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San Rafael Waterfall on the Coca River was a prominent tourist attraction for the country, and according to NASA, drew tens of thousands of people every year. The water dropped 150 feet into a crater-like opening on the other side. Now, the iconic waterfall is gone, replaced by three streams, NASA said. All tourism to the site has been closed and it no longer appears on the country’s travel website. Experts at the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) in Ecuador believe the event happened in early February upstream, and diverted the current river pattern underground. Shortly after, MOE technicians said they inspected the waterfall and reported “possible undermining of the river’s path, prior to the fall of the waterfall.” However, they could not determine an exact cause at the time. There is some discrepancy over if it was a natural phenomenon, or caused by construction of a hyrdoplant on the river. The Ministry of Tourism does not plan to reconstruct the falls, NASA said.

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(CNN) — Dozens of spring breakers from Texas boarded a plane for fun and came home with coronavirus.About 70 people in their 20s chartered a plane from Austin, Texas, to Mexico for spring break two weeks ago. They went against the advice of White House officials who asked that people avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 and nonessential air travel.Now 44 of those people have tested positive for coronavirus — all of them University of Texas at Austin students, a university spokesman told CNN on Wednesday. An elected official had a blunt message for the spring breakers.”Quit being an a**,” Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen told CNN affiliate KXAN. “Get over yourselves. Whether you think this is an issue or not, it is. Whether you think it could affect you or not, it does. The reality of it is, if I’m a college kid who’s going to spring break in Mexico, you’re affecting a lot of people. Grow up.”What’s also alarming is that some of the passengers who went on the trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, took commercial flights home, the Austin Public Health Department said. Dozens of other passengers from the chartered flight are being monitored, public health officials said.”The virus often hides in the healthy and is given to those who are at grave risk of being hospitalized or dying,” Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said in a statement. “While younger people have less risk for complications, they are not immune from severe illness and death from COVID-19.”The local public health department and UT Health UT Health Austin and University Health Services have contacted all of the passengers on the plane using flight manifests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The University of Texas at Austin is working to help public health officials. “The university is working closely with Austin Public Health to assist in contact tracing,” university spokesman J.B. Bird said. “The incident is a reminder of the vital importance of taking seriously the warnings of public health authorities on the risks of becoming infected with COVID-19 and spreading it to others.”The students who tested positive are in self-isolation, health officials said. The Department of State Health Services has been alerted.University president Gregory L. Fenves urged students to practice good judgment and think about how their actions can affect others.”(It) is our responsibility to follow local, state and national public health orders, and use good judgment during this crisis,” Fenves said in a statement Wednesday. “Our conduct and the decisions we make have direct ramifications on our own health and the health of everyone in our city and beyond. We must do everything we can to limit the spread of this virus — the consequences of reckless actions at this time could not be clearer.”

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(CNN) — With much of the world under lockdown and social distancing practices in full effect, our streets have become unfamiliar and often eerie. But photographers — amateurs and professionals alike — and creatives from all over the globe are documenting the pandemic.#ICPConcerned is an initiative encouraging people to share photos — and other mediums — of their work with ICP via the center’s Instagram handle. Email is also an acceptable format for submission, though the program currently exists just on Instagram. Carmen Daneshmandi, a professional photographer living in Spain, started taking photos without a clear mission. Daneshmandi, whose images are featured in the gallery, told CNN, “The images came about quite unexpectedly in a natural way. I hadn’t intended to go out and document this experience and for most of the time I had been living in Zaragoza I actually had to be in New York for work. Now that I was forced to be inside, in my apartment, on my block, I started to naturally connect to my balcony community of neighbors I had never met before.” Daneshmandi said, “One-time portraits turned into daily photos and the solitude made indoor inspiration come to life.”Daneshmandi is not alone in finding inspiration during this strange time. ICP Executive Director Mark Lubell said the response to the call for pandemic photos “was immediate and very active.””Photographers, imagemakers and storytellers from around the world are using the hashtag and sharing their work and unique perspective during the pandemic,” Lubell told CNN.This isn’t the first time ICP has used the hashtag #ICPConcerned, however. The hashtag launched in 2016 after the US election, and Lubell said they plan to use it in the future “for any other transformative moment in our culture.”Since the March 20 launch, ICP has seen more than 3,600 posts using the hashtag #ICPConcerned. “Show us how you are responding,” the website reads. “We will be flexible, and as the situation develops, we will expect the unexpected.”Single images, photos sequences, image-text work, video and audio files may all be submitted and tagged with #ICPConcerned.

