After three of Earth's hottest days ever measured, the United Nations called for a flurry of efforts to try to reduce the human toll from soaring and searing temperatures, calling it "an extreme heat epidemic."

"If there is one thing that unites our divided world, it's that we're all increasingly feeling the heat," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday at a news conference where he highlighted that Monday was the hottest day on record, surpassing the mark set just a day earlier. "Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere."

The Paris Olympics were getting off to a rougher than hoped-for start Friday, with suspected acts of sabotage targeting France's flagship high-speed rail network and cloudy skies with light drizzle over the French capital ahead of its sprawling, ambitious opening ceremony.

On a day of utmost importance for France and its capital, with dozens of heads of state and government in town for the Olympic opening and a global audience of over 1 billion expected to tune in, authorities were scrambling to deal with widespread rail disruptions caused by what they described as coordinated overnight sabotage of high-speed train lines.

What was Typhoon Gaemi was heading to inland China on Friday after weakening to a severe tropical storm soon after making landfall on the east coast the previous night.

The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage. Five people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength on Thursday before heading over open waters to China.

Heavy rain in the past week has triggered floods and landslides in Japan, disrupting transportation and forcing residents to take shelter on safer ground. Four people were missing Friday, including two police officers.

The rain had subsided in Yamagata and Akita prefectures Friday, but the area was still at risk of flooding and landslides. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged people to "put safety first."

Taiwan has seen flooding in low-lying areas, along with landslides and damage to homes and shops after Typhoon Gaemi made landfall on the island.

The storm swept up the western Pacific, leaving 22 people dead in the Philippines from flooding and landslides, and three in Taiwan, with more than 220 reported injured.

Global temperatures dropped a minuscule amount after two days of record highs, making Tuesday only the world's second-hottest day ever.

The European climate service Copernicus calculated that Tuesday's global average temperature was 0.01 Celsius (0.01 Fahrenheit) lower than Monday's all-time high of 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.8 degrees Fahrenheit), which was .06 degrees Celsius hotter (0.1 degrees Fahrenheit) than Sunday.

To combat ongoing destruction in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil announced a plan Tuesday to dramatically expand selective logging to an area the size of Costa Rica over the next two years.

In Brazil, vast forest lands are designated as public yet have no special protection or enforcement and are vulnerable to land grabbing and illegal deforestation. Criminals frequently take over land and clear it, hoping the government will eventually recognize them as owners, which usually happens.

When Benson Wanjala started farming in his western Kenya village two and a half decades ago, his 10-acre farm could produce a bountiful harvest of 200 bags of maize. That has dwindled to 30. He says his once fertile soil has become a nearly lifeless field that no longer earns him a living.

Like many other farmers, he blames acidifying fertilizers pushed in Kenya and other African countries in recent years. He said he started using the fertilizers to boost his yield and it worked — until it didn't. Kenya's government first introduced a fertilizer subsidy in 2008, making chemical fertilizers more accessible for smaller-scale farmers.

Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country's entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.

The North African nation projects this year's harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.

On Sunday, the Earth sizzled to the hottest day ever measured by humans, yet another heat record shattered in the past couple of years, according to the European climate service Copernicus.

Copernicus' preliminary data shows that the global average temperature Sunday was 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), beating the record set just last year on July 6, 2023 by .01 degrees Celsius (.02 degrees Fahrenheit). Both Sunday's mark and last year's record obliterate the previous record of 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees Fahrenheit), which itself was only a few years old, set in 2016.