Temperatures Dip A Bit

Temperatures dipped into the 80s and 90s across the eastern half of the nation Monday, bringing welcome relief from the weeklong heat wave blamed for more than 300 deaths in the Midwest and East.

In Chicago, 179 people were confirmed dead from heatrelated causes. Many of them were sick and elderly.

The death toll in Chicago was unusually high, in part because Cook County officials were using a broader definition to classify a death as heat-related.

In other areas, officials were considering a death to be heat-related only if heat was the primary cause, but in Chicago, heat only had to be a contributing factor.