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That’s 93% of the world’s population, Pew said, as most nations have imposed partial or complete border closures to foreign nationals. “The movement of people across borders has come to a standstill in much of the world as countries close their borders to visitors — and sometimes their own citizens — in response to the coronavirus outbreak,” the analysis says.The report, posted Wednesday on the center’s website, combines data from border closure announcements and United Nations population data. And a map from the Pew Research Center shows the sweeping array of restrictions around the globe.Last month the International Organization for Migration reported that 174 countries, territories and areas around the world had coronavirus-related travel restrictions in place, describing the restrictions as “unprecedented (in) scope and severity.” Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, associate director of the Migration Policy Institute’s international program, described what she said was an “extraordinary acceleration” in travel restrictions. Just a handful of countries had travel restrictions in place at the beginning of March, she said at a recent event on the pandemic’s migration impacts. Weeks later, most countries had travel restrictions in place.”I think almost every country in the world at this point is playing with almost every tool it has available for almost every category of entry,” she said.

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“Harry Potter” author JK Rowling has launched an online Potter hub to keep children educated and entertained during the coronavirus pandemic.”Harry Potter at Home” brings together a number of resources related to the international franchise, including free access to the audiobook version of the first installment in the series.”Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” has been added to Audible’s library of free books as part of its partnership with the platform, making it immediately available in several different languages for free, and without requiring a subscription to the Amazon-owned audiobook service.Other features of the hub include articles, puzzles and videos, made available by publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic.”Parents, teachers and carers working to keep children amused and interested while we’re on lockdown might need a bit of magic,” Rowling said as she announced the launch.”For over twenty years now, Hogwarts has been an escape for all — for readers and fans, young and old,” the website organizers added in a post introducing the platform. “During the strange times we now find ourselves in, we want to welcome you back to Hogwarts, where you will find a friendly retreat for you, your family and those you are caring for.”The coronavirus pandemic has closed schools and workplaces and confined hundreds of millions of people around the world to their homes, leading to a surge in internet use and increased interest in a number of online tools. Rowling previously announced she was relaxing copyright permissions around the “Harry Potter” series, allowing teachers to post videos of themselves reading aloud from the books for their students.

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(CNN) — Joshua Tree National Park is completely closed to visitors, effective April 1.The shutdown of the California park known for its distinctive trees is an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus, according to a notice on the park’s website. Park rangers remain in place.Yosemite National Park was the first park to close in California, doing so on March 20. A week later, Lassen Volcanic National Park followed suit.The National Park Service is modifying operations on a “park-by-park basis,” using guidance from state and local public health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a notice on the NPS website.”While most facilities and events are closed or canceled, many of our outdoor spaces remain accessible to the public,” the notice said. Arches and Canyonlands in Utah, Grand Teton in Wyoming and Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are also among some of the big headliner national parks that have closed to visitors. Some national seashores, recreation areas and historical sites have also closed or reduced operations.There’s no national shutdown of all 419 national park sites, which would cover more than 85 million acres of national parks, seashores, lakeshores, battlefields and more, in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and several US territories. The National Park Service is waiving entrance fees at parks that remain open during the coronavirus pandemic in an effort to aid public social distancing. Katia Hetter and Marnie Hunter contributed to this report.

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