Firefighters worked furiously Friday to keep a Southern California wildfire from burning more homes while crews in the north finally gained ground on deadly and destructive blazes that have burned for two weeks.

Aircraft have been making flight after flight, dumping water and bright pink retardant to protect Lake Elsinore and other foothill communities as the fire sweeps through the dense, bone-dry brush of the Cleveland National Forest.

New Zealand became the latest country Friday to outlaw single-use plastic shopping bags, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying they will be phased out over the next year as a "meaningful step" towards reducing pollution.

Flash floods have claimed at least 27 lives in the southern Indian state of Kerala, officials said Friday, prompting the US to advise its citizens to stay away from the tourist hotspot.

At least 20 people were killed Thursday in landslides triggered by heavy rains in southern India, an official said, pushing the nationwide monsoon death toll for this year to over 700.

Thousands of firefighters, backed by US troops and crews from as far away as Australia and New Zealand, made progress Wednesday in their battle with California's biggest wildfire on record -- but the weather forecast for the rest of the week is not promising, officials said.

A crippling drought is ravaging vast tracts of Australia's pastoral heartlands, decimating herds and putting desperate farmers under intense financial and emotional strain, with little relief in sight.

Tens of thousands of firefighters on Tuesday were battling relentless flames ripping across California, as the death toll from a series of infernos that first erupted last month hit 11.

Europe's scorching heatwave has killed nine people in a week in Spain, health authorities said Tuesday, as stifling temperatures kindled wildfires in the country and neighboring Portugal where a ferocious blaze encircled a resort town.

Europe baked in near-record temperatures on Monday but some respite was on the horizon after weeks of nonstop sunshine as people come to terms with what may prove to be the region's new normal in an era of climate change.

Here is a roundup of recent developments:

Two blazes mercilessly charring northern California have grown so rapidly that they became the US state's largest in recorded history Monday, authorities said.