Several schools have canceled classes in coastal areas of the Carolinas and Virginia and authorities are urging drivers to stay off potentially icy roads amid forecasts of snow, sleet and freezing rain.

The governors of North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia declared states of emergency ahead of the latest winter storm system sweeping into the region Thursday and a round snow expected to follow Friday night into Saturday. The winter blast could ice over a large swath of eastern North Carolina and the northeastern corner of South Carolina, while dumping snow around Norfolk, Virginia, the National Weather Service said.

Tonga's volcanic eruption felt like an "atomic bomb" that shook "the whole island", an aid worker told AFP on Friday, as the Pacific nation raced to address a drinking water shortage.

Tens of thousands of Indonesia's indigenous people are at risk of being expelled from their lands to make way for the construction of a new capital on jungle-clad Borneo island, a rights group warned on Friday.

As he starts his second term as U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres said Thursday the world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere — but unlike U.S. President Joe Biden he thinks Russia will not invade Ukraine.

Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that the appeal for peace he issued on his first day in the U.N.'s top job on Jan. 1, 2017 and his priorities in his first term of trying to prevent conflicts and tackle global inequalities, the COVID-19 crisis and a warming planet haven't changed.

An elephant in Kenya has given birth to twins, an extremely rare event, conservationists said Thursday.

New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for a "paradigm shift" in the way the world approaches climate policy, saying his country would leverage its presidency of the Group of Seven industrial nations this year to push for standards to fight global warming.

Climate discussions have been a key theme this week at a World Economic Forum meeting, which is being held online after COVID-19 concerns delayed its annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland. It included a panel with U.S. special envoy on climate John Kerry and billionaire Bill Gates that featured ideas environmentalists and scientists have challenged: that innovations yet to be invented or used widely would help drastically reduce emissions.

Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.

Laetitia Hédouin said she first saw the corals during a recreational dive with a local diving club months earlier.

The first flights carrying fresh water and other aid to Tonga finally arrived Thursday after the Pacific nation's main airport runway was cleared of ash left by a huge volcanic eruption.

New Zealand and Australia each sent military transport planes that were carrying water containers, kits for temporary shelters, generators, hygiene supplies and communications equipment. The Australian plane also had a special sweeper to help keep the runway clear.

The Biden administration has said it will significantly expand efforts to stave off catastrophic wildfires that have torched areas of the U.S. West by more aggressively thinning forests around "hot spots" where nature and neighborhoods collide.

As climate change heats up and dries out the West, administration officials said they have crafted a $50 billion plan to more than double the use of controlled fires and logging to reduce trees and other vegetation that serves as tinder in the most at-risk areas. Only some of the work has funding so far.

An oil spill on the Peruvian coast caused by the waves from an eruption of an undersea volcano in the South Pacific nation of Tonga prompted dozens of fishermen to protest outside the South American country's main oil refinery.

The men gathered outside the refinery in the province of Callao near Lima's capital. Peru's environment minister, Rubén Ramírez, told reporters that authorities estimate 6,000 barrels of oil were spilled in the area rich in marine biodiversity.