If you ever wanted to be friends with Timon from The Lion King, Will Burrad-Lucas will make you jealous.
Categories
Meet The Photographer Beloved By Meerkats
Author: Julie Farrar
Two sisters return to the camp 70 years after they were first brought there, sharing memories of snowball fights, feelings of guilt and the need to never forget.
CAIRO — The desperation that causes such aggressive tactics is understandable. Nowadays, Egypt is in the headlines more for sporadic bombings, rowdy demonstrations and security crackdowns than for its wealth of tourist attractions. Unsurprisingly, tourist arrivals have tumbled, from a peak of around 14 million in 2010, to just 9.5 million last year, most of […]
-OpEd- This is the time of year when American colleges inform applicants whether they’ll be accepted or not. Admission to prestigious universities grows tougher every year. Stanford University“s acceptance rate has fallen from 22.4% in 1970 to 5.7% in 2013. It’s the same for the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, […]
Categories
11 Animals In Unlikely Places
In case you missed this gem on our homepage, check out our world tour of animals in places you wouldn’t usually expect them… Read it here. Photo: Dromedar61
Categories
Pardoned Just As He Was Hanged
BANDAR ABBAS — A “few seconds” after an Iranian man’s hanging began, his victim’s relatives called prison officials to grant a pardon, as Iranian laws allow. According to prison authorities in the south of the country on April 20, the man survived the hanging — which was on an unspecified recent date — and is […]
Categories
The Myth Of The Asian Math Genius
SHANGHAI — After the excellent performance of Shanghai children in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an expert delegation led by British Education Minister Elizabeth Truss paid a visit to Shanghai recently to learn from the city’s experience in teaching – and teaching math, in particular. The local press reported that the visiting delegation […]
The daughter of Lea Garofalo, who was brutally killed by her Italian mob husband in 2009, courageously speaks out against the dark underworld – and her own father and boyfriend.
“It’s not easy being green.” — Kermit the Frog PARIS – For some of us, being green is a hard-to-quantify choice of using a reusable bag at the grocery storetaking or taking public transport. But for others, environmental friendliness is a hard calculation to reach carbon-neutral status. That means removing as much carbon dioxide from […]
Categories
New Research Says That Dolphins Can Speak
We all know how smart dolphins can be, whether they’re learning tricks or being part of the Russian navy. But, can they actually talk to each other? Dolphins have shown the ability to imitate various noises and whistles, and there has also been some research showing that they can — at least in captivity — […]
A dozen Paolo Parisi eggs can cost you 20 euros. But it’s a small price for the finest Italian chefs, who can taste the difference when an egg comes from a hen fed on goat’s milk.
For reals.
As Hillary Clinton took to the stage for a speech Thursday night in Las Vegas, a woman threw a shoe at the former Secretary of State. It whizzed just past Clinton, who quippied afterward: “Thank goodness she didn’t play softball like I did.” A spokesperson for the recycling institute, to whom Clinton was speaking, said […]
Categories
Freak Lightning Storm In Chile Kills 67 Cows
RÍO BUENO — Sixty-seven cows were killed earlier this week after they were electrocuted by a lightning bolt during a powerful electrical storm in southern Chile. Local news sources reported that the single bolt on Sunday night was so strong it split a tree in two, and caused internal burns on the animals that proved […]
On March 18, hundreds of Taiwanese university students stormed and occupied the Legislative Yuan, the island nation’s parliament. Five days later, they joined other civic groups and invaded the Executive Yuan, before being evicted forcibly by the police. In technical terms, the demonstrators were protesting the unilateral decision of Taiwan’s ruling party to pass the […]
They must look good and know how to…shop.
Turkey’s Prime Minister warns his enemies, Condi Rice warns her friends, Rob Ford rides again, and other notable quotes in the news.
ROME — A prominent Turkish journalist said she has been fired as payback for her Italian husband’s recent interview in La Repubblica with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s arch nemesis, Fethullah Gülen. In an interview published Thursday in La Repubblica, where her Italian husband Marco Ansaldo is a veteran correspondent, Yasemin Taskin confirmed that she […]
L’AQUILA — In this city in central Italy, there is an entire generation of children who ride in cars and go to restaurants like other Italian kids, but still have never gone to a proper school. These are the kids from L’Aquila, hit by an earthquake five years ago — on April 6, 2009 — […]
Have you ever heard a peacock’s cry? It kind of sounds like a cross between an angry cat and a hungry baby. Now, imagine that video’s audio on an endless loop – for four years. That’s what a couple in Marseille had to listen to, only interupted by the cry the bird makes when it’s […]
BUENOS AIRES — A pending amendment to Argentina’s Hunting Act will consider packs of wild dogs in rural areas as harmful, allowing them to be hunted or captured. This has caused much discussion among animal rights groups, which claim that this amendment is would allow only authorized agencies to shoot or trap the animals, La […]
Could landlocked Switzerland finally get some coastline? There is a movement afoot pushing Swiss annexation of the Italian island of Sardinia.
