NewsPlexus Media November 13, 2019

An earthbound jet known as the Bloodhound became one of the world's 10 fastest cars this week, on target for its goal to set a new land speed record. "The feeling in this car is fantastic," driver Andy Green told The Associated Press on Friday, days after the Bloodhound hit 501 mph (806 kph) in South Africa's northern desert. "It's quite lively. ... The car is just doing brilliant work."

NewsPlexus Media November 13, 2019

One year after Paradise burned, hundreds of people gathered in the parking lot of a former bank building in the Northern California town to pause for 85 seconds — one for each person who died.

NewsPlexus Media November 12, 2019

Germany marked the 30th anniversary Saturday of the opening of the Berlin Wall, a pivotal moment in the events that brought down Communism in eastern Europe. Leaders from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic attended a ceremony at Bernauer Strasse — where one of the last parts of the Berlin Wall remains — before placing roses in the once-fearsome barrier that divided the city for 28 years.

NewsPlexus Media November 12, 2019

French authorities reopened one of Jerusalem's most magnificent ancient tombs to the public for the first time in over a decade, despite a dispute over access to the archaeological-cum-holy site in the city's volatile eastern half. After several aborted attempts, the French Consulate General reopened the Tomb of the Kings last month. But tensions between French authorities and Israeli nationalists and ultra-Orthodox Jews who seek open worship at the tomb and challenge France's ownership continue to make day to day operations problematic at the site.

NewsPlexus Media November 12, 2019

The U.S. Embassy in Berlin unveiled a statue of Ronald Reagan on Friday at a site overlooking the location of the former president's iconic speech imploring the Soviet Union to remove the Berlin Wall.

NewsPlexus Media November 9, 2019

Flying into the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Midway Atoll appears out of the vast blue Pacific as a tiny oasis of coral-fringed land with pristine white sand beaches that are teeming with life. But on the ground, there's a different scene: plastic, pollution and death. Here's a look at the island.

NewsPlexus Media November 7, 2019

Chestnuts harvested from high branches on a chilly fall morning look typical: they're marble sized, russet colored and nestled in prickly burs. But many are like no other nuts in nature. In a feat of genetic engineering, about half the chestnuts collected at this college experiment station feature a gene that provides resistance to blight that virtually wiped out the American chestnut tree generations ago.

NewsPlexus Media November 7, 2019

A black cat got the best of the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants for a few minutes Monday night.

NewsPlexus Media November 7, 2019

One Missouri sheriff's department has seen the ranks of its deputy dads grow, as 17 law enforcement officers welcomed babies this year. Fourteen of the 17 law enforcement dads, their wives and their babies gathered Monday at Sandy Creek Covered Bridge in Jefferson County for photos.

NewsPlexus Media November 7, 2019

Chris Brown held a high-end yard sale Wednesday at his Los Angeles home, with hundreds of fans, gawkers and bargain-seekers waiting for hours to try to get a piece of the singer's stuff. Brown posted a flyer on his Instagram and Twitter accounts Tuesday night that included the address of his suburban mansion in the Tarzana neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley.

NewsPlexus Media November 6, 2019

When he came to the United States as a refugee from Syria during that country's bloody civil war, there was a lot Diaa Alhanoun didn't know, starting with English. There was one thing he was fairly certain of, though — whatever else the future held in store for him and his family, he was pretty sure it was going to include food, a constant in his life since he had left school at 15 to work in an uncle's restaurant in Damascus. He's working in a restaurant these days — his own.

NewsPlexus Media November 4, 2019

It was a real dog of a ceremony this week during a swearing-in at the state's attorney's office in Chicago. The newly sworn-in worker is a Labrador retriever named Hatty.

NewsPlexus Media November 1, 2019

Mike Chan's tattoo needle buzzes gently as he draws a design on his customer's thigh — a figure wearing a helmet, goggles and mask. Dipping his needle into pots of black, red and yellow ink, Chan hunches over his client's leg as he painstakingly brings to life the image of a Hong Kong protester clad in protective gear. Using his art is Chan's way of contributing to Hong Kong's anti-government protest movement, which has consumed the semi-autonomous Chinese territory for months.

NewsPlexus Media November 1, 2019

Move over, Rocky, there's a new stairway to climb. A set of outdoor steps in the Bronx has become a tourist attraction in recent weeks since the release of the movie "Joker." The stairs are between two buildings on Shakespeare Avenue, about a half-mile from Yankee Stadium.

