HENA KHAN, a grade nine student in Dhaka, has struggled to focus on her studies this week as temperatures surpassed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital city.

“There is no real education in schools in this punishing heat,” she said. “Teachers can’t teach, students can’t concentrate. Rather, our lives are at risk.”

Ms. Khan is one of more than 40 million students who have been shut out of classrooms in recent weeks as heatwaves have forced school closures in parts of Asia and North Africa.

As the climate warms due to the burning of fossil fuels, heatwaves are lasting longer and reaching greater peaks as average temperatures rise. In turn, government authorities and public health experts across the world are grappling with whether to keep students learning in hot classrooms, or encourage them to stay home and keep cool.

Either decision has consequences. About 17% of the world’s school-aged children are already out of school, according to United Nations data, but the proportion is much larger in developing countries, with nearly a third of sub-Saharan Africa’s children out of school compared to just 3% in North America. Children’s test scores in the developing world also lag far behind developed countries.

Heat could make that worse, widening learning gaps between tropical developing nations and developed countries, experts told Reuters, and even between rich and poor districts in wealthy countries. But sending children to overheated schools could make them sick.

South Sudan already this year shuttered its schools to some 2.2 million students in late March when temperatures soared to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Thousands of schools in the Philippines and in India followed suit in late April.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh continues to waver between opening and closing schools for some 33 million students amid pressure to prepare pupils for exams — even as temperatures climb to dangerous levels.

Many of the country’s schools “don’t have fans, the ventilation is not good, and they might have tin roofing which does not provide good insulation,” said Shumon Sengupta, Bangladesh country director for nonprofit Save the Children.

On Monday, one day after reopening schools which had been closed last week due to heat, Bangladeshi authorities again closed all primary schools and educational institutions in nearly half of all districts as temperatures reached 43ºC (109ºF).

HOTHEADS
Even if students continue attending classes during heatwaves, their education is likely to still suffer.

High temperatures slow down the brain’s cognitive functions, lowering pupils’ ability to retain and process information.

US high schoolers, one May 2020 study found, performed worse on standardized tests if they were exposed to higher temperatures in the year leading up to the exam.

The research, published in the American Economic Journal, found that a 0.55ºC (1ºF) warmer school year reduced that year’s learning by 1%.

Much of that impact disappeared in schools that had air conditioning, said study co-author Josh Goodman, an economist at Boston University.

Somewhere between 40% and 60% of US schools are thought to have at least partial air conditioning, according to various surveys.

Schools that do not are typically found in lower income districts which already lag behind their wealthier counterparts academically. In the US the average performance of the lowest income students is about four years behind the highest income students, according to a 2019 study in the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mr. Goodman and his colleagues found a similar learning pattern when they looked at standardized test data in other countries.

“When [students in] these places experience a year with more heat, they appear to have learned less,” he said.

That is worrying, Mr. Goodman added, because as the world warms already hot countries moving to an extremely hot climate will suffer more than temperate countries.

“Climate change will widen the learning gaps between hot and cool countries,” Mr. Goodman said.

Some research suggests excessive heat in the tropics can impact a child’s education even before birth.

Children in Southeast Asia exposed to higher-than-average temperatures in utero and early in life obtained fewer years of schooling later in life, a 2019 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found.

With many people in the region dependent on farming, high temperatures could hurt food production and household incomes, said study author Heather Randell, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota.

If crops are damaged by heat, young children may not get enough to eat which can stunt their development, she said, and a family may no longer be able to afford school fees, or could pull children out of school to help on farms.

SCHOOL RULES
The number of days that schools are closed for extreme heat have been ticking up in the US, but few countries track such data.

US schools are now canceling class for an average of six to seven school days each year for heat, compared with about three to four days a decade ago, said Paul Chinowsky, a civil engineer who led a 2021 study on schools and rising temperatures for the firm Resilient Analytics, which consults for governments and NGOs.

In Bangladesh, “last year, schools were closed for 6 to 7 days,” said Save the Children’s Mr. Sengupta. “But this year, they are saying it might be closed for 3 to 4 weeks.”

May is generally the warmest month of the year in South Asia.

More closures worry him, Mr. Sengupta said. When children are not in school, they are more vulnerable to child labor and child marriage, according to NGO reports.

Bangladesh Education Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury said on Tuesday that schools would be kept open on weekends if needed to complete the curriculum.

Decisions on school closures, he added, will no longer be a national directive but are to be made at the district level. — Reuters

SAO PAULO — The El Niño climate phenomenon, not climate change, drove lower rainfall last year that reduced the Panama Canal’s water levels and contributed to shipping restrictions that disrupted global trade, a study released on Wednesday found.

Prioritizing water for human consumption rather than for the canal also played a role in shipping restrictions, according to the study by research consortium World Weather Attribution.

Panama experienced its third-driest year on record in 2023, leading the canal authority to restrict the size and number of vessels crossing the waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and serves as a vital route for maritime trade. At times, more than 100 ships at a time lined up and waited up to 21 days to use the canal, which is responsible for about 5% of global shipping.

