CLEARLAKE, California – Thousands of firefighters battled raging wildfires Sunday in drought-parched California, where officials evacuated entire neighborhoods and closed miles of highway in the path of the inferno, which has claimed at least one life.
OTTAWA, Canada – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Sunday called general elections for Oct. 19, kicking off a campaign for a fourth straight term in power amid a sluggish economy. Harper, in power since 2006, dissolved parliament after meeting with Governor General David Johnston, the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, Canada's nominal head of state in this Commonwealth country.
In a reminder that Costa Rica’s Catholic Church is still woefully stuck in the past, one of its highest leaders on Sunday used the annual pilgrimage to Cartago, which draws an estimated 2 million people each year, to speak out against legalizing gay civil unions and in vitro fertilization.
Shira Banki, 16, was among six people stabbed at the Jerusalem march on Thursday by a suspect identified as an ultra-Orthodox Jew released from prison only weeks earlier for a similar attack.
Ruben Espinosa, 31, a photographer with magazine Proceso was among the five victims found with bound hands, bearing apparent signs of torture, according to Articulo 19, a media rights group.
On Monday, the Obama administration plans to release the finalized Clean Power Plan, the president's flagship policy to combat global warming. The plan is aimed at the electricity sector, which generates the largest single slice, 31 percent, of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.
The rule, if it stands, could substantially alter the U.S. energy landscape, driving the expanded use of "clean" energy while further diminishing coal's long dominance as a source of power for homes and businesses.
Only 2.5 millimeters long, the tiny Pseudapanteles luisguillermosolisi is a type of parasitoid wasp that injects its eggs into a small moth caterpillar. The wasp larva then eats the insides of the host, thereby killing it a few weeks later. The larva then burrows out through the caterpillar skin and spins a distinctive small white cocoon outside, from which the new wasp emerges about two weeks later to repeat the cycle.
The restless boy from Flores is today a restless pope. In the two years since he was named pontiff, Francis, 78, has brought a distinctive rebellious streak to the seat of Saint Peter. Papal observers predicted that he would shake up the Vatican hierarchy. Few expected him to dive into global politics with this much evangelical fervor.
