The men appear on horseback at daybreak, emerging from the thorny thicket of shrubs and small trees that mark the semiarid landscape of the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

The 200 or so cowboys known in Portuguese as "vaqueiros" are clad head-to-toe in traditional garb called "gibao." The protective leather clothing consists of elaborately stitched chaps, jackets, hats and hand coverings decorated with bits of orange, red and blue that they have donned for the annual festival known as "Pega de Boi," or "Catch the Bull."

Just blocks away from the bustling heart of this city, a community of monks offers a silent escape from it.

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, an order of Episcopal brothers, has kept a guesthouse at its monastery for decades to give outsiders a place to unplug and relax in a place of deep, serene quiet.

The federal government on Monday gave Royal Dutch Shell the final permit it needs to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska's northwest coast for the first time in more than two decades.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced that it approved the permit to drill below the ocean floor after the oil giant brought in a required piece of equipment to stop a possible well blowout.

Scientists say they have found rare evidence of a prehistoric massacre in Europe after discovering a 7,000-year-old mass grave with skeletal remains from some of the continent's first farmers bearing terrible wounds.

Archaeologists who painstakingly examined the bones of some 26 men, women and children buried in the Stone Age grave site at Schoeneck-Kilianstaedten, near Frankfurt, say they found blunt force marks to the head, arrow wounds and deliberate efforts to smash at least half of the victims' shins — either to stop them from running away or as a grim message to survivors.

A college student in Vermont is living in a 96-square-foot house he built to reduce his carbon footprint — and save money.

The Rutland Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1MwOCWq ) that Green Mountain College senior Rob Dunn has been living in the two-story Poultney home since August 2014.

A Middle Tennessee teen is alive, thanks to Siri.

Eighteen-year-old Sam Ray says the voice recognition service on his iPhone — famously named Siri — called emergency dispatchers after his truck fell on him while he tried to make repairs.

A judge said Monday he will take a week to determine whether to set aside Terrence Howard's divorce judgment that entitles his ex-wife to a spousal support and a share of his earnings from the hit television series "Empire."

Attorneys for Howard and his ex-wife, Michelle Ghent, made closing arguments Monday after four days of testimony in the case that featured embarrassing details about the actor's sex life and forced him to address accusations of domestic violence.

Pharrell Williams, One Direction and Florence + The Machine are going to appear at the Apple Music Festival next month.

Apple announced Tuesday that the musicians will be among the headlining performers at the 10-night festival at London's Roundhouse that begins Sept. 19. Festival performances will be broadcast live and on-demand on Apple Music, and additional material will be available on the app's Beats 1 radio.

U.S. scientists might have found a new way to tell who's at risk of having a premature baby, by checking the bacterial community that lives in the mother's reproductive tract.

Trillions of microbes share our bodies, living on the skin or in the gut, mouth or vagina, what scientists call our microbiome. Many of these germs play critical roles in health, from good digestion to robust immunity, but they can contribute to health problems if they get out of whack.

Rafael Nadal hopes his hard work will pay off in a rewarding end of the season, starting this week in Cincinnati and extending into the U.S. Open.

The eighth-ranked Spaniard comes into the Western & Southern Open after losing to No. 4 Kei Nishikori in the quarterfinals of the hard-court Rogers Cup in Montreal.