While flooding that has devastated Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state has yet to subside, another scourge has spread across the region: disinformation on social media that has hampered desperate efforts to get aid to hundreds of thousands in need.

Among fake postings that have stirred outrage: That official agencies aren't conducting rescues in Brazil's southernmost state. That bureaucracy is holding up donations of food, water and clothing. One persistent rumor contends that authorities are concealing hundreds of corpses, said Jairo Jorge, mayor of the hard-hit city of Canoas.

A University of Hawaii study examining the health effects of last year's deadly wildfires on Maui found that up to 74% of participants may have difficulty breathing and otherwise have poor respiratory health, and almost half showed signs of compromised lung function.

The data, gathered from 679 people in January and February, comes from what researchers hope will be a long-term study of wildfire survivors lasting at least a decade. Researchers released early results from that research on Wednesday. They eventually hope to enroll 2,000 people in their study to generate what they call a snapshot of the estimated 10,000 people affected by the fires.

The broiling summer of 2023 was the hottest in the Northern Hemisphere in more than 2,000 years, a new study found.

When the temperatures spiked last year, numerous weather agencies said it was the hottest month, summer and year on record. But those records only go back to 1850 at best because it's based on thermometers. Now scientists can go back to the modern western calendar's year 1, when the Bible says Jesus of Nazareth walked the Earth, but have found no hotter northern summer than last year's.

New Mexico is standing in for California in a new film as Jamie Lee Curtis' production company and others tell the story of a bus driver and a school teacher who rescued students during the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California's history.

The 2018 blaze killed 85 people and nearly erased the community of Paradise in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Some residents have returned to help make something new, while others are still haunted by their memories.

An intense wildfire could reach a town in western Canada this week, fire experts and officials warned, based on forecasts of winds that have fueled the out-of-control blaze, which has forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

The British Columbia Wildfire Service said the wildfire was burning 2½ kilometers (around 1½ miles) northwest of Fort Nelson. More than 4,700 people have evacuated after an order was issued on Friday.

Rescuers on Tuesday searched in rivers and the rubble of devastated villages for bodies, and whenever possible, survivors of flash floods that hit Indonesia's Sumatra Island over the weekend.

Monsoon rains and a landslide of mud and cold lava from Mount Marapi caused rivers to breach their banks. The deluge tore through mountainside villages in four districts in West Sumatra province just before midnight Saturday.

A large billboard that collapsed amid raging thunderstorms in Mumbai killed at least 14 people and injured 75 others, reports said on Tuesday.

A rescue operation was continuing Tuesday morning, and authorities told the Press Trust of India news agency that 89 people had been rescued since the incident occurred on Monday evening.

Environmental protestors stopped play at two matches at the Rome Open tennis tournament on Monday after invading courts in the Italian capital.

Canadian authorities are urging all remaining residents in a town in British Columbia to leave immediately, despite improving weather conditions, after many were already evacuated due to a fast-growing wildfire.

The blaze, which started Friday, almost doubled in size the following day, reaching about 17 square kilometers (4,200 acres). BC Wildfire Service maps showed the fire burning just a few kilometers (miles) west of Fort Nelson's city limits.

Shopkeeper Nazer Mohammad ran home as soon as he heard about flash floods crashing into the outskirts of a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan. By the time he got there, there was nothing left, including his family of five.

"Everything happened just all of a sudden. I came home, but there was no home there, instead I saw all the neighborhood covered by mud and water," said Mohammad. 48. He said that he buried his wife and two sons aged 15 and 8 years, but he's still looking for two daughters, who are around 6 and 11 years old.