A changing climate seems to be shortening Africa's dry season, resulting in less land scorched during the wildfire season according to new science.

For all the column inches devoted to the record wildfire seasons in France, Spain, or the Amazon, it is still and has always been Africa that's the center of world wildfires.

70% of all wildfires around the globe occur in Africa during the two seasons in the north and the south, amounting to half of all global CO2 emissions resulting from wildfires—one continent, half the smoke.

Yet a new analysis from researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences shows that rains have trended towards later and later dates of cessation, delaying the onset of the dry season when parched grasses need only a single spark to ignite and burn for days.

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, examined records of rainfall complied across Africa covering a period between 1990 and 2023. The authors then compared these with satellite observations of fires between 2003 and 2022.

The result suggests that increased rainfall contributed to delayed dry season onset in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, with the season starting

From Big Sky Country comes a rescue story so cliche that even Hollywood scriptwriters would pass it over.

A 14-year-old obsessed with roping cattle rescued a man who'd fallen into a river Indiana Jones-style, catching him around the neck and arm with his lasso.

Jory Thomas was spending 4th of July weekend at his grandparents house along the Yellowstone River near Greycliff, in Sweet Grass County, when he heard someone screaming for help.

4 people, in a raft and paddle board, had struck a bridge pier and fallen in. 3 managed to get to shore, but a 4th clung helplessly to a cooler, silently and swiftly moving downriver.

Thomas didn't think twice, he later admitted. He emptied his pockets, took his lariat and waded out up to his chest. What he had planned was straight out of a western movie.

That year, the "ranch kid" Thomas had become fixated with roping, or catching cow calves with a lasso.

"I actually started really getting into roping this year. I went to brandings and started

On this day 96 years ago, at the conclusion of the inaugural FIFA World Cup, La Celeste, or Uruguay, won the trophy. Rarely considered as favorites in the tournament's editions these days, Uruguay was on a tear by the time the first World Cup kicked off in Montevideo, Uruguay's capital. They had won the 1924 and 1928 Olympic football tournaments. Beating Argentina 2-1 in the '28 Olympics, they beat their cross-border rivals again, 4-2, to win the World Cup. READ about the history of the competition… (1930)

After their victory, Uruguay boycotted the following two editions of the tournament and didn't return to the competition until 1950, but the twenty-year break and a changing of the generations hardly disrupted this early dominance. Against Brazil in the final, Uruguay claimed its second title. This feat became an integral part of Uruguay's football identity and a source of inspiration for upcoming footballers with each passing generation.

Apart from 1942 and 1946, the FIFA World Cup has been organized every four years, with the original editions supposed to be alternated between South American and European hosts.

A sprinkle of crushed basalt rock has turned out to be the fairy dust that newly planted forests need to develop faster and absorb more carbon.

That's what scientists from Imperial College London are reporting in a new study from the largest field experiment studying how "enhanced weathering" and soil microbiome enrichment can potentially improve new forest establishment.

Forests are being planted in mass all around the world, with billions of trees at the same stages of life all rising in unison with the hopes that they will absorb extra CO2 emissions and restore wildlife habitat.

One of the biggest challenges is ensuring these juvenile forests develop in a way that sees them survive long enough for their carbon storage potential to meaningfully affect the current carbon cycle, and it's well documented that mass tree-planting can go hand in hand with mass tree die offs.

In Wales, the Glandwr Forest Carbon Study is being carried out in partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Carbon Community, Imperial College London, and the University

For the 3rd consecutive year, global hunger as measured by malnourishment among continental populations has fallen.

It's also the first time that the malnourished as a share of global population has fallen below 8% since the government-enforced business closures and supply disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The reduction is driven by a steep, 5-year decline of malnourishment in Asia, and a lesser decline over the same period in the Caribbean and Latin America.

On a 3-year time horizon, Oceania also saw a drop of 0.4%. Africa remains the world's most undernourished continent, with averages above 20% in some regions, with the worst being located in conflict zones.

Presented in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 report, 7.8% of the global population is considered malnourished.

It's a huge improvement since 1970, when undernourishment afflicted nearly 35% of the population living outside Europe and North America.

GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME: 

Since 2010, inspiring declines have been witnessed particularly in Southeast Asia and Central

A dog owner says her pooch saved her life, by repeatedly pawing at her armpit, which eventually alerted her to breast cancer.

The 61-year-old says her chihuahua Flag started the odd behavior years ago, constantly hitting the underside of her arm with his paw.