Canada welcomed two cute and furry ambassadors on Monday -- giant pandas on loan from China for 10 years to mark a warming of Sino-Canadian ties.

Er Shun and Da Mao landed in Toronto after a nearly 24-hour journey from the Research Base For Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, China, aboard a transport jet stocked with in-flight meals of bamboo and apples.

U.S. labs that research bioterror germs such as anthrax are at risk for accidents because they do not have uniform building and operation standards, a Congressional investigative group said on Monday.

A lack of oversight has persisted despite a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office on the same topic, leaving no single agency in charge of safety or research goals at bioterror labs, the GAO said in its report.

It is perhaps not surprising that there are only a handful of humans on one of the most remote islands on Earth, coral atolls far out in the turquoise seas of the Indian Ocean.

What is unexpected are the 100,000 giant tortoises - more than are found on the world famous Galapagos Islands - with some weighing a staggering 250 kilogrammes (550 pounds) and with shells more that a metre (yard) across.

Six of 19 pilot whales that were stranded Sunday on a beach in the South African city of Cape Town have died and authorities said they planned to euthanize some of the surviving whales.

Police and other rescue workers had hosed down the surviving whales at Noordhoek Beach to try to keep them alive.

Mexican forensic expert Alejandro Hernandez dips dry, yellowish cadavers in a see-through bath, hoping his technique to rehydrate mummified bodies will solve murders in crime-infested Ciudad Juarez.

The city bordering Texas has endured drug-related violence and a wave of murders of women in recent years, with bodies dumped anywhere and drying up quickly in the desert climate, complicating the task of identifying victims and their cause of death.

The Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and the Kremlin -- along with a slew of other landmarks around the world -- went dark Saturday to draw attention to climate change.

In a symbolic show of support for the planet, people across the continents switched off their lights for 60 minutes -- all at 8:30 pm local time -- to make "Earth Hour."

Reports of a flash of light that streaked across the sky over the U.S. East Coast appeared to be a "single meteor event," the U.S. space agency said. Residents from New York City to Washington and beyond lit up social media with surprise.

"Judging from the brightness, we're dealing with something as bright as the full moon," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office said Friday. "We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the northeast."

An orphaned Alaska polar bear is getting a new temporary home in Buffalo, N.Y.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say the 3- to 4-month old cub is expected to be transported to the Buffalo Zoo sometime this spring to join the zoo's own cub, Luna.

The next book by primatologist Jane Goodall has been postponed because some passages were lifted from online sources and not properly credited.

Hachette Book Group announced Friday that no new release date has been set for Goodall's "Seeds of Hope," originally scheduled for April 2.

Sydney's skyline plunged into darkness on Saturday as the city cut its lights for the "Earth Hour" campaign against climate change, kicking off an event which will travel around the globe.

Organizers expect hundreds of millions of people across some 150 countries to turn off their lights for 60 minutes on Saturday night -- at 8:30pm local time -- in a symbolic show of support for the planet.