Jesse Wimberley burns the woods with neighbors.

Using new tools to revive an old communal tradition, they set fire to wiregrasses and forest debris with a drip torch, corralling embers with leaf blowers.

Throngs of people in down parkas and boots climbed a hill that overlooks the Forbidden City this week to jostle with others trying to get a shot of the snow-covered roofs of the former imperial palace.

For many people in Beijing, a snowfall means it's time to bundle up and head out to take photos of a city dotted with traditional architecture from the Ming and Qing dynasties that ruled the country for more than five centuries.

The first tropical cyclone to hit Australia in the current season weakened to a low pressure system but continued to lash the northeast coast Thursday with flooding rain and left almost 40,000 homes and businesses without power.

Cyclone Jasper crossed the Queensland state coast late Wednesday as a category 2 storm on a five-tier scale that whipped the sparsely populated region with winds of up to 140 kph (87 mph).

People moved to El Bosque in the 1980s to fish. Setting out into the Gulf of Mexico in threes and fours, fishermen returned with buckets of tarpon and long, streaked snook. There was more than enough to feed them, and build a community — three schools, a small church and a basketball court on the sand.

Then climate change set the sea against the town.

As the United Nations COP28 climate summit ended Wednesday, Sultan al-Jaber walked out with what the United Arab Emirates wanted all along — the prestige of hosting negotiations that got the world to agree to transition away from fossil fuels while still being able to pump ever-more oil.

That left some wanting much more from the two weeks of talks, even as many praised its historic accord. But it no longer will matter to the state oil company chief executive and renewable energy advocate who embodies many of the traits that have propelled this young nation into the global spotlight.

A standoff between countries that want a dramatic phase-out of planet-warming fossil fuels and those that don't pushed a critical climate summit officially into overtime on Tuesday. But organizers were about to float another try at compromise.

The United Nations-led summit known as COP28 was supposed to end Tuesday afternoon after nearly two weeks of speeches, demonstrations and negotiations. But the climate talks almost always run long, and negotiators were still meeting late Tuesday as workers nearby dismantled signs and set up scaffolding in preparation for the venue's next event.

A stark standoff between countries that want a dramatic phase-out to fossil fuels causing damaging warming and those that don't crushed hopes for an on-time finish to a critical climate summit Tuesday.

The United Nations-led summit known as COP28 was scheduled to end around midday after nearly two weeks of speeches, demonstrations and negotiations. But the climate talks almost always run long, and Monday's release of a draft agreement angered countries that insist on a commitment for rapid phase-out of coal, oil and gas.

When United Nations climate talks wrap up at some point this week in Dubai, big promises will likely be made about how the world is going to combat climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

Negotiators are debating how fast fossil fuels should be reduced and how a major transition to green energy would be paid for, raising the possibility of a historic agreement.

Climate change is worsening the planet's biodiversity crises, making environments more deadly for thousands of species and accelerating the precipitous decline in the number of plants and animals on Earth, according to an international organization that tracks species health.

Species of salmon and turtles are among those facing a decline as the planet warms.

When U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Antarctica in November to highlight a planet in peril to set the stage for global climate talks in Dubai, he went to see an accelerating ice melt, not penguins.

But penguins were all around as Guterres and his entourage toured glaciers and visited Chile's Eduardo Frei Air Force Base on King George Island.