Stamps on one of Chris Guillebeau's passports.

Chris Guillebeau
AC360° Contributor

This post is relevant for readers with U.S. passports who travel frequently. If you don’t fit in that group, feel free to skip this one — or just read it for the entertainment value.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I have two U.S. passports, and each time at least one person asks me how that works. Well, I’ll tell you exactly how I got the second passport, and what you need to do if this would help you too.

First, the need for a second passport. Why bother?

U.S. passports are good for a number of reasons: notably, they are valid for 10 years, and when you fill up the pages with lots of stamps and visas, the State Department in Washington, D.C. or any embassy abroad will issue more pages at no charge. I’ve had three passport page extensions so far, and without that option I would have needed at least four passports by this point. No other major country of which I am aware offers a passport that includes both of these important features.

As good as a U.S. passport can be, there are still two problems with having only one passport of any kind. First, when you visit politically sensitive countries (especially in the Middle East), the ensuing stamps can cause delays and other problems for you later.

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The Palace of Happiness in Bhutan.

Chris Guillebeau
AC360° Contributor

When you first head off to places in the world that are a lot different from where you live, a number of things change. You have to learn to adapt.

I still make a lot of mistakes everywhere I go, but I try to learn from each of them. Here’s a short list of things I wish I’d known before I started my routine of extensive overseas travel, especially in countries in Africa, South Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America that are not part of the tourist circuit.

Health Care

1. You can legally buy safe medicine, including prescription drugs, for very little money overseas. When in Africa or Asia, I stock up on anti-malarials that cost $5 a day in Seattle. On location, it’s more like $1 for a 10-day supply.

2. The best health care is not in the U.S., Canada, or the U.K. The best healthcare is in places like Thailand and Costa Rica; that’s why the practice of medical tourism will continue to surge as both travel and overseas healthcare become more accessible.

Money

3. Take a lot of cash with you, and make sure the bills are new and have no writing on them. If you go to a place that accepts credit cards, then you can just redeposit the cash when you get home. It is far worse to end up short of cash with no credit card option.

4. If you do use your credit card, check the online statement at least once a week while traveling to make sure there are no fraudulent charges. Keep all your receipts, especially for large purchases such as hotel stays, and compare the amounts charged when you get back.

5. When you exchange money, hang on to the receipt you get until you’ve left the country. Once in a great while, someone at the airport will want to see proof of all your foreign exchanges.

Outside the Tiger's Nest Monastery in Bhutan.

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David Doss
AC360° Senior Executive Producer

These days when I get home late after the show, or in the mornings, when I am headed back to CNN, more often than not a neighbor asks me, “What happened to Anderson? Where are you guys? I can’t find you?” Well, If you live in New York City then you know CNN and 360 used to appear on your cable channel 10. And then suddenly we were “missing in action.”

Here’s what happened: With little warning the cable operators in New York City moved CNN and 360° to channel 78. For my neighbors, and for many other viewers, it just wasn’t acceptable. They couldn’t find Anderson. So, if you live in New York City, Anderson and the 360° team are on channel 78.

I can assure you, we are still balanced between cable’s white noise on both the left and the right, producing the only original reporting at 10pm every night and as always, for us—it’s all about accountability. We’re Keeping Them Honest. And did I mention, in New York City we’re on channel 78.

Nicole Santa Cruz
Los Angeles Times

Pasadena’s trash cans are about to get fancy.

Late Monday night, the City Council approved a work order to place 40 additional self-compacting solar energy trash cans throughout the city, in addition to the 12 the city already operates.

The city is joining Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Boston and Philadelphia in using the trash cans, called BigBelly Solar Compactors, according to the vendor’s website. The 40 receptacles will cost $146,550.

The trash bins, which first started appearing on Pasadena street corners in 2007, can compact 200 gallons of trash into one 60-gallon “neat” bag, said Gabriel Silva, the environmental programs manager with the city’s Department of Public Works.

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Planet Money
NPR

Check out this receipt from Starbucks photo on NPR's Planet Money Blog. It was submitted by Jen Firlik.

