U.S. President Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in the southern U.S. state of Tennessee and approved federal funding after devastating floods over the weekend left at least 21 dead, the White House said in a statement said Tuesday.

Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk said Tuesday it was speeding up plans for an environment-friendly fleet with the order of eight carbon-neutral container vessels, a pioneering project in the highly-polluting industry.

Senegal's Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome is up to his knees in water, in a suburb of the West African country's capital, surveying flood damage.  

He's inspecting a home in the eastern Keur Massar district: The first floor and courtyard have been submerged in brown water for three days. 

Anna Mays woke up in a panic attack Monday, thinking she was back in the rising floodwater.

Two days ago, she had been clinging for her life to the front door of her duplex in rural Tennessee as the water inched up to her neck. Her brother was hanging onto a tree.

Scientists say that global warming makes the kind of extreme rainfall that caused deadly flash flooding in western Europe last month more likely, though it remains unclear exactly how much.

At least 220 people died in Germany and Belgium on July 14-15 when swollen streams turned into raging rivers, sweeping away houses, roads and bridges, and causing billions of euros (dollars) in damage.

India's capital New Delhi opened its first "smog tower" on Monday aimed at reducing the air pollution blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year, but experts were skeptical.

Concentrations of tiny deadly particles in Delhi's air regularly exceed safe limits by up to 20 times, particularly in winter when its 20 million people are enveloped in a noxious grey blanket of smog.

At least 22 people were killed and rescue crews searched desperately Sunday amid shattered homes and tangled debris for dozens of people still missing after record-breaking rain sent floodwaters surging through Middle Tennessee.

Saturday's flooding in rural areas took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, leaving families uncertain about whether their loved ones survived the unprecedented deluge. Emergency workers were searching door to door, said Kristi Brown, a coordinator for health and safety supervisor with Humphreys County Schools.

A wildfire burning for a week in Northern California continued to grow out of control, one of about a dozen big blazes in the drought-stricken state that have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate.

There was zero containment Sunday of the Caldor Fire, which had charred nearly 154 square miles (399 square kilometers) of trees and brush in the northern Sierra Nevada after breaking out Aug. 14. The cause was under investigation.

Henri was downgraded to a tropical depression as it churned deeper inland early Monday, with experts predicting it will settle for awhile near the New York-Connecticut border before heading back east. Here's everything to know about the Northeast weather that's tropical in name, but far from its titular home:

IS HENRI STILL A HURRICANE?

Romania will soon conduct a census of its protected brown bears using DNA for the first time, with tensions raised between villagers fearing further attacks and conservationists warning against looser hunting laws.

Incidents with hungry bears descending into villages have sparked the ire of residents, in a country that has seen around 100 attacks over the last three years.