidence in detecting trends and attributing them to human influence degrades across heavy precipitation events; drought trends are heterogeneous and not attributable to human activity with great confidence. For hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe storms there is even less confidence in trends or their relationship to climate change. In general, a fair summary of the evidence is that for well-observed phenomena, like surface temperature or heavy rainfall, with a clear relationship to warming, our multidecadal observations are consistent with human influence overcoming natural variability over long time periods and extremes increasing. For regions that are sampled more sparsely, or phenomena with a higher noise-to-signal ratio, we will need to observe them longer to understand the magnitude of the climate signal or improve dynamical understanding using models and observations together. But for Climate For those who can’t wait, we also have new techniques that attempt to understand the role climate change has in influencing particular extreme events. When the climate is changing and disaster strikes, it is natural to ask whether that disaster was somehow “caused” by climate change. For scientists and policymakers acting in good faith, answering that question helps develop a more accurate picture of the problem, how it may be getting worse, and what preparations we should be making to respond to it. It may, at some point, give some weight to how liability is assigned by courts or adaptation funding is distributed by society. But how we ask this question is extremely important. It is easy to get the analysis wrong by discounting the role that meteorology plays. As meteorologist Theodore Shepherd explained in a clear 2016 review of climate attribution methods, “if a weather or climate event is truly extreme in the present climate, then perforce it requires unusual meteorological conditions, which means that climate change is at most a contributing factor.” Share Scientists have two ways to probe climate as a contributing factor, both of which have entered media coverage of extreme weather events. One asks a probabilistic question: How much more likely is a particular event (e.g., a temperature record over a particular area) amid global warming? The answer involves using historical records and computer simulations to estimate the likelihood of such an event in both a changed and a preindustrial climate. The findings are less about the specific event, and more about events of that nature. The other question is: How has the changed climate affected the specific event in question? Here, scientists try to understand what a similar event would have looked like in the preindustrial climate. This is sometimes called the storyline approach, where the story is the specific meteorological details of the event. These methods offer ways to test the intuition of scientists about real weather extremes. In late June and early July of 2021, a persistent high-pressure ridge, or heat dome, set up over the Pacific Northwest and an extraordinary heat wave affected the area from Oregon to British Columbia. For six days, it shattered temperature records across the region and hundreds died from heat-related causes, in an area where such high, and persistently high, temperatures were well outside of experience and many live without air conditioning. Scientists have studied its connection to climate change using multiple approaches. This specific event was created by a rare combination of meteorological factors, a strong high-pressure ridge created the conditions for extreme heat, which occurred on top of higher average temperatures in the region from global warming. Probabilistic analyses showed that climate change increased the likelihood of such an event by at least 8-fold to more than 100-fold. One standout example found that such an event had effectively zero probability of occurring in the preindustrial climate. The enormous range in these assessments reflects how hard it is to estimate probabilities of events at the tail of the historical record. Estimates of the effect on the temperature of the event are more clustered. A recent review paper documents how multiple methodologies have found a positive influence, roughly 1-2 degrees Celsius of an anomaly that exceeded 15 degrees, of climate change on the temperature magnitude of the event. Multiple studies have investigated and found some positive influence of climate change in other extreme events. Attribution studies found climate likely increased the heavy rainfall that accompanied Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and surrounding regions in 2024. The extensive fires that struck Los Angeles in 2025 illustrate how the causal chain can become messy, though. Studies do detect a positive influence of climate on the event’s likelihood, but while climate change likely contributed to underlying aridity, it would not have played a role in the heavy winds or land practices that preceded disaster. These event attribution studies will become more common for extreme, or damaging, weather events. They can be produced quickly, and often are reported before peer review. As the Pacific Northwest heatwave example shows, when multiple methods converge on a positive attribution, the finding should probably carry some weight even if you have to be careful about accepting the results from a single study. I expect that as climate change proceeds and the climate thus departs further from a preindustrial counterfactual, the influence will become more detectable across a variety of extreme events and more easily identified. This will be used to cast blame, but can also be used to inform how communities and