On a sweltering afternoon in rural Bangladesh, a community clinic can feel less like a place of healing and more like an oven. The roof seems to absorb the sun’s heat all day and radiate it downward, the air grows heavy and wet, and the only comfort comes from ceiling fans that mostly stir warm air around. Electricity is unreliable, energy prices keep climbing, and full air conditioning is simply too expensive and too fragile for many small facilities. Yet a new simulation study suggests that meaningful relief may be possible without expensive high-tech equipment. The answer lies in paying…

Every few years, the European Union sits down to do one of its most unglamorous but consequential tasks: deciding how to spend the common budget for the next seven years. These negotiations are usually wrapped in acronyms and spreadsheets, and they rarely make it into everyday conversation. But the choices made in these rooms shape what kind of Europe ordinary people actually live in. This autumn, the stakes feel especially high. At their summit on 15 and 16 October, European leaders failed to reach agreement on the Union’s next long-term budget, which will run from 2028 to 2034. European Council…