As temperatures rise in the U.S. West, so do the flames.

Indonesia is about to open the Asian Games but its traffic-clogged capital Jakarta remains shrouded in a haze of air pollution that threatens to mar the world's second-biggest multi-sport event.

Manmade global warming and a natural surge in Earth's surface temperature will join forces to make the next five years exceptionally hot, according to a study published Tuesday.

The double whammy of climate change and so-called natural variability more than doubles the likelihood of "extreme warm events" in ocean surface waters, creating a dangerous breeding ground for hurricanes and typhoons, they reported in Nature Communications.

One of the fires scorching California Sunday moved in on a retirement community, prompting evacuation orders for thousands of people.

Firefighters worked furiously Friday to keep a Southern California wildfire from burning more homes while crews in the north finally gained ground on deadly and destructive blazes that have burned for two weeks.

Aircraft have been making flight after flight, dumping water and bright pink retardant to protect Lake Elsinore and other foothill communities as the fire sweeps through the dense, bone-dry brush of the Cleveland National Forest.

New Zealand became the latest country Friday to outlaw single-use plastic shopping bags, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying they will be phased out over the next year as a "meaningful step" towards reducing pollution.

Flash floods have claimed at least 27 lives in the southern Indian state of Kerala, officials said Friday, prompting the US to advise its citizens to stay away from the tourist hotspot.

At least 20 people were killed Thursday in landslides triggered by heavy rains in southern India, an official said, pushing the nationwide monsoon death toll for this year to over 700.

Thousands of firefighters, backed by US troops and crews from as far away as Australia and New Zealand, made progress Wednesday in their battle with California's biggest wildfire on record -- but the weather forecast for the rest of the week is not promising, officials said.

A crippling drought is ravaging vast tracts of Australia's pastoral heartlands, decimating herds and putting desperate farmers under intense financial and emotional strain, with little relief in sight.