Indonesian authorities closed an airport and residents left homes near an erupting volcano Thursday due to the dangers of spreading ash, falling rocks, hot volcanic clouds and the possibility of a tsunami.

Mount Ruang on the northern side of Sulawesi Island had at least five large eruptions Wednesday, causing the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation to issue its highest level alert, indicating an active eruption.

Strong storms have caused damage in parts of the middle U.S. and spawned tornadoes in Kansas and Iowa, including one that left two people hurt.

An EF-1 tornado touched down shortly after 6 a.m. near the northeastern Kansas town of Richland, the National Weather Service said. The twister reached speeds of up to 100 mph (161 kph) and was on the ground for about 20 minutes, the service said.

Spain's drought-stricken northeastern Catalonia is considering imposing water restrictions on tourists in the driest parts of the region if domestic consumption is not curtailed, the Catalan government said Tuesday.

The restriction of 100 liters (26 gallons) per tourist per day for hotels would go into effect if a municipality fails to keep domestic water use by residents below established limits for three consecutive months under the current "drought emergency" for Catalonia, officials said.

Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the United States are more likely than the overall adult population to believe in human-caused climate change, according to a new poll. It also suggests that partisanship may not have as much of an impact on this group's environmental views, compared to Americans overall.

A recent poll from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 84% of AAPI adults agree climate change exists. In comparison, 74% of U.S. adults hold the same sentiment. And three-quarters of AAPI adults who accept climate change is real attribute it entirely or mostly to human activity. Among the general U.S. adult population surveyed in an AP-NORC poll in September, only 61% say humans are causing it.

The first leg of the Asian Champions League semifinal between Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal has been postponed from Tuesday to Wednesday after torrential rain brought floods to the host country.

The Asian Football Confederation made the decision after thunderstorms pounded the UAE, flooding out portions of major highways and closing roads and bridges. The UAE's national federation had earlier called off all local football games.

Lightning and heavy rains led to 14 deaths in Pakistan, officials said Wednesday, bringing the death toll from four days of extreme weather to at least 63, as the heaviest downpour in decades flooded villages on the country's southwestern coast.

Most of the deaths were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan's northwest bordering Afghanistan. Collapsing buildings have killed 32 people, including 15 children and five women, said Khursheed Anwar, a spokesman for the Disaster Management Authority. Dozens more were also injured in the northwest, where 1,370 houses were damaged, Anwar said.

Heavy thunderstorms lashed the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, dumping the heaviest rain ever recorded in the country in the span of hours as it flooded out portions of major highways and Dubai's international airport.

The state-run WAM news agency called the rain "a historic weather event" that surpassed "anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949." That's before the discovery of crude oil in this energy-rich nation then part of a British protectorate known as the Trucial States.

Nearly 14,500 homes have been flooded in a Russian region bordering Kazakhstan after water levels spiked in a local river, local authorities said Tuesday.

The floods sparked evacuations of thousands in the Orenburg region, located some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles), southeast of the capital, Moscow, after a dam on the Ural River burst last week under the pressure of surging waters.

Tens of millions of Americans stretching from Lincoln, Nebraska, to Baltimore could face strong thunderstorms Monday night through Wednesday, with tornadoes possible in some states.

A large storm system hitting much of the central U.S. over the next few days is expected to bring severe thunderstorms to Kansas and Nebraska on Monday evening, the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center said.

The Maui Fire Department is expected to release a report Tuesday detailing how the agency responded to a series of wildfires that burned on the island during a windstorm last August — including one that killed 101 people in the historic town of Lahaina and became the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.

The release comes one day before the Hawaii Attorney General is expected to release the first phase of a separate comprehensive investigation about the events before, during and after the Aug. 8 fires.