Judy Woodruff interviews Warren Buffett for the PBS NewsHour. Photo by Lorna Baldwin

OMAHA, Neb. — As a television producer, I’ve learned to expect surprises on field shoots. Last week, billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett arrived early for his PBS NewsHour interview with Judy Woodruff. As he was getting his face powdered and his hair combed, he pulled out some papers.

He’d brought along a copy of his very first tax return from 1944. Back then, young Warren Buffett was a recently transplanted 14-year-old living in Washington, DC. His family had moved to the nation’s capitol from Nebraska after his father, Howard Buffett, was elected to Congress in 1942. Howard Buffett went on to serve four non-consecutive terms in office, representing the district that included Omaha. And during that time, Warren Buffett earned money on a paper route in his Northwest Washington, D.C. neighborhood.

Warren Buffet's 1944 tax return by PBS NewsHour on Scribd

You might wonder why a 14-year-old would have to file a federal income tax return. Well, Buffett made more than $500, and IRS rules at the time required that a return must be filed by every citizen of the United States, including a minor, who had earned a gross income of $500 or more. Buffett’s income in 1944 was $592.50 and he paid a $7 tax. Translated to 2017 figures, using an inflation calculator, that’s $8,221.18 in income and $97.13 owed in taxes.

Buffett told us that along his route were six senators and one Supreme Court justice. He delivered the Washington Post and the now defunct Washington Times-Herald, both morning and afternoon editions. All of this was meticulously noted in an addendum attached to his 1944 tax return. He also noted two expenses; watch repair at a cost of $10 and miscellaneous bicycle costs adding up to $35.

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Dick Bruna at work in his studio in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Image: Wikimedia Commons

Dutch artist and author Dick Bruna, whose simply drawn little white rabbit turned into an international best-seller, died peacefully in his sleep Thursday in the central Dutch city of Utrecht. He was 89.

His Dutch publisher, Mercis, made the announcement Friday.

Bruna was born into a family of Dutch publishers in 1927 and that’s where he began his career as an illustrator. He created book covers for Ian Fleming’s James Bond series and the Inspector Maigret thrillers by Georges Simonen.

Miffy the rabbit. Photo via free use on Wikipedia.

Bruna’s bunny, known as Nijntje in Dutch and Miffy in English, first came to life 62 years ago, as a way for Bruna to entertain his young son on vacation. Miffy became the central character in 32 books, winning adoration from not only children but also adult art lovers. The Miffy books have sold more than 85 million copies and were translated into more than 50 languages.

Bruna also chose to publish his books in a square format.

Miffy and books featuring other Bruna characters were translated into more than 50 languages. Image: Flickr user Lollyman

“He thought that size was really good for two little children’s hands, and he loved the visual impact, too,” longtime friend Marja Kerkhof told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Kerkhof said the simple design of all his characters – pigs, bears, clowns – is what makes his books stand out on the shelf. Bruna stuck to a simple color palette and limited his Miffy books to 12 pages each.

“He goes to the essence of things. Even today, if you see it in the store you would think, ‘hey this looks different to a lot of other things out there.’ There is no clutter, it’s all very clear,” Kerkhof said.

Miffy and her fellow characters aren’t just in books; fridge magnets, lamps, telephones, school backpacks, pencils and many more items are branded with Bruna’s creations.

Miffy the movie was released in 2013. The rabbit also starred in a television show called “Miffy and Friends.”

All told, the Bruna empire of characters earns more than $180 million annually with more than 10,000 products created by the 250 Miffy licensees around the world.

Miffy fashioned into a lamp. The book character is emblazoned on many items, from magnets to pencils to car air fresheners. Image: Flickr user Sharon VanderKaay.

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This photo taken in 2009 shows veteran British journalist Clare Hollingworth speaking to AFP in Hong Kong. She scooped the world by breaking the news in 1939 of Germany’s invasion of Poland. Photo by Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty Images

Clare Hollingworth, the British war correspondent who scooped the world in reporting the Nazi invasion of Poland, died in Hong Kong today. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong announced her death at the age of 105.

