As flames consume parts of California, an unexpected group of firefighters has put their lives at risk to protect communities: prison inmates.

For $2 per day — and another $1 an hour when battling fires — qualified inmates can volunteer to help authorities combat fires.

A rare, two-headed snake that captured the attention of both biologists and the internet has died.

In what is the largest individual donation ever made to a single university, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday that he is donating $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University to assist students with financial aid.

A bookstore in England sold a children's biography of William the Conqueror that had been sitting in its shop since 1991.

"I have just sold a book that we have had in stock since May 1991," the Broadhursts Bookshop tweeted. "We always knew its day would come."

The world is in a transitional toilet state.

Bathroom innovators are working on ways to make toilets cleaner, safer and better for the environment. In the meantime, there are many types of toilets in the world — and all those options can be confusing.

There's the Western-style toilet — the white porcelain throne with a built-in flusher. In some parts of the world, people might use a squat toilet, which usually involves planting your feet on either side and hovering over a toilet bowl that's set in to the ground. Or a toilet could just be a hole in the ground.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott has defeated Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson in the Florida Senate race after a protracted and contentious recount.

Following both a machine and hand recount — mandated by law given the very tight margin of less than 0.25 percentage points — Scott continued to lead Nelson by more than 10,000 votes out of more than eight million votes cast.

"I just spoke with Senator Bill Nelson, who graciously conceded, and I thanked him for his years of public service," said Scott in a statement issued by his campaign.

A painting by Pablo Picasso that was stolen from a Dutch museum six years ago may have resurfaced in Romania, prosecutors say.

In a 2012 heist, thieves entered the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam and made off with seven works by masters including Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin — as well as Tête d'Arlequin, a 1971 painting by Picasso. Authorities put the work's value at about $900,000.

Until now, none of the works had been recovered, and most or all of them were thought to have been burned.