Australia sweltered through its third-hottest year on record in 2017 despite the lack of a warming El Nino weather phenomenon, official figures showed Wednesday.

With three strong hurricanes, wildfires, hail, flooding, tornadoes and drought, the United States tallied a record high bill last year for weather disasters: $306 billion.

The U.S. had 16 disasters last year with damage exceeding a billion dollars, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday. That ties 2011 for the number of billion-dollar disasters, but the total cost blew past the previous record of $215 billion in 2005.

Temperatures in subtropical Bangladesh hit a 70-year-low Monday as authorities handed out tens of thousands of blankets to help the poor fight a record cold spell, officials said.

The eastern United States and Canada froze Saturday under record-breaking low temperatures following a deadly winter storm as New York's flagship airport descended into chaos, battling to contain flight backlog.

A former Philippine official charged with the murder of a prominent environmentalist has been freed after a court voided the case against him, his lawyer said Saturday.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) needs to beef up its disaster management efforts after the region was hammered by deadly storms that left a path of destruction in their wake, its new chief said Friday.

The French Alps were on maximum avalanche alert Thursday as Storm Eleanor swept through Europe, killing at least four people and fanning rare winter wildfires in Corsica.

Bone-chilling cold gripped much of the central U.S. as 2018 began Monday, breaking century-old records, icing over some New Year's celebrations and leading to at least two deaths attributed to exposure to the elements.

The National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories covering a vast area from South Texas to Canada and from Montana and Wyoming through New England. Dangerously low temperatures enveloped much of the Midwest, yet didn't deter hundreds of people from ringing in the new year by jumping into Lake Michigan.

More than a quarter of Earth's land surface will become "significantly" drier even if humanity manages to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, the goal espoused in the Paris Agreement, scientists said on Monday.

The mayor of a Belgrade suburb said Saturday that a large-scale investigation will be launched following the discovery of 25 tonnes of toxic waste found dumped in a private field.