Irma, a still strengthening and dangerous Category Four hurricane, churned toward the Leeward Islands early Tuesday, sparking alarm and alerts from the Caribbean to Florida, which declared an emergency.

Climate change will dominate discussions when the leaders of vulnerable Pacific nations hold their annual meeting in the Samoan capital Apia this week, with global warming threatening their existence, officials say.

Three weeks before elections, Chancellor Angela Merkel will Monday face the toxic "dieselgate" scandal which pits the interests of Germany's powerful auto sector against public health fears over air pollution.

China started emergency monitoring for radiation along its border with North Korea in response to the country's largest nuclear test so far on Sunday.

People living near a chemical plant that produces organic peroxides in flooded southeast Texas have been evacuated as a precautionary measure, authorities said Tuesday.

The plant in Harris County is owned by the French group Arkema.

After pouring  record rains on Texas, Tropical Storm Harvey made a second landfall Wednesday to strike Louisiana, a state that still bears deep scars from 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

The second hit comes five days after the monster storm slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane, pummeling the U.S. Gulf coast with torrential rains that turned neighborhoods into lakes in America's fourth largest city, Houston.

President Michel Aoun on Tuesday signed the country's first animal welfare bill into law, guaranteeing that domestic and wild animals will be legally protected from abuse.

France will host an international summit on December 12 to review progress on the 2015 global climate accord, President Emmanuel Macron confirmed Tuesday.

More than 30,000 people are expected to be housed in shelters as monster storm Harvey continues to devastate the Texas city of Houston and surrounding areas, a top federal emergency official said Monday.

Widespread flooding unleashed by deadly storm Harvey left Houston -- the fourth-largest U.S. city -- increasingly isolated Monday, with airports and highways closed and residents being rescued from their inundated homes by boat and helicopter.