A series of photographic exhibitions have been organized in Europe and North America this autumn to highlight a campaign by Britain's Prince Charles to combat tropical deforestation. The photographs were taken by world-renowned environment photographer Daniel Beltra who was this year's winner of the Prince's Rainforest Project Award at the Sony World Photography Awards earlier this year. The images graphically depict the effects of climate change on the rainforests in the South America, Africa and Indonesia. Beltra compiled ...

Iran has notified the Swiss government that it can have access to three American hikers detained near the border with Iraq, two senior U.S. officials confirmed Tuesday. According to the U.S. officials, Iran said the Swiss can pay a "consular" visit to the three, meaning they can see them to check their condition. Iranian authorities detained Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd after they were believed to have strayed into Iran in late July while hiking in a part ...

Chaos and death on the streets of Mogadishu: unfortunately, it's nothing new in the Somali capital. Government forces are fighting against insurgents on this day in September in a bloody battle that leaves 30 dead. Dozens of wounded Somalis are taken out of the danger zone, some of them in the back of insurgents' pick-up trucks. One of the trucks races through the streets, zig-zagging to the echoing booms of the ongoing shelling. The truck comes to an abrupt halt, ...

In cities across the country, people with nowhere to live have done what many would have thought unthinkable before the economic crisis: moved into tents. Tent camps once associated mainly with the "Hoovervilles" of the Great Depression are springing up in places as varied as Sacramento, California; Nashville, Tennessee; Pinellas County, Florida; Providence, Rhode Island; and Seattle, Washington. The camps have often led to standoffs between local governments that say the camps violate housing ordinances and homeless rights advocates who ...

Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein's death last month was an accident caused by "acute intoxication" from a combination of cocaine and prescription drugs, the New York medical examiner said Tuesday. Goldstein's body was found August 28 in his New York apartment with a crack pipe nearby and a half bag of crack cocaine and prescription drugs in the home, a police source told People.com. His death came almost a year after he survived a plane crash in South Carolina that killed ...

Season eight "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert is no also-ran. His first album, not due for release until November 24, zoomed to the No. 2 spot on the Amazon.com sales list Monday, behind only Barbra Streisand's much-publicized new jazz album, the New York Post reported. The distinction ranked Lambert, 27, ahead of Madonna, the Beatles and Susan Boyle on the online retailer's sales list -- and shows that one needn't nab the ...

The Guinean government has rejected reports that security forces attacked and killed demonstrators at a peaceful rally, saying most of the victims were crushed in the crowd. The United Nations, citing media reports, said at least 58 people died Monday when security forces opened fire to disperse a demonstration at a stadium in the capital, Conakry. Some French news agencies put the toll at closer to 90. On Tuesday, the African Union expressed its "grave concern" about the situation. "The ...

Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese have "demanded the immediate release" of fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant related to a 1977 child sex charge. They were among 138 people in the film industry who signed a petition against the arrest. Polanski was on the way to the Zurich Film Festival when Swiss police detained him in response to the American warrant. The filmmaker pleaded guilty in 1977 to having unlawful ...

Google Wave, a product that promises to revolutionize online communication, will go out to about 100,000 beta testers Wednesday. The Web application from Google Inc. combines elements of e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a "hosted conversation," or a "wave." Google demonstrated Wave at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, California, in May. The closed group of beta testers will help Google fish bugs ...

The Web application from Google Inc. combines elements of e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a "hosted conversation," or a "wave." Google demonstrated Wave at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, California, in May. The closed group of beta testers will help Google fish bugs out of the application before a public release by the end of the year, according to the Google ...