NewsPlexus Media October 30, 2019

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have handed out candy to hundreds of military families and local schoolchildren as the White House got a head start on Halloween.

NewsPlexus Media October 30, 2019

Mexicans paraded in the streets of the capital dressed as elegant skeletons Saturday as the country's Day of the Dead festivities extend in scope and popularity. Thousands of revelers gathered at the foot of Mexico City's Angel of Independence statue wearing costumes and face paint to imitate the dapper Mexican skeletal figure known as "La Catrina."

NewsPlexus Media October 30, 2019

Two high-risk raids. Two dramatic moments in the White House. Photos taken in the White House Situation Room during the killings of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Saturday and of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden eight years earlier capture the vastly different styles of two American presidents. here are those photos.

NewsPlexus Media October 30, 2019

More than two decades ago when a mega entertainment and shopping complex was being conceived on a vast swath of swamp land in New Jersey, the iPhone didn't exist, Amazon was only selling books online and malls were where you went for all your shopping needs. Now, after endless fits and starts and billions of dollars spent, American Dream is officially opening its doors to the public as the second largest mall in the country, and third largest in North America.

NewsPlexus Media October 30, 2019

The first anniversary of the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history was being marked around the world Sunday with community service projects, music and an online remembrance. The shooting on Oct. 27, 2018, killed 11 worshippers and wounded seven at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where a steady stream of people stopped by Sunday.

NewsPlexus Media October 30, 2019

Medieval Frankenstein Castle has become a favorite haunt for Germans celebrating Halloween, a tradition that's grown increasingly popular in continental Europe in recent years.

NewsPlexus Media October 28, 2019

Visitors are crowding into the Louvre museum in Paris to see a major retrospective of Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings. The exhibition of paintings, drawings and sketches opened Thursday to mark the 500th anniversary of the Italian master's death.

NewsPlexus Media October 28, 2019

A remarkable trove of fossils from Colorado has revealed details of how mammals grew larger and plants evolved after the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs. The thousands of specimens let scientists trace that history over a span of 1 million years, a mere eyeblink in Earth's lifespan.

NewsPlexus Media October 28, 2019

A Minnesota museum has turned its creepiest dolls loose just in time for Halloween. Here's a look at the dolls.

NewsPlexus Media October 25, 2019

It looks like a rock 'n' roll guitar that Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page would have played. But this one is 450 feet (137 meters) tall and is a light-beam hotel that the Seminole Tribe wants to become South Florida's latest tourist destination.

NewsPlexus Media October 23, 2019

"That's not real Mexican food," ''My grandma would slap you" and "sellout" are just some of comments Jose and Leticia Gamiz received when they started their pop-up vegan Mexican food business, Mi Vegana Madre, four years ago. People saw them doing something new and took it personally, Jose Gamiz said. "We even had somebody write (online) in Spanish, 'They're probably not even Mexican.'"

NewsPlexus Media October 22, 2019

A climate-change protester dressed as Prime Minister Boris Johnson has climbed the Big Ben clocktower at Britain's Parliament.

NewsPlexus Media October 23, 2019

They call it the Cosmic Crisp. It's not a video game, a superhero or the title of a Grateful Dead song. It's a new variety of apple, coming to a grocery store near you Dec. 1 Cosmic Crisp is the first apple ever bred in Washington state, which grows the majority of the United States' apples. It's expected to be a game changer.

NewsPlexus Media October 22, 2019

A Berlin zoo says two panda cubs born in August have opened their eyes to the world for the first time last week.

NewsPlexus Media October 22, 2019

New England is awash in historic markers, but a handful of plaques popping up in a New Hampshire town are different. Rather than commemorating important people or places in history, many of these dinner plate-size signs detail events like rising sea levels and an explosion of ticks that have yet to happen — part of an effort to draw attention to the potential effects of climate change.

NewsPlexus Media October 22, 2019

The world's first all-female spacewalking team made history high above Earth on Friday, replacing a broken part of the International Space Station's power grid. As NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir successfully completed the job with wrenches, screwdrivers and power-grip tools, it marked the first time in a half-century of spacewalking that men weren't part of the action.

NewsPlexus Media October 20, 2019

A city councilor in Rhode Island says she thinks the recent vandalism to a Christopher Columbus statue is a good thing. Democrat Katherine Kerwin said she thinks the statue should be removed and that healthy civil disobedience is good for society.

