A pet leopard escaped from a house in the Pakistan capital and roamed the streets for hours before being shot with a sedation dart, wildlife officials said Friday.

A desert bloom triggered by heavier than usual winter rains has carpeted the sands of northern Saudi Arabia with purple flowers, drawing sightseers from across the Arabian Peninsula.

Climate change isn't causing the multi-year drought that is devastating parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia, but warming is worsening some of the dry spell's impacts, a new study says.

The natural three-year climate condition La Nina – a cooling of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide temporarily but lasted much longer than normal this time – is the chief culprit in a drought that has devastated central South America and is still going on, according to a flash study released Thursday by international scientists at World Weather Attribution. The study has not been peer reviewed yet.

Scientists got their first up-close look at what's eating away part of Antarctica's Thwaites ice shelf, nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier because of its massive melt and sea rise potential, and it's both good and bad news.

Using a 13-foot pencil-shaped robot that swam under the grounding line where ice first juts over the sea, scientists saw a shimmery critical point in Thwaites' chaotic breakup, "where it's melting so quickly there, there's just material streaming out of the glacier," said robot creator and polar scientist Britney Schmidt of Cornell University.

Weeks after powerful storms dumped 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow on California, state officials and environmental groups in the drought-ravaged state are grappling with what to do with all of that water.

State rules say when it rains and snows a lot in California, much of that water must stay in the rivers to act as a conveyer belt to carry tens of thousands of endangered baby salmon into the Pacific Ocean.

The United Nations chief has warned that global sea levels have risen faster since 1900 and their relentless increase puts countries like Bangladesh, China, India and the Netherlands at risk and acutely endangers nearly 900 million people living in low-lying coastal areas.

In a grim speech to the Security Council's first-ever meeting on the threat to international peace and security from rising sea levels, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared that sea levels will rise significantly even if global warming is "miraculously" limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the elusive international goal.

A new, multimillion-euro international airport near Albania's coastal city of Vlora will mean hundreds of jobs for area residents. But environmentalists warn it could cause irreparable damage to the fragile ecosystems of protected lagoons that host flamingos, pelicans and millions of other migratory birds.

Albania's new, 104 million-euro ($125 million) international airport — the country's third — is currently being constructed at the Narta lagoon some 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the city of Vlora. Set to start operations in 2025, the airport will boast a 3.2-kilometer (2-mile) runway and is expected to handle up to 2 million passengers a year.

Electric car giant Tesla will, for the first time, make some of its charging stations available to all U.S. electric vehicles by the end of next year, under a new plan announced Wednesday by the White House.

The plan will make at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla's Supercharger and Destination Charger network available to non-Tesla EVs by the end of 2024, the White House said.

With the prospect of a sixth consecutive failed rainy season in the east and Horn of Africa, Kenya's president is hoping the heavens will finally open with the help of a national day of mass prayer on Tuesday.

William Ruto announced the plans for the country's first ever day of prayer on Sunday at a service in the drought-stricken city of Nakuru, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the capital Nairobi. It follows a joint call by the country's spiritual leaders to dedicate an entire day to prayer to ease drought conditions in the nation.

A cyclone that left a devastating wake of extensive flooding and landslides in New Zealand has claimed at least four lives and police have "grave concerns" for other residents who remain unaccounted for, the prime minister said on Wednesday.

Cyclone Gabrielle struck the country's north on Monday and has brought more destruction to this nation of 5 million than any weather event in decades.