Her biggest scoop came at age 27, just days into her rookie reporting career. Hollingworth was reporting in southern Poland for Britain’s Daily Telegraph when she decided to investigate what was happening across the border.

Clare Hollingworth in the 1930s. The Hollingworth Family

Using a borrowed British consulate official’s car, she drove into German-occupied territory. As she recounted in her autobiography, she saw tanks, armored cars and artillery massing, as well as the burlap screens on the side of the road to hide military vehicles.

She wrote, “I guessed that the German Command was preparing to strike to the north of Katowice and its fortified lines and this, in fact, was exactly how they launched their invasion in the south.”

She was right.

Three days later, she heard the roar of German tanks advancing on Poland and landed her second major scoop. But when she called the British Embassy in Warsaw, the diplomat she spoke to refused to believe her. To prove it to him, she held her telephone out her bedroom window so he could hear the hum of the tanks.

Hollingworth was born on Oct. 10, 1911, in Knighton, England, into a middle-class family. Her father’s interest in battle sites, that they’d frequently visit, fueled her own interest in war. An intrepid and determined journalist, Hollingworth spent much of her career on the front lines of major conflicts, from the Middle East to North Africa to Vietnam, where she had several close calls.

Image via Reuters

Over her career she wrote for many British publications, including The Economist, the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Express. Her road to reporting came via her work at a British refugee charity in Poland, where she sometimes wrote articles about the looming war in Europe.

A great-nephew, researching Hollingworth’s 2016 biography, said he only recently discovered she helped arrange visas for as many as 3,000 refugees fleeing from the Nazis to Britain. Her knowledge and contacts in Poland led her to ultimately be offered a stringer position for the Telegraph.

Image via Reuters

Hollingworth rounded out her career in China, as the Telegraph’s first resident correspondent in Beijing, then known as Peking. She ended up in Hong Kong where she lived the last four decades of her life.

There, she was a longstanding fixture at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, where people read newspapers aloud to her after her eyesight failed.

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The library of Mount Stuart on Scotland’s Isle of Bute, where a Shakespeare First Folio was discovered nearly 400 years after his death. Image by Russell Cheyne/Reuters

It’s now one of only 234 known copies in the world, hidden for more than 100 years in the library at Mount Stuart, a vast estate on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. The “First Folio” is 36 of William Shakespeare’s plays, collected and printed seven years after the Bard’s death in 1623. Without the bound collection many of Shakespeare’s most loved plays would have been lost, among them “The Tempest” and “Macbeth.”

The find was confirmed as genuine by Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford University. She told the BBC, “It’s a book we most likely now see … in a glass case, and one of the things that this copy … shows us is a time when people just really used this book, they enjoyed it, they scribbled on it, they spilt their wine on it, their pet cats jumped on it.”

What makes the Bute copy of the “First Folio” unusual is that it comes in three leather-bound volumes, divided by comedies, histories and tragedies. Most of the other known copies are all-in-one.

An inscription in the Bute copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio shows it was owned by a well-known literary editor in the 18th century. Image by Russell Cheyne/Reuters

Inside the first page is an inscription from an 18th century editor of Shakespeare named Isaac Reed, describing how he acquired the book in 1786. It was sold after his death in 1807 for £38 and it didn’t turn up in a census of First Folios in 1906 but it was included in a catalogue of the Bute library in 1896.

Children look at one of the three leather-bound volumes of Shakespeare’s First Folio, discovered nearly 400 years after his death. Image by Russell Cheyne/Reuters

The Head of Collections at Mount Stuart, Alice Martin, said this is “just the tip of the iceberg for the undiscovered material in the remarkable Bute Collection, and we are working with scholars from universities including Glasgow, Dundee, Stirling and Oxford to share our collections with schoolchildren in Scotland and with the public.”

It’s on display to the public at Mount Stuart through October of this year. Britain is celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death this year.