society adapt to ongoing change. We May Still Be Surprised One positive development, insofar as less climate change is better, has been that our central estimates for future climate change should probably be revised downward. Mostly, that is because the high-end warmings that scientists regularly analyzed about ten to 20 years ago, driven by high emissions throughout the twenty-first century, now appear to be somewhere between unlikely and impossible. At one time, the upper end of mainstream climate projections extended well into 4 to 6 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of this century, which, models suggest, would have wrought enormous real-world damage. Current energy and policy trends now point toward 2.5 or 3 degrees. Damages and risks are commonly modeled as increasing steeply with more warming, so this is already a better-than-previously-expected outcome for the climate (which is independent of the physical response to emissions). But we should maintain a wide range for plausible outcomes and prepare for the possibility of being surprised. Emissions trajectories are subject to deep uncertainty, the physical climate response is still developing, and whatever change occurs in the climate will then be mediated through unpredictable economic, social, and political institutions. Over the past decade, the pace of warming surprised some keen observers and appeared to accelerate, though not yet outside the range of expectation provided by climate models. The reasons for that apparent acceleration are being actively studied (as was the apparent pause in warming from 1998 to 2012), but no single driver has emerged. Some blame it on the El Niño, variability which would have no bearing on climate. Some think it is a result of factories in East Asia and global shipping fleets cutting aerosol emissions, which in the strongest version of the argument would indicate higher climate sensitivity to carbon-dioxide emissions. Others are more measured, not yet ready to draw solid conclusions as to whether climate projections require revision. We will have to see. Long-Term Thinking Climate change asks us to think over long time scales. But the pace of human-driven warming is compressing a large global change into a century. Changing weather patterns and extreme events are already causing adjustment costs and damages and will do more. Adaptation will help, but it is not free. For some communities, these costs will erode livelihoods and well-being, and may force migration. Are we prepared for large-scale managed retreats in the United States? Thankfully, American wealth, geographical diversity, and moderate climates may leave us better prepared than many around the world. But wealthy countries can still suffer serious disruption from narrowly concentrated costs, even if they appear entirely manageable in aggregate. Readers of Commonplace are familiar with the challenges of rapidly adapting to economic forces. The displacement that came from the China Shock is barely perceptible in aggregate GDP and employment data, but it affected millions of people and those people were far less mobile than economic models tended to assume. Deindustrialization rippled through the nation with enormous effects for not only our economic vitality, but also our national security. The forces surrounding climate change may not be so different; the world gets richer and must accept some diffuse costs. Those may be modest overall, but cause all manner of unpredictable effects with which policymakers must cope. In the case of the China Shock, our faith in a growing pie served us poorly. We’ll need to do better on climate. Leave a comment
How the body adapts to extreme heat
As heatwaves become more frequent and severe, scientists are studying whether heat acclimation can help protect vulnerable populations.
Hottest In 125,000 Years? The Staggering Science Behind The Summer Heatwave
If you felt this summer was especially brutal, the data proves you were right. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the continental United States just endured its
Hottest In 125,000 Years? The Staggering Science Behind The Summer Heatwave
If you felt this summer was especially brutal, the data proves you were right. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the continental United States just endured its
Hottest In 125,000 Years? The Staggering Science Behind The Summer Heatwave
If you felt this summer was especially brutal, the data proves you were right. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the continental United States just endured its
Hottest In 125,000 Years? The Staggering Science Behind The Summer Heatwave
If you felt this summer was especially brutal, the data proves you were right. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the continental United States just endured its
Hottest In 125,000 Years? The Staggering Science Behind The Summer Heatwave
If you felt this summer was especially brutal, the data proves you were right. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the continental United States just endured its
Hottest In 125,000 Years? The Staggering Science Behind The Summer Heatwave
If you felt this summer was especially brutal, the data proves you were right. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the continental United States just endured its
Wasps are disappearing this summer, and scientists are worried
Britain’s wasps have become mysteriously scarce this summer, and scientists suspect an unusual combination of temperature swings, heatwaves, and food shortages may be responsible. Even the wasps that remain appear unusually small, potentially offering a glimpse of how extreme heat could reshape insect populations.
