In the arid, cracked desert ground in Southern California, a tiny bee pokes its head out of a hole no larger than the tip of a crayon.

Krystle Hickman crouches over with her specialized camera fitted to capture the minute details of the bee's antennae and fuzzy behind.

Thailand has begun using a birth control vaccine on elephants in the wild to try and curb a growing problem where human and animal populations encroach on each other — an issue in areas where farms spread into forests and elephants are squeezed out of their natural habitat.

The initiative is part of efforts to address confrontations that can turn deadly. As farmers cut down forests to make more farmland, elephants are forced to venture out of their shrinking habitats in search of food.

Africa was the world's fastest-growing solar market in 2025, defying a global slowdown and reshaping where the momentum in renewable energy is concentrated, according to an industry report released in late last month.

The report by the Africa Solar Industry Association says the continent's solar installed capacity expanded 17% in 2025, boosted by imports of Chinese-made solar panels. Global solar power capacity rose 23% in 2025 to 618 GW, slowing from a 44% increase in 2024.

Three people have died in weather-related accidents in France and Spain after a storm tore through the region, officials said Friday, ripping up trees and flooding roads and leaving many thousands without power.

High winds and hard rain forced cancellations of flights, trains and ferries on Thursday and brought chaos to roads in southern France, northern Spain and parts of Portugal.

The Trump administration on Thursday revoked a scientific finding that climate change is a danger to public health, an idea that President Donald Trump called "a scam." But repeated scientific studies say it's a documented and quantifiable harm.

Again and again, research has found increasing disease and deaths — thousands every year — in a warming world.

On the sloping shoreline of the Greek Aegean island of Milos, a vast construction site has left a gaping wound into the island's trademark volcanic rock.

Powerful winds topping 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) battered Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia on Thursday, injuring at least 25 people -- one seriously -- and forcing school closures and flight restrictions.

The two animals chosen as the mascots of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are stoats, a weasel-like animal that's at risk because of climate change. One of the pair is brown and the other is white — because in cold climates, the tiny animals' fur changes from brown to white for winter, to blend in with the landscape.

However, stoats are increasingly turning white before there is any snow on the ground, leaving them vulnerable to predators — their snow-white coats amid dirt and rocks is like a target on their backs for sharp-eyed raptors.

Portugal's interior minister has stepped down in response to growing criticism of her government's response to successive winter storms this season, in which at least seven people have died.

Maria Lúcia Amaral resigned after concluding that she "no longer possessed the personal and political conditions necessary to hold the position," President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa's office said late Tuesday.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday called on the nation's highest court to lift a suspension on an economic emergency decree that would grant his government the authority to raise taxes without congressional approval.

In a televised Cabinet meeting, Petro said that the government must raise tens of millions of dollars to fund recovery efforts in two northern Colombian provinces that have been affected by floods that have killed at least 14 people and displaced an estimated 69,000.