A net zero carbon emissions target by 2050 would be a "great positive" for Australia if it can be achieved through technology and not a carbon price, the prime minister said on Tuesday as he pressures government colleagues to commit to more ambitious action ahead of a climate summit.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week agreed to attend next month's climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, but his government colleagues have yet to approve the commitment he wants to net zero.

A strong earthquake struck off the Turkish Mediterranean coast on Tuesday, Turkey's disaster management agency said. There was no immediate report of any damage or casualties.

The Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate said the quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 struck some 155 kilometers (96 miles) off the resort town of Kas, in Antalya province, at 8:32 a.m..

More than 1,600 firefighters were battling the blaze in the Santa Ynez Mountains west of Santa Barbara on land and by air. They were able to stop its forward growth, and the blaze was 78% contained, federal officials said.

The Alisal Fire started last Monday and has scorched nearly 27 square miles (69 square kilometers). It is threatening about 400 structures.

Investigators believe a 1,200-foot (366-meter) cargo ship dragging anchor in rough seas caught an underwater oil pipeline and pulled it across the seafloor, months before a leak from the line fouled the Southern California coastline with crude.

A team of federal investigators trying to chase down the cause of the spill boarded the Panama-registered MSC DANIT just hours after the massive ship arrived this weekend off the Port of Long Beach, the same area where the leak was discovered in early October.

Once-endangered alligators are thriving in the wild, so Louisiana authorities are proposing a deep cut in the percentage that farmers must return to marshes where their eggs were laid.

"Over the past 50 years, alligator nest surveys have increased from an estimate of less than 10,000 in the 1970s and 1980s to well over 60,000 nests in recent years," the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission said in a notice published Wednesday. "This increase in nesting has produced a population that can now be sustained with a much lower farm return rate."

At least 18 people have died a day after torrential rains swept through villages and flooded roads in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Officials said rescuers recovered the bodies in two of the worst-hit districts, Kottayam and Idukki, where the heavy downpours triggered massive landslides, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

Protesters held a sit-in Thursday at the Interior Department building in downtown Washington and clashed with police as they challenged fossil fuel projects and called for the declaration of a climate emergency. Multiple arrests were reported.

An Interior Department spokeswoman said a group of protesters rushed the lobby, injuring at least one security officer who was taken to a nearby hospital. Police and protesters clashed outside the building, and officers used Tasers against several unarmed protesters, a spokeswoman for the protest group said.

thens and prompting evacuations on the island of Evia that was ravaged by summer wildfires.

Rescuers were also preparing to use helicopters to lift stranded people off rooftops in flooded and remote areas on the northwestern island of Corfu, Civil Protection and Climate Change Minister Christos Stylianides said.

A key Southern California highway closed for days because of a wildfire was reopened, but authorities warned that flames still posed a threat to remote properties in a coastal mountain range.

More than 1,300 firefighters aided by aircraft dumping water and fire retardant worked to box in the blaze that has chewed through more than 26 square miles (67 square kilometers) of chaparral and grass in the Santa Ynez Mountains west of Santa Barbara. Containment of the Alisal Fire was increased to 11% on Thursday evening.

For the second straight year, the world heads into a new La Nina weather event. This would tend to dry out parts of an already parched and fiery American West and boost an already busy Atlantic hurricane season.

Just five months after the end of a La Nina that started in September 2020, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a new cooling of the Pacific is underway.