Rescuers in boats raced to reach stranded families in Pakistan's populous eastern Punjab province Thursday, after three major rivers burst their banks because of heavy rain and the release of water from overflowing dams in neighboring India.

The floods displaced nearly 250,000 people and officials said more than 1 million people were affected, with crops and businesses destroyed and many unable to leave their homes.

Climate change that has driven scorching temperatures and dwindling rainfall made massive wildfires in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus this summer burn much more fiercely, said a new study released Thursday.

The study by World Weather Attribution said the fires that killed 20 people, forced 80,000 to evacuate and burned more than 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) were 22% more intense in 2025, Europe's worst recorded year of wildfires.

Tropical Storm Juliette formed Monday in the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles from Mexico's Baja California peninsula as Tropical Storm Fernand churned in the Atlantic Ocean.

No coastal watches or warnings were in effect for either storm, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

India has alerted Pakistan about possible cross-border flooding after heavy monsoon rains in the South Asian region, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said on Monday, in what marks the first public official contact between the two nuclear-armed rivals in months.

The ministry said New Delhi conveyed the information through diplomatic channels instead of the Indus Waters Commission, the permanent mechanism created under the 1960 World Bank-brokered Indus Waters Treaty.

Strong winds and heavy rain whipped southern China's Hainan island and nearby parts of Guangdong province on Sunday, as Typhoon Kajiki passed over open waters to the south and headed toward Vietnam's central coast.

About 20,000 people were evacuated from potentially hazardous areas ahead of the storm, China's official Xinhua News Agency said. Fishing boats returned to port and more than 21,000 crew members came onshore.

Giraffes are a majestic sight in Africa with their long necks and distinctive spots. Now it turns out there are four different giraffe species on the continent, according to a new scientific analysis released Thursday.

Researchers previously considered all giraffes across Africa to belong to a single species. New data and genetic studies have led a task force of the International Union for Conservation of Nature to split the tallest mammal on land into four groups — Northern giraffes, reticulated giraffes, Masai giraffes and Southern giraffes.

Giraffes are a majestic sight in Africa with their long necks and distinctive spots. Now it turns out there are four different giraffe species on the continent, according to a new scientific analysis released Thursday.

Researchers previously considered all giraffes across Africa to belong to a single species. New data and genetic studies have led a task force of the International Union for Conservation of Nature to split the tallest mammal on land into four groups — Northern giraffes, reticulated giraffes, Masai giraffes and Southern giraffes.

Wildfires have so far ravaged more than one million hectares (2.5 million acres) in the European Union in 2025, a record since statistics began in 2006, according to an AFP analysis of data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

Surpassing the record of 988,524 hectares burnt in 2017, the figure reached 1,015,731 hectares by midday Thursday, representing an area larger than Cyprus.

Chinese government officials last month showed off what they say will be the world's largest solar farm when completed high on a Tibetan plateau. It will cover 610 square kilometers (235 square miles), which is the size of Chicago.

Hurricane Erin battered North Carolina's Outer Banks with strong winds and waves that flooded part of the main highway and surged under beachfront homes as the monster storm slowly began to move away from the East Coast on Thursday.

Forecasters predicted the storm would peak Thursday and said it could regain strength and once again become a major hurricane, Category 3 or greater, but it was not forecast to make landfall along the East Coast before turning farther out to sea.