Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second hottest month measured, behind only July 2023, WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced Wednesday.

Police ordered vehicles off the streets of three regions in Greece Tuesday as a severe storm hammered the center of the country and some of its islands, turning streets into flooded torrents.

Traffic was banned in the central town of Volos, the nearby mountain region of Pilion and on the island of Skiathos until the storm subsides, police said.

Greece is working with Israel on developing artificial intelligence technology that would help in early detection of dangerous wildfires, the Greek prime minister said.

After talks with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, Kyriakos Mitsotakis also said that Israel could be brought into the European Union fold when it comes to civil protection initiatives to better coordinate firefighting efforts.

Small farms with natural landscape features such as shade trees, hedgerows and tracts of intact forest provide a refuge for some tropical bird populations, according to an 18-year study in Costa Rica.

For almost two decades, ornithologist James Zook has been collecting detailed records on nearly 430 tropical bird species found on small farms, plantations and undisturbed forests in the country.

A massive wildfire that decimated vast tracts of forest in northeastern Greece over 17 days was gradually abating on Monday, although hundreds of firefighters were still tackling pockets that continued to burn, the fire department said.

Reinforcements were sent over the weekend to battle the wildfire burning in the Evros region near the border with Turkey, bringing the total number of firefighters on Monday to 741, backed by 124 vehicles and two aircraft. The blaze has been blamed for the deaths of 20 people, all believed to have been migrants who had recently crossed the border.

Jeff Akin had to bite his tongue.

He was chatting with a neighbor about efforts to protect and grow the area's red wolf population. The endangered wolves are equipped with bright orange radio collars to help locals distinguish the federally protected species from invasive, prolific coyotes.

Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson have committed $10 million to make direct payments to people on Maui who are unable to return to their homes because of the wildfires, through a new fund they announced Thursday.

The People's Fund of Maui will give $1,200 a month to adults who are not able to return to their primary residences because of the recent wildfires, including people who owned and rented their homes, according to the fund's website. The fund will also seek donations to extend the length of time it can provide the support.

A top glacier watcher has warned that a warm early summer combined with a heat wave last week may have caused severe glacier melt in Switzerland, threatening to make 2023 its second-worst year for ice loss after a record thaw last year.

Matthias Huss of the GLAMOS glacier monitoring center said full data won't be in until late September and a precipitous drop in temperatures and high-altitude snowfall in recent days could help stem any more damage.

Greek firefighters rescued a group of 25 migrants trapped in a forest in northeastern Greece Friday as flames from a massive wildfire burning for two weeks approached, authorities said.

The fire department said the group became trapped in the forest between two villages in the Evros region, near the border with Turkey. No injuries were reported. There was no immediate information on their nationalities.

Greek authorities further reinforced firefighting forces in the country's northeast Thursday, where a massive blaze in its thirteenth day has flared up once more, triggering authorities to issue alerts to residents in the area to be on standby for possible evacuation.

More than 100 extra firefighters were deployed, bringing the total to 582, backed by a fleet of 10 planes and seven helicopters from nine European countries, the fire department said. The fire that started Aug. 19 has decimated homes and vast tracts of forest in the Alexandroupolis and Evros region, near Greece's border with Turkey. It has been blamed for 20 of last week's 21 wildfire-related deaths in Greece.