ISTANBUL — The current state of Turkey offers little cause for comfort. • The claims of corruption and theft multiply with each passing day. • Those same claims are about to be swept under the rug. • The judiciary is effectively finished. • Limitation of basic freedoms is on the rise. • Authoritarianism is alive […]
What happened when the most powerful man in the world felt the aura of the Argentine pontiff.
Ten people have been arrested for suspected animal trafficking after 1,500 tortoises and 80 caimans were discovered on a boat in northern Colombia. The animals are both on the South American country’s endangered wildlife list. Police stopped the boat on a river in the Mahates region, which is full of lakes and swamps, and is […]
-Opinion- BEIJING — After trying it out for less than two months, China’s southeast city of Guangzhou has announced it will suspend the “safe baby hatch” program, which provided a secure place to leave abandoned babies to increase their chance for survival. Since Guangzhou’s Children’s Social Welfare Home launched the arrangement earlier this year, 262 […]
While many news outlets have been wondering what will happen to the Ukrainian navy in Crimea, the question that everyone has really been wondering about has finally been answered: The dolphins in Sevastopol’s combat unit will indeed become Russian. The combat program trains these hyper-intelligent mammals to patrol open water and attach buoys to items […]
Categories
Going The Distance: Loved-Up Storks Edition
While this may sound like something from a Disney film, we assure you that it is nothing less than true love: A male stork flies 13,500 kilometers every single year to be with his beloved. This year, for the twelfth time, the male known as Klepetan has made the journey all the way from southern […]
PALERMO — Italy was in shock again this week after a 2-year-old boy was killed in a revenge hit by the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU) organized crime syndicate on a Puglia motorway Monday night. The little boy, Domenico Petruzzelli, was one of three people, along with his mother and her partner — a convicted murderer […]
Categories
Treating Cancer In War-Torn Syria
DAMASCUS — Syria’s medical infrastructure has crumbled, making traditional treatments hard to come by for patients still living in the country. That has left raditional herbal and medicinal druggists, known as Attareen, as the only real alternative to cancer patients and other long-term care patients trapped in Syria. Jawad, who has lung cancer, often visits Damascus’ Shaalan Market in search of tropical fruits. Readily available and costing between $8 and $14, Jawad and many of his friends who are also cancer patients have included these fruits in their daily diet. “During my online research for alternative cancer treatments, I found […]
Proud of its more than 4,000-year history and heritage, Peru is starting to take exception to certain tourist pranks at venerable sites — most notably, the new fad of posing nude atop Machu Picchu, and sharing the photos online. The cases of in-the-buff visitors at the 15th Century Inca citadel, a UNESCO World Heritage site, […]
An orphanage in this southeastern city received more abandoned babies in a pilot “safe haven” program than anywhere else in the country.
Egyptian writer Haytham El Wardany’s latest work offers a novel approach to dealing with the capital’s overwhelming excess of aural stimulation.
MILAN — The economic crisis isn’t affecting just bipeds. Our furry four-legged friends have also been struggling, as many have been abandoned or neglected when their families no longer had the resources to care for them. Italy has launched its first food bank for animals to help with this problem, thanks to the volunteer group […]
Categories
Hit It! The St. Patrick’s Day Edition
March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day and while Ireland gets the day off to celebrate, those of Irish decent (and whoever else may be thirsty) will be celebrating this weekend. So, we decided to put a “green” version of Hit It! for this week to get you in the mood. Our bonus video this week […]
It will take the international community years to recover from the trust Russia violated over its illegal interference in Ukraine. But Putin and his close collaborators will never be punished.
BEIJING — The Tibetan mastiff is a breed of dog prized for its hardy build and exotic beauty. (photo: Pleple2000) Though now domesticated, it traces its origins to ancient times when it roamed the highlands of Central Asia. Here’s one in its native stomping ground on the Tibetan mountain of Gonggar. (photo: Dennis Jarvis) But […]
Why can’t the Italian state take better care of one of the world’s most treasured archeological sites? A tour of ancient artifacts, contemporary degradation and out-of-order bathrooms.
The path of the EU and the U.S. on Ukraine is defining not only the West’s long-term interests but also the key geopolitical players involved. A Russian look at two key diplomatic players.
KHARKIV — There’s a critical situation in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and it doesn’t involve human rights. If the city zoo doesn’t get more money by Monday, officials say the animals there will begin to die of starvation. Zoo director Aleksey Yakovlev says that there is a pregnant elephant named Tandy who is […]