For years, Christian pilgrims have waded into the Jordan River from both its eastern and western banks to connect with a core event of their faith -- the baptism of Jesus. The parallel traditions allowed Jordan and Israel to compete for tourism dollars in marketing one of Christianity's most important sites.
It's constantly hissing, fussing and belching, but every half hour or so Yasur volcano sends up a tremendous spurt of lava and a boom so loud it is deafening on the crater rim and can be heard for miles. At dusk, the explosions begin to resemble fireworks, the lava glittering as it falls from the sky.
A tunnel explosion in the northern city of Aleppo lightly damaged the wall of its famous citadel Sunday, the latest archaeological site to be ravaged in Syria's civil war, activists and state media said.
Many people living in this coastal village in Vanuatu believe the March cyclone that sent waves surging through their homes was the latest and most dramatic sign of climate change. They are now considering rebuilding their entire community on higher ground.
Monsoon flooding that killed dozens of people in western India last month also hurt the world's last population of wild Asiatic lions, forest officials said in a report.
Ash and cinders spewed Saturday from the Colima Volcano in western Mexico, prompting authorities to close the airport in the state capital of Colima and order the evacuation of a half dozen hamlets on the flanks of the peak.
A solar-powered plane has been grounded by damaged batteries for at least a few weeks after completing its record-breaking five-day journey from Japan to Hawaii.
To the untrained eye, it's just a lot of birds on an otherwise deserted stretch of muddy, flat coastline. But for ornithologists, North Korea's west coast is a little piece of paradise each spring -- and both the birds and a dedicated group of birdwatchers travel a long way to get there.
The outdoor showers at beaches across drought-stricken California will be shut off to save water, so surfers and sunbathers will have to get creative this summer when it comes time to shake off the sand.
A California beach fouled by an oil spill will reopen to swimmers and campers two months after a pipeline ruptured and spewed thousands of gallons of crude along the coast, officials said.
A man and his 12-year-old grandson were found dead several miles apart along a desert trail after they went hiking in central Arizona, and the boy likely died while going for help, authorities said.
Swimmers and surfers today are about 90 percent less likely to be attacked by sharks off California's coast than they were in the 1950s, even though there are hundreds of thousands more people in the water, according to a new study.
Federal officials want to move a mobile radiation detection laboratory from Las Vegas to Alabama, but nuclear safety advocates and lawmakers warn it could leave the Western U.S. vulnerable to an accident or terror attack.
Climate change is shrinking the geographic range of many bumblebee species in North America and Europe, putting them in danger of future extinction, scientists say.
Lake Erie will see one of the most severe toxic algae outbreaks in recent years this summer, a year after toxins contaminated the drinking water for 400,000 people in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan, researchers predicted Thursday.
