Early wind and rain from a rare tropical cyclone began lashing part of eastern Australia on Thursday as schools were closed, public transport was stopped and desperate residents got around shortages of sandbags by buying potting mix.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to cross the Queensland state coast somewhere between the Sunshine Coast region and the city of Gold Coast to the south early Saturday, Bureau of Meteorology manager Matt Collopy said.

The gentle waves off the coast of central Vietnam's Nha Trang obscure an open secret: The life-giving coral reefs below are dying. The waters are eerily devoid of fish. The bounty of the ocean is coming to an end.

This is why Binh Van — who fished in these waters for over two decades — now charters his boat to Vietnamese tourists wanting to experience the thrill of fishing in the deep waters of the South China Sea. But there is only squid, which is flourishing in oceans warmed by climate change, to catch. His passengers don't mind as the boat moves away from Nha Trang's twinkling beach resorts. But Van is pensive.

Residents were stacking sandbags to protect low-lying properties Wednesday ahead of a tropical cyclone forecast to become the first in 51 years to hit the Australian east coast near Brisbane, the nation's third-most populous city.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to cross the coast between the Queensland state capital Brisbane and the tourist city of Gold Coast to the south late Thursday or early Friday, Bureau of Meteorology manager Matt Collopy said. Brisbane and Gold Coast are a continuous urban sprawl. Their centers are 80 kilometers (50 miles) apart.

Japan is fighting a forest fire that has damaged dozens of homes and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate in a northeastern coastal city.

The fire has burned about 2,100 hectares (5,190 acres) of forest in Ofunato since it started Wednesday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

Crews battled wildfires in North and South Carolina on Sunday amid dry conditions and gusty winds as residents were forced to evacuate in some areas.

The National Weather Service warned of increased fire danger in the region due to a combination of critically dry fuels and very low relative humidity.

Catherine Bashiama runs her fingers along the branches of the coffee tree she's raised from a seedling, searching anxiously for its first fruit buds since she planted it three years ago. When she grasps the small cherries, Bashiama beams.

The farmer had never grown coffee in her village in western South Sudan, but now hopes a rare, climate-resistant species will help pull her family from poverty. "I want to send my children to school so they can be the future generation," said Bashiama, a mother of 12.

Matt Ries has lived in Florida only three years, but everyone told him last summer was unusually hot. That was followed by three hurricanes in close succession. Then temperatures dropped below freezing for days this winter, and snow blanketed part of the state.

To Ries, 29, an Ohio native now in Tampa, the extreme weather — including the bitter cold — bore all the hallmarks of climate change.

More than half a million people in Afghanistan were displaced due to climate disasters in 2024, the International Organization for Migration said in a country report published on Tuesday.

The European Union executive on Wednesday announced plans for a major revamp of its economic strategy to meet demands of the bloc's captains of industry who have long complained about excessive taxation, sky high energy prices and an overbearing bureaucracy that makes the bloc unattractive.

At the same time, environmental groups say that far-reaching deregulation and the boosting of conditions for energy-intensive companies will come at the cost to the EU's ambitious climate targets.

For centuries, poets, scholars and theologians have flocked to Chinguetti, a trans-Saharan trading post home to more than a dozen libraries containing thousands of manuscripts.

But it now stands on the brink of oblivion. Shifting sands have long covered the ancient city's 8th-century core and are encroaching on neighborhoods at its current edge. Residents say the desert is their destiny.