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Two pediatricians at the heart of Flint’s lead-crisis have some advice on avoiding exposure to lead. Photo by Thanasis Zovoilis/Getty Images

The lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan has people across the nation wondering about their own possible exposure to the toxic metal.

“When pediatricians hear anything about lead, we stand up straight, and we freak out,” says Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of the pediatric residency program at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, and one of the doctors who helped uncover that city’s crisis. “We know lead,” she said. “Lead is a potent, known, irreversible neurotoxin.”

Children in roughly 4 million American homes are being exposed to some form of lead today, according to CDC estimates. The agency also estimates that at least half a million kids under five have “elevated” levels of lead in their blood.

“Since the time of the Roman Empire, when people lined their aqueducts with lead pipes, we have known [lead] causes problems,” said Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, a pediatrician and president of the Mott Children’s Health Center in Flint, and a member of the Governor’s task force investigating Flint’s lead-contamination crisis.

Young children are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of lead, which can include delayed intellectual development, irritability, learning problems, and increased aggression, Reynolds said.

“You’ll have more kids with lower IQ and more children who will have learning problems and require services,” Reynolds said. “Start multiplying these things by thousands, and imagine what a school district has to deal with.”

“Even at levels below what we consider ‘elevated’…it drops your IQ about four points,” Hanna-Attisha said.

And in Flint?

“Imagine what we have done to our entire population,” she said. “We have shifted the IQ curve down. We’ve lost potentially these high achievers, and more children now may need special education and remedial services.”

Beyond Flint, the main source of lead exposure today comes from old lead-based paint in homes and buildings. Even though leaded paint was banned in the late 1970’s, many older structures still contain it. Exposure occurs as that paint peels, chips, or crumbles into dust. Young children, who spend time on all fours and put all sorts of things their mouths, are particularly vulnerable. (A child’s pediatrician can test their blood-lead levels, but a low reading doesn’t necessarily mean there hasn’t been a prior exposure.)

One of the best general prevention strategies, health officials say, is to keep children and pregnant-women away from old paint. The CDC has this helpful list of ways to avoid exposure to lead-based paint.

Children should not be exposed to peeling or crumbling paint, should not be in housing built before 1978 that is undergoing renovation and should not play in bare soil.

The doctors in Flint have gathered some of their own hard-earned wisdom.

When you move into a house, flush the water lines in case lead and other things are accumulating there, Reynolds said. And when you return home from vacation, flush your cold water for about five minutes.

If you’re concerned about lead in your water (which almost always comes from older lead water pipes, as opposed to the actual water supply itself), you can have your water tested. Many municipalities provide free lead-testing kits to residents, or they can be purchased individually at some hardware stores or online.

And if lead is present, there are steps you can take.

The costliest approach is to remove the lead pipes from your own home. If they’re present, they’re usually the “service line” that connects your home to your local water main, and replacing that can easily run into the thousands of dollars. (Some municipalities offer a stipend to homeowners to complete this work.)

Buying bottled water is an option, but if that’s too costly, you can buy a standalone filter, a filter that attaches to your faucets, or install a entire-home filter (which filters all the water entering your house). It’s important to check whether your filtration system is specifically certified for lead-filtration, because many store-bought filters do not filter out lead.

Reynolds also says that when it comes to drinking or cooking with tap water that might contain lead, start with cold water. Warmer water can carry more dissolved lead.

If you believe you’ve already been exposed to lead, Hanna-Attisha says there are things you can do to lessen the impact of that exposure.

Among them, education. Given that lead can reduce a child’s intellectual capacity, strengthening a child’s early learning can have positive effects. That means emphasizing things like early literacy programs, and reading and speaking to young kids even more than usual.

“Nutrition is also a great mitigator,” she adds. “Diets high in iron, calcium, vitamin C help promote the excretion of lead.”

Hanna-Attisha hopes the lead-crisis in Flint will prompt more attention to needed infrastructure repairs in other cities along with a greater focus on the kids who are likely to be dealing with the downstream effect of lead poisoning for decades to come.

