I have a knack for finding interesting things about places that I go to. This time I had an interesting experience when I was in Atlanta the other week that I would like to share with others. After I got to my hotel I decided to scout around the downtown area to find places to hangout and eat for the next few days that I was going to be there. [Read the rest...]

PETA has long warned that having students dissect animals in the classroom has the unintended consequence of teaching kids disrespect for living beings, and a recent prank involving a dead cat appears to bolster our case. A senior at John Jay High School in San Antonio stole a dead cat from the school’s dissection laboratory and placed the body on another student’s car. The victim in turn placed the cat [Read the rest...]

LONDON – Airlines clashed with regulators and pilots Tuesday as passengers braced themselves for days of uncertainty and chaos caused by a volcanic ash cloud being blown across the British Isles. Britain’s weather service said the ash from Iceland’s Grimsvotn volcano had moved over parts of Scotland, prompting air regulators to warn airlines that they had to seek permission to fly to and from the area. Hundreds of flights were [Read the rest...]

A bit of progress is being reported at the Japanese nuclear power plant, crippled by last month’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting large tsunami. The operator of the severely damaged Fukushima-1 nuclear plant and Japan’s government are contending the worst is past, here. But the president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Masataka Shimizu, is again apologizing for causing the month-long crisis that has provoked health and environmental concerns far [Read the rest...]

Shingu, Japan Tokyo officials warned today that infants should not drink city tap water because radioactive iodine exceeded legal limits at one purification facility, even as hopes rose that the source of that contamination – the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant – may soon be under control. Infants are much more vulnerable than adults to iodine-131, which officials have measured at 210 becquerels per liter. The limit for infants is [Read the rest...]

SOMA, Japan (AP) — High levels of radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The government warned 140,000 people nearby to stay indoors to avoid exposure. Tokyo also reported slightly elevated radiation levels, but officials said the increase was too small to threaten [Read the rest...]

Reporting from Beijing and Tokyo — Hundreds are dead after the worst earthquake in generations struck off the northeast coast of Japan on Friday, setting off a devastating tsunami that swallowed swaths of coastal territory and fanned out across the Pacific Ocean, threatening everything in its path. The 8.9-magnitude earthquake — the world’s fifth-largest since 1900 and the biggest in Japan in 140 years — struck at 2:46 p.m. local [Read the rest...]

BEIJING — An earthquake toppled more than 1,000 houses and apartment buildings in China’s southwest near the border with Myanmar on Thursday, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 200, officials and state media said. Photos from the scene showed buildings that buckled, crushing their lower floors. Police, firefighters and soldiers rushed to the area to pull out people trapped in the rubble, including a man and girl [Read the rest...]

Christchurch was described as a city in shock with many dead and injured being pulled from the rubble. Photograph: Iain McGregor/Reuters Rescuers working through the night have pulled dozens of people from the rubble after the earthquake that killed at least 65 people in Christchurch, New Zealand. The national crisis manager for New Zealand Civil Defence, John Hamilton, said that about 30 survivors had been rescued. Dozens more are still [Read the rest...]

Brian Boyle never gave much thought to donating blood until a horrific accident nearly seven years ago. “One month after my high school graduation, I was coming home from swim practice when I had a near- fatal car accident with a dump truck,” said Boyle. “My heart was ripped across my chest, my lungs collapsed, my organs were damaged, I broke my clavicle and I lost 60 percent of my [Read the rest...]