If Your Windshield Seems Cleaner Than It Used to Be Scientists Say That Could Be a Very Bad Sign (For Insects)
Insects are under threat partly because of man-made climate change, heatwaves and intensive farming.
Kansas City Royals news: Witt’s future looks Golden
What will end first; the Kansas City Royals’ season or the heatwave the Midwest is suffering through?
The trail of clues that our planet might be heating faster than we realised
A curious online row over this summer's heatwaves points to a wider - and worrying - shift in climate science.
The trail of clues that our planet might be heating faster than we realised
A curious online row over this summer's heatwaves points to a wider - and worrying - shift in climate science.
Wildfires, heatwaves threaten global air quality and health, UN warns
Wildfires and heatwaves are threatening global efforts to improve air quality and protect human health, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Monday. The UN agency warned that increasingly severe…
FIA declares heat hazard for F1's Italian GP in Monza
Italy's sixth heatwave of a stifling 2026 summer is set to affect this weekend's running of the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix
Ocean heatwaves linked with poorer health among children in coastal communities
Marine heatwaves — periods of abnormally warm ocean temperatures — may have negative health effects on children who live in coastal communities in low- or middle-income countries, according to a study led by researchers at Penn State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Olivia Rodrigo’s music festival taking place in SoCal amid heatwave
Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields Music Festival is taking place on Saturday amid a scorching heatwave. The sold-out event at Irvine’s Great Park features an all-female lineup including Rodrigo …
Sony's Reon wearable air conditioner saved my sanity through multiple heatwaves
Sony's Reon Pocket Pro Plus looks like an alien is attached to your spine, but it works.
3 Ways Scientists Can Help Hold Major Polluters Accountable Under the Trump Administration
The impacts of climate change have been on full display this Danger Season, from record-breaking heatwaves to devastating wildfires, making evident the urgent need for accountability for the harms caused by supercharged extreme events and long-term changes. These harms have been inescapable across the western US, particularly when it comes to water. As fossil-fueled climate […]
Four key ways our warming planet is affecting our health
Heatwaves and extreme weather conditions are damaging our health in several ways, including mosquito-borne disease, drug-resistant bacteria and smoke from wildfires.
Retail sales in Great Britain fall despite heatwave increasing food and drink demand
Volume of goods sold in stores and online dropped 0.5% in July, ONS says
Why certain meds can make heatwaves harder to handle
Some of the most prescribed medications, including those used to treat depression, ADHD and high blood pressure, can increase the risk of dehydration and other heat-related conditions.
Heatwave sparks rise in doorstep welfare checks
Community health workers in Cornwall say they are making more home visits during the heatwave.
Europe's heatwaves expose insurance gap as business losses mount
For more than a century, cafes in the Italian city of Padua have welcomed customers for an early evening drink, or aperitivo, encouraging them to sit outside and socialise before dinner.
Science Confirms that Heatwaves Don't Just Make You Feel Slower, They Actually Age You
New research suggests that heatwaves could speed up biological aging. Here's why.
‘We’re seeing lots of people who feel dizzy’: how heatwaves are taking a toll on people’s health and the NHS
Doctors and nurses describe rise in fall injuries and other heat-related problems on top of stifling working conditions
Amber heat health alerts to kick in across England ahead of fifth summer heatwave
The alerts come a day after it was officially declared that there are now 11 regions in the country in drought
UK weather: More areas due to be declared in drought ahead of fifth heatwave this year
The National Drought Group - made up of regulators, government officials, water companies and agricultural bodies - is meeting later.
