Music fans and environmental volunteers have planted more than 33,000 sea oats along Fort Lauderdale Beach over the past 13 years, turning an annual music festival into one of South Florida’s longest-running coastal restoration projects. The dune restoration effort began in 2013 alongside the first Tortuga Music Festival, an event created in partnership with the…

An Indian-origin US politician in New Jersey has been permanently barred from holding public office after admitting his role in an illegal gambling operation linked to the Lucchese crime family, which prosecutors said earned him about $900,000.Anand Shah, 44, a councilman in the Borough of Prospect Park, pleaded guilty to racketeering, money laundering and official…

Image credit: Sierra Nevada Ally For decades, a sprawling stretch of land along Nevada’s Carson River had a rather unusual place in the state’s history. In the 1940s and 1950s, part of the property operated as a “divorce ranch”, offering a temporary refuge for people seeking to end their marriages under Nevada’s famously lenient divorce…