US heatwave threatens 250th anniversary events and World Cup

By Dharna Noor

The scorching heat blanketing much of the US this week would have been “virtually

impossible” if not for the climate crisis, researchers have found, warning that the high

temperatures could threaten Independence Day celebrations and World Cup matches this

weekend.

“The climate the country has today is fundamentally different to the one it had when the

founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence,” said Theodore Keeping, extreme

weather and wildfire researcher at Imperial College London, in a press release.

The analysis from World Weather Attribution, an international consortium of climate

researchers, comes as a high-pressure system, or heat dome, brings hot and humid conditions

to a large swath of the central and eastern United States, as well as southern parts of Canada.

Even amid the climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, such

heatwaves are rare, the analysis says, occurring an estimated one time in every 200 years.

But if planet-warming emissions had not heated the planet by 1.4C (2.5F), such events

would not have been expected to occur even once in many thousands of years, the researchers

found.

The mercury soared in the US capital of Washington DC, as thousands gathered to

celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country. At 1pm local time on Friday, events at the so-

called Great American State Fair were postponed until 5pm, with people there being ushered to

the exits. NBC Washington reported more than a dozen attendees were treated at the fair for

heat illness and injury, and 11 people had been taken to the hospital from the fair before its

closure

World Cup matches will also be affected. France’s match against Paraguay in Philadelphia

on Saturday is expected to see levels of extreme heat that a global players’ union has previously

said should trigger the delay or postponement of games, and a Miami game between Cape Verde

and Argentina scheduled the day before is also expected to be played in potentially dangerous

heat and humidity.

On Thursday, in Muhlenberg Township, Pennsylvania, more than 100 people who had

gathered at the Union Pacific Big Boy whistle stop event needed heat-related medical treatment,

according to a statement from officials, who treated the episode as a mass casualty event

involving ambulances, tents and cooling buses.

And in separate locomotive-related news, Amtrak said it canceled more than two dozen

trains in the north-east part of the US due to the heat from Wednesday to Saturday. Amtrak

warned travelers about potential delays for trains that would remain operational.

All of this serves as an urgent warning showing that the world must immediately begin the

swift drawdown of greenhouse gas pollution, said Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at

the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, in the release.

“When a historic Fourth of July celebration is disrupted, and World Cup matches are played

in conditions that are unsafe for players and fans, it shouldn’t take another scientific study to

wake people up,” she said.

“Climate change is here; it’s already impacting the things we enjoy in our everyday lives,

and it will continue to get worse the longer we drag out the inevitable transition to net zero

emissions.”

(Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/03/heatwave-world-cup-250th-anniversary –text specially adapted for this test).