US Stand Up for Science movement expands to Europe
A grassroots movement by scientists in the US pushing back against threats to academic freedom is setting up a Swiss outpost to take the movement global. Stand Up for Science started in February 2025 to protest against politically-motivated grant cancellations by the Trump administration. Since then, it has organised numerous rallies by scientists and turned into a broader campaigning organisation, supporting “pro-science” political candidates and attempting to impeach Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the health and human services secretary the group accuses of advancing “quack” science. Now, Stand Up for Science is establishing a Swiss office to take some of its campaigning beyond the US, and its leader is urging European academics to organise similar pro-science groups in case they face similar threats in Europe. There will likely be “spillover” to Europe from what the Trump administration is attempting in the US, said Colette Delawalla, chief executive of Stand Up for Science, who last month returned from a tour of Europe. “Are we going to see a Trump-style scientific [. . .] take over in the same way?” she asked.Delawalla, who is doing a PhD in clinical psychology, said she was driven to help found the organisation after the Trump administration started cancelling health research grants in politically taboo topics, such as transgender people, diversity and HIV, in early 2025. Since then, the administration has introduced several other measures that infringe academic and institutional autonomy.It threatened to cut Harvard University’s federal funding unless the university accepted a “critical mass” of new faculty and students to create “viewpoint diversity.” And this year, it proposed explosive new rules that would allow political appointees at research funders to screen grants to make sure they “advance the president's policy priorities.”US scientists have been at times stunned by the volume of announcements, and the country’s researchers were relatively unprepared. “We sit in front of the fire hose every day,” said Delawalla. For this reason, European scientists need to prepare now for similar assaults. “If you've got a little bit of extra time to start thinking through, and making those preparations and building community and solidarity,” then European researchers will “start five steps ahead of where we were.” She plans to return to Paris in September to share experiences with concerned French academics. Is Le Pen the same?During her European tour, Delawalla said that French academics were beginning to worry about a National Rally (RN) victory in presidential elections next year. She said there were “chilling similarities” between Trump and Marine Le Pen, the RN’s likely candidate. However, so far, the RN hasn’t proposed anything nearly as radical as the Trump administration has carried out. Its current manifesto is all but silent on university and research policy. Le Pen’s 2022 manifesto bemoaned a lack of French R&D spending, including in fundamental research, and promised to modernise labs and strip away grant bureaucracy. The party’s 2024 European election manifesto explicitly supported the Erasmus+ student exchange programme, scientific exchange and joint European technology projects. However, a Le Pen victory next year could see France drastically cut its contribution to the EU, which would hit the budget for science and innovation. Meanwhile, more restrictive immigration policies could hit university recruitment of faculty and students. Climate science denial?As heatwaves and wildfires have ravaged France, the RN has sought to distance itself from previous comments casting doubt on climate science.In the UK, the radical-right party Reform UK, now second in the polls, denied climate research in a draft of its 2024 election manifesto, but its leader, Nigel Farage, then appeared to quietly U-turn and said he was “not arguing the science.” By contrast, Trump has repeatedly and explicitly denied climate change science, in 2025 calling it “the greatest con job.” Like the RN, Reform UK has been light on research and university policy. However, it did say in its 2024 manifesto that universities should suffer “heavy financial penalties” for allowing “political bias or cancel culture” on campus, building on laws brought in by a previous Conservative government. Ahead of September state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, the poll-leading Alternative for Germany has proposed abolishing gender studies and postcolonial studies, and promised money for “critical” climate research and studies of Islam. Starts with rhetoricEven if European radical right parties aren’t currently planning the draconian policy measures of the Trump administration, Delawalla said that academics should not be complacent, and fight even small funding restrictions or anti-science talk from the start. “It starts off with sowing distrust about institutions,” she said. “It starts off with these small things, and then all of a sudden it's there.” There are other, more established science and university advocacy groups in the US aside from Stand Up for Science. But the group stands out because of Delawalla’s refusal to attempt to appear politically bipartisan or conciliatory. “I firmly believe that the US is experiencing fascism,” she said. “We’re not trying to win over the super Maga people,” she said, “and we never have been.” The lesson of the US is that even if universities or other institutions capitulate to government