NewsPlexus Media September 5, 2019

Just hours after a fire raced through a scuba diving boat, a memorial started sprouting up to commemorate the lives of 34 people who died trapped below decks. Days later, it has all but enveloped the sprawling harbor boardwalk where the boat, the Conception, once docked in Santa Barbara. Hundreds of flowers, framed photographs, flags, candles, seashells, swim fins and other mementos stretched for yards, some accompanied by heartfelt expressions of grief.

NewsPlexus Media September 4, 2019

There's no mistaking it depicts Donald Trump: a large wooden statue of the U.S. president has been erected in Slovenia, the homeland of his wife Melania. When triggered, a mechanism opens a red-painted mouth and shark-like teeth appear.

NewsPlexus Media September 2, 2019

A basketball-sized grapefruit has brought two world records to a Louisiana couple. The Guinness Book of World Records says it's the world's heaviest and largest in circumference.

NewsPlexus Media September 3, 2019

A fossil from Ethiopia is letting scientists look millions of years into our evolutionary history — and they see a face peering back. The find, from 3.8 million years ago, reveals the face for a presumed ancestor of the species famously represented by Lucy, the celebrated Ethiopian partial skeleton found in 1974.

NewsPlexus Media September 2, 2019

More than 20,000 people pelted each other with ripe tomatoes Wednesday in the annual "Tomatina" street battle in a town in eastern Spain that has become a major tourist attraction. The party saw 145 tons of tomatoes offloaded from six trucks into crowds packing Buñol's streets for the midday hour-long battle.

NewsPlexus Media September 2, 2019

Dr. Seuss is hitting the road this fall with a large interactive exhibit that will immerse visitors in some of the most iconic books by the beloved children's writer. The exhibit is centered on a maze based on "Oh, the Places You'll Go," the Dr. Seuss book that urges children to explore the world and move mountains despite the pitfalls and challenges. Children and adults will be able to explore rooms based on "The Cat in the Hat," ''The Lorax," ''Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" and other works.

NewsPlexus Media August 30, 2019

Paris celebrated the American soldiers, French Resistance fighters and others who liberated the City of Light from Nazi occupation exactly 75 years ago on Sunday, unleashing an eruption of kissing, dancing, tears and gratitude. Firefighters unfurled a huge French flag from the Eiffel Tower, recreating the moment when a French tricolor stitched together from sheets was hoisted atop the monument 75 years ago to replace the swastika flag that had flown for four years.

NewsPlexus Media August 30, 2019

University of Nevada, Reno officials knew it was a bit of a gamble when they agreed to lease a downtown casino hotel tower for a year and turn it into a college dormitory. Yet with fall classes beginning, school officials say there's been less pushback than anticipated to the unorthodox arrangement with Eldorado Resorts' Circus Circus, at one end of Reno's main casino drag about a half-mile from campus.

NewsPlexus Media August 29, 2019

Countries have agreed to protect more than a dozen shark species at risk of extinction, in a move aimed at conserving some of the ocean's most awe-inspiring creatures who have themselves become prey to commercial fishing and the Chinese appetite for shark fin soup. Three proposals covering the international trade of 18 types of mako sharks, wedgefishes and guitarfishes each passed with a needed two-thirds majority in a committee of the World Wildlife Conference known as CITES on Sunday.

NewsPlexus Media August 28, 2019

It's hard to recognize Paradise. It is heaps of melted metal. It is scorched pine trees. It is a place where things used to be, before a fire destroyed nearly 19,000 structures and killed 86 people last November. But on Friday night, Paradise looked like home again. Thousands of people filled the stands at Om Wraith Field at Paradise High School — which was spared from the flames — to watch the depleted football team play its first game since losing everything.

NewsPlexus Media August 29, 2019

Hundreds of bicyclists have been caught with their pants down — and their shirts and underwear off, too. The cyclists gathered in a Philadelphia park on Saturday to disrobe before saddling up and setting off on the annual Philly Naked Bike Ride.

