So it's Saturday in Baghdad, and we're driving east and a little south.

It's supposed to reach 121 degrees today, tomorrow, really for most of the next week.

When I was doing this reporting in Iraq, we would leave sometimes at 5 a.m. before first light

in order just to be able to bear the heat.

Everything is dusty.

And everyone's pretty tired of this level of heat.

As you drove out of Baghdad, there should be no respite to the brownness of it.

We're driving by large stands of dead palm trees with no leaves left, just the trunks standing up.

And along the road, usually, you would see people herding sheep, you'd see quite a few animals.

And what we began to see was carcasses of cows, bloated and covered with

flies. And this wasn't just one or two cows. I started to try to count them. But I stopped counting

because there were too many.

There was a feeling of something almost apocalyptic that was happening.

What did you think when you were looking at this, Alyssa?

I thought that this was what would happen

at the end of the world.

From the New York Times,

I'm Sabrina Tavernisi,

and this is the daily.

As the Middle East braces for another year of extreme heat, long-time war correspondent,

Alyssa Rubin, goes to Iraq, one of the hottest places on Earth and tells the story

of a new source of conflict. Water.

...