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Authorities in Puerto Rico are monitoring two dense-beaked whales that got free and are swimming off the U.S. territory's northwest coast after they became stranded on the island along with one that died. Natural Resources Secretary Carmen Guerrero says it is rare to see Blainville's beaked whales strand themselves on the island. The third whale was an 8-foot (2.4-meter) calf that stranded itself Friday in Aguadilla. Guerrero says biologists transported it to a nearby zoo, but there was no way to artificially feed that type of calf and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ordered it euthanized. Puerto Rico Monitors Whales After Fatal Stranding

And the winner is – drum roll – Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico claims the top spot in a survey of United States and its territories seeking where women wore the highest heels. Puerto Rico came in with an average of 2.86 inch heels, with Nevada, Florida, Arkansas and Texas following the island. The survey, titled “Stilettos by State,” was conducted by Gilt , an online shopping site, in effort to see whether fashion tastes varied by location. Nebraska, Kansas and Maine were home to women preferring the shortest heels, just under 1.97 inches. The Gilt survey did not look at boots and ballet flats. High heel averages in states near the top of the list were 2.46 inches in Florida, 2.35 inches in Texas, and 2.25 inches in California. Theories abounded in published reports about the variety of taste in heels. They included drawing a link between a preference for high heels and warm weather, and low heels and rural areas. Another publication drew a parallel between high heels and places whe...

INNOVATION IN TROPICAL FOREST CONSERVATION SERIES Despite decades of attention and advocacy, tropical forests are still falling at rapid rates worldwide. Now, mongabay.com's new special series, Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation aims to highlight solutions to the crisis through short interviews with some of the world's leading conservation scientists, practitioners, and thinkers about new and emerging approaches to conservation. For more of these interviews, please check our Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation feed. Ariel Lugo overlooking an urban watershed in Puerto Rico. Photo courtesy of Ariel Lugo. Think first before you eradicate non-native species says Dr. Ariel E. Lugo, the current director of the International Institute of Tropical Forestry within the USDA Forest Service, based in Puerto Rico. Lugo, an accomplished ecologist, supports the idea that both native and non-native plants have important roles to play in conservation efforts. “Many conser...

  The Puerto Rican promoting the assembly of a monumental statue of Columbus, as tall as New York's Statue of Liberty and taller than any other in the Americas, wants Spain's king and queen to inaugurate the monument in the spring of 2016. Entrepreneur Jose Gonzalez Freire told Efe Tuesday in an interview that his goal is to take advantage of the Spanish royals' possible visit to the Caribbean island for the 7th International Congress of the Spanish Language, also scheduled for the spring of 2016. "We believe construction will be completed between late 2015 and early 2016, which gave us the idea that the king and queen could take part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony," said the entrepreneur, owner of the food company Pan American Grain, one of Puerto Rico's largest concerns. Completed in 1991, its Russian creator Zurab Tsereteli tried to install the mega-statue a year later in the United States, but local authorities denied him the necessary permits. The municip...

Bayamon, Puerto Rico, September 15th, 2014 -- In 2004, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated September as National Preparedness Month.  The event encourages citizens across the United States to take steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses, schools and communities. Emergency preparedness requires attention to not just specific types of hazards, but also to steps that increase preparedness for any type of hazard. National Preparedness Month encourages people, businesses and communities to be ready in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. Being prepared is especially crucial for any type of business.  According to Ready.gov, up to 40% of businesses affected by a natural or human-caused disaster do not reopen.  An Ad Council survey reported that 62% of respondents said they do not have an emergency plan in place for their business. “Statistics show that companies and institutions that have not planned for a disaster c...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Two endangered Puerto Rican parrots were born in the wild in a natural nest found outside a national forest in the U.S. territory for the first time in 144 years, officials said Tuesday. Scientists discovered the nest in May near the Rio Abajo Nature Preserve in western Puerto Rico and monitored it with cameras until they saw the parrots take flight in late July, according to Natural Resources Secretary Carmen Guerrero. "The historical importance of this makes your hairs stand up," she said in a phone interview. "They're one of the top 10 most endangered birds in the world." The two parrots were born to birds that had been reintroduced into the wild by scientists in the Rio Abajo Nature Preserve, one of two breeding centers in the island located in western Puerto Rico. Parrots had previously been born in natural nests in 1973 and 1993 in El Yunque, the only tropical rain forest in the U.S. National Forest system that also serves as a ...

Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla became the first Caribbean leader to perform the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge on Sunday. The challenge sees participants dump buckets of cold ice water over their heads in an effort to raise awareness for the neurodegenerative disease. Those who perform the challenge the nominate others to do the same, and Garcia Padilla nominated Puerto Rican music star Ricky Martin and Puerto Rican lawmaker Jaime Perello Borras. The ice bucket campaign has been among the most successful internet charity campaigns in history. It has been taking the Internet by storm, and Garcia Padilla pitched in himself on Sunday with help from a local firefighting station in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico Governor Does ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Nominates Ricky Martin

Statement by Professor Francis A. Boyle Before the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization on Behalf of the National Sovereign State of Borinken, June 23, 2014 I n 1492, Columbus illegally invaded the indigenous Kingdoms of America and proceeded to exterminate the indigenous peoples living there including the Tainos in Puerto Rico starting in 1493. The story is told in graphic detail by Professor Howard Zinn in the first chapter of his classic book The People's History of the United States. So in the interest of time I am not going to recount here that sordid history of serial aggressions and genocides perpetrated by Columbus and the other Conquistadors upon the Indigenous Peoples and Kingdoms of America at the behest of and as agents for Spain and Portugal. Certainly Puerto Rico was not res nullius -- the land of no people. The Tainos lived there in a political community organized into their own Kingdom. Therefore, the supposed European doctrine of “discovery" did ...

A video that was allegedly obtained from sources inside a Puerto Rican federal agency shows two UFOs over western Puerto Rico. The video was reportedly shot by an infra-red camera aboard a Homeland Security helicopter in the Puerto Rican city of Aguadilla in the early morning hours of April 26, 2013. Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. (Credit: Google) This video was uploaded to YouTube by José Martínez, a member of the Puerto Rican Research Group. He explains that the video was shot by a helicopter from Rafael Hernandez International Airport, which was formerly a United States Air Force base called Ramey Air Force Base (This base was named after Brigadier General Howard Knox Ramey, and not after General Roger Ramey as some believe. Roger Ramey is the infamous general who announced to the world that what was recovered in Roswell , New Mexico in 1947 was simply a weather balloon). Several federal agencies are currently housed at the Rafael Hernandez International Airport. According to the we...

When Christopher Columbus made landfall in Puerto Rico during his second trans-Atlantic voyage, in 1493, a young Spanish nobleman, Ponce de León, some scholars believe, was on board. Rumors of hefty quantities of gold brought Ponce de Leon back, in 1508, where he found an islet with an excellent harbor he named Puerto Rico, or Rich Port. This would become the name of the island, while the town was renamed San Juan. He didn't find gold, but was named first governor of the new territory, and when he heard stories from Taino Indians about a magical fountain whose waters would rejuvenate those who drank from it, he decided he would seek immortality. Can we fault him? Today, locals claim the mineral-rich waters at Coamo, about 10 miles east of Ponce in the south of Puerto Rico, are in fact the Fountain of Youth Ponce de Leon sought, though perhaps he didn't soak long enough, as an arrow squelched his eternity in 1521. But that the belief of the fountain's powers still exi...

Puerto Rico is working discretely on the installation of a monumental likeness of Christopher Columbus that will stand as high as the Statue of Liberty . The enclave selected for the historic project is the municipality of Arecibo, on the island's northern coast. The statue - which is 90 meters (295 feet) high, weighs 600 tons and was crafted by Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli - will be erected on one of the beaches there. Businessman Jose Gonzalez Freire, the owner of the land, has taken the reins of the project with which he intends to attract one million visitors a year to the site, which possesses great natural beauty but is far removed from the island's normal tourist areas. The start of the phase in which the pieces of the statue - constructed of bronze in 1991 - will be assembled, which has not received any publicity to date, brings to an end the statue's years of moving all around the territory of Puerto Rico searching for a suitable site. Tsereteli tried to ...

Why? Because he’s a world-renowned National Geographic travel photographer and he’d promised to give a masterclass to the five winners on the paradise island of Puerto Rico. The fabulous trip now over, we spoken to Pina Gruden, one of the winners, to find out what new skills she brought back home . For any aspiring Lumia photo artists amongst you, here are her top tips on how to capture your travel memories with a Nokia Lumia 1020. And as proof that those tips work, each one is accompanied by a gorgeous photo that illustrates it in action. Thank you, Pina! Capture moments “Set white balance to cloudy to get warmer colours, slightly underexpose (EV -0.3) to prevent the sky in the background to be “burnt out” and to set the mood, then just move around to get the composition you like.” Get closer “Set the focus to manual and get closer to your subject. The manual focus is really good in Lumia 1020 and it’s especially useful for close up shots of non-moving objects. Here I was luck...

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Neil Patrick Harris, the host of the Tony Awards show at Radio City Music Hall, performed with cast members of “Kinky Boots” during the opening number on Sunday night. More Photos » The crowd-pleasing Broadway show “Kinky Boots” pulled off an upset victory as best musical at the   Tony Awards   on Sunday night, edging out the onetime front-runner, “Matilda the Musical,” while also scoring wins for Billy Porter’s lead performance and   Cyndi Lauper ’s music and lyrics in her Broadway debut as a composer. Multimedia Slide Show 2013 Tony Awards Notable Night for the Tonys In Performance: ‘Kinky Boots’ ARTSBEAT ‘Kinky Boots’ and ‘Vanya’ Take Top Tonys Dave Itzkoff and Charles Isherwood live blogged the 67th annual Tony Awards. Live commentary, ballot updates, photos from the show and the red carpet can be found here. SLIDE SHOW Tony Awards Red Carpet Looks from Sunday night’s awards ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. Related Critic’s Note...