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As the U.S. government built its latest stretch of border wall, Mexico made a statement of its own by laying remains of the Berlin Wall a few steps away.

The 3-ton pockmarked, gray concrete slab sits between a bullring, a lighthouse and the border wall, which extends into the Pacific Ocean.

“May this be a lesson to build a society that knocks down walls and builds bridges,” reads the inscription below the towering Cold War relic, attributed to Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero and titled, “A World Without Walls.”

Shards of the Berlin Wall scattered worldwide after it crumbled in 1989, with collectors putting them in hotels, schools, transit stations and parks. Marcos Cline, who makes commercials and other digital productions in Los Angeles, needed a home for his artifact and found an ally in Tijuana's mayor.

“Why in Tijuana?” Caballero said. “How many families have shed blood, labor and their lives to get past the wall? The social and political conflict is different than the Berlin Wall, but it's a wall at the end of the day. And a wall is always a sphinx that divides and bloodies nations.”

“San Diego and Tijuana are sister cities,” said Lydia Vanasse, who works in the financial sector in San Diego and lives in Tijuana. “The wall separates us, but we are united in many ways. It would be better if there wasn't a wall.”

Tijuana's mayor said she understands the need for the U.S. to enforce borders and she has warm relations with U.S. officials, including Ken Salazar, the ambassador to Mexico. She said Salazar asked her to evict migrants who camped with hopes of getting asylum in the U.S. and blocked access to a U.S. border crossing in 2022. She heeded his recommendation.

Any failures at the border are a collective responsibility of governing nations, the mayor said. “We are against violence, we are against family separation, we are against division, and that's what the wall represents,” she said.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Scientists have been checking records dating back decades to examine how the spread of wildlife around the globe is having an impact on existing ecosystems.

They say 3,500 of the species that have invaded new environments are detrimental. In 2019, they found that spreading insects, marine animals, and other species into new habitats was one of the top drivers of biodiversity loss.

Professor Peter Stoett, the report’s co-author and Dean of Ontario Tech University’s Social Sciences, says the harmful impact of the invasion of alien species can be seen during the catastrophic wildfires in Hawaii in August.

He says: “There's a very, of course, unfortunate case, right now where in Hawaii with the terrible fires that we've seen, this has been linked to the proliferation of some African grasses that have grown there and which are used to a different fire regime, meaning that they grow, they burn, they grow, they burn very quickly. And this, we think, has contributed along with climate change and extreme weather, to the horrendous fires that we saw.”

“Many local landscapes that we consider natural, in fact, are not in the sense that alien species have populated them and we've lived with them for years. And in fact, many of us eat species that are alien species every day, right? It's quite difficult. The problem is the level of invasion that's occurring and the significant impacts that it's having on the economies, on livelihoods, and even on culture,” says Stoett.

Hordes of 'blue crabs' from the western Atlantic have invaded Italy's coast, threatening the country’s marine ecosystem and its role as one of the world's top clam producers. Arriving on ships from the Atlantic and benefiting from climate change, the crabs have put Italy's clam, mussel, and oyster producers in crisis, devouring or damaging over 50% of production.

Stoett says the greatest concern is how the phenomenon is leading to the extinction of whole species and cultures. Researchers say most of the spread is unwitting, driven by international shipping, whether by sea, train, or air.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

For small businesses that rely on summer tourism to keep afloat, extreme weather is replacing the pandemic as the determining factor in how well a summer will go.

The pandemic had its ups and downs for tourism, with a total shutdown followed by a rush of vacations due to pent-up demand. This year, small businesses say vacation cadences are returning to normal. But now, they have extreme weather to deal with — many say it's hurting business, but more temperate spots are seeing a surge.

Tourism-related businesses have always been at the mercy of the weather. But with heat waves, fires and storms becoming more frequent and intense, small businesses increasingly see extreme weather as their next long-term challenge.

For Jared Meyers, owner of Legacy Vacation Resorts, Hurricane Idalia's landfall as a Category 3 storm led to a loss in revenue as he temporarily closed one resort and closed another to new guests. It also means a lengthy cleanup period to fix the gutter and other damage and beach cleanup, including replanting of sea grass, sea grapes and other plants to protect against the next storm.

Media focus on extreme weather can hurt business, too. Dan Dawson, owner of Horizon Divers in Key Largo, Florida, saw his business boom during the pandemic. Now it's back to pre-pandemic levels. But when storms like Idalia close in, tourists flee.

Still, in some places that offer a respite from the heat and storms, businesses are getting an unexpected bump. At Little America Flagstaff, a hotel set in 500 acres (202 hectares) of private forest celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, temperatures in the 90s felt pleasant compared to the record-breaking heat in Phoenix, a two-hour drive to the south, which had temperatures of over 110 degrees Fahrenheit-plus (43.4 degrees Celsius) for 31 straight days.

Similarly, at Mission Point Resort on Mackinac Island, a historic island in Lake Michigan that doesn’t allow cars, temperatures have hovered in the temperate 70s while other places around the country have seen triple-digit heat. That leaves Michigan tourists often rubbing elbows with visitors from other states.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A program that provides meals to seniors in New Hampshire is also helping them combat the biggest risk to their long-term health – loneliness.

