“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

WE can’t compare Iloilo third district Rep. Lorenz Defensor with Senator Miguel Zubiri when it comes to substance and credibility.

Defensor, a lawyer and member of the prosecution panel in the forthcoming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, so far, has no derogatory record as a public official.

Zubiri, a senator-judge in the same impeachment trial, has been known to be a public official with questionable integrity and loyalty.

When he was a struggling representative of Bukidnon early in his humdrum political career, Zubiri was member of the so-called “Spice Boys” together with the most unpopular senate president in history Francis Escudero, who was also a mediocre solon from Sorsogon.

We don’t need to elaborate the Spice Boys’ notoriety and how did they almost become a shame and scandal not only to their constituents, but also to their families.

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Defensor, by the way, is one of Iloilo’s rising political stars and he is being penciled by the pundits and veteran political patriarchs and matriarchs in the Philippines to be the next Demosthenes, an Athenian statesman recognized as the greatest of ancient Greek orators who roused Athens to oppose Philip of Macedon and, later, his son Alexander the Great.

When the son of former Iloilo assemblyman and governor Arthur “Art” Defensor Sr. blasted Zubiri for saying that the vice president’s impeachment trial is a “witch hunt”, most of the Filipinos agreed with him.

Defensor said, “It’s very unbecoming of a senator-judge in an impeachment trial to say that the impeachment complaint and the trial is a witch hunt.”

He added: “These statements should not come from senator-judges who are expected to receive the evidence with impartiality and to treat the impeachment as a constitutional process.”

It is an act not only by the members of Congress but representatives of Filipinos who were delegated by the people to initiate impeachment proceedings,” Defensor said.

The prosecutor advised Zubiri to ”limit what (he says) to the public especially how we pre-judge the impeachment as well as the coming evidence during the trial.”

“Let’s listen to the evidence first before talking, even as a prosecutor, I did not prejudge a conviction or an acquittal. All we’re saying is that there is evidence here,” Defensor said.

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HOTTEST U.S. STATES. History’s Dave Roos Death reported that Death Valley, California, is the hottest place on the planet and still holds the record for the highest temperature ever recorded—a scorching 134° Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913. But in ranking the hottest states in America, California doesn’t even make the top 10.

The three hottest U.S. states by average annual temperature are Florida (72.9°F), Louisiana (69.3°F) and Texas (68.6°F), according to 2024 data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

“Thanks to a combination of heat and humidity, those same three sweltering Southern states have topped the list since 1895, the first year the U.S. government started tracking temperature data,” wrote Roos.

Here are more hot facts about the five hottest U.S. states: 

1.     Florida (72.9°F), which became a state in 1845, has always held the number one spot as the hottest state in the United States, with an average annual temperature of 72.9°F in 2024. Unlike Arizona and New Mexico, where cool nighttime temperatures bring down the average, Florida stays relatively hot and muggy 24 hours a day. 

Not only is Florida the hottest state, but it’s also home to the second- and third-hottest cities after Death Valley: Key West (79.8°F) and Miami (79.1°F). Summer is particularly brutal in Florida. In 2024, the beachside city of Fort Lauderdale recorded its hottest summer on record with an average temperature of 84.6°F from June to August.

Like the rest of the United States (and the planet), Florida’s average annual temperature has risen considerably over the past 130 years. In 1895, the average temperature in Florida was 68.7°F, more than 4 degrees cooler than 2024. 

2.     Louisiana (69.3°F). The Deep South is unquestionably the hottest region of the United States, with seven states ranking among the top 10 hottest in the country. Louisiana is the second-hottest state with an average annual temperature of 69.3°F in 2024. New Orleans is the hottest individual city in the Bayou State with an average temperature of 72.7°F in 2024. Summertime in New Orleans was never exactly “breezy,” but the average summer temperatures in 2024 were 4 degrees hotter than in 1970.

3.     Texas (68.6°F). The year 2024 was the hottest on record for the Lone Star State, nearly 4 degrees hotter than the mean temperature of Texas over the entire 20th century. The border city of Brownsville was the hottest city in Texas with an average annual temperature of 78.4°F in 2024, but six Texas cities claimed spots among the top 20 hottest cities in 2024. Florida also had six cities in the top 20.

4.     Hawaii (66.7°F) (Native spelling: Hawai‘i) became a state in 1959, but NOAA has only been tracking temperature data there since 1991. A tropical paradise, it’s not surprising that the islands maintain a pleasantly warm temperature year-round. In 2024, Hawaii’s average annual temperature was 66.7°F, which made it the 12th-warmest year on record for the Aloha State.

5.     Mississippi (66.4°F). Like its Gulf Coast neighbors, Louisiana and Alabama, Mississippi has always been near the top of the list for the hottest states in the United States. The year 2024 was the second hottest on record for the Magnolia State with an average annual temperature of 66.4°F. Only 2023 was hotter at 66.7°F. The hottest city in Mississippi in 2024 was Jackson, which brought up the state average with an annual temperature of 68.3°F. Back in 1964, Jackson was more than 3 degrees cooler on average than 2024.

Alex P. Vidal, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed