New Zealand's annual cat-killing contest plans to expand next year, the event's organizer said Wednesday, describing feral felines as a grave threat to native wildlife.

Feral cats prey on endangered birds, bats and lizards, according to New Zealand's department of conservation, and they are blamed for driving some species into extinction.

The death toll from flash floods that hit Switzerland after storms at the weekend rose to six Wednesday after a body was discovered in the southeastern canton of Ticino, police said.

The melting of Alaska's Juneau icefield, home to more than 1,000 glaciers, is accelerating. The snow covered area is now shrinking 4.6 times faster than it was in the 1980s, according to a new study.

Researchers meticulously tracked snow levels in the nearly 1,500-square mile icy expanse going back to 1948 with added data back to the 18th century. It slowly shriveled from its peak size at the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, but then that melt rate sped up about 10 years ago, according to a study in Tuesday's Nature Communications.

Firefighters battled wildfires that broke out on the eastern Aegean islands of Chios and Kos Monday and injured five people, as Greece's prime minister warned of a dangerous summer ahead and said the public's help was essential in limiting the impact of wildfires.

Emergency services issued evacuation orders for those in the Metohi area of western Chios on Monday morning, urging them to head to a nearby beach. By the evening, more than 140 firefighters, along with eight teams of firefighters specializing in wildfires, seven water-dropping planes and three helicopters were fighting the blaze.

A powerful storm has swept through countries in the western Balkans after several days of sizzling temperatures, killing two people and damaging houses, pulling out trees and flooding streets, officials said on Tuesday.

Heavy rain, hail and strong winds tore through Slovenia on Monday before pushing east to pummel Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and finally Montenegro on Tuesday morning. The storm sent temperatures plummeting in just several hours.

The U.N. weather agency said Tuesday that Tropical Cyclone Freddy, a deadly Indian Ocean storm that lashed eastern Africa last year, was confirmed to be the longest-lasting cyclone ever recorded at 36 days.

Freddy topped the previous record held by Hurricane John, which struck Hawaii and lasted almost 30 days in the northern Pacific three decades ago, the World Meteorological Organization said as it released a study which began as Freddy waned in March last year.

Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 16 people over the last two weeks in India's northeast, where more than 300,000 have been displaced from their submerged homes, authorities said on Tuesday.

The Indian army and air force have been assisting with rescue efforts in Assam, one of the worst-hit states, where a military helicopter flew early Tuesday morning 13 fishermen to safety after being stranded for four days on a small island on the Brahmaputra, one of Asia's largest rivers, officials said.

Weather forecasters warned that much of New Mexico faces two more days of elevated threats of dangerous flooding like the walls of water over the weekend that caused severe damage, forced the rescues of 100 people and left parts of one town recently ravaged by wildfires covered in mud and debris.

The body of one person was recovered from the Rio Grande in Albuquerque on Sunday, but it wasn't immediately clear if the death was flood related, according to Albuquerque Fire Rescue and Bernalillo County Fire Rescue. The death remained under investigation and no other details had been released.

Brazil's massive Pantanal wetlands haven't technically entered annual fire season, but already the number of blazes has broken records and is leading experts to predict this year will be the most devastating in decades.

Typically the world's largest tropical wetlands dry out and are prone to fires from July to September. But the National Space Research Institute's satellites spotted over 2,500 fires in the region in June alone -- by far the most ever recorded for the month in data going back to 1998. It's more than six times the amount in the same month of 2020, known as the "the year of flames," when wildfires ravaged the area and sparked widespread outcry.

Evacuation orders in Arizona have been lifted for some residents of northeast Scottsdale, days after they were forced from their homes by a wildfire, authorities said Sunday.

The Boulder View Fire was 19% contained Sunday after charring nearly 6 square miles (15 square kilometers) on the cusp of the Boulder Heights subdivision since Thursday.