demands, this doesn’t save them from cuts and restrictions. “It doesn’t matter what people do,” she said. Global “pseudoscience”Another aim of Stand Up for Science’s push into Europe is to better coordinate a campaign to protect people in poorer countries from what the group describes as “pseudoscientific exploitation,” trials outside the US used to build a case against things like vaccines. Earlier this year, the group sent an investigator to Guinea-Bissau to investigate a controversial, Danish-run Hepatitis B vaccine project funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The study would have withheld a proven vaccine from newborns, Stand Up for Science argued in a briefing it presented to Congress, risking their health. Significantly, the research group based in Guinea-Bissau, known as Bandim, focuses on the “non-specific effects” of vaccines: impacts on health beyond preventing the target disease. Related articlesEuropean researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationData corner: which fields of health science is the US curbing? The US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to know The suspicion is that the study was funded as part of an attempt to shop around for results that could help build a case against vaccines in the US, said Delawalla. “This is just code for vaccines cause autism,” she said.Bandim has put out a rebuttal of Stand Up for Science’s criticisms, arguing its work has uncovered a number of vaccine side effects, both positive and negative, which need to be taken into account in public health. However, Congressional Democrats took up the Stand Up for Science cause, and in February, Guinea-Bissau said it had permanently halted the study. WatchdogBut for Delawalla, this is not the end of the fight. Kennedy has made a number of health claims that scientists think lack evidence, such as the idea that seed oils cause inflammation, for example. Delawalla worries that more studies could be launched in poorer countries to fish around for evidence to support this agenda. Stand Up for Science is talking to African science organisations to create a kind of “watchdog” to scrutinise any further trials. “Outsourcing the investigation to some of the most vulnerable children in the world who are desperate [. . .] is fundamentally wrong,” she said.
NHS must plan for heatwaves like it does for winter, health secretary says
The warning comes after the NHS sees a surge in patients and problems with equipment in high temperatures.
Expert analyses public health impact of wildfires and heatwaves
With wildfires and a heatwave currently raging through Europe, Dr Kim van Daalen, Environmental Epidemiologist in the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge and Research Associate at Homerton College, gives her analysis of the impacts on public health.
Marine Heatwaves Are Hiding Far More Heat Than Scientists Realized
The first study of its kind shows that ecosystems experience far more cumulative heat than standard measurements reveal. A marine heatwave may have an official beginning and end, but the warm water affecting an ecosystem often does not. Like a pot that continues absorbing heat over time, coastal waters can remain unusually warm for weeks
Why an electric fan can make you hotter in extreme heat — and what to do instead
The CDC warns that electric fans can actually raise your body temperature in extreme heat. Learn the safe temperature limits and expert-backed ways to beat the heat.
Oxford researcher says mental health can be worse in heatwaves
Dr Emma Lawrance says hospital admissions linked to mental health symptoms rise by about 10%.
Sony Reon Pocket Pro Plus Air Conditioner Arrives In U.S. To Beat Summer Heatwaves
As another heat dome is predicted in the U.S., Sony’s wearable air conditioner has just arrived. Here’s all you need to know.
Sony Reon Pocket Pro Plus Air Conditioner Arrives In U.S. To Beat Summer Heatwaves
As another heat dome is predicted in the U.S., Sony’s wearable air conditioner has just arrived. Here’s all you need to know.
French business confidence improves in July despite Middle East conflict, heatwaves
French business confidence rose to a four-month high in July despite a new flare-up in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and record heatwaves at home, a monthly survey showed on Thursday.
France had 5,700 more deaths than usual during its June heatwave, health officials say
France experienced at least 5,700 more deaths than usual during a historic heatwave last month, according to the public health agency
Explainer: The serious health risks posed by wildfire smoke
Massive wildfires are raging around the world during unprecedented heatwaves, blanketing millions of people under pungent haze caused by smoke carrying noxious gases and particulate matter that pose serious health risks.
Heat Dome Broils the Western U.S.
A ridge of high pressure fueled record-breaking temperatures in Montana, Utah, and Wyoming on July 12, 2026.
Green MP Hannah Spencer aims to pass law on maximum workplace temperatures
Byelection winner says heatwaves are causing ‘absolute chaos’ and workers need protection from unsafe conditions
Older adults face greater risk of mental health hospitalizations during extreme heatwaves
As the US recovers from its 4 July heatwave, a new study in Nature Health warns of an impending uptick in people attending hospitals for mental health and behavioral disorders, according to the first multi-country study of heatwave-related mental health hospitalization, led by Monash University in Australia.
