Earth's protective ozone layer is slowly but noticeably healing at a pace that would fully mend the hole over Antarctica in about 43 years, a new United Nations report says.

A once-every-four-years scientific assessment found recovery in progress, more than 35 years after every nation in the world agreed to stop producing chemicals that chomp on the layer of ozone in Earth's atmosphere that shields the planet from harmful radiation linked to skin cancer, cataracts and crop damage.

Several hundred climate activists on Tuesday were trying to block the entry of heavy machinery into an abandoned village in Germany which is due to be cleared for the expansion of a coal mine after a German court rejected a last-ditch attempt by the activists to stay there.

The disputed evacuation of the hamlet of Luetzerath, west of Cologne has become a battleground between the government and environmentalists.

Protesters gathered in the west German village of Luetzerath on Sunday to challenge the extension of an open-air coal mine they say runs counter to the country's climate commitments.

Armed with a smartphone in today's ever more connected world, farmers can remotely monitor the health of their fields, the level of feed in their silos or even the aging of wine in barrels. 

France's government on Monday announced tighter rules against hunting under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and protection for walkers and local residents, but stopped short of a hoped-for Sunday ban.

A United Nations conference on Monday drummed up funds and other support to help Pakistan cope with the fallout of last summer's devastating flooding, which the U.N. chief called a "climate disaster of monumental scale" that killed more than 1,700 people in the immediate aftermath. Millions are still living near contaminated and stagnant flood waters.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres attended in-person, while world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took part virtually, as many countries chipped in to better help Pakistan pull together an estimated $16.3 billion that's needed to help the country rebuild and recover.

The UK's average temperature exceeded 10 degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) last year for the first time since records began -- a once-in-500 years event without man-made climate change.

The EU on Thursday gave a "red card" to Cameroon for failing to cooperate in the international fight against illegal fishing.

In a world getting used to extreme weather, 2023 is starting out more bonkers than ever and meteorologists are saying it's natural weather weirdness with a bit of help from human-caused climate change.

Much of what's causing problems worldwide is coming out of a roiling Pacific Ocean, transported by a wavy jet stream, experts said.

Officials in California ordered evacuations in a high-risk coastal area where mudslides killed 23 people in 2018 as a huge storm barreled into the state Wednesday, bringing high winds and rain that threatened widespread flooding and knocked out power to more than 100,000 people.

The storm was expected to dump up to 6 inches (152.4 millimeters) of rain in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area where most of the region would remain under flood warnings into late Thursday night. In Southern California, the storm was expected to peak in intensity overnight into early Thursday morning with Santa Barbara and Ventura counties likely to see the most rain, forecasters said.