World
A right to drink? Inside the debate to protect US workers against the heat
Dallas, Texas – More than a decade later, Eva Marroquin’s voice still shakes when she talks about it.
The 51-year-old mother of five had been working construction in Austin, Texas, for about five years when she heard that a friend had died of heat exposure at a worksite. It was 2012, and he had been helping to build a bridge at the intersection of two local highways.
“He just couldn’t get to the water in time,” Marroquin said.
The news shook Marroquin, who had experienced her own close calls with the sweltering temperatures that broil the southern United States in the summertime.
After days of painting walls or cleaning up sites, Marroquin’s face would burn red in the heat. Sometimes, she felt feverish and dizzy. Her throat would even close. It left her with haunting thoughts of what her friend must have lived through in his final moments.
“I distinctly remember how that felt, and it made me want to speak up even more,” Marroquin told Al Jazeera.
Marroquin is among the advocates pushing for greater protections for workers facing extreme temperatures in the US.
The US Department of Health and Human Services found that heat-related deaths overall have been on the rise, as climate change drives temperatures to new heights. In 2023, an estimated 2,302 people died from heat-related conditions, up from 1,722 in 2022 and 1,602 in 2021.
But in the US, there are no federal protections specifically designed to protect workers from environmental heat.
Marroquin and other workplace advocates are lobbying to change that — but in the meantime, state and local governments in the US have been duking it out over the authority to protect workers from the stifling heat.
A fight between state and local authority
On July 1, a new law comes into effect in Florida that reflects those tensions.
Last summer was the hottest on record in the state, prompting Miami-Dade County to consider an ordinance that would mandate heat safety training, regular breaks and access to water during high-temperature days.
But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blocked that attempt, signing a law that instead banned local governments from establishing their own workplace safety requirements for heat exposure.
“There was a lot of concern out of one county, Miami-Dade,” DeSantis told local press at the time, warning that the local ordinance would have caused “a lot of problems”.
Florida was the second state in recent months to pass such a law. In 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott also signed what critics called the “Death Star” bill — so named for its ability to destroy local regulations that went beyond existing state mandates.
It, too, prevented municipalities from implementing their own heat safety laws, effectively killing ordinances in areas like Austin and Dallas. Houston and other cities have challenged the law in court.
As in Florida, however, proponents of the law have argued that a patchwork of local regulations would be too cumbersome for companies to navigate. Business groups also warned of “local government overreach”.
“The Texas law is mostly focused on preventing the big municipalities from doing basically anything that might make doing business in Texas inconvenient or location-specific,” said Alison Grinter, a civil rights lawyer in the Dallas metropolitan area.
She explained that the oil and gas industries have long held sway in Texas politics and helped craft the state’s business-friendly reputation. That, in turn, has attracted technology and finance companies to the state as well.
Grinter added that part of the motive for blocking the local ordinances was also political. While the Texas state government is dominated by Republicans, several of its biggest cities — including Houston and Austin — are led by Democrats.
“For culture war purposes, the idea that there are four or five different big oases in the middle of the state that are sanctuaries from all of the reactionary social laws really galls lawmakers,” Grinter said.
Still, only five states have taken it upon themselves to pass heat-exposure protections. They include California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Minnesota.
“The Texas government doesn’t want local laws, but they also don’t want a statewide law,” said Ana Gonzalez of the Texas AFL-CIO, a labour union. “So workers are stuck.”
Petitioning the federal government
That gridlock on the state and local level has shifted the battle over workplace protections to the federal government.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandates that employers implement a workplace safety policy, but it does not indicate how that policy must address heat protection.
That may be changing, though. In 2021, OSHA announced it would start to develop a rule to mitigate the risks of heat-related injuries and deaths for workers, and a spokesperson, Kimberly Darby, told Al Jazeera that this month marked an important step forward.
“Last week, OSHA’s proposed rule was sent to the Office of Management and Budget for review,” Darby said. “We are another step closer to giving workers the protections they need and deserve.”
The proposed rule, however, has yet to be published — and its exact contents are therefore unknown. In addition, new OSHA rules can take years to achieve final approval.
So some advocates are looking to another federal body: the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA.
On June 17, 31 organisations — including immigrants’ rights groups, environmental nonprofits and farmworkers unions — petitioned FEMA (PDF) to provide disaster relief funds for extreme heat, as well as areas affected by wildfire smoke.
It is part of a broader effort to convince the federal government to step in for their local counterparts, according to Will Humble, who signed the petition on behalf of the Arizona Public Health Association, a nonprofit.
