Heat wave blisters U.S. states from Michigan to Maine

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Lookout

Risha Gorig cools off with her dog Lobo in Brooklyn, July 16, 2012. (Kathy Willens/AP)

If you haven't noticed, it's summer. And it's scorching hot.

Excessive heat warnings or advisories have been issued for at least 15 states as another heat wave continues to smother the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures will be 10-15 degrees above normal from Chicago to Boston, with dangerous heat index values exceeding 100 degrees through at least Wednesday.

"Breath-stealing heat" in Philadelphia will make it feel well over 100 degrees, the Philadelphia Inquirer said. A Bermuda High will push temperatures in the City of Brotherly Love to 99 degrees.

[Slideshow: Beating the heat]

In Chicago, highs could reach 100 degrees with a heat index of 110 degrees, the weather service said. (If it reaches 101, it would break the 100-degree mark set in 1942.)

In Ann Arbor, Mich., the high temperature is expected to range anywhere from 98 to 105 degrees; in Detroit, where the forecast high is 102, six schools were closed on Tuesday due to lack of air conditioning.

Frank Moralez sells cold beverages to motorists in Philadelphia, July 7, 2012. (Joseph Kaczmarek/AP)

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InWashington, D.C., temperatures could reach 100 degrees for the sixth time this year, and a heat index of 105 is expected on Wednesday. (Hopefully, the intense heat won't melt the tarmac at Reagan National this time.)

In New Jersey, which has already seen 16 days of temperatures of higher than 90 degrees this summer—the heat index will hit 101.

There is, however, some relief on the way. Tuesday "will be the peak of the hot temperatures in the Great Lakes and Northeast," according to the Weather Channel. "The heat and humidity will continue into Wednesday along the Northeast I-95 corridor from New York to Washington."

[Related: First half of year hottest on record]

The first half of 2012 was officially the hottest ever recorded, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The average temperature was 52.9 degrees Fahrenheit, or 4.5 degrees above average, the NOAA said on Monday. Twenty-eight states east of the Rockies set temperature records for the six-month period. The 12-month period ending June 30 was the warmest 12-month period of any on record, according to the NOAA.

[Also read: More Americans convinced of climate change after extreme weather]

Record-breaking temperatures blistered most of the United States in June, with more than 170 all-time temperature records broken or tied during the month.

Tens of thousands rally in Japan to end nuke power

Protesters carry anti-nuclear placards during a march in Tokyo, Monday, July 16, 2012. Tens of thousands of people gathered at a Tokyo park, demanding "Sayonara," or goodbye, to nuclear power as Japan prepares to restart yet another reactor, and expressed outrage over a report that blamed culture on the Fukushima disaster. The placard at left reads: "Protect children." (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

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TOKYO (AP) — Tens of thousands of people rallied at a Tokyo park Monday demanding that Japan abandon nuclear power as the country prepares to restart another reactor shut down after last year's tsunami caused meltdowns at the Fukushima power plant.

Led by Nobel-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe, pop star Ryuichi Sakamoto and visual artist Yo****omo Nara, the protesters expressed outrage over a report that blamed the Fukushima disaster on Japan's culture of "reflexive obedience" and held no individuals responsible.

Japan ordered all its nuclear power plants shut down for safety inspections after last year's March tsunami and earthquake set off multiple meltdowns at Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Some 150,000 people evacuated from a 20-kilometer (12-mile) zone around the plant because of radiation fears, and the area is deemed unsafe to live in more than a year later.

The world's second-worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl has deeply divided Japan, which had been previously bullish on nuclear technology.

Monday's rally at sprawling Yoyogi Park was the latest and among the biggest — drawing possibly as many as 200,000 people, according to organizers — in a series of large protests that is unusual for normally reserved Japanese.

"We want to leave a world without nuclear power for our children," said hospital worker Takeshi Shinoda, wearing a "No Nukes" T-shirt and strolling with his 3-year-old son in a long line of demonstrators.

The movement's leaders say they have collected 7.4 million signatures for a petition demanding a phase-out of nuclear power.

Until last month, when Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda decided to restart the reactor at Ohi plant in central Japan, all of this nation's 50 working reactors had been offline. The second reactor at Ohi is set to go online later this week.

