The United Nations chief delivered a strong defense of science and meteorology on Wednesday, praising the U.N. weather agency for helping save lives by keeping watch for climate disasters around the world.

Wasted food is a financial and environmental bummer.

It costs U.S. consumers $728 every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and emits the annual equivalent planet-warming greenhouse gases of 42 coal-fired power plants.

One of the rarest whales on the planet has continued an encouraging trend of population growth in the wake of new efforts to protect the giant animals, according to scientists who study them.

Thick smog blanketed India's capital Tuesday, a day after millions celebrated the Hindu festival of Diwali with fireworks that sent air pollution levels soaring to hazardous levels.

The stench of decay spread for several miles around Poza Rica on Wednesday, one of the areas hardest hit by last week's torrential rains that flooded central and eastern Mexico.

In the center of this oil-producing city near the Gulf of Mexico, a lingering cloud of dust hovered over the main avenue where soldiers worked nonstop. Farther east, near the Cazones River — which overflowed on Friday — several streets still lay under 3 feet (1 meter) of water and mud, topped by another 6 feet (2 meters) of piled-up trash, furniture, and debris.

The world is on track to add nearly two months of dangerous superhot days each year by the end of the century, with poorer small nations hit far more often than the biggest carbon-polluting countries, a study released Thursday found.

But efforts to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that started 10 years ago with the Paris climate agreement have had a significant effect. Without them Earth would be heading to an additional 114 days a year of those deadly extra hot days, the same study found.

Leaf-peeping season has arrived in the Northeast and beyond, but weeks of drought have muted this year's autumn colors, and sent leaves fluttering to the ground earlier than usual.

Soaking in the fall foliage is an annual tradition in the New England states as well as areas such as the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina and Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As the days shorten and temperatures drop, chlorophyll in leaves breaks down, and they turn to the autumn tones of yellow, orange and red.

The world's largest maritime nations gathered in London on Tuesday to consider adopting regulations that would move the shipping industry away from fossil fuels to slash emissions.

Fifteen minutes before water from a flooded stream swept into her home, Lilia Ramírez took off running with what little she could carry. When she returned she found not only damage from the water that had flooded her first floor to the ceiling, but the oil it had carried now streaking her walls.

A rare October storm arrived in California on Tuesday and threatened to pummel wildfire-scarred Los Angeles neighborhoods with heavy rain, high winds and possible mudslides. Some homes were ordered to evacuate.