“As a pediatrician, my job is to take care of that kid in front of me,” Hanna-Attisha said. “My job is to make sure that they have the brightest future ahead of them. And we can sit back and in 10, 15, 20 years, we can see the consequences of lead poisoning — we can see all these kids in special ed, we can see the problems in our mental health system, we can see the problems in our criminal justice system. Or we can do something now.”

To learn more, click on the following links:

EPA’s “Lead Free Kids” website has information on prevention, treatment and finding contractors.

EPA has dietary advice, including recipes, to help reduce lead in people who have already been exposed.

The California Department of Public Health’s “Frequently Asked Questions About Lead Poisoning.”

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fact Sheet on how to safely renovate when you’ve got lead paint.

CDC tips on prevention.

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What is thought to be one of the earliest printed pictures of a game of tennis, found in a book by Guillaume de La Perriere called “Le theatre de bons engins”, or “The theatre of fine devices”, published in Paris in 1540.  Photo credit: University of Glasgow

As the second week of the final Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year moves closer to crowning champions in New York, archivists across the Atlantic Ocean at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have discovered what may be the earliest printed pictures of the game of tennis.

The images were found in a French book published in Paris in 1540 and just recently acquired by the University Library. The 16th century book by Guillaume de La Perriere , is titled “Le theatre de bons engins” or “The theater of fine devices”. The pictures show a game that’s a precursor to the modern game of tennis — jeu de paume, or game of palms, played with a much shorter racket and much bulkier clothing.

University of Glasgow professor Laurence Grove described the picture book as “Instagram for the 16th century,” and that the images came as a total surprise to archivists.

“You never know what’s in there. There are some funny images, and they remind us that what you think is modern isn’t modern. It’s been there for four centuries,” Grove said.

Two men playing an early version of tennis, called jeu de paume, or game of palms.
Photo credit: University of Glasgow

The book includes a range of pictures on different subjects, all accompanied by mottoes or sayings about life in general. One page highlights a moth and candles and warns against rushing into war.

Scotland is also home to the oldest tennis court in the world, built for James V, King of Scots, at Falkland Palace in 1539.

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Activity in the trenches at the Ness of Brodgar dig site in July 2015. Excavation this year was extended to eight weeks with funding from an anonymous donor. Photo by Robert Scarth.

KIRKWALL, Scotland — It’s been described as an outdoor cathedral of sorts, and to me that’s exactly how it feels.

As I stand on this windswept bit of Orkney looking down at the Ness of Brodgar dig site, there’s a salty sea loch to my left, a freshwater loch to my right, and standing stones in front of and behind me. I can perfectly imagine why in 3,300 BC people might have flocked to this unique spot – this vast complex of buildings that was used for 1,000 years.

The Orkney Islands are littered with a collection of world-famous archaeological sites. Skara Brae is a superbly preserved Neolithic hut settlement. Maeshowe is a chambered stone tomb, built so the midwinter sun shines along its low entrance hall. The Standing Stones of Stenness, one of the oldest henge sites in the British Isles, is just a stone’s throw away from “the Ness,” where I stand.

Sheep graze among the Stones of Stenness, one of many Neolithic sites in Orkney. Just beyond the standing stones lies the Ness of Brodgar, a Neolithic complex without parallel in Western Europe. Photo by Lorna Baldwin.

The Neolithic site under excavation here has been called an archaeologist’s dream, filled with impeccable sandstone walls, paved walkways, slate roofs, painted walls and decorated stonework. It is also full of mystery. What did people do here some 5,000 years ago?

Archaeologist Nick Card shows off a Neolithic carved stone slab unearthed from one of the 20 structures at the Ness of Brodgar, in Orkney, Scotland. Photo by Lorna Baldwin.

Nick Card, the dig director for the Archaeology Institute at the University of the Highlands and Islands, has been on a quest to answer that question since the dig site was discovered more than a decade ago. In 2012, during a lecture tour to the U.S., he sat down with the NewsHour to explain his work. At the time, he said the enclosure of 20-plus structures encircled by a massive wall likely had a religious function — something to do with life and death.

