An Arctic snap gripped most of Canada and a large swath of the northern United States on Wednesday, with unusually low temperatures recorded in both countries.

The good news for many in the Northeast and Midwest was that it has been a white Christmas. The bad news was that a blizzard swept into parts of New England and bitter cold enveloped much of the Midwest.

Even the usually rainy Pacific Northwest got the white stuff. The National Weather Service says it's only the sixth time since 1884 that downtown Portland had measurable snow — only an inch or two — on a Dec. 25.

Nepali authorities have rescued the country's last known "dancing bears", officials said Sunday, ending the medieval tradition of abuse of the beasts for entertainment.

Fierce hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires ravaged the planet in 2017, as scientists said the role of climate change in causing or worsening certain natural disasters has grown increasingly clear.

Schools were closed for a fourth straight day in Tehran on Wednesday as dangerous air pollution covered the Iranian capital and traffic restrictions failed to clear the thick smog.

After a couple of days of respite heavy winds are expected to return Wednesday to the California area plagued by a massive fire, potentially hindering the efforts of firefighters battling in an already dry climate.

France's parliament on Tuesday passed into law a ban on producing oil and gas by 2040, a largely symbolic gesture as the country is 99 percent dependent on hydrocarbon imports.

The European Union and 12 other nations condemned Japan's Antarctic whaling program Monday, rejecting Tokyo's argument that the annual slaughter is for scientific research.

Iran shut primary schools in the capital and other parts of the country on Sunday due to choking levels of air pollution.

Last year's global heat record, extreme heat in Asia and unusually warm waters off the coast of Alaska happened purely because the planet is getting warmer due to human activities like burning fossil fuels, a study has said.

The findings mark the first time that global scientists have identified severe weather that could not have happened without climate change, said the peer-reviewed report titled "Explaining Extreme Events in 2016 from a Climate Perspective."