NewsPlexus Media August 28, 2019

This is where Earth's refrigerator door is left open, where glaciers dwindle and seas begin to rise. New York University air and ocean scientist David Holland, who is tracking what's happening in Greenland from both above and below, calls it "the end of the planet." He is referring to geography more than the future. Yet in many ways this place is where the planet's warmer and watery future is being written.

NewsPlexus Media August 27, 2019

A 500-year-old mummy of an Incan girl has been returned to Bolivia some 129 years after it was donated to the Michigan State University Museum, marking what an official says is the first time human remains of archaeological importance have been repatriated to the Andean country. The mummy amazes many because of its excellent state of preservation: Its black braids seem recently combed and its hands still cling to small feathers. Let's take a look at the mummy.

NewsPlexus Media August 27, 2019

An artist says she'll remove most tattoos from a large painting of former NBA star Larry Bird on an Indianapolis multi-family residence. The tattoos include two rabbits mating on his right arm and a spider web on a shoulder.

NewsPlexus Media August 23, 2019

A Hong Kong bakery is doing its part to support the city's pro-democracy protest movement by making mooncakes with a message. At Wah Yee Tang, the traditional Chinese harvest festival treat comes with a twist: slogans opposing the city's Beijing-backed government and promoting Hong Kong's unique identity that have become popular rallying cries during the protests.

NewsPlexus Media August 22, 2019

Three stone pillars were placed Monday near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, marking the final step in a $2 million effort to memorialize the bombing that killed three people. The understated monument of granite and bronze, which took four years to plan and develop, was supposed to be ready last year for the fifth anniversary of the April 15, 2013, attack, but underwent significant redesigns and other delays.

NewsPlexus Media August 22, 2019

Musician Paul Simon joined environmentalists trying to reinvigorate a Hawaii forest on Maui and planted a tree during a ceremony, a report said. The singer-songwriter visited Auwahi Forest Restoration Project with volunteers who are trying to revive plant life in the area.

NewsPlexus Media August 20, 2019

Protestors are walking sheep past government buildings as part of "Farmers for a People's Vote" to highlight the risk Brexit presents to livestock. Take a gander at some of the sheep.

NewsPlexus Media August 21, 2019

Doggy Con drew hundreds of dog owners and spectators Saturday to an Atlanta park for their own small cosplay convention, dressing up like fictional characters from video games, movies and other corners of the pop culture universe.

NewsPlexus Media August 21, 2019

Thousands of strangers came to say goodbye to a woman who was killed in a mass shooting in El Paso after hearing her longtime companion had few family members left. Antonio Basco had told reporters he felt alone in planning the funeral for Margie Reckard, one of 22 people killed when a gunman opened fire at a Walmart on Aug. 3. Basco had almost no family left, so he invited the world to join him in remembering his companion of 22 years.

NewsPlexus Media August 20, 2019

From guitars to traditional medicines and from tusk to tail, mankind's exploitation of the planet's fauna and flora is putting some of them at risk of extinction. Representatives of some 180 nations are meeting in Geneva to agree on protections for vulnerable species, taking up issues including the trade in ivory and the demand for shark fin soup. Here's a look at some of those endangered animals.

NewsPlexus Media August 20, 2019

It was a funeral for ice. With poetry, moments of silence and political speeches about the urgent need to fight climate change, Icelandic officials, activists and others bade goodbye to what once was a glacier.

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

Monarchs are in trouble, despite efforts by countless volunteers and organizations across the United States to nurture the beloved butterfly. The Trump administration's new order weakening the Endangered Species Act could well make things worse for the monarch, one of more than 1 million species that are struggling around the globe

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

Greta Thunberg's two-week voyage to the United States will be no pleasure cruise. The 16-year-old climate change activist who has inspired student protests around the world will leave Plymouth, England, bound for New York in a high-tech but decidedly low-comfort sailboat.

