Temperatures dropped across Brazil - with rare snowfall overnight in some places - as a polar air mass advanced toward the center-south of the global agricultural powerhouse, threatening coffee, sugarcane and orange crops with frost reut.rs/3iWd9IM 1/5
'I am 62 years old and had never seen the snow, you know? To see nature's beauty is something indescribable,' said truck driver Iodor Goncalves Marques in Cambara do Sul, a municipality of Rio Grande do Sul state, speaking to TV Globo network 2/5
More than 40 cities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul had icy conditions and at least 33 municipalities had snow, the meteorology company Somar Meteorologia reports 3/5
Unusually cold weather in Brazil has already sent international prices for coffee and sugar higher and Friday was forecast to be the coldest day of the year, according to Marco Antonio dos Santos, a partner at weather consultancy firm Rural Clima 4/5
The polar air mass should move over Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, major producers of sugar, citrus and coffee, on Friday, bringing freezing temperatures reut.rs/3iWd9IM 5/5
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A mixed vaccination of first AstraZeneca and then a Pfizer COVID-19 shot boosted neutralizing antibody levels by six times compared with two AstraZeneca doses, a study from South Korea shows reut.rs/3BE0Edz 1/5
The study involved 499 medical workers - 100 receiving mixed doses, 200 taking two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot and the remainder getting two AstraZeneca shots 2/5
All showed neutralizing antibodies, which prevent the virus from entering cells and replicating, and the result of the mixed schedule of vaccines showed similar amounts of neutralizing antibodies found from the group that received two Pfizer shots 3/5
The world doesn't have the ‘luxury' of waiting for the pandemic to end before tackling climate change, says U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, as the world continues to see the effects of a warming planet reut.rs/2UWYEfB 1/6☀️
🌡 In the UK, Britain’s Met Office announced its first amber extreme heat alert due to unusually high temperatures, warning of its health risks and business impacts reut.rs/3BktxeF 2/6
Catastrophic floods that swept Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands that killed more than 150 people led to urges in Europe for adapting infrastructure now as extreme weather events take place reut.rs/3zggE3j 3/6
Thousands of baby flamingos have died at Turkey's Lake Tuz in the past two weeks from a drought that environmentalists said was the result of climate change and agricultural irrigation methods reut.rs/3kmk4xj 1/5
Drone footage of the large saline lake in Turkey's central province of Konya showed dead flaminglets lying partially buried in dried mud. Lake Tuz is home to a flamingo colony where up to 10,000 flaminglets are born every year 2/5
Turkey's minister of agriculture and forestry said around 1,000 birds were thought to have died but denied that agriculture was to blame.
'With less water and increased concentration ratio in the water, we observed deaths of flaminglets,' Bekir Pakdemirli said 3/5
A top medical organization has thrown its weight behind calls to cancel the Tokyo Olympics saying hospitals are already overwhelmed as the country battles a spike in coronavirus infections less than three months from the start of the Games reut.rs/3tWE2jA 1/5
The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association representing about 6,000 primary care doctors said hospitals in the Games host city 'have their hands full and have almost no spare capacity' amid a surge in infections 2/5
A jump in infections has stoked alarm amid a shortage of medical staff and hospital beds in some areas of the Japanese capital, promoting the government to extend a third state of emergency in Tokyo and several other prefectures until May 31 3/5
More than 30 South Korean college students shaved their heads in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul to protest Japan's decision to release water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, Hyun Yi reports reut.rs/3v1NL99 1/4
Police periodically dispersed crowds, who chanted and held placards, but did not stop the event from taking place, though there is an anti-pandemic ban on gatherings larger than 10 people 2/4
The protesters who were shaved were draped in protective sheets emblazoned with messages condemning the Japanese plan and calling for it to be ditched 3/4