Panama has faced demand peaks for the canal in recent months since shippers began seeking alternative routes due to attacks by Houthi militants against vessels going through the Red Sea toward the Suez Canal, the world’s busiest waterway.

Scientists with World Weather Attribution, which analyzed the causes of the low rainfall, said that the canal should be able to return to normal operations this year as El Niño ends and the rainy season arrives as usual.

“We expect the canal system will be fully recharged by the end of the year and shipping should be back to normal sometime several months before then,” said Steven Paton, a study co-author and researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

The study concluded that it was El Niño, not climate change, that was the key driver for rainfall falling to 26% lower than average last year in Panama.

El Niño is a naturally occurring warming in the Eastern Pacific Ocean that disrupts weather patterns globally on average every two to seven years. The latest El Niño began in mid-2023.

Mr. Paton said El Niño has ended, with Australia’s weather bureau making the same call last month. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has yet to say El Niño is over.

Water management was also a factor in the water levels, according to World Weather Attribution.

The canal’s locks draw on a reservoir called Lake Gatun that also provides drinking water for half of Panama’s population. Authorities decided to restrict ship traffic in 2023, rather than rationing drinking water as they did in 2016 following another drought, the study said. — Reuters

SEATTLE — Changpeng Zhao, the former chief executive of Binance, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison after pleading guilty to violating US laws against money laundering at the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Once considered the most powerful crypto industry figure, Mr. Zhao, known as “CZ,” is the second major crypto boss to be sentenced to prison.

The sentence imposed by US District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle was significantly shorter than the three years sought by prosecutors, and below the maximum 1-1/2 years recommended under federal guidelines.

It was also much lighter than the 25 years behind bars that Sam Bankman-Fried received in March for stealing $8 billion from customers of his now-bankrupt FTX exchange. Mr. Bankman-Fried is appealing his conviction and sentence.

Still, prosecutors cheered the outcome of what had been a years-long investigation into Binance and Mr. Zhao, a billionaire who had been living beyond US reach in the United Arab Emirates.

“This was an epic day,” US Attorney Tessa Gorman told reporters outside the courthouse. “Incarceration was critical in this case and we’re pleased with the result.”

Before handing down the sentence, Mr. Jones faulted Mr. Zhao for making Binance’s growth and profitability a higher priority than complying with US laws.

“You had the wherewithal, the finance capabilities, and the people power to make sure that every single regulation had to be complied with, and so you failed at that opportunity,” he said.

Mr. Zhao, 47, did not visibly react upon hearing his sentence.

He wore a navy blue suit and tie in the courtroom, with his mother and several other family members in attendance. Defense lawyers had requested probation.

“’Crime pays’ is the message sent today,” Dennis Kelleher, head of the financial reform advocacy group Better Markets, wrote in an email, noting Mr. Zhao will still get to keep his vast wealth.

‘I’M SORRY’
Prosecutors said Binance employed a “Wild West” model that welcomed criminals, and did not report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions with designated terrorist groups including Hamas, al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

They also said Mr. Zhao’s exchange supported the sale of child sexual abuse materials and received a large portion of ransomware proceeds.

Binance agreed to a $4.32-billion penalty, and Mr. Zhao paid a $50 million criminal fine plus $50 million to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Zhao told the judge before being sentenced.

“I believe the first step of taking responsibility is to fully recognize the mistakes. Here I failed to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program … I realize now the seriousness of that mistake.”

Much of Binance’s misconduct, including its weak money laundering controls, was first reported by Reuters.

Mr. Zhao will surrender voluntarily to serve his sentence, most likely at a detention center near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

“Not prioritizing compliance is a few shades below criminal intent. It’s bad, but it’s below the usual requirement of specific intent” that would justify a years-long sentence, said Robert Frenchman, a lawyer specializing in white-collar crime.

But given the scale of Binance’s violations and the massive fines imposed, he should not have expected probation or home detention, Mr. Frenchman added.

NOT A MONSTER
Prosecutors had told the judge a tough sentence would send a clear signal to other would-be criminals.

“We are not suggesting that Mr. Zhao is Sam Bankman-Fried or that he is a monster,” prosecutor Kevin Mosley said.

Mr. But Zhao’s conduct, he said, “wasn’t a mistake. This wasn’t a regulatory ‘oops.’”

Mr. Zhao stepped down as Binance’s chief in November, when he and the exchange he founded in 2017 admitted to evading money-laundering requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act.

In seeking probation, defense lawyers said others who admitted to similar wrongdoing, including BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes, were not locked up.

Mr. Zhao “wanted to make a difference in the world,” but made mistakes, defense lawyer Mark Bartlett said.

Mr. Jones said the three-year sentence requested by prosecutors was inappropriate because they did not show that Mr. Zhao knew in advance about illegal activity.

“It’s always the case the government asks for more than they think they’ll get,” said Mr. Frenchman. “Going that much above guidelines for a pleader is unusually aggressive.”

Several other crypto moguls are also in the crosshairs of US authorities after the collapse of crypto prices in 2022 exposed fraud and misconduct across the industry. — Reuters