The Dine Out Program is designed to get people 60 years and older out of their homes to go eat in participating restaurants and socialize. The initiative, funded under the federal Older Americans Act Nutrition Program, state resources and donations, seeks to address an insidious isolation crisis.

The U.S. surgeon general warned in May that widespread loneliness in the U.S. poses health risks as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes daily. Research shows that Americans, who have become less engaged with worship houses, community organizations and even their own family members in recent decades, have steadily reported an increase in feelings of loneliness.

But the crisis deeply worsened when COVID-19 spread. In declaring the latest public health epidemic, the surgeon general says loneliness increases the risk of premature death by nearly 30%. The research shows that those with poor social relationships also had a greater risk of stroke and heart disease. Isolation also elevates a person’s likelihood for experiencing depression, anxiety and dementia. And those risk factors are particularly dangerous for seniors.

In New Hampshire, the Dine Out Program is run by Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County whose experts work with restaurants to design menus that meet dietary guidelines for seniors.

Seniors are changing. They may still be working, taking care of grandchildren, and fitting in medical appointments, unable to show up at a set time for lunch or dinner. And after years of cooking for others, it’s nice to be able to sit at the restaurant and order a meal.

According to information compiled by Meals on Wheels America, one in four Americans is at least 60 years old, with 12,000 more turning 60 every day. Those on fixed incomes also are living longer with less money; one in two seniors living alone lacks the income to pay for basic needs.

Patrons are encouraged to contribute a few dollars per meal, but they aren’t required to. Restaurants are reimbursed by the program organizer.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Food ads have long made their subjects look bigger, juicier, and crispier than they are in real life. But some consumers say those mouthwatering ads can cross the line into deception, and that’s leading to a growing number of lawsuits.

Burger King is the latest company in the crosshairs. In August, a federal judge in Florida refused to dismiss a class action lawsuit that claims Burger King’s ads overstate the amount of meat in its Whopper burger and other sandwiches.

But Burger King is far from the only one. Perkins Coie, a law firm that tracks class action suits, said 214 were filed against food and beverage companies in 2022 and 101 were filed in the first six months of this year. That’s a huge increase from 2010 when just 45 were filed.

Pooja Nair, who represents food and beverage companies as a partner with the Beverly Hills, California-based law firm Ervin Cohen and Jessup, said waves of class action lawsuits started hitting federal courts a few years ago.

Some of the first were false advertising claims against snack chip makers for not completely filling the bags; most of those were dismissed, she said. Since 2019, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed asserting that consumers are being misled by “vanilla-flavored” products that don’t contain pure vanilla or vanilla beans.

Others say growing consumer awareness is behind the trend. Social media can instantly make a photo of a soggy sandwich go viral, informing other potential plaintiffs, said Jordan Hudgens, the chief technology officer for Dashtrack, an Arizona-based company that develops restaurant websites.

In the Burger King case, plaintiffs in multiple states sued in March 2022, claiming that advertisements and photos on store menu boards show burgers that are about 35% larger—with double the meat—than the burgers they purchased. The plaintiffs said they wouldn’t have bought the sandwiches if they had known the actual size.

Ultimately, the Burger King case and others could cause companies to be more careful with their ads, said Jeff Galak, an associate professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. But that could come at a cost; more realistic photos might lead to lower sales.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The ultra-wealthy’s mega yachts, private jets, luxury mansions and penchant for water-guzzling activities like golf have made them easy targets for some climate activists this summer who are ramping up protests against the extravagant but emissions-spewing lifestyles they see as a threat to the planet.

This summer, Spanish climate activist group Futuro Vegetal — or Vegetable Future — spray-painted a $300 million super yacht belonging to Walmart heir Nancy Walton Laurie on the island of Ibiza in Spain. Protesters held up a sign that read, “You consume, others suffer.”

Climate activism has intensified in the past few years as the planet continues to warm and looks likely to shoot past the globally agreed warming limit of 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), igniting more extreme heat, floods, storms and wildfires around the world.

Tactics have been getting more radical, with some protestors gluing themselves to roads, disrupting high-profile sporting events and even last year’s highly controversial splashing of famous pieces of artwork with paint or soup. They’re now turning their attention to the wealthy.

“Luxury practices are disproportionately contributing to the climate crisis at this point,” said University of Maryland social scientist Dana Fisher. “It makes a lot of sense for these activists to be calling out this toxic behavior, so I think it’s not anecdotal at all (targeting luxury), but rather a small bit of the movement that is going to probably getting a lot more attention in the coming years.”

In May, some 100 activists disrupted Europe’s biggest private jet sales fair in Geneva. Activists chained themselves to aircraft gangways and the exhibition entrance.

Protesters have long targeted some of the world’s most profitable companies – oil and gas conglomerates, investment banks and insurance firms that continue to invest in fossil fuels – with their actions, although the targeting of specific individuals seems a more recent development.

Some things are moving at the legislative level, particularly on air transportation. France is cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys. Earlier this year, the Netherlands’ Schiphol Airport also announced plans to ban private jets.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.