Now, three years later, his understanding of the site’s function has shifted. Artifacts unearthed suggest that people traveled long distances to the imposing complex people to perform rituals, but also to feast, trade goods, gossip and celebrate.

“This was a place where obviously everybody wanted to have representation for their community,” Card said. “And what you see is that they are almost competing with each other, each community. A lot of the buildings look like they’re built on a kind of similar theme, but they’re all different, and they all are kind of extravagant.”

The Ness of Brodgar from the air in 2012. Photo courtesy Nick Card.

Anthropological records from Polynesia and other places support this idea of competition as a driving force — who could move the biggest stone, for example or who could feed the most people.

“I think all too often the Neolithic is seen as this kind of hippiedom of prehistory,” Card said, “but there’s a growing amount of evidence to show that you see trauma, a lot of trauma, and disease in skeletons, and I think there was competition which occasionally spilled into not quite warfare but a bit of nastiness.”

“Orcadian society was not egalitarian, but instead markedly competitive,” she said. “Imagine prosperous farmers in the rich Orkney landscape, whose forebears had farmed successfully for a good 500 years there. Some groups or individuals wanted to be more powerful than others, and so they indulged in acts of competitive conspicuous consumption, like building tombs that were bigger, better and more elaborate than anything that had gone before.”

The ‘butterfly’ motif is repeated on many stone slabs found at the Ness of Brodgar. Photo by Lorna Baldwin

As we talk at the edge of the site, Nick Card rolls and lights a cigarette in an effort to disperse the cloud of midges, or biting flies, that encircles us. He tells me about the decorated stonework found in every structure, more than 650 pieces in all. They include a cup and ring pattern known as the “Brodgar Eye,” along with a “butterfly” motif.

“You get the repetition of certain designs,” he said. “It’s not like an alphabet, it’s not like writing, but at the same time it was there to transmit something, and whoever saw this equally understood that this meant something.”

The dig site is covered with 5,000 sandbags, tarps and tires to keep out the cold and wind. Photo by Lorna Baldwin.

By the end of August, the site will be covered with tarps, 5,000 sandbags and stacks and stacks of tires to protect it from the elements. Until this year, the dig lasted six weeks in the summer. This year, through an anonymous donation, it was extended to eight weeks. Why such a short dig season, I ask.

Funding, Card said.

“But it’s not only the funding of the dig, it’s what the dig creates post-excavation, which costs an awful lot of money and even with the use of volunteers and students it still costs in the region of [$3,100] a day to run the site.”

Some funding comes from the local Orkney Islands excavation fund, a bit more from Historic Scotland, but the bulk of money comes from public donations and charities, including the American Friends of the Ness of Brodgar.

Americans play a prominent role in the dig effort. Willamette University in Salem, Oregon sends a group of undergraduates each summer. It was an American student who found a rare example of a carved stone ball — an intricate, asymmetrical, nubbed ball reminiscent of a prehistoric Rubik’s Cube.

This summer, 20-year-old American student Tori Maatta from Pennsylvania helped excavate what’s been dubbed “Trench T”, a Neolithic dumpster, known as a “midden”.

“Our midden threw every archaeologist on the islands for a loop,” Maatta said. “It turned out that we had a structure too.”

Earlier geophysics hadn’t turned up any evidence of a structure underneath, so it was a total surprise to the entire team when one appeared.

University of Pittsburgh student Tori Maatta stands proudly in front of her find — a stone drain running parallel to an interior wall. Photo courtesy Tori Maatta.

“I was evening out my section, thinking about the wall and what I wanted for dinner that night, when my trowel scraped along a long slab of particularly thin flagstones,” she said. “Enthusiastically, since I had found nothing ‘cool’ yet that day, I followed the slab and removed all of the soil from it. It ran parallel to a similar strip of stones about six inches away from it.” It was a drain — only the second to be found on the site.

Only 10 percent of the complex is under excavation, leaving more mysteries to solve and a life’s work for Card and other archaeologists .

