Japan was grappling with transport disruptions on Friday while bracing for more torrential rain and risks from two approaching tropical storms.

The record-breaking heatwave engulfing Western Europe would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change, scientists say.

A Cook Islands fisher lost at sea for a week was knocked out of his dinghy twice during relentless storms and violent seas.

Hundreds of people in Venezuela remain trapped under rubble and many more are still unaccounted for after two powerful earthquakes wreaked havoc in and around the capital Caracas.

A 21-year-old Pasifika woman with a family history of bowel cancer and symptoms was refused for a colonoscopy; five years later she was diagnosed with stage three rectal cancer.