New Study Pushes Back Age of Mexico’s Cave Paintings 11,000 Years to End of Last Ice Age and Arrival of First Humans on Baja Peninsula — In what is likely one of Mexico’s most important archeological findings of recent years, the Great Mural cave paintings of Central Baja have been shown to be far older — by at least 10,000 years — than previously believed. A team of geologists, archeologists and rock art experts have concluded…

Some places in this world are too beautiful for their own good. Chief among them is the Greek Isle of Santorini, which I had the pleasure and woe of visiting this past August. The island is simply stunning. Its 1,000-foot-high, red-cinder cliffs are crowned by labyrinthine, snow-white villages dotted with…

Jill: Mom, there’s snow on Mt. Tom! Mom: It’ll still be there on the weekend. Jill: Don’t make me go to school today. It’s the first day of snow. There’s snow on Mt. Tom! – The Other Side of the Mountain, Universal Pictures, 1975 The snow has not yet come…

The Jemaa el-Fna, Marrakesh’s bustling market square, hits the uninitiated like a bracing slap in the face. The minute you step into this ancient market, which has served as the throbbing center of commerce in Marrakesh since 1070, you’re subjected to a firehose of sensations — waves of controlled calamity. …

The elegant calico strolled in from the street and through the dining room of our upscale Istanbul hotel, padding gently across the white marble floor, its striking orange-black-and-white coat drawing casual glances from guests speaking softly over their morning coffee. I watched the cat glide between tables and chairs as…

Istanbul’s Basilica Cistern has reopened following a major renovation and engineering upgrade that began in 2017 and concluded in 2022. The result is a must-see historical wonder and photogenic Instagram darling located in the heart of Istanbul’s Old Town, adjacent to the city’s crown jewels of the Hagia Sophia and…

The new Netflix Series “MH370: The Plane that Disappeared” is Heavy on Conspiracy, Light on Plausibility “They’re never going to find that jet,” my uncle Don Harten casually remarked in 2014 as we sat in the lobby of the Van Nuys Hilton with CNN on in the background broadcasting coverage of the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, flight MH370. “C’mon,” I laughed. “How…

In one of the most hair-raising photos of the Vietnam War, an automated camera mounted on the nose of Maj. Don Harten’s F-105 captured the image of a Soviet-made SA-2 surface-to-air missile skimming at a speed of about 2,600 mph only a few feet beneath the belly of Maj. Harten’s jet, which was flying over Hanoi on Feb. 22, 1968, on its way to bomb the nearby Hoa Lac Air Field. A split second later, the missile detonated just ahead of the F-105’s nose. In a mission report, military aviation experts stated that the plane was well within the missile’s “kill zone” and were puzzled at how the jet and its pilot escaped unscathed. This is almost certainly the closest photo ever taken of a Soviet missile of any kind in flight. Read a full account of the incident here: https://craigkcollins.medium.com/death-in-the-sky-the-vietnam-wars-most-hair-raising-photo-90371928efd6

A few years ago in the tony Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, while on a business trip, I stepped into a P.F. Chang’s for lunch and immediately thought of the Bad Man of Bodie. That’s because I was greeted with a sign emblazoned with a red circle and diagonal line atop…