The Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center A high-altitude property first bought as a private family retreat in the mid-1960s now serves as an important centre for environmental research in North America. The 535-acre property in Haywood County, North Carolina, historically known as “The Purchase”, was officially transferred to the National Park Service around the turn…

People gather next to funeral pyres during cremation rituals using effigies as missing bodies remain unfound, on the premises of Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal TRISHULI BAZAAR (NUWAKOT): Families in flood-ravaged Nuwakot and Rasuwa who could not find missing relatives — or their bodies — began performing symbolic cremations with human-shaped effigies made from kusha,…

A British trekker has been found dead after disappearing during a descent from a mountain in northern Pakistan.Alexander Harris, 30, from Birmingham, had been descending Musa Ka Musala in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday when he became separated from his hiking companion. His body was later found on a forest path, BBC reported.Khalid Iqbal, the area’s…

A flat plateau once damaged by mountaintop removal coal mining has been given a new purpose as the site of a consolidated high school designed to become an educational centre for central Appalachia. The newly built, 200,000-square-foot Southern Gap High School was officially opened during a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Buchanan County, Virginia, according to a…

Pic credit: Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust Eight years ago, David Ellsbury stood at his mother’s deathbed. She only had one request. Her final wish was that their family ranch would never be developed. She didn’t want a developer to carve it up the way they had everywhere else. And that’s exactly what the Crook…