Millions of people in western India are suffering their worst drought in more than four decades, with critics blaming official ineptitude and corruption for exacerbating the natural water shortage.

Central areas of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, are facing a water shortage worse than the severe drought in 1972, the state's chief minister Prithviraj Chavan told Agence France Presse.

New U.S. government figures show the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air jumped dramatically in 2012, making it very unlikely that global warming can be limited to another 2 degrees (1.2 C). Many governments set a 2-degree increase as the upper limit.

Scientists say the rise in CO2 reflects the global economy revving up and burning more fossil fuels, especially in China.

Ancient, mummified camel bones dug from the tundra confirm that the animals now synonymous with the arid sands of Arabia actually developed in subfreezing forests in what is now Canada's High Arctic, a scientist said Tuesday.

About 3.5 million years ago, Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island's west-central coast would have looked more like a northern forest than an Arctic landscape, said paleobotanist Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.

A recently discovered comet is closer than it's ever been to Earth, and stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere finally get to see it.

Called Pan-STARRS, the comet is passing within 100 million miles (160. million kilometers) of Earth on Tuesday, its closest approach. The ice ball will get even nearer the sun this weekend — just 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) from the sun. That's within the orbit of Mercury.

Eighty percent of sewage in India is untreated and flows directly into the nation's rivers, polluting the main sources of drinking water, a study by an environment watchdog showed Tuesday.

Indian cities produce nearly 40,000 million liters of sewage every day and barely 20 percent of it is treated, according to "Excreta Does Matter", a new report released by the Center for Science and Environment (CSE).

Israel is on a locust alert as swarms of the destructive bugs descend on neighboring Egypt ahead of the Passover holiday.

Israel's Agriculture Ministry set up an emergency hotline Monday and is asking Israelis to be vigilant in reporting locust sightings to prevent an outbreak.

A privately-owned unmanned U.S. space capsule docked Sunday at the International Space Station bringing food, scientific materials and crucial equipment to the space outpost.

NASA said that SpaceX's Dragon capsule linked up with the ISS's Harmony module at 8:56 am (1356 GMT).

Australia's weather went "on steroids" over a summer that saw an unprecedented heatwave, bushfires and floods, the climate chief said Monday, warning that global warming would only make things worse.

The Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed the three summer months ending February 28 were the hottest season ever recorded in Australia, leading the government's Climate Commission to label it the "Angry Summer" in a new report.

SpaceX said it was "optimistic" Friday after a thruster outage delayed the latest resupply mission of its unmanned Dragon capsule en route to the International Space Station.

SpaceX and NASA officials said the cargo resupply mission was still on track, but the technical mishap could fuel concerns about the U.S. agency's ambitious plans to cut costs by privatizing elements of the space program.

The U.S. State Department suggested Friday that a $5.3 billion Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline would have no major impact on the environment, but stopped short of recommending it be approved.

The lengthy draft environmental impact statement examines how the Keystone XL Project could affect wildlife and surrounding areas as it crosses from the tar-sands of Alberta in Canada and travels 875 miles (1,408 kilometers) south.