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

A French tightrope walker has kicked off a contemporary circus festival in Prague with a high-wire trip across the Vltava River. Thousands of people on the river's banks and a nearby bridge in the Czech capital applauded as Tatiana-Mosio Bongoga inched along a rope strung 115 feet above the water

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

Tiffany & Co. is launching its first comprehensive jewelry collection for men in October as it seeks to diversify its traditional customer base. The line announced Thursday is part of the Tiffany's strategy to attract younger shoppers and pump up sales, which have been dampened by a decline in spending by tourists from China and elsewhere.

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

Scientists in New Zealand said Wednesday they've found fossilized bones from an extinct monster penguin that was about the size of an adult human and swam the oceans some 60 million years ago. They said the previously undiscovered species is believed to have stood about 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed up to 176 pounds. It's believed to have been one of several species of giant penguins that thrived soon after dinosaurs died out.

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

Spaceport America is no longer just a shiny shell of hope that space tourism would one day launch from this remote spot in the New Mexico desert. The once-empty hangar that anchors the taxpayer-financed launch and landing facility has been transformed into a custom-tailored headquarters where Virgin Galactic will run its commercial flight operations.

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

The fields of rippling ice 500 feet below the NASA plane give way to the blue-green of water dotted with irregular chunks of bleached-white ice, some the size of battleships, some as tall as 15-story buildings. Like nearly every other glacier on Greenland, the massive Kangerlussuaq is melting. In fact, the giant frozen island has seen one of its biggest melts on record this year. NASA scientist Josh Willis is now closely studying the phenomenon in hopes of figuring out precisely how global warming is eating away at Greenland's ice.

NewsPlexus Media August 19, 2019

Who's a good dog? The American Kennel Club says there are now a million of them. The club announced Wednesday that a Bernese mountain dog named Fiona recently became its 1 millionth "canine good citizen," including dogs past and present. Fiona and owner Nora Pavone had a special reason for pursuing the club's mark of canine comportment: Fiona spends her days comforting people at the Pavone family's Brooklyn funeral home.

NewsPlexus Media August 16, 2019

Most African asylum seekers who made the perilous journey through Central America to the southern U.S. border and flooded shelters in Maine's largest city have new homes. Thursday marked the closing of an emergency shelter set up in a basketball arena in Portland after several hundred African immigrants arrived from Texas. All told, the city has found homes for more than 200 people since the first families arrived in June.

NewsPlexus Media August 16, 2019

The Indonesian city of Yogyakarta and its hinterland are packed with tourist attractions, including Buddhist and Hindu temples of World Heritage. Yet many tourists still bypass the congested city and head to the relaxing beaches of Bali. Recently re-elected President Joko Widodo wants to change this dynamic by pushing ahead with creating "10 new Balis," an ambitious plan to boost tourism and diversify South Asia's largest economy.

NewsPlexus Media August 14, 2019

Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn perched there without a care in the 1953 film "Roman Holiday." But the Spanish Steps in Rome are no longer a place for sitting. Enforcing an ordinance that took effect last month, police officers patrolled the famed stone staircase Wednesday to tell locals and visitors "Please, no sitting" on one of the Eternal City's most recognizable landmarks.

NewsPlexus Media August 13, 2019

A Southern California seaside community is in an uproar after a home was given a new paint job featuring two huge emoji on a bright pink background. Check out the emoji here.

NewsPlexus Media August 13, 2019

It was 50 years ago that The Beatles caused a traffic delay. And hundreds of fans of the Fab Four gathered Thursday at a crosswalk in London's St. John's Wood neighborhood immortalized on the "Abbey Road" album to recreate the cover photo half a century after it was taken.

NewsPlexus Media August 12, 2019

A Spanish nature conservation center says that the first baby lynx has been born in the Pyrenees in nearly a century. The Eurasian lynx is considered extinct in the Spanish and French Pyrenees, and the last time it was witnessed in these mountains was in the 1930s.

NewsPlexus Media August 12, 2019

A Belgian wildlife park is proudly announcing the birth of twin baby giant pandas. Pairi Daiza said in a tweet Friday that Hao Hao, a panda loaned to the park by China in 2014, has given birth to "two little 'pink shrimps' that are in good health and that she is taking care of with extraordinary maternal love."