NewsPlexus Media October 19, 2019

A library exhibit, titled "JD Salinger," opened Friday and runs through Jan. 19 at the historic 5th Avenue branch in Manhattan. It continues a surprisingly eventful centennial for Salinger, who died in 2010 and avoided publicity for much of his writing life.

NewsPlexus Media October 19, 2019

Kashmir's apple orchards, backbone of the economy and livelihood for nearly half the region's people, are deserted with fruit rotting on the trees at a time when they should be bustling with harvesters.

NewsPlexus Media October 18, 2019

Along a bustling four-lane highway that winds through the north Georgia mountains, an unassuming wooden structure breaks the monotony of churches, billboards and stores selling kitschy knickknacks. Welcome to Expedition: Bigfoot! The Sasquatch Museum.

NewsPlexus Media October 18, 2019

A Florida animal trapper says he corralled a large alligator by playing with it until it got tired after it hopped into a residential swimming pool.

NewsPlexus Media October 16, 2019

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to surmount U.S.-led sanctions he says have inflicted "many hardships and trials" on his country, state media reported Wednesday, days after his country's first nuclear negotiations with the U.S. in more than seven months fell apart.

NewsPlexus Media October 17, 2019

A Northern California pumpkin hobbyist has won first place at the 46th annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh Off, setting a record for the largest in California.

NewsPlexus Media October 16, 2019

U.S. consumers who appreciate the tang of aged Italian Parmesan cheese as an aperitif or atop their favorite pasta dish are stocking up ahead of next week's tariff hike and as dairy producers in the two countries square off. The Italian agricultural lobby Coldiretti said Friday that sales of both Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano, aged cheeses with a distinctive granular quality that are defined by their territory of origin, have skyrocketed in the United States by 220% since the higher tariffs were announed.

NewsPlexus Media October 16, 2019

A Hawaii family has won a place with the Guinness World Records for the world's heaviest avocado. The Pokini family from the island of Maui received the Guinness certificate for the avocado weighing 5.6 pounds, The Maui News reported Thursday.

NewsPlexus Media October 14, 2019

Archeologists excavating what may have been an ancient Roman drinking den in the ruined city of Pompeii said Friday they have unearthed a well-preserved wall painting of gladiators in action, complete with realistically gory wounds.

NewsPlexus Media October 12, 2019

An Ohio homeowner never envisioned becoming semi-famous because of a goat butting its way into her home and taking a nap in her bathroom. The break-in happened Friday when an escaped male goat from a farm several miles away repeatedly butted against a sliding glass door, breaking into a home.

NewsPlexus Media October 12, 2019

More than a million people in California were without electricity Wednesday as the state's largest utility pulled the plug to prevent a repeat of the past two years when windblown power lines sparked deadly wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes.

NewsPlexus Media October 9, 2019

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent the weekend in southern Siberia's mountains.

NewsPlexus Media October 8, 2019

A herd of wild elephants was swept away by raging waters in a national park in Thailand, drowning six, while rangers helped steer two of the animals out of a deep ravine. Staff at Khao Yai National Park discovered the two struggling elephants and the carcasses after dawn Saturday near the Haew Narok waterfall, also known as the Ravine of Hell.

NewsPlexus Media October 10, 2019

Thousands of people showed up to an outdoor shopping center in Utah to see rapper Kanye West perform what he calls a worship service. Saturday's concert was held right before the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held its twice-yearly conference in Salt Lake City.

NewsPlexus Media October 8, 2019

A boy who charmed the world by exclaiming "Wow!" at the end of a classical music performance was a special guest of the orchestra that inspired his delight.

NewsPlexus Media October 10, 2019

A top marine biologist has urged Thailand’s government to speed up conservation plans for the dugong, an imperiled sea mammal, after their death toll for the year in Thai waters has already climbed to a record 21. Thon Thamrongnawasawat said on his Facebook page that the carcass of a dugong was found Tuesday off the southern province of Krabi.

NewsPlexus Media October 9, 2019

A retired US Secret Service dog who helped protect President Obama in the White House has been honored in Britain for his bravery.

NewsPlexus Media October 8, 2019

A white-tailed eagle named Victor won’t be filming over the Alps this week after forecasts forced a foundation that hoped to raise awareness about climate change to cancel the bird’s five flights this week.

NewsPlexus Media October 8, 2019

Alaska’s northern fur seal population for three decades has been classified as depleted, but the marine mammals are showing up in growing numbers at an unlikely location: a tiny island that forms the tip of an active undersea volcano.