Shared planet = NC. Free, it seems.

BBC

New world 800m champion Caster Semenya has been asked to take a gender test, according to athletics' governing body.

The International Association of Athletics Federations says it demanded the test three weeks ago amid fears she should not be able to run as a woman.

IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said the "extremely complex, difficult" test results were not due for several weeks.

The South African athletics federation insists it is "completely sure" that Semenya, 18, is a female.

"We would not have entered her in the female competition if we had any doubts," said a statement.

Semenya won gold in impressive fashion on Wednesday, leaving her rivals trailing as she won in a time of one minute, 55.45 seconds.

Defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei was second, a massive 2.45 seconds adrift, with Britain's Jennifer Meadows taking bronze.

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Nepenthes northiana – the carnivorous pitcher plant prepares to tuck into a rat.

CNN

Botanists believe they have discovered one of the world's largest carnivorous plants in Southeast Asia.

The giant pitcher plants were located on Mount Victoria in Palawan, central Philippines by a team led by UK botanist Stewart McPherson.

The second largest species, now called Nepenthes attenboroughii, has been named in honor of the UK's world-renowned natural history presenter Sir David Attenborough.

The new discovery measures up to 30 centimeters in diameter and is formed by a tendril which inflates into a large cup-shaped trap.

McPherson told CNN: "Around the mouth of the pitcher are secretions of nectar which attracts insects and small animals. The rim has lots of waxy downward-pointing ridges which help prey fall directly into the pitcher.

"The pitchers are half full of a liquid consisting of acids and enzymes which help break down its prey."

The insectivorous, sometimes carnivorous diet is crucial for the plants' survival says McPherson.

"These plants grow in really harsh areas where soil quality is very poor - often pure gravel or sand. Catching insects allows the plant to augment nutrients that it otherwise wouldn't have access to."

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Michael Stoops says a new report documents a disturbing trend of attacks on the homeless.

Brian Levin and Michael Stoops
Special to CNN

Over the last two calendar years, more Americans in the United States were killed in a little-noticed spate of unprovoked attacks than were killed by terrorists, in large commercial jet crashes or in racial hate crimes.

Since 1999, more than 240 vulnerable homeless Americans have been stabbed, beaten, drowned, shot or burned to death in a revolting display of one of the last socially tolerated prejudices, this one based on class.

Despite being prime targets of prejudice and violence, particularly in today's youth subculture, the homeless are routinely excluded from lessons related to tolerance, as well as from official data collection and hate-crime penalty enhancement laws.

A newly released report from the National Coalition for the Homeless documented 27 unprovoked, apparently bias-related homicides by attackers in the United States last year, down one from the previous year and the second-highest number of killings since 2001.

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The FAA is developing new technology to track air traffic via satellite.

Federal Aviation Administration

– What is NextGen? –

NextGen is an umbrella term for the ongoing, wide-ranging transformation of the United States’ national airspace system (NAS). At its most basic level, NextGen represents an evolution from a ground-based system of air traffic control to a satellite-based system of air traffic management. This evolution is vital to meeting future demand, and avoid to gridlock in the sky and at our nation’s airports.

NextGen will open America’s skies to continued growth and increased safety while reducing aviation’s environmental impact.

These goals will be realized through the development of aviation-specific applications for existing, widely-used technologies such as Global Positioning Satellite (GPS). They will also be realized through the fostering of technological innovation in areas such as weather forecasting, data networking, and digital communications. Hand in hand with state-of-the-art technology will be new airport infrastructure and new procedures, including the shifting of certain decision-making responsibility from the ground to the cockpit.

When fully implemented, NextGen will safely allow more aircraft to fly more closely together on more direct routes, reducing delays, and providing unprecedented benefits for the environment and the economy through reductions in carbon emissions, fuel consumption, and noise.

Read more about NextGen and new innovative initiatives from the FAA to revamp air traffic control.

Check out this photograph we couldn't help but post.

Space Shuttle Discovery rolls out to launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, August 4, 2009. It is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station no earlier than August 25th. (Photo by Matt Stroshane/Getty Images.)