Heavy rains and floods lashing western Europe have killed at least 20 people in Germany and left around 50 missing, as rising waters led several houses to collapse on Thursday.

The EU went into battle Wednesday to secure a path to its pledge of carbon neutrality by 2050, triggering an epic political clash over electric cars and fuel prices that could last for years.

The mammoth plan was unveiled by the European Commission and is intended to transform the bloc's economy from fossil fuel dependency to a world of net-zero emissions.

A French firm aims to turn tons of rotting grain at Beirut's devastated port into compost, the company said Tuesday, nearly a year after Lebanon's worst peacetime disaster ravaged its silos.

Several people reportedly taking selfies near a historical fort in northern India were among nearly 80 killed by lightning strikes during the early stages of the annual monsoon season, officials said Monday.

Deadly lightning strikes are common in the vast Asian nation during the June-September deluge, which bring respite from the summer heat across the northern Indian plains.

Former Nissan and Renault boss Carlos Ghosn denied any responsibility in Renault's alleged cheating on emission tests for diesel vehicles during more than six hours of questioning in Beirut in May, according to documents seen by AFP.

A critically endangered Sumatran elephant has been found decapitated with its tusks missing in Indonesia, the conservation agency said Monday, as it opened a poaching investigation.

The western United States and Canada faced scorching temperatures to start the week, with heat warnings still in place Monday and authorities struggling to bring wildfires under control in both countries.

As Iraq bakes in the blistering summer heat, its hardscrabble farmers and livestock herders are battling severe water shortages that are killing their animals, fields and way of life.

As it moved toward Florida's Gulf Coast early Wednesday, Elsa weakened to a tropical storm, though it still barreled inland with gusty winds and heavy rains, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The desperate search for survivors in a Japanese resort town devastated by a landslide is becoming less hopeful, officials warned Tuesday, three days after the disaster that killed at least seven people.

The fate or whereabouts of 27 residents of Atami in central Japan remains unknown, a regional spokesman said, after dozens of homes were swept away on Saturday by violent waves of mud.