UK heatwave: Heat health alerts extended as temperatures expected to peak
Almost all of England is under amber alerts for likely disruption to health services and travel.
UK weather latest: Temperatures above 30C expected again as heatwave continues
Amber and yellow heat health alerts are in place across England, as the UK experiences what could be one of the longest heatwaves since 1976.
19 suspected heat-related deaths since dangerous heatwave began, N.J. health official says
Most of the deaths have involved people found in homes without air conditioning, said a state official.
Heatwave conditions forecast in Somerset as health alert issued
Just weeks after a June temperature record was set in Merryfield, Somerset, the hot weather is set to return.
France keeps health emergency plan at highest level in case of another heatwave
PARIS, June 29 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday he was keeping the country's health emergency response plan, ORSAN, at its highest level for the coming days in view
France Keeps Health Emergency Plan at Highest Level in Case of Another Heatwave
PARIS, June 29 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday he was keeping the country's health emergency response plan, ORSAN, at its highest level for the coming days in view of "a possible recurrence of a heatwave episode". Lecornu was speaking at the start of a ...
Germany news: Heat soars as political reforms split opinion
As Europe's heatwave rages, Germany continues to swelter with new records expected Saturday. Elsewhere, politicians bicker over reforms and industry blames train operator DB for billions in losses. DW has the latest.
Air-conditioning becomes political amid sweltering Europe heatwave
Much of western Europe baked under a “heat dome” as temperatures soar. Authorities warn that the extreme conditions could endanger lives across countries, many of which have limited air conditioning, a topic of which has left the people of Paris divided.
The heatwave hacks that will actually help to keep you cool
Should you wear wet socks to bed or point a fan out the window? Can the ‘Japanese door fan’ technique cool a baking hot car? Here’s what the science says
Europe heatwave breaks records as UN agencies ramp up health warnings
As a record-breaking heatwave grips large parts of Europe, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), national weather services and partners are mobilising heat-health action plans for millions of people facing dangerous temperatures.
Europe's heatwave shifts east as as France raises health alert to highest level
Temperatures in Germany could hit 40C in some areas while French officials say deaths linked to the heat are being seen among young people.
Highest June minimum temperature record broken in Cardiff as ‘savage’ heatwave continues
Thermometer only drops to 23.5C overnight in Welsh capital as climate crisis makes such extreme temperatures more severe and more likely
Whitchurch firms notice drop in business due to heatwave
Businesses say people are staying at home or relaxing rather than shopping.
Europe heatwave: Air conditioning creates political divide as France records hottest day
France is being forced to re-think its longstanding reservations about air-conditioning as temperatures soar.
UK heatwave: Red extreme heat warning to take effect
The warning, which means there could be a risk to life, will be in force in parts of England and Wales from 09:00.
Record-breaking UK heatwave forecast as health warnings issued
London (PA Media/dpa) -The sweltering heat in the United Kingdom could last until at least Thursday, sparking weather warnings and concerns for vulnerable people, the Met Office said on Monday. Foreca...
Health warnings in Kent, Sussex and Surrey as heatwave forecast
An amber heat-health alert for the South East has been issued by the UK Health Security Agency.
Scientists Horrified as Huge Heatwave Hits Antarctica
Record-breaking temperatures are hitting Antarctica, which is extremely bad news for the planet's delicate climate.
Scientists warn of record heat, threats to climate monitoring
Planetary heating is intensifying and key climate indicators are deteriorating, top scientists said Thursday, warning
Statement - Europe lost 200 000 people to heat in 4 years yet nearly all of them were preventable
Good morning. The impacts of climate change are a clear and present danger, and its most immediate and lethal manifestation is extreme heat. Heatwaves are no longer freak weather anomalies. They are now a recurring crisis inflicting suffering, claiming lives and fracturing our health systems and infrastructure.
