Climate Impact Lab, a research organization co-founded by University of Chicago economist Michael Greenstone, estimates that roughly 451,000 excess deaths will occur from heat during the first six months of the current El Niño event, compared with a typical year. The group forecasts the hardest-hit regions will be in northern Africa, South East Asia and Latin America, naming Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, India and Brazil as the most affected countries. The report notes the El Niño pattern is expected to persist until at least spring 2027.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-24
A 15-month joint investigation by MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego produced the first comprehensive map linking migrant deaths to US Customs and Border Protection's surveillance tower network along the US-Mexico border. Reporters reviewed thousands of pages of government records, conducted over 45 interviews, and analyzed cases dating back to 2015 to examine why fatalities cluster near towers built to detect and apprehend crossers.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-21
Pennsylvania health officials have reported a third death associated with the state's ongoing measles outbreak this year. Despite the mounting toll, the CDC has not yet officially confirmed any measles-related fatalities in its national tally.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-14
California still requires drivers to carry only $15,000 per person and $30,000 per crash in liability insurance, a threshold set in 1967 and never updated for inflation. By contrast, actuarial estimates now put the cost of a fatal traffic death at roughly $1.6 million, meaning the mandated coverage covers a small fraction of the real financial harm a driver can cause. Massachusetts, which pioneered mandatory insurance in 1927 with a $5,000 minimum (about $96,000 today), only recently raised its own outdated cap to $25,000.
maxmautner.com
· 2026-09-12
A newly compiled dataset tracking all-cause mortality across 134 countries indicates that official COVID-19 death tolls were vastly understated, with excess deaths pointing to more than 6 million uncounted fatalities worldwide. The analysis suggests roughly half of governments either failed to accurately measure or deliberately concealed the true scale of pandemic deaths.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-10
A new study reports that annual U.S. deaths from cancers linked to alcohol consumption rose from about 11,400 in 1990 to more than 23,100 in 2023. The increase spans beyond liver cancer, pointing to a broader rise across multiple cancer types tied to drinking.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-07
A new study published in The Lancet Regional Health — Americas analyzed 33 years of US mortality data from the Global Burden of Disease Study and found that the share of cancer deaths attributable to alcohol rose more than 58% among adults 20 and older since 1990. Researchers found that even about one standard drink daily was enough to raise cancer risk, despite overall cancer mortality declining over the same period.
science.slashdot.org
· 2026-09-05
Following news that two unvaccinated people in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—including a newborn—died of measles, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a series of anti-vaccine claims on social media, attacking the MMR vaccine and Governor Josh Shapiro. He also suggested, citing a local Republican commissioner's disputed claim, that the deaths might have been fabricated by the governor's staff. These are the first measles deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years and the first in the US in 2026, amid a national outbreak that has reached nearly 2,800 cases, the worst since 1991.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-08-27
GoKawiil