Officials assessed the damage on Sunday after a strong storm system moved across the southern U.S. over the weekend, spawning tornadoes and killing at least four people.

People around the world suffered an average of 41 extra days of dangerous heat this year because of human-caused climate change, according to a group of scientists who also said that climate change worsened much of the world's damaging weather throughout 2024.

The analysis from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central researchers comes at the end of a year that shattered climate record after climate record as heat across the globe made 2024 likely to be its hottest ever measured and a slew of other fatal weather events spared few.

Communities and firefighters across Australia's second-most populous state were preparing Thursday for potentially devastating wild fires as a heat wave fanned by erratic winds presented the worst fire conditions in several years.

With temperatures in Victoria state reaching 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit) and with wind changes expected throughout the day, fire chiefs have issued stark warnings to rural communities to delay travel or leave their homes and seek safety at shelters.

Electric vehicles had another whirlwind year around the globe, driven by buyers in China, and growth in parts of Europe and the United States, despite headwinds.

In a milestone for China, the world's biggest auto market, EVs hit 50% of new car sales in July. That included pure battery EVs plus plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Chinese companies such as BYD continue to gain traction worldwide with their inexpensive EVs.

Long-horned cattle wade through flooded lands and climb a slope along a canal that has become a refuge for displaced families in South Sudan. Smoke from burning dung rises near homes of mud and grass where thousands of people now live after floods swept away their village.

"Too much suffering," said Bichiok Hoth Chuiny, a woman in her 70s. She supported herself with a stick as she walked in the newly established community of Pajiek in Jonglei state north of the capital, Juba.

France marked a national day of mourning Monday for the victims of Cyclone Chido, which devastated the French overseas department of Mayotte earlier this month. Flags were flown at half-staff across the country, and a minute of silence was observed.

The cyclone, the most destructive to hit Mayotte in 90 years, caused extensive damage to the island, known as France's poorest territory, and left 35 dead and around 2,500 injured. The actual toll is likely much higher due to the widespread destruction of infrastructure and precarious living conditions.

President Joe Biden is pledging to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% by 2035 as he fights to ensure his legacy on slowing global warming, even as President-elect Donald Trump vows to undo much of Biden's climate work when he takes office next month.

Biden said the new goal — which supersedes a previous plan to cut carbon emissions at least in half by 2030 — keeps the United States on track to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by 2050. The U.S. is making a formal submission of the new target, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, to the United Nations under terms of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, Biden said Thursday.

French President Emmanuel Macron faced widespread frustration and anger from residents of Mayotte during his visit to the Indian Ocean archipelago, which is still reeling from the damage of the strongest cyclone to hit the region in nearly a century.

On Friday morning, Macron visited a neighborhood in Tsingoni on Mayotte's main island, where people remain without access to drinking water or phone service, nearly a week after the cyclone.

France's President Emmanuel Macron traveled Thursday to the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte to survey the devastation that Cyclone Chido wrought across the French territory as thousands of people tried to cope without the bare essentials such as water or electricity.

"Mayotte is demolished," an airport security agent told Macron as soon as he stepped of the plane.

After heat records were smashed and a torrent of extreme weather events rocked countless countries in 2023, some climate scientists believed that the waning of the El Nino weather pattern could mean 2024 would be slightly cooler.

It didn't happen that way.