Scientists develop 'smart paint' that reflects 97% of sunlight and could reduce AC use during heatwaves
As heatwaves become more frequent and intense around the world, scientists are exploring new ways to keep buildings cool without increasing energy consumption. Researchers at the University of Sydney, working with startup Dewpoint Innovations, have developed a nano-engineered coating that reflects up to 97% of sunlight and stays significantly cooler than conventional surfaces.
Mensik collapses on court as heatwave continues
Jakub Mensik said his body "just turned off" as he collapsed on court following a gruelling second-round win at the French Open.
Scientists Worry El Niño Could Supercharge Marine Heat Wave Roiling Coastal California
A widespread marine heat wave and brewing El Niño could further threaten California kelp, sea birds and marine ecosystems.
Parts of Europe swelter in record May heat as deaths at amateur sports events spur warnings
Europe is baking under unseasonal heat that is shattering temperature records, including in the United Kingdom on Monday, and prompting government warnings after deaths were reported at amateur sports events in France.
Sony Launches Reon Pocket Pro Plus Wearable Air Conditioner In Time For Summer Heatwaves
Sony’s latest “thermo device” is designed to keep you cool during intense summer heat. Here’s all you need to know.
Sony Launches Reon Pocket Pro Plus Wearable Air Conditioner In Time For Summer Heatwaves
Sony’s latest “thermo device” is designed to keep you cool during intense summer heat. Here’s all you need to know.
South West heat health alert as holiday temperatures near 29C
A yellow heat health alert is issued with warnings of NHS pressure, coastal risks and a heatwave.
UK weather: Heat health alerts about to come into force as temperatures to soar
Many areas will enter into the official heatwave thresholds across the next few days, with temperatures widely in the high 20s and low 30s into next week.
Why We Can’t Cut Earth Science to Fund the Next Earthrise Shot
We love space, but not as an abstraction. For my twin sons, it is a tradition. Their birthday themes have evolved from “Two the Moon” for their second birthday, featured on NASA.gov, to “From Space to the Farm,” with the boys in those iconic orange astronaut suits, standing in a cornfield. In the ye...
As El Niño Approaches, Scientists Predict Fierce Heatwaves, Wildfires and Floods
Emerging Pacific Ocean heat, combined with ongoing human-caused global warming, is a grim recipe for deadly climate extremes. Heat alone already kills more than 500,000 annually.
Record European Heatwaves Shrink Glaciers And Diminish Snow Cover In 2025
Around 95% of Europe experienced above-average temperatures in 2025, with record heatwaves from the Mediterranean to the Arctic region. This caused rapid loss
Drug use in England spikes during heatwaves and big sports events, research finds
Project that tested traces of illicit drugs in wastewater also found higher use during Eurovision song contest
Live Science Today: Monte Verde controversy and heatwave lashes the West
Friday, March 20, 2026: Your daily roundup of the biggest science stories making headlines.
Kern County could see record heat as Bakersfield nears 95 in mid-March, NWS says
It may feel like summer in Kern County, but it is only the middle of March — and temperatures could reach the mid-90s, raising concerns about record heat and th
Epic Southern California heat wave poses deadly health threat
"This is effectively a full-on summer heatwave in March," a climate scientist wrote on X.
Revealed: 10 new insights in climate science
Each year, the world’s leading climate scientists evaluate the most critical evidence on how our planet is changing. Their assessments draw heavily on data from Earth-observing satellites – and the latest report delivers a stark warning: the planet’s energy balance is drifting further out of alignment, ocean warming is now accelerating, and the land’s capacity to absorb carbon is declining, along with other troubling trends.
Australian summer is undergoing a 'total transformation,' scientists warn
Scientists say climate change made this summer's blistering heatwave five times more likely and cities need to adapt urgently.
The ocean absorbed a stunning amount of heat in 2025
Earth’s oceans reached their highest heat levels on record in 2025, absorbing vast amounts of excess energy from the atmosphere. This steady buildup has accelerated since the 1990s and is now driving stronger storms, heavier rainfall, and rising sea levels. While surface temperatures fluctuate year to year, the ocean’s long-term warming trend shows no sign of slowing.