If he could, Card said, “I’d dig all year round.”

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Her Royal Highness, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge is cradled in her mother’s arms just hours after she was born on Saturday. Photo by John Stillwell/Reuters

Britain’s newest princess now has a name: Charlotte Elizabeth Diana.  Kensington Palace announced the moniker Monday, two days after she was born.

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The daughter of the duke and duchess of Cambridge, William and Catherine, she is fourth in line to the throne and her formal title will be Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Cambridge. The names are likely a nod to Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth and the late Princess Diana — her grandfather, great-grandmother and grandmother.

The name Charlotte first gained popularity in the 18th century when it was the name of King George III’s queen. In the U.S., the Social Security Administration ranked the name Charlotte as the 11th most popular in 2013, up eight slots from the previous year.

Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, duchess of Cambridge, appear with their baby daughter outside the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s Hospital in London. Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters

Charlotte was born on Saturday in the Lindo Wing of London’s St. Mary’s Hospital weighing 8 lbs 3 oz. She made her first public appearance later in the day as her parents prepared to take her home, greeted by the throngs of media who had camped out for weeks to capture the moment.

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An aerial view of rows of flower fields near the Keukenhof park, also known as the Garden of Europe in the Netherlands. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters

The world’s second largest flower garden, the Keukenhof park in Lisse, the Netherlands, was awash in a palette of colors today as its 7 million bulbs covering 79 acres came into bloom. The Keukenhof, or Garden of Europe, is open for eight weeks, from mid-March to mid-May and over that time an estimated 800,000 visitors peruse the garden’s profusion of floral colors.

Thousands of visitors descend on the Garden of Europe in Lisse, the Netherlands each year to see millions of flowers bloom. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters

The Keukenhof was established in 1949 when a group of 20 flower bulb exporters were given permission to use part of the estate of the Keukenhof Castle for a permanent display of spring-flowering bulbs. About 100 suppliers bring their best bulbs to the park each fall for planting and a team of about 30 gardeners oversee the designs, taking into consideration height, color and flowering time. Tulips, the national flower of the Netherlands, are in abundance, with 800 varieties in the gardens alone.

Tulips bloom alongside a windmill in the Garden of Europe in Lisse, the Netherlands. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters

This year the Keukenhof is showcasing a garden that pays tribute to the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, on the 125th anniversary of the artist’s death. Famous for his own self-portraits, the tribute takes the form of a “selfie” garden, where visitors can send their own smartphone photos ahead of their visit to go on display in the garden. The garden was also designed with plenty of selfie opportunities. The exhibit includes a massive portrait of Van Gogh made entirely out of different colored flower petals.

Children place the last petals on a portrait of painter Vincent Van Gogh at the Keukenhof park. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters

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Rare and priceless Greek and Roman coins discovered after spending 80 years in a vault at the University at Buffalo. Credit: Douglas Levere / University at Buffalo

University at Buffalo faculty member Philip Kiernan heard a rumor back in 2010 and went on a hunt for a collection of rare, ancient and priceless Greek and Roman coins. Not in Greece and not in Italy. The hunt was on his very own campus in New York.

In 1935, benefactor Thomas B. Lockwood donated a collection of rare books, along with a coin collection, to the university. The coins stayed in their casings and sat on a shelf, their true value never realized, at least not until Kiernan recently reexamined them and had experts verify their authenticity.

The university describes the collection as “40 silver Greek coins, three gold Greek coins and a dozen gold Roman coins — one from each era of the first 12 roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitian.” They date from the fifth century B.C. to the first century A.D. Now, Kiernan is turning them into a learning opportunity, creating an entire graduate course to study their history.

An extremely rare gold aureus of the Roman emperor Otho, who reigned for only three months in A.D. 69. Credit: Douglas Levere / University at Buffalo

Reverse (tails) of a silver tetradrachm of Athens, ca. 450 to 400 B.C. Credit: Douglas Levere / University at Buffalo

One of the coins depicts a Roman emperor who reigned for only three months; Otho who was in power in A.D. 69. Some of the Greek coins were minted in the most powerful city-states of the ancient world, from Athens to Corinth. As for how much the coins are worth, Kiernan told the Buffalo Times the market value is unimaginable to him saying, “My job as an archaeologist is to appreciate their historical value and their historical value is absolutely priceless.”

