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10.

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Have you watching?

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I'm Carla Zeus.

And the first story we're explaining today is a controversy concerning mail in voting in America.

Here's a down the middle.

Look at what's going on.

Every U.

S State has some way for Americans to vote without actually appearing at a polling location.

Because of concerns over the spread of coronavirus, Interest has exploded in mail in voting.

CNN 10 Contributor Kelly MENA has info on how exactly that works.

Kelly.

Thanks, Carl.

Now let's take a look at what Mayland or absentee voting means.

Traditionally, the majority of voters show up in person to cast their ballots for primary and general elections.

Vote by males when voters oft out of showing up in person to then cast their ballot through the mail.

This process, depending on the state, usually starts when a voter request their ballot.

The male, then election officials send the official ballot to the voter who fills it out and send it back to be counted.

At least 34 states now allow voters to request an absentee ballot without the need of an excuse.

Currently, seven states require an excuse to vote by mail places like New York in Texas, though that may change.

Other places like California and Nevada have decided to send about it to every registered voter.

Even those who didn't apply for the mail option.

Carl, the question now remains.

Would the pandemic creating a once in a lifetime challenge for elections?

What impact will this have on the general election in the fall?

Thanks, Kelly.

That question is at the root of a blooming controversy.

The Trump administration is planning to sue Nevada and at least one other state for their plans to mail a ballot to every voter.

Many Republicans and critics of mail in voting say it increases the risk of fraud, in part because election officials, like poll workers, won't be there in person to make sure the votes were cast freely and fairly.

Many Democrats and supporters of mail in voting say it's already been shown to work in several states and that it opens up the opportunity to vote to more people.

A number of experts on this issue say it's not clear if mail in voting benefits one party over the other that there's no guarantee that either Democrats or Republicans would have an advantage with mail in ballots.

But in American infectious disease, Specialist says.

As long as people follow social distancing guidelines, there's no reason why they can't vote in person this fall.

So how all this plays out remains to be seen.

Another layer to this controversy concerns the U.

S Postal service this year.

The agency had planned toe limit the overtime hours.

Employees could work and remove some mail sorting machines and public mailboxes.

The Postal Service has been losing money for years, and the postmaster general says its plans were meant to cut costs.

But critics, including many Democrats, say the changes were made under pressure from the Trump administration, which they accuse of trying to intentionally slow down service in anticipation of MAWR mailed in votes.

The postmaster general denies that and says any further changes will be delayed until after the election.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives plan to hold a vote this weekend on billions of additional funding for the agency.

Experts in the post office itself say it handles farm or mail over Christmas than it would through mail in ballots and that it would have no problem processing them.

Next story.

Heat fires, power outages.

Three challenges plaguing California right now.

First, there's been a brutal heatwave over the American West.

California isn't the only state that's been affected, but it has seen at least seven records broken this week, with temperatures of 109 degrees recorded in Burbank and 111 in Paso Robles.

That, along with low humidity and high winds, has fueled wildfires there, dozens of them burning in Northern California.

The governor has declared a statewide emergency to speed up help to those who need it and whether or not they're directly affected by the fires.

Millions of Californians have been directly affected by power outages.

Electrical grids have been struggling to keep up with demand under the excessive heat, and cooling centers, where people can go to get relief, have limited capacity because of coronavirus, coronavirus does not impact everyone equally.

The disease co vid, can cause few or even no symptoms in a significant percentage of people, but for others and may lead to severe illness, hospitalization or even death.

There are all sorts of different factors that come into play your age, your race, whether or not you have pre existing medical conditions.

And what is your access to medical care?

Nearly 80% of all coronavirus deaths in the United States have occurred in people over the age of 65 while only about 3% of deaths occurred in people under the age of 40.

But this coronavirus can more severely impact people of any age if they have certain underlying conditions, according to the CDC.

Hospitalizations air six times higher and debts air 12 times higher for people with underlying conditions.

About 41% of adults The United States have at least one underlying medical condition that may put them at higher risk of severe illness or death from Cove in 19 thes Underlying conditions include obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and longer kidney disease.

And the medical community is still learning when it comes to these underlying conditions.

Now, race is another factor that can increase the risk of severe illness from Cove in 19.

This is often due to underlying causes, including social conditions and structural inequalities.

We know Covad, 19 disproportionately affects black America with mortality rates for black Americans being to three times higher than that of white Americans.

Just over 13% of the total US population is black, but keep in mind approximately 25% of Cove in 19 deaths.

The United States are now among the black population.

The virus does appear to affect men and women differently, with men having more severe outcomes.

And even when people do recover from Cove in 19 there can still be long term implications for their overall health.

We're still learning a lot about that now.

If you do fall into one of these vulnerable populations, chances are you're still going to recover from this disease.

The statistics are still on your side.

I'm Will Ripley in Hong Kong.

New Zealand is deploying hundreds of army troops to guard isolation hotels where patients with Cove in 19 are being kept in isolation, along with their family members and close contacts.

This as the nation continues to test tens of thousands of people per day on Wednesday, they only identified six new cases.

That is the lowest number this week, a sign that the social distancing measures, including a lock down of New Zealand's largest city of Auckland seem to be working.

I'm Matt Rivers in Mexico City.

At a World Health Organization briefing officials once again highlighted how dire the situation is right now in the Americas.

This region, which makes up North, Central and South America Onley, accounts for about 13% of the world's population.

But 64% of all the officially recorded deaths due to this virus have come in this part of the world.

Meanwhile, some good news here in Mexico as officials say that newly confirmed cases each day are going down.

This, though, as newly confirmed deaths each day remain among the highest of any country in the world.

I'm Melissa Bell in Paris.

Here in Europe, governments announcing day after day fresh measures to try and bring.

There's alarming coronavirus figures under control, the most impacted countries by that recent surge in the number of new cases France, Spain, Greece, Croatia, all of those countries that Europeans have been heading to for their summer break.

The question now is what happens when people come back to work.

Cities like Paris, hit hard by new coronavirus, rises with the government announcing now that people are going toe, have to wear marks inside their open plan offices that delicate balance between the infringement on civil liberties and the need to bring this outbreak under control clearly not for the time being resolved here.

12th Trivia.

Which of these animals is not extinct?

Elephant shrew, Desert bandicoot, Galapagos Giant rat or Steller sea count?

The only one of these animals that's still on the scene is the elephant shrew.

Scientists thought the elephant shrew had been extinct for 50 years.

Thankfully, they were wrong.

Why, thankfully?

Because it's cute.

It's related to an elephant, but tiny like a mouse.

The last time scientists saw one was in the 19 seventies, but in the African nation of Djibouti, where the elephant shrew was recently rediscovered, local residents had said they'd seen them.

Thes little mammals can run it over 18 MPH faster than some elephants.

Maybe they didn't wanna be found, so they just as shrewd scientists.

It's not like you're going to see when in a trunk show.

Unlike their thundering relatives, these animals are as quiet as a mouse, and they're hard to catch even on camera because they're so true.

I'm Carlos, whose for CNN 10 this show goes out to the International School of Helsingborg.

It's in the European country of Sweden.