“Planning for and saving lives is a state and local responsibility,” Humble told Al Jazeera. “But FEMA really should include heat emergencies in their funding. Many county health departments are understaffed.”
‘Not seen as human’
In the absence of strong federal action, activists like Christine Bolaños say that employers are left with all the power to decide how to address extreme heat in the workplace, leaving workers at risk.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), at least 600 workers died from heat exposure while working from 2005 to 2021. An additional 43 deaths were documented in 2022 alone.
Experts indicate the actual number is likely higher, as heat-related deaths are difficult to track.
A broad swath of the workforce is at risk, too. The bureau estimates that 33 percent of American employees spend time outdoors as part of their everyday work.
Especially vulnerable are foreign-born Latino labourers, including both legal and undocumented immigrants, who represent a disproportionate number of work-related deaths.
Though these workers make up only 8.2 percent of the workforce, they represent 14 percent of on-the-job fatalities. The bureau also noted that Latino workers make up the majority of the construction and agricultural labour, two industries where heat exposure is an acute risk.
Bolaños — a staff member at the Workers Defense Project, a community organisation that fights for the rights of low-wage immigrant construction workers in Texas — said the heightened risks are part of a pattern of exploitation.
“Immigrant workers are especially prone to wage theft and other violations of their rights, and they’re often not aware of their rights,” said Bolaños.
The lack of heat-related protections, she added, was a reflection of how workplaces perceive these employees.
“Sometimes, they’re not seen as human,” Bolaños said. “They are not valued for their humanity, just what they can produce. Employers forget workers need to drink water. They need shade; they need breaks.”
‘The monster is here’
Congressman Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, believes part of the problem is also scepticism towards climate change itself — and a resistance to addressing its dangers.
“Many of us progressives used to campaign on ‘the climate crisis is coming,’ and we were accused of making up a monster that didn’t exist,” Casar told Al Jazeera.
“Now the monster is here, and the things we’re fighting for have become so basic. We’re arguing over food and housing. We’re arguing over people having the right to a water break.”
Casar has spent years organising demonstrations to showcase the plight of workers — including through “thirst strikes”, where he and others refused to drink for hours, to demonstrate the risks of extreme heat.
At a “thirst strike” last year, Marroquin’s coarse, strong hands clutched a sign that read, “PEOPLE OVER PROFITS”.
Tears flowed from her eyes, which she says have been damaged by the sun and heat. She explained she developed pterygium, a kind of fleshy growth near one of her eyes, from her exposure to hot, dry conditions.
Now, a year later, Marroquin told Al Jazeera she hopes change will come soon. Just this month, she spoke to OSHA about her experience and gave feedback on the forthcoming federal rule.
“It’s really difficult to implement laws about work,” she conceded. “But we have to demand that OSHA implements rules as a whole across construction sites, in the same way they demand scaffolding is built in a certain way.”
But even with a federal standard on the way, advocates and legal experts are wary. Several told Al Jazeera that new OSHA rules are notoriously difficult to pass because of understaffing and a high standard of review, as well as potential legal challenges.
Gonzalez, the advocate from the Texas AFL-CIO, said she was bracing for the mandatory public commenting period for the eventual rule — at which time, she expects corporations to weigh in.
“I’m sure there will be pushback from the state or associations, because the rule will impact all industries,” she said. “But hopefully, this is going to prevent people from dying.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran has received an American 15-point plan for a ceasefire for the Iran war through intermediaries from Pakistan, officials in Islamabad said Wednesday. The proposal was sent even as Washington began to move paratroopers to the Middle East to back up a contingent of Marines already heading there.
Iran’s military scoffed at the diplomatic efforts and launched more attacks Wednesday on Israel and the Persian Gulf region, including an assault that sparked a huge fire at Kuwait International Airport, sending black smoke billowing into the sky.
The Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release details, described the 15-point plan broadly as touching on sanctions relief, civilian nuclear cooperation, a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, missile limits and access for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s attacks on regional energy infrastructure and its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped, has sent oil prices skyrocketing and rocked world markets over fears of a global energy crisis.
More US troops on the way even as diplomacy continues
At least 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division will be sent top the Mideast in the coming days, three people with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press.
The Pentagon is also in the process of deploying two Marine units that will add about 5,000 Marines and thousands of sailors to the region. The moves are being framed as U.S. President Donald Trump maneuvering to give himself “max flexibility” on what he will do next, the person added.
Trump has said that American officials are in negotiations with Iran, though he hasn’t said who they are in contact with. Iran’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which commands both the regular military and the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, suggested there are no talks.
