Scientists have long been warning that extreme weather would cause calamity in the future. But in South America — which in just the last month has had deadly landslides in Brazil, wildfire in Argentine wetlands and flooding in the Amazon so severe it ruined harvests — that future is already here.

In just three hours on Feb. 15, the city of Petropolis, nestled in the forested mountains above Rio de Janeiro, received over 10 inches of rainfall – more than ever registered in a single day since authorities began keeping records in 1932. The ensuing landslides swallowed the lives of more than 200 people, and left nearly 1,000 homeless.

Tens of thousands of people had been ordered to evacuate their homes by Tuesday and many more had been told to prepare to flee as parts of Australia's southeast coast are inundated by the worst flooding in more than a decade that has claimed at least 10 lives.

Scores of residents, some with pets, spent hours trapped on their roofs in recent days by a fast-rising river in the town of Lismore in northern New South Wales state.

All day long, as trains and buses bring people fleeing Ukraine to the safety of Polish border towns, they carry not just Ukrainians fleeing a homeland under attack but large numbers of citizens of other countries who had made Ukraine their home and whose lives have also been upended.

In Przemysl, a town near the border which is the first stopping point for many refugees, there is a visibly large number of Africans and people from Middle Eastern countries.

Russian shelling pounded the central square in Ukraine's second-largest city and other civilian targets Tuesday and a 40-mile convoy of tanks and other vehicles threatened the capital — as Ukraine's embattled president accused Moscow of resorting to terror tactics to press Europe's largest ground war in generations.

With the Kremlin increasingly isolated by tough economic sanctions that have tanked the ruble currency, Russian troops advanced on Ukraine's two biggest cities. In strategic Kharkiv, an eastern city with a population of about 1.5 million, videos posted online showed explosions hitting the region's Soviet-era administrative building and residential areas. A maternity ward relocated to a shelter amid shelling.

The U.N. Security Council has voted to impose an expanded arms embargo on Yemen's Houthi rebels, saying they have threatened the peace, security and stability of the war-torn country.

Council members said the rebels are responsible for attacking civilians, commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

From a tent in the rebel-held pocket of Syria, Ahmad Rakan has closely followed news of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. More than two years ago, a Russian airstrike destroyed his house in a nearby village during a months-long Syrian government offensive backed by Moscow's firepower that drove him and tens of thousands of others from their homes.

"We more than anyone else feel their pain," he said of Ukrainian civilians currently under Russian bombardment.

As Russia's war in Ukraine plays out for the world on social media, big tech platforms are facing increased calls to bar Russian state media from using their platforms to spread propaganda and misinformation.

None of the U.S.-owned tech companies have responded with an outright ban of those outlets. Instead they've offered more modest changes: limiting the Kremlin's reach, labeling more of this content so that people know it originated with the Russian government, and cutting Russian state organs off from whatever ad revenue they were previously making.

A 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks and other vehicles threatened Ukraine's capital Tuesday, the sixth day of the war. But even as Russia intensified shelling of the country's second-largest city, the Kremlin has found itself increasingly isolated by tough economic sanctions that have sent its currency plummeting.

After a first, five-hour session of talks between Ukraine and Russia yielded no stop in the fighting, both sides agreed to another meeting in coming days. Ukraine's embattled president, however, said he believed the stepped-up shelling was designed to force him into concessions.

Hungary's right-wing nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, has for more than a decade nurtured close political and economic ties with Russia, giving him the reputation as the Kremlin's closest European Union ally.

For weeks, as Russian President Vladimir Putin amassed tens of thousands of troops along the borders of Ukraine, Hungary's neighbor to the east, Orban avoided condemning the buildup and spoke emphatically against applying sanctions.

Israel has begun sending 100 tons of humanitarian aid to assist people caught up in the fighting in Ukraine.

A plane was loaded with dozens of cardboard boxes Tuesday at the country's main international airport. Israel's Foreign Ministry says it is sending medical equipment and medicine, water purification systems, thousands of tents, blankets, sleeping bags and coats. The planes will land in Poland and the aid will be sent to Ukraine from there.