Pakistani authorities are using anti-smog guns in the eastern city of Lahore for the first time this winter in a bid to combat hazardous air pollution, officials said Thursday.

The European Parliament on Thursday definitively adopted rules clamping down on pollution from the tiny pellets that constitute the building blocks of most plastic products.

The text introduces new rules to hold handling and transport firms accountable for spills of the lentil-sized pellets, called nurdles, which are used in everything from from car bumpers to salad bowls.

Artificial intelligence has caused concern for its tremendous consumption of water and power. But scientists are also experimenting with ways that AI can help people and businesses use energy more efficiently and pollute less.

Data centers needed to fuel AI accounted for about 1.5% of the world's electricity consumption last year, and those facilities' energy consumption is predicted to more than double by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. That increase could lead to burning more fossil fuels such as coal and gas, which release greenhouse gases that contribute to warming temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather.

Tropical Storm Melissa dumped heavy rain on parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Wednesday as forecasters warned of a significant flood risk in parts of the northern Caribbean in the coming days.

The United Nations chief delivered a strong defense of science and meteorology on Wednesday, praising the U.N. weather agency for helping save lives by keeping watch for climate disasters around the world.

Wasted food is a financial and environmental bummer.

It costs U.S. consumers $728 every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and emits the annual equivalent planet-warming greenhouse gases of 42 coal-fired power plants.

One of the rarest whales on the planet has continued an encouraging trend of population growth in the wake of new efforts to protect the giant animals, according to scientists who study them.

Thick smog blanketed India's capital Tuesday, a day after millions celebrated the Hindu festival of Diwali with fireworks that sent air pollution levels soaring to hazardous levels.

The stench of decay spread for several miles around Poza Rica on Wednesday, one of the areas hardest hit by last week's torrential rains that flooded central and eastern Mexico.

In the center of this oil-producing city near the Gulf of Mexico, a lingering cloud of dust hovered over the main avenue where soldiers worked nonstop. Farther east, near the Cazones River — which overflowed on Friday — several streets still lay under 3 feet (1 meter) of water and mud, topped by another 6 feet (2 meters) of piled-up trash, furniture, and debris.

The world is on track to add nearly two months of dangerous superhot days each year by the end of the century, with poorer small nations hit far more often than the biggest carbon-polluting countries, a study released Thursday found.

But efforts to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that started 10 years ago with the Paris climate agreement have had a significant effect. Without them Earth would be heading to an additional 114 days a year of those deadly extra hot days, the same study found.