After a year-long jam, a mammoth Israeli strawberry is entering the record books.

Weighing a whopping 289 grams (10.19 ounces, more than half a pound), the titanic berry this week was declared the world's largest by Guinness World Records.

Rescue workers raced against the clock searching for any remaining survivors among mud and wreckage after devastating flash floods and landslides hit the picturesque Brazilian city of Petropolis, as authorities said Thursday the death toll had risen to 104.

Streets were turned into torrential rivers and houses swept away when heavy storms dumped a month's worth of rain in three hours on the scenic tourist town in the hills north of Rio de Janeiro.

Scientists and governments will meet Monday to finish a major United Nations report on how global warming disrupts people's lives, their natural environment and the Earth itself. Don't expect a flowery valentine to the planet: instead an activist group predicted "a nightmare painted in the dry language of science."

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a collection of hundreds of the world's top scientists, issues three huge reports on climate change every five to seven years. The latest update, which won't be finished until the end of February, will explain how climate change already affects humans and the planet, what to expect in the future, and the risks and benefits of adapting to a warmer world.

In central Portugal, a sustained drought has revealed the ruins of a village that was totally submerged underwater when a large reservoir was created nearly 70 years ago.

Thai authorities scrambled Friday to contain the country's second oil spill in less than three weeks in the Gulf of Thailand.

An estimated 5 tons (1,320 gallons) was believed to have leaked 20 kilometers (12 miles) off the eastern province of Rayong, in the same location where at least 22 tons (5,800 gallons) spilled into the sea on Jan. 25.

Without much fuss and even less public attention, the nation's egg producers are in the midst of a multibillion-dollar shift to cage-free eggs that is dramatically changing the lives of millions of hens in response to new laws and demands from restaurant chains.

In a decade, the percentage of hens in cage-free housing has soared from 4% in 2010 to 28% in 2020, and that figure is expected to more than double to about 70% in the next four years.

To stage the Winter Games in the Chinese capital, organizers embarked on a massive public works campaign, constructing new venues and piping millions of gallons of water up into the arid surrounding mountains to create fake snow for ski competitions.

And then they proclaimed these to be the most sustainable Olympics in history.

World leaders met on France's Atlantic coast Friday to discuss protecting the planet's oceans from threats such as overfishing and plastic pollution, and finding fairer ways to manage the seas.

The One Ocean Summit comes as European authorities are investigating a mass fish dump in the Bay of Biscay that environmental activists call an example of abuses by huge trawlers that disrupt undersea ecosystems.

Koalas were declared officially endangered Friday in eastern Australia as they fall prey to disease, lost habitat and other threats.

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley downgraded their conservation status across the country's east coast, in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, on a recommendation by the government's Threatened Species Scientific Committee.

Construction of a 42-floor, pyramid-shaped skyscraper began in Paris on Thursday despite objections from local politicians and associations, and environmentalists who have branded the project "catastrophic".