AS a light, hot breeze blew through her living room and her grey hair, Donata Grillo, a 75-year-old cancer survivor with a pacemaker and serious sight problems, sat next to her balcony, a damp sponge on her lap.
It was all she had to keep cool as temperatures topped nearly 41°C in her native Rome. She does not own any air conditioning or fans, or even a functioning refrigerator, in her two-bedroom apartment in a public housing complex on the city’s periphery, next to a hospital and highway.
