A sandstorm engulfed Saudi Arabia's capital and other regions of the desert kingdom Tuesday, hampering visibility and slowing road traffic.

A thick grey haze made iconic Riyadh buildings such as Kingdom Centre nearly impossible to see from more than a few hundred meters (yards) away, though there were no announced flight delays or cancellations. 

Schools and government offices closed in the Iranian capital on Tuesday and elsewhere in the country after yet another sandstorm blanketed Tehran, state TV reported.

The report said the air quality was very poor and that the pollution from the dust was high. It was the third severe sandstorm in Iran since mid-April.

They found no trace of a mythical sea monster, no sign of mobsters in cement shoes or long-lost treasure chests.

But scuba divers who spent a year cleaning up Lake Tahoe's entire 72-mile (115-kilometer) shoreline have come away with what they hope will prove much more valuable: tons and tons of trash.

In Aberdeen, northeast Scotland, offshore wind turbines, the extension to the city's port, and hydrogen buses are clear evidence of the move to green energy.

The climate commitments of global energy giants lack credibility as they rely on costly technologies that have yet to be proven at scale, according to a report published Thursday by Carbon Tracker.

French farmer Robin Lachaux is worried about his wheat. In normal years, it flowers and bulks up in May thanks to regular spring rainfall, but this year hot and dry conditions risk stunting its progress.

"If we don't water it today, we'll lose 50 percent of our output," the young farmer in an orange cap and sweatshirt from Sully-sur-Loire in central France told AFP.  

California's water use jumped dramatically in March, state officials have said, as one of the driest stretches on record prompted a wave of homeowners to start watering their lawns earlier than usual in defiance of Gov. Gavin Newsom's pleas for conservation amid a severe drought.

Newsom last summer asked residents to voluntarily cut water use by 15% compared to 2020 as climate change intensified a drought that threatened to drain the state's reservoirs to dangerously low levels. Water conservation increased gradually through December, aided by some intense fall and early winter storms that reduced water demand.

More than 90% of Great Barrier Reef coral surveyed this year was bleached in the fourth such mass event in seven years in the world's largest coral reef ecosystem, Australian government scientists said.

Bleaching is caused by global warming, but this is the reef's first bleaching event during a La Niña weather pattern, which is associated with cooler Pacific Ocean temperatures, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority said in its annual report released late Tuesday that found 91% of the areas surveyed were affected.

The frequency and duration of droughts will continue to increase due to human-caused climate change, with water scarcity already affecting billions of people across the world, the United Nations warned in a report Wednesday.

The U.N. desertification agency, which is currently hosting a conference of parties in Abidjan in Ivory Coast, estimates that roughly one third of the world's population — 2.3 billion people — is already facing water scarcity, with that number expected to double by 2050.

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged authorities on Tuesday to take stronger action to prevent wildfires and increase coordination between various official agencies in dealing with them.

Speaking in a video call with federal and regional officials, Putin emphasized that wildfires that hit Russia last year were the biggest in years and asked local governors to report on measures that were taken to increase fire safety across the country.