The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.
These unusually strong heat waves are becoming more common, Tuesday's study said. The same research found the increase in heat-trapping gases, largely from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has made another heat wave — the one in China — 50 times more likely with the potential to occur every five years or so.

A firefighting plane crashed in southern Greece on Tuesday as authorities battled fires across the country amid a return of heat wave temperatures.
The crash occurred on the island of Evia and was aired in a state television broadcast that showed the low-flying aircraft disappearing into a canyon before a fireball was seen moments later. There was no immediate information about the plane's crew.

A third successive heat wave in Greece pushed temperatures back above 40 C (104 F) across parts of the country Tuesday following more nighttime evacuations from fires that have raged out of control for days.
The latest evacuations orders were issued on the islands of Corfu and Evia, while a blaze on the island of Rhodes continued to move inland, torching mountainous forest areas, including part of a nature reserve.

Fires raging through forests, mountain villages and towns in northern Algeria have left at least 34 people dead — with 23 of them in the coastal region of Bejaia, according to authorities and a local radio station keeping track of the grim toll in Bejaia.
Among those killed were 10 soldiers encircled by flames during an evacuation, the Defense Ministry reported Monday night.

Firefighters struggled through the night to contain 82 wildfires across Greece, 64 of which started Sunday, the hottest day of the summer so far.
Their efforts were without the help of firefighting planes and helicopters, which do not operate at night.

An official at automaker FCA US, formerly known as Chrysler Group, has pleaded guilty in federal court in a scheme to withhold emission systems information on more than 100,000 vehicles.
Emanuele Palma's plea to conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act was announced Thursday by the Justice Department. Palma, 43, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 17 in federal court.

A wave of heat is not loosening its grip on the globe.
Phoenix has broken its own streak of blistering hot days, southern Europeans and millions of people on vacation there broiled under near-record temperatures, while parts of the Middle East tested the limits of what the human body is capable of enduring.

A landslide triggered by torrential rains in India's western Maharashtra state killed at least 10 people, with many others feared trapped under piles of debris. In this image captured by Associated Press photographer Rafiq Maqbool, a woman holds the hand of her relative as family members of people trapped under rubble wail after a landslide washed away houses.
In Greece, a huge fire was contained west of Athens, but authorities braced Thursday for a new round of extreme weather. Searing heat across Europe's Mediterranean south has maintained a high or very high risk of fires in Spain, Italy and Greece. And in the Balkans, a storm that followed an intense heat wave left six dead, including a Coatian firefighter.

Rescue efforts resumed Friday after an overnight halt in India's western Maharashtra state where a landslide triggered by torrential rains killed at least 16 people, with many others feared trapped under debris, officials said.
Scores of rescuers and trained trekkers have been deployed to find people trapped by the landslide, which occurred late Wednesday night, the state's deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis tweeted. Harsh weather conditions have hampered rescue efforts and authorities have sent in medical teams to help the injured, he added.

Swiss authorities have temporarily shut the airspace over a small part of southwestern Switzerland because recreational gliders have endangered the work of emergency teams battling a persistent forest fire in the area.
The Federal Office of Civil Aviation said Friday that the restriction in an airspace of up to 8,000 feet (about 2,400 meters), over a wooded mountainside near the town of Bitsch, will last a week.