NewsPlexus Media August 12, 2019

The cooling tower of a former nuclear power plant next to the Rhine River in Germany that was online for just 13 months has been demolished, 31 years after it stopped producing electricity.

NewsPlexus Media August 9, 2019

One of the most beloved birds in Maine is having one of its most productive seasons for mating pairs in years on remote islands off the state's coast. Atlantic puffins, with their colorful beaks and waddling walks, are one of New England's best recognized seabirds. The birds are well on their way to setting a record for the number of breeding pairs, said National Audubon Society scientist Stephen Kress.

NewsPlexus Media August 8, 2019

Dozens of billion-dollar companies. Thousands of high-paying IT and manufacturing jobs. Luxury apartments towering over the Bay of Bengal. The southern Indian city of Chennai has one of the world's fastest-growing economies, but it's out of water, threatening to put a brake on all that growth. Here's a look at the city.

NewsPlexus Media August 9, 2019

A restored World War II Spitfire has taken off from an English aerodrome on the first leg of a planned 27,000-mile trip around the globe. Pilots Steve Brooks and Matt Jones hope to circle the world in about four months with stops in 30 countries.

NewsPlexus Media August 6, 2019

Hiroshima marked the 74rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city with its mayor renewing calls for eliminating such weapons and demanding Japan's government do more. Mayor Kazumi Matsui raised concerns in his peace address Tuesday about the rise of self-centered politics in the world and urged leaders to steadily work toward achieving a world without atomic weapons.

NewsPlexus Media August 6, 2019

Over 100 people packed the lobby of a San Francisco public high school to view a controversial mural criticized as racist and degrading for its depiction of black and Native American people. Officials allowed visitors to see the "Life of Washington" mural for two hours on Thursday after the San Francisco School Board voted in June to paint over the 83-year-old fresco.

NewsPlexus Media August 7, 2019

The heat wave that smashed high temperature records in five European countries a week ago is now over Greenland, accelerating the melting of the island's ice sheet and causing massive ice loss in the Arctic.

NewsPlexus Media August 7, 2019

San Francisco started its "Pit Stop" program in July 2014 with public toilets in the city's homeless-heavy Tenderloin, after children complained of dodging human waste on their way to school. Today, the staffed bathrooms have grown from three to 25 locations, and the program has expanded to Los Angeles. In May, the toilets in San Francisco recorded nearly 50,000 flushes, all logged by attendants.

NewsPlexus Media August 7, 2019

For the first time in recorded history, a pond of water has been discovered inside the summit crater of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, a development that could signal a shift to a more explosive phase of future eruptions. After a week of questions about a mysterious green patch at the bottom of the volcano's Halemaumau crater, the former home of a famed lava lake, researchers confirmed the presence of water on Thursday.

NewsPlexus Media August 6, 2019

Is it a bird? A plane? No, it's a French inventor flying over the English Channel on his hoverboard. Looking like a superhero, Franky Zapata successfully completed the famed 22-mile journey in just 22 minutes Sunday morning, reaching speeds of up to 110 mph on the flyboard that has made him a French household name.

NewsPlexus Media August 6, 2019

Indonesia's sprawling capital and other parts of Java island were hit by a widespread power outage on Sunday that affected tens of millions of people. The eight-hour blackout began at around noon and caused disruptions in cellphone services and cash machines. The new mass subway system in Jakarta, the capital, had to shut down.

NewsPlexus Media August 6, 2019

Egypt started the first-ever restoration work on a gold-covered sarcophagus of the famed boy pharaoh Tutankhamun, ahead of the country's new museum opening next year, the antiquities minister said Sunday.

NewsPlexus Media August 6, 2019

Tourists aiming for postcard-perfect photos of the White House at first couldn't avoid the black metal bicycle racks that were arranged to form an extra security barrier against possible fence-jumpers. The racks were in just about every shot. But visitors now must contend with a tall white wooden barrier that's obscuring prime views of the executive mansion.