Extreme heat in Mexico, Central America and parts of the U.S. South has left millions of people in sweltering temperatures, strained energy grids and resulted in iconic Howler monkeys in Mexico dropping dead from trees.

Meteorologists say the conditions have been caused by what some refer to as a heat dome — an area of strong high pressure centered over the southern Gulf of Mexico and northern Central America that blocked clouds from forming and caused extensive sunshine and hot temperatures. This extreme heat is occurring in a world that is quickly warming due to greenhouse gases, which come from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

The impact of the calamitous rains that struck East Africa from March to May was intensified by a mix of climate change and rapid growth of urban areas, an international team of climate scientists said in a study published Friday.

The findings come from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists that analyzes whether and to what extent human-induced climate change has altered the likelihood and magnitude of extreme weather events.

Extreme weather events have hit parts of Africa relentlessly in the last three years, with tropical storms, floods and drought causing crises of hunger and displacement. They leave another deadly threat behind them: some of the continent's worst outbreaks of cholera.

In southern and East Africa, more than 6,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 cases have been reported since a series of cholera outbreaks began in late 2021.

On a stifling hot day this May, farm worker Shobha Londhe is reminded of the desperate conditions that led her husband to take his own life. It's the hottest and driest summer in years, she said, and for farm workers that often means little to no income, rising debts and intolerable heat.

Londhe, a resident of Talegaon village in western India, knows well the toll these climate change-induced droughts can take on farmers. Three years ago, she said the family's financial situation was untenable as crops failed from too much heat and not enough water. Her husband Tatya went out to the fields one October day, and never returned.

Extreme weather attributed to the El Nino phenomenon is causing a surge in hunger in several countries, including Zambia and Afghanistan, the UN's World Food Program said Wednesday, and called on donors for much-needed help.

El Niño is a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns, and studies say that as the world warms, they may get stronger.

The first two deaths from waterborne bacterial disease were reported in southern Brazil, where floodwaters were slowly receding, and health authorities warned additional fatalities were likely.

Rio Grande do Sul state's health secretariat confirmed the death of a 33-year-old man due to leptospirosis on Wednesday. On Monday, authorities registered that a 67-year-old man had died from the same infectious disease. Since the beginning of May, 29 cases of the waterborne disease have been confirmed in the state.

Doctors treated hundreds of victims of heatstroke at hospitals across Pakistan on Thursday after an intense heatwave sent temperatures above normal levels due to climate change, officials said.

Temperatures soared as high as 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) the previous day in Mohenjo Daro. The city, known for its archaeological sites, is in southern Sindh province, which was badly hit by climate-induced monsoon rains and devastating floods in 2022. The heatwave is forecast to continue for at least a week.

On a Friday morning in April, Dan Stein, the founder of Giving Green, a climate philanthropy organization, found some big news in a surprising email. An anonymous donor had given his fund $10 million.

"I didn't quite process the number of zeroes," Stein said, adding he was "tickled, awestruck, surprised" by the gift.

Multiple people were killed when a tornado tore through a small town in Iowa and left a wide swath of obliterated homes and crumpled cars, while the howling winds also twisted and toppled wind turbines.

After devastating Greenfield, a town of 2,000, on Tuesday the storms moved eastward to pummel parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers in the two states.

As Texas wildfires burned toward the nation's primary nuclear weapons facility, workers hurried to ensure nothing flammable was around buildings and storage areas.

When the fires showed no sign of slowing, Pantex Plant officials urgently called on local contractors, who arrived within minutes with bulldozers to dig trenches and enlarge fire breaks for the sprawling complex where nuclear weapons are assembled and disassembled and dangerous plutonium pits — hollow spheres that trigger nuclear warheads and bombs — are stored.