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Dangling icicles in the ice caves at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin. Photo by Flickr user The Cut.

Grab your ice cleats and snow poles this weekend for a 1.1 mile trek over icy Lake Superior to witness the stunning, naturally-formed ice caves at Apostle Island National Lakeshore in Wisconsin. Park rangers determined today that the lake ice en route to the caves is thick and sturdy enough to handle visitors starting Saturday. Even so, rangers are warning it will be a treacherous walk in windy conditions.

Visitors in 2014 making the trek across Lake Superior to get to the ice caves. Photo by Flickr user pixn8tr.

The ice caves aren’t accessible every year, but this will mark the second year in a row the ice cover of Lake Superior is strong enough to take the pedestrian traffic. In the two months the caves were open last year, about 138,000 people made the journey.

Extreme winter cold has covered 95.5 percent of Lake Superior with ice as of Feb. 23, 2015. The record ice cover for Lake Superior was in 1996 at 100 percent.

Lake Superior almost completely frozen in February 2015. Satellite image from NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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The boat that carried Winston Churchill’s body during his funeral in 1965, named the ‘Havengore’, recreated its route from 50 years ago, traveling from the Tower of London to Westminster, where a wreath was cast into the River Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament.

When Winston Churchill died 50 years ago at the age of 90, a million people lined the streets of London to watch the funeral cortege pass by. The man who led Britain to victory against Nazi Germany was honored with a state funeral, something very few politicians in Britain are ever given. Today, the boat that carried his coffin along the River Thames in 1965, the Havengore, re-traced the route to mark the 50th anniversary of his funeral.

The ‘Havengore’ makes its way along the River Thames, marking the same route it traveled 50 years ago for Winston Churchill’s funeral.

Members of Churchill’s family were onboard and traveled along the route, from the Tower of London to Westminster. Across from the Houses of Parliament, a ceremonial wreath was cast into the water by British Army personnel involved in recent conflicts.

Churchill’s grandson and a lawmaker himself, Sir Nicholas Soames, walked behind his grandfather’s coffin in 1965 and today was surprised at the outpouring of support from well-wishers who lined the route. “I was astonished at the faces of many, many people who were literally contorted with grief because I think that for the older people my grandfather had been a friend,” Soames said. “He was someone they knew. And he had led the nation at a very difficult time, with them. And they felt part of that and I think his going was definitively the end of an era.”

Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1942.

Today’s tribute was an opportunity for the dwindling numbers of World War II veterans to pay tribute to their wartime leader. Britain’s current leaders also paid tribute, laying wreaths at the base of a statue of Churchill in the House of Commons lobby. Prime Minister David Cameron said, “History has been kind to Winston Churchill, not because he wrote it, but because he shaped it. He left a Britain more free, more secure, more brave and more proud, and for that we must always be grateful to him.”

The BBC is rebroadcasting the original live coverage of Churchill’s funeral today. An estimated 350 million people around the world watched in 1965. See select moments from the funeral here.

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A motion-sensitive camera at Yosemite National Park in California captured the rare Sierra Nevada red fox this winter. Photo from the National Park Service.

It’s one of only about 50 thought to exist in North America, making the Sierra Nevada red fox one of the rarest mammals on the continent. In December and early January, one (or possibly two) came trotting into view of a motion-sensitive camera set up by wildlife biologists at Yosemite National Park in California. The fox’s sighting was the first inside the park since 1915 and was a boon for the scientists who study the small, shy mammal.

“National parks like Yosemite provide habitat for all wildlife and it is encouraging to see that the red fox was sighted in the park,” said Don Neubacher, Yosemite National Park Superintendent.

