In the quest to build better for the future, some are looking for answers in the long-ago past.

Ancient builders across the world created structures that are still standing today, thousands of years later — from Roman engineers who poured thick concrete sea barriers, to Maya masons who crafted plaster sculptures to their gods, to Chinese builders who raised walls against invaders.

Wearing an "I Love Pandas" T-shirt and clutching a panda-covered diary, Kelsey Lambert bubbled with excitement as she glimpsed the real thing. She and her mother, Alison, had made a special trip from San Antonio just to watch the National Zoo's furry rock stars casually munching bamboo and rolling around on the grass.

"It felt completely amazing," Kelsey, age 10, said Friday. "My mom has always promised she would take me one day. So we had to do it now that they're going away."

Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for studying how electrons zip around the atom during in the tiniest fractions of seconds, a field that could one day lead to better electronics or disease diagnoses.

The award went to Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-born Ferenc Krausz and French-born Anne L'Huillier for their work with the tiny part of each atom that races around the center and that is fundamental to virtually everything: chemistry, physics, our bodies and our gadgets.

Taiwan's baseball team took the field Tuesday sporting caps and jerseys not with "T" for Taiwan, but "CT," for Chinese Taipei.

China claims the democratic self-governing island as its own, and a decades-old agreement between Taipei and Beijing means that Taiwanese teams can only compete internationally if they don't use the name - or flag - of Taiwan.

Andrés Roemer, a Mexican author, playwright and former diplomat, was arrested in Israel and will be extradited to Mexico where he is wanted for alleged sex crimes, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said.

Roemer has been wanted in Mexico since 2021 for allegedly abusing at least eight women.

Three people were killed and six were injured when a shooter opened fire in a major shopping mall in the center of Thailand's capital on Tuesday afternoon before being apprehended, authorities said.

Police spokesman Archayon Kraithong told reporters a suspect was taken into custody after the shooting at the Siam Paragon Mall and the situation is now under control.

More than 100 dolphins have died in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in the past week as the region grapples with a severe drought, and many more could die soon if water temperatures remain high, experts say.

The Mamiraua Institute, a research group of Brazil's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, said two more dead dolphins were found Monday in the region around Tefe Lake, which is key for mammals and fish in the area. Video provided by the institute showed vultures picking at the dolphin carcasses beached on the lakeside. Thousands of fish have also died, local media reported.

Armenia's parliament voted Tuesday to join the International Criminal Court, a move that further strains the country's ties with its old ally Russia after the court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin over events in Ukraine.

Moscow last month called Yerevan's effort to join the ICC an "unfriendly step," and the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Armenia's ambassador. Countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC are bound to arrest Putin, who was indicted for war crimes connected to the deportation of children from Ukraine, if he sets foot on their soil.

U.S. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing an extraordinary referendum on his leadership of the House after a conservative member of his own Republican majority, a longtime critic, moved to launch a vote to oust him from the helm.

Late Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., rose in the chamber as the House was almost done for the day to file the motion — a resolution that would set a snap vote in coming days that even Gaetz acknowledged may not have enough support to remove the speaker from the job.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has confirmed he will run for a new term in elections scheduled for December, entering the race as the clear favorite and as his government wrestles with rising inflation and mounting debt.

Egypt will hold a presidential election over three days on December 10-12, with a runoff on Jan. 8-10 if no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote.