A thaw-out is coming for frozen Seattle and Portland, Oregon, but not before another round of snow that could compound problems for a region more accustomed to winter rain than arctic blasts.

More snow and rain fell on California on Wednesday, causing travel disruptions on mountain routes and raising the risk of debris flows from wildfire burn scars.

The Pacific Northwest and Sierra Nevada have grappled with another day of snow, ice and unseasonable cold that has disrupted traffic, caused closures and forced people to find refuge in emergency warming shelters.

Across western Washington and Oregon, officials and private groups opened emergency spaces for people as forecasters said the extreme cold from an arctic blast that blew in Sunday could last until the weekend.

A total of 116 cities in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia were in a state of emergency because of flooding due to heavy rains that have been pounding the region since the end of November.

Cities in at least five other states in Brazil's north and southeast have also been flooded in recent days.

A powerful winter storm battered the western United States Monday, dumping much-needed snow on the drought-parched mountains of California, but causing travel misery over a wide area.

A bird flu outbreak in northern Israel has killed at least 5,200 migratory cranes and forced farmers to slaughter hundreds of thousands of chickens as authorities try to contain what they say is the deadliest wildlife disaster in the nation's history.

Uri Naveh, a senior scientist at the Israel Parks and Nature Authority, said the situation is not yet under control.

Heavy snow caused traffic jams, flight cancellations and disruption to train services in central Japan on Monday, with record drifts recorded in some areas.

More than 3,200 households have been left without power in the region, according to Kansai Electric Power, as officials warned more snow was forecast overnight.

Across a quarter century of U.N. climate conferences tasked with saving humanity from itself, one was deemed a chaotic failure (Copenhagen/2009), another a stunning success (Paris/2015), and the rest landed somewhere in between.

The Arizona Diamondbacks ripped out the grass at Chase Field ahead of the 2019 season, replacing it with synthetic grass. It was a business decision, but it also ended up being a water-conservation measure.

The Phoenix-based major league baseball team thought it would save 2 million gallons a year. In the first season, the savings were closer to 4.5 million gallons, which is roughly the annual water usage of 49 households in the Phoenix area, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

A major Christmas weekend storm caused whiteout conditions and closed key highways amid blowing snow in mountains of Northern California and Nevada, with forecasters warning that travel in the Sierra Nevada could be difficult for several days.

Authorities near Reno said three people were injured in a 20-car pileup on Interstate 395, where drivers described limited visibility on Sunday. Further west, a 70-mile (112-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 80 was shut until at least Monday from Colfax, California, through the Lake Tahoe region to the Nevada state line.

Fed by rain and snowmelt from mountains, this valley nestled among northwestern Afghanistan's jagged peaks was once fertile. But the climate has changed in the last few decades, locals say, leaving the earth barren and its people struggling to survive.

Many have fled, heading to neighboring Iran or living in abject poverty in camps for the displaced within Afghanistan as repeated droughts parch the land and shrivel pastures.