Noda has said some nuclear energy is needed to ensure an ample power supply and protect people's livelihoods. Japan's economy is still struggling after last year's disaster, and the towering costs of oil imports to fuel non-nuclear power plants threaten to derail its fledgling recovery.

Critics are not convinced, saying Japan has done fine without atomic energy for more than a year.

The demonstrators also said they were offended by a parliamentary investigation that blamed Japanese culture for the Fukushima disaster.

The report, released earlier this month, said, "Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture — our reflexive obedience, our reluctance to question authority, our devotion to 'sticking with the program,' our groupism and our insularity."

Midori Tanaka, a schoolteacher marching at the park, said the right people should face up to their mistakes.

"Things can never change if we blame culture. We need to get to the bottom of this," she said.

Oe said blaming culture was a cop-out, adding that individuals — including the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that operates Fukushima Dai-ichi — should be held responsible.

Addressing the rally from a stage, Sakamoto said it was ridiculous to risk people's lives for electricity.

"Life is more important than money," he said in Japanese, then added in English, "Keeping silent after Fukushima is barbaric."

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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama

French Holocaust records exhibited for 1st time

By THOMAS ADAMSON | Associated Press

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PARIS (AP) — They are among France's darkest days: Police dragged over 13,000 Jews from their homes, confined them in a Paris cycling stadium with little food or water, and then deported them to their deaths in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. But even in France, one of the most brazen collaborations between authorities and the Nazis during World War II is unknown to many in the younger generation.

Police are hoping to change that, opening up their archives on France's biggest single deportation of French Jews for the first time to the public on Thursday.

The often chilling records are being exhibited in the Paris Jewish district's city hall to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the two-day "Vel d'Hiv" roundup, named for the Velodrome d'Hiver, or Winter Velodrome. Many thousands were rounded up on July 16 and 17, 1942, then holed up in miserable conditions in the stadium, just a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower, before being bused to the French camp at Drancy and then taken by train to Auschwitz.

Tallies list the daily count of men, women and children detained, alongside stark black and white photographs of deportees. A registry of those forced to wear the yellow star and a Jewish census show how police knew who to take. Meticulous handwritten lists detail personal possessions handed over to police. Others list the value of property, such as jewelry, confiscated — often forcibly — during the deportation.

France struggled for years to come to terms with the extent of its wartime collaboration with the Nazis, but over the decades officials have been showing greater willingness to acknowledge the shameful period in its history.

"This is our history, it's vital for the country to know," said curator Olivier Accarie. "Today, we are ready to confront this."

The administrative indifference of the documents is striking.

On July 17, Mrs. I. Rosenbaum signed that she had given up over 1,450 francs worth of possessions before being deported. But there is a further hand annotation: She tried to conceal 50 British pounds that were confiscated.

One page records the pre-dawn start of the roundup, but in one of the archives' only rays of hope it reveals that not everything went according to police plan: "The operation against the Jews began this morning at 4 a.m. (But) it has been slowed down. ... Many men left their homes yesterday." Though experts say the original plan was to deport 27,000 Jews from Paris, some 14,000 managed to avoid roundup or escape.

"Even some police helped them get away," said Charles Tremil, president of the History and Memory Association, a group that raises awareness about Jewish children deported from Paris' 3rd district.

One particularly chilling document, disturbing in its matter-of-fact tone, is dated July 22, the day when the last of the deportees were taken from the velodrome, noting that the site will soon be operational again for use.

"The Jews interned at the Vel d'Hiv were directed this morning ... to the camps," it reads. "In around one hour, the Winter Velodrome will be available."

The exhibit is one of a handful of ways the country is remembering the deportation. On Sunday, French President Francois Hollande is to give a speech at the old velodrome site, the first time such a commemoration has been made since former French leader Jacques Chirac led a ceremony there in 1995 and acknowledged the state's role in Jewish persecution.

On Monday, a minute's silence was held at the Drancy camp by war veterans and survivors to remember the victims. Eighty-six-year-old holocaust survivor Yvette Levy — who was deported from the camp — came to remember those who lost their lives.

"With a lot of emotion, I think about the lives that were broken ... whose only misfortune was to be Jewish," she said. Levy added, with anger: "(They say) we should forget, we should forgive. It's not possible."

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Thomas Adamson can be followed at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

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