A storm brought heavy rain and strong winds across northern Europe overnight and into Friday, bringing down trees and prompting warnings of flooding on the North Sea coast. A woman in Belgium was fatally injured by a falling Christmas tree, while another tree killed a person in the Netherlands.

The 20-meter (65-foot) Christmas tree collapsed onto three people at a busy market in Oudenaarde in western Belgium late Thursday, killing a 63-year-old woman and injuring two other people. The Christmas market was immediately canceled.

Megan Michaud and her family of five lost power for three days after a powerful storm throttled her home state of Maine, and a new challenge is creeping up on her: It's almost time for Christmas.

"This morning, my second grader told me, 'It's five days until Christmas' and I told myself that can't be right," said Michaud, 42, of Kennebunkport. "But it turns out the calendar keeps moving even when you're in the middle of something."

Punishing heat that hovered and hung on much longer than usual. Flash floods that washed away large swaths of land and life. And wildfires that burned much of the year, leaving a wake of smoke and charred earth.

The toll of disasters propelled by climate change in 2023 can be tallied with numbers — thousands of people dead, millions of others who lost jobs, homes and hope, and tens of billions of dollars sheared off economies.

At least 100 elephants have died in Zimbabwe's largest national park in recent weeks because of drought, their carcasses a grisly sign of what wildlife authorities and conservation groups say is the impact of climate change and the El Nino weather phenomenon.

Authorities warn that more could die as forecasts suggest a scarcity of rains and rising heat in parts of the southern African nation including Hwange National Park. The International Fund for Animal Welfare has described it as a crisis for elephants and other animals.

More than 300 people were rescued overnight from floodwaters in northeast Australia, with dozens of residents clinging to roofs, officials said on Monday.

Cairns Airport was closed on Monday due to flooding and authorities were concerned that the city of 160,000 people will lose drinking water.

Shane Palacat-Nelsen's voice drops to a reverent tone as he tells the story of the snow goddess Poliahu who Native Hawaiians believe inhabits the summit of Mauna Kea, the highest point in Hawaii.

The tale, repeated in Hawaiian families over generations, speaks of a chief who yearned to court Poliahu but was stopped by her attendants guarding the sacred mountain top — the abode of the gods, cradle of creation and gateway to the divine.

The climate negotiations that just finished in Dubai hit upon the essence of compromise, finding common language that nearly 200 countries accepted, at times grudgingly.

For the first time in nearly three decades of such talks, the final agreement mentioned fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — as the cause of climate change and said the world needs to be "transitioning away" from them. But it did not use the words "phase out," sought by advocates and more than 100 countries who argued it would provide sharper direction for the world to move quickly toward renewable energies that don't produce the greenhouse gas emissions that heat the planet.

Jesse Wimberley burns the woods with neighbors.

Using new tools to revive an old communal tradition, they set fire to wiregrasses and forest debris with a drip torch, corralling embers with leaf blowers.

Throngs of people in down parkas and boots climbed a hill that overlooks the Forbidden City this week to jostle with others trying to get a shot of the snow-covered roofs of the former imperial palace.

For many people in Beijing, a snowfall means it's time to bundle up and head out to take photos of a city dotted with traditional architecture from the Ming and Qing dynasties that ruled the country for more than five centuries.

The first tropical cyclone to hit Australia in the current season weakened to a low pressure system but continued to lash the northeast coast Thursday with flooding rain and left almost 40,000 homes and businesses without power.

Cyclone Jasper crossed the Queensland state coast late Wednesday as a category 2 storm on a five-tier scale that whipped the sparsely populated region with winds of up to 140 kph (87 mph).