“Have your internal conflicts reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves?” said Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the headquarters.
“Our first and last word has been the same from day one, and it will stay that way: Someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you,” Zolfaghari said in the video statement aired on state television. “Not now, not ever.”
Israeli officials, who have been advocating for Trump to continue the war against Iran, were surprised by the submission of a ceasefire plan, the official said.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Israel launches new wide-scale strikes on Iran
The Israeli military announced it had begun new wide-scale attacks early Wednesday on Iran targeting government infrastructure, and witnesses reported airstrikes in the northwestern city of Qazvin.
Missile alert sirens began early in the morning in Israel as Iran launched its own attacks, which have been a daily occurrence since Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war.
Iran also kept up the pressure on its Gulf Arab neighbors, with Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry saying it had destroyed at least eight drones in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province, and missile alert sirens sounding in Bahrain.
Kuwait said it shot down multiple drones but one hit a fuel tank at Kuwait International Airport, sparking a fire, the General Civil Aviation Authority said. Firefighters were working to contain the blaze.
Iran has allowed a small number of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, but none from the U.S., Israel or countries seen as linked with them.
Asked in an interview with India Today on Tuesday whether Iran was charging ships for passage, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said “absolutely,” but did not elaborate.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, has neared US$120 a barrel during the conflict but was trading at around $100 in morning trading as talks of a possible ceasefire helped calm prices. That’s still up nearly 40% from the start of the war.
Diplomatic efforts calm energy prices but face huge hurdles
The 15-point plan now in Iranian hands is, in essence, “a comprehensive deal” to reach a ceasefire in the war, according to an Egyptian official involved in the mediation efforts.
In addition to allowing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, it also includes restrictions on Iran’s missile program and its arming of armed groups, and “is being treated” as the basis for further negotiations between the nations, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the yet-publicized details of the proposal
Any talks between the U.S. and Iran would face monumental challenges. Many of Washington’s shifting objectives, particularly over Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, remain difficult to achieve.
Also, it’s not clear who in Iran’s government has the authority to negotiate — or would be willing to, as Israel has vowed to continue killing the country’s leaders.
Mediators are pushing for a possible in-person negotiation between the Iranians and the Americans, perhaps as soon as Friday in Pakistan, the Egyptian official and the two Pakistani officials said.
However, that would require the Americans to immediately start traveling from the U.S. to be there in time. Meanwhile, Iranian officials likely remain worried about the Israelis, whose airstrikes in the war have killed officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran is also highly suspicious of the United States, which twice under the Trump administration has attacked during high-level diplomatic talks, including with the strikes that started the current war.
“We have a very catastrophic experience with U.S. diplomacy,” Baghaei told India Today, adding that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had been in contact with Pakistani and other regional diplomats but that “there are no talks or negotiations between Iran and the United States.”
Zolfaghari said that the U.S. was in no position to negotiate.
“The strategic power you used to talk about has turned into a strategic failure,” he said. “The one claiming to be a global superpower would have already gotten out of this mess if it could.”
Speaking Tuesday at the White House, Trump said the U.S. is “in negotiations right now” and that the participants included special envoy Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.
“We have a number of people doing it,” Trump said. “And the other side, I can tell you, they’d like to make a deal.”
In an overnight call, Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince spoke to Pakistan’s prime minister about Islamabad’s efforts at supporting ceasefire talks.
The state-run Saudi Press Agency said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the day-to-day ruler of the kingdom, discussed the “the repercussions of the ongoing military escalation on the security and stability of the region and the world” with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
When Trump was previously asked about reports that Saudi Arabia had been pushing him to continue the fight, the U.S. president called Prince Mohammed “a warrior.”
“He’s fighting with us, by the way,” Trump said, without elaborating. “Saudi Arabia has been excellent and UAE — excellent. And I will tell you, Qatar, incredible.”
Authorities say Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million.
Iran’s death toll has surpassed 1,500, its Health Ministry has said. In Israel, 16 people have been killed. At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed, along with more than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states.
___
Madhani reported from Washington, Rising from Bangkok and Ahmed from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
World
US military sends drones, alongside 200 troops, to Nigeria amid fears of renewed Boko Haram insurgency
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The U.S. military has sent MQ-9 Reaper drones to Nigeria, a U.S. defense official reportedly told The Associated Press, as fears are growing of a renewed insurgency by the terrorist group Boko Haram.