Park staff checked camera traps during a five-day back country trip and found two instances of a fox triggering the camera to go off. The camera stations also have hair snares, in the hopes of obtaining precious samples of fox hair for genetic testing.

Outside Yosemite, the last sighting of a Sierra Nevada red fox was in August 2010 near Sonora Pass, north of the park. Before that, the last time one was spotted was in the early 1990’s. The foxes have been seen at elevations ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. Writing in 1937, Joseph Grinnell told of the rarity of encountering the animal in “Fur-bearing Mammals of California,” leading some scientists to conclude there may not have been many of them around in the first place. The state of California banned trapping of the Sierra Nevada red fox in 1974 and the animal was added to the endangered list in 1980.

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An artist’s depiction of Dearcmhara shawcrossi, as it swam in the warm seas around Scotland 170 million years ago. Image from University of Edinburgh / Todd Marshall.

No, it’s not the mythical Loch Ness monster, but 170 million years ago Dearcmhara shawcrossi prowled the warm coastal waters of Scotland in pursuit of fish and other reptiles. Scientists announced the discovery of the previously unknown prehistoric marine reptile in the Scottish Journal of Geology today. An artist’s depiction shows a dolphin-like creature measuring about 14 feet from snout to tail that lived during the Jurassic Period. It’s a moderate-sized ichthyosaur, the dominant marine reptiles that lived in the time of dinosaurs. They were around for 150 million years, until they disappeared about 95 million years ago. This discovery fills in some of the information of the Early-to-Middle Jurassic timeline that has proven hard to crack for paleontologists.

Bearreraig Bay on the northern tip of the Isle of Skye is known for its fossil finds. Photo by Flickr user Vertigogen.

Amateur fossil hunter Brian Shawcross discovered this marine reptile’s fossils on Bearreraig Bay in the northern part of the Isle of Skye in 1959. He later donated them to the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. But it wasn’t until a consortium of scientists led by the University of Edinburgh recently re-examined the back, tail and fin pieces that they realized what they had. The new species name honors the fossil collector Shawcross. Dr. Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences said, “Without the generosity of the collector who donated the bones to a museum instead of keeping them or selling them, we would have never known that this amazing animal existed.” The genus name, Dearcmhara, (pronounced “jark vara”) is a nod to the creature’s habitat; it means “marine lizard” in Scottish Gaelic.

The Isle of Skye is famous for its dinosaur fossils, especially from the Middle Jurassic period. Photo by Flickr user torino071.

Skye is known as Scotland’s Dinosaur Isle — one of the few places in the world where dinosaur fossils from the Middle Jurassic period can be found. During the Jurassic period, much of Skye was underwater.

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Members of a seven women summit team wave to media in Kathmandu after completing their quest to summit 7 of the world’s highest peaks.

A team of women in Nepal has achieved a mountaineering first, scaling seven of the world’s highest peaks on seven continents.

Their aim was to show other women in Nepal that climbing isn’t just a sport for men, so they set out on the quest in 2008, starting with Mount Everest in their own backyard. Their goal was realized in late December when four of the women made it to the top of Mount Vinson in Antarctica.

Today, the team returned home to a hero’s welcome. The team leader, Shailee Basnet, told reporters at the airport in Kathmandu, “A big journey that started seven years ago has finally culminated in a seventh climb, so, after years of saying one done, two done, three, four, five, we can now say: seventh climb!”

In six years the women scaled Everest in Asia, Kosciuszko in Australia, Elbrus in Europe, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Aconcagua in South America, Denali or McKinley in North America and Vinson in Antarctica.

The women climbed Mount McKinley in Alaska, the highest peak in North America at 20,237 feet. Photo by Flickr user mikep.

They scaled Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, South America’s highest peak at 22,841 feet. Photo by Flickr user Mandala Travel.

More than 4,000 people have scaled Mount Everest and more than half of them have been from Nepal, but of that number only 24 have been women. The first Nepalese woman to reach the summit, Pasang Lhamu, made it in 1993 but died on the descent.

The seven women financed their climbs with personal savings, sponsors and fund raising events.

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