A Canadian rock star uses his photos to show the legacy of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars

Bryan Adams' portrait of Joe Townsend

Canadian rock star Bryan Adams is famous for his songs, such as (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, and for his portrait photography. Now, he's turned his camera on British war veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with "life-changing" injuries. He says his aim is to inspire "silence, [and] serious reflection" from viewers.

It's hard not to be struck by the photos in his exhibition, Wounded: The Legacy of War, which show the men in unflinching terms, with their scars and prosthetics. The Independent published many of the photos of the young veterans, men and women. The free exhibition at Somerset House in London runs until January 25, 2015. 

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Forget about the birds and the bees — in Turkey, it's the ducklings and dolphins

Turkey's sixth grade sex education curriculum just took a turn toward the conservative. Diagrams that illustrated the male and female genitalia and their parts have been scrubbed in the latest edition of some textbooks. The replacement images? Photos of ducklings, swimming dolphins, and a fully-dressed mother and newborn.

Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News site has the before and after images. It quotes a former head of a teacher's union who criticizes the "serious censorship" and says the diagrams were age appropriate — showing the sex organs in the same way a science textbook shows the heart and kidneys. 

The move seems in line with efforts by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to shift Turkey from a secular society to one more consonant with Islam. Some have mocked the move and suggest it will just confuse kids: "Crazy, they want kids growing up thinking there’s a petting farm in their pants!"

Jon Stewart moves from making comedy to making a very serious film

Jon Stewart is best known for the political satire of The Daily Show, watched by millions of Americans. Yet Stewart took time off from his show last year to make a movie that is both an outgrowth of his show and very different. The movie, Rosewater, offers a haunting look inside Iranian prisons, based on the real-life experience of a man who went on Stewart's show and was then tortured for it.

Stewart is behind the desk at his show now and says he learned a lot from doing the movie. It's given him reason to ponder his future. His contract is up next year and while he's by no means hinting that he won't extend the popular show, in an interview with PRI's Studio 360, he says the show is "not forever ... It won’t be a place that I stay to the point that I feel like it’s perfunctory."

A renowned Egyptologist is accused of helping renegade archaeologists steal a piece of Egyptian history

If there is an Indiana Jones of Egypt, it would be renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, once antiquities minister under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak. He is a smart and flamboyant promoter of Ancient Egypt, who has starred in various documentaries. Now, he is being questioned, again, about unorthodox practices in the pursuit of science.

An Egyptian court has already convicted three amateur German archaeologists and five local officials for scraping off part of an insignia from inside the Great Pyramid of Giza for testing abroad. The Guardian reports the men were trying to prove that the pyramid was actually older than generally assumed and not the tomb of pharaoh Khufu. Those men accuse Hawass of being involved — a claim he denies. Hawass lost his government role a few months after the Arab Spring uprising under accusations of corruption, but was later cleared. 

Afghan women fight to have their own national cycling team

Afghan women face many hurdles in their culture — from simple things like attending school to playing a role in politics. But the women trying to start a national cycling team face special challenges, not the least of which is a culture that views it as immoral for women to ride bikes. They're often subjected to catcalls, threats and worse when they're at training. But that doesn't stop them.

American women's rights activist Shannon Galpin, and her charity Mountain2Mountain, is helping the women train and meet their goal of competing in an upcoming Olympics, most likely in 2020. The women train in Afghanistan, often with their country's much more established men's team. But to make the Olympics, they'll have to increase their training and likely travel outside of Afghanistan. PRI's The World has the story.

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Weather around the world

The Atlantic hurricane season is coming to a close and it has been another relativelyl quiet one. All told, there were 10 tropical systems in the current season, which began June 1, with eight of them reaching tropical storm status. Six of those became hurricanes and two even became major hurricanes. Still, all those numbers are below historic averages.

Even more surprising was that little damage came from the storms, according to Accuweather. Arthur, the first storm of the season, ruined some Fourth of July plans in New England and did knock out power to hundreds of thousands a few days later in Atlantic Canada. Bermuda was hit by two storms, but even those weakened before making landfall. The Pacific storms were another story, including the one that helped cause this week's Arctic chill across the US and Canada.

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