The drones were deployed after 200 U.S. troops arrived in Nigeria last month to provide training and intelligence. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is battling a complex security crisis, especially in the north of the country.
A spokesperson for AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, told the AP that U.S. troops “are working alongside their Nigerian counterparts to provide intelligence support, advisory assistance, and targeted training in support of the Nigerian Armed Forces.”
Among the most prominent Islamic militant groups active in Nigeria are Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, which is affiliated with the Islamic State and is known as Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP.
NIGERIA SUICIDE BOMBINGS KILL AT LEAST 23 PEOPLE, WOUND MORE THAN 100
A U.S. military MQ-9 Reaper drone approaches for landing at Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, on Dec. 29, 2025. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images)
There is also the ISIS-linked Lakurawa, as well as other “bandit” groups that specialize in kidnapping for ransom and illegal mining.
The U.S. troops and the MQ-9 drones are based at Bauchi Airfield, a newly built airport in the northeast of the country, the spokesperson said to the AP. The number of drones deployed remains unclear.
The deployment is part of a new security partnership agreed on after President Donald Trump sounded the alarm about Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria’s security crisis.
The U.S. launched strikes against IS forces on Dec. 26 — the day after Christmas.
Earlier this month, three suspected suicide bombings killed at least 23 people and wounded 108 others in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in northeastern Nigeria. No group claimed responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on Boko Haram, which in 2009 launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria to enforce Sharia law.
100 US TROOPS LAND IN NIGERIA AS ISLAMIC MILITANTS THREATEN WEST AFRICA REGIONAL SECURITY
Residents and a motorcyclist move between destroyed structures in Offa on Dec. 27, 2025, caused by debris from expended munitions that fell from U.S. strikes on unspecified militants linked to the Islamic State group in Nigeria. (Abiodun Jamiu/AFP via Getty Images)
MQ-9 drones cost around $30 million apiece and have separate models for land and sea. They can also be used to carry out airstrikes, but AFRICOM says they will only be used in Nigeria for intelligence-gathering and training.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence says Boko Haram aims to “overthrow the current Nigerian Government and replace it with a regime based on Islamic law.”
A policeman walks among protesters as civil society groups and the Nigeria Labour Congress hold a peaceful protest over insecurity in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria, on Dec. 17, 2025. (Adekunle Ajayi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“The U.S. State Department designated Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization in November 2013,” it added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A fake Euronews-style article and website claiming that Hungary’s opposition leader Péter Magyar insulted Donald Trump is circulating online as part of a wider campaign researchers have linked to Storm-1516, a Russian disinformation operation.
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The article, which utilises a real byline and appeared on a fake Euronews website that has since been taken down, claims that Magyar delivered a blistering critique of Trump at a campaign rally.
Among other false claims, the article says Magyar called Trump a “senile grandpa” and promised to undo “key agreements” made with the US, should Magyar win parliamentary elections in Hungary scheduled on 12 April.
The article’s contents are fabricated and the website it appeared on have no connection to Euronews.
A video report that repeats the claim using Euronews’ branding is also circulating on social media. The Cube, Euronews’ fact-checking team, found examples of this clip circulating since Monday evening, some with thousands of views.
The videos were posted by accounts with similar captions in quick succession, implying they are part of a coordinated campaign. The accounts that posted the clip were largely anonymised, with X’s location tool showing they are based in the US and Africa.
Researchers at Antibot for Navalny, a collective that tracks Russian bot networks online, told The Cube that the post was part of Storm-1516, a prolific Russian disinformation campaign that spreads claims online that further the interests of the Russian government.
The group are typically active during election campaigns, having spread false claims about Democratic Party candidates in the 2024 US presidential election and during Germany’s February 2025 elections.
In December, Germany’s Foreign Minister summoned the country’s Russian ambassador over allegations of repeated Russian hybrid attempts in Germany including allegations that Storm 1516 actively spread disinformation during the country’s general elections.
At the time, the campaign focused on Chancellor candidate for the Greens, Robert Habeck, and current German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Hungary’s upcoming parliamentary elections will see Magyar’s Tisza Party pitted against current Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Magyar has accused Hungary’s secret service of targeting his party’s campaign systems just weeks before the election date in a hostile election campaign in which polls suggest his party is ahead.
Orbán, meanwhile, has become embroiled in scandal in Brussels after a Washington Post investigation revealed Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó regularly leaked sensitive information from high-level European Union meetings to Moscow.
Orbán has maintained close ties to the Kremlin despite the resistance of other European leaders and has utilised Hungary’s veto power to block key decisions on European aid to Ukraine.
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