Temperatures in subtropical Bangladesh hit a 70-year-low Monday as authorities handed out tens of thousands of blankets to help the poor fight a record cold spell, officials said.

The eastern United States and Canada froze Saturday under record-breaking low temperatures following a deadly winter storm as New York's flagship airport descended into chaos, battling to contain flight backlog.

A former Philippine official charged with the murder of a prominent environmentalist has been freed after a court voided the case against him, his lawyer said Saturday.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) needs to beef up its disaster management efforts after the region was hammered by deadly storms that left a path of destruction in their wake, its new chief said Friday.

The French Alps were on maximum avalanche alert Thursday as Storm Eleanor swept through Europe, killing at least four people and fanning rare winter wildfires in Corsica.

Bone-chilling cold gripped much of the central U.S. as 2018 began Monday, breaking century-old records, icing over some New Year's celebrations and leading to at least two deaths attributed to exposure to the elements.

The National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories covering a vast area from South Texas to Canada and from Montana and Wyoming through New England. Dangerously low temperatures enveloped much of the Midwest, yet didn't deter hundreds of people from ringing in the new year by jumping into Lake Michigan.

More than a quarter of Earth's land surface will become "significantly" drier even if humanity manages to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, the goal espoused in the Paris Agreement, scientists said on Monday.

The mayor of a Belgrade suburb said Saturday that a large-scale investigation will be launched following the discovery of 25 tonnes of toxic waste found dumped in a private field.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday made light of climate change science as an Arctic chill settled on much of the central and northeastern United States and Canada, forcing people indoors, stranding motorists with dead car batteries and complicating firefighting duties.

In the United States, the National Weather Service said that "dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills" were pummeling much of the central and eastern part of the country.

Bali's palm-fringed Kuta beach has long been a favorite with tourists seeking sun and surf, but nowadays its golden shoreline is disappearing under a mountain of garbage.

Plastic straws and food packaging are strewn between sunbathers, while surfers bobbing behind the waves dodge waste flushed out from rivers or brought in by swirling currents.