Magazine honors Sears Tower as green landmark

NEW YORK - A baseball stadium, a birding center and a couple of skyscrapers, including the Sears Tower in Chicago, are on Travel + Leisure magazine's list of 10 American green landmarks that deserve recognition for modern, sustainable design. The magazine praised the Sears Tower for exploring how it can become more energy efficient. The rest of the list can be found in the magazine's November issue and at www.travelandleisure.com.

Book highlights vanishing landmarks

HOBOKEN, N.J. - They include the last of their kind, unique landmarks, places threatened by rising or falling seas or development, and homes for species or phenomena that may not last forever. These are some of the things you'll find in "Frommer's 500 Places to See Before They Disappear" ($19.99), published by New Jersey-based Wiley's. The book features natural and historic sites, from ancient places of worship, to disappearing landscapes, to one-of-a-kind cultural treasures like Fraser Island, Australia, made entirely of sand and threatened by rising sea levels.

Oregon halts tours of 'Cuckoo's Nest'

SALEM, Ore. - Tourists interested in exploring the mental hospital made famous in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" will have to settle for a virtual visit. Public interest in visiting the 125-year-old J Building at the Oregon State Hospital soared after the state Department of Human Services sponsored a series of guided tours on Sept 13, the Statesman Journal reported. State employees led about 200 people through vacated, decaying sections of the building and the sprawling tunnels under it, where some patients had to live. Publicity from that day led another 1,100 to express interest, but state officials decided against additional tours.