The city of Los Angeles has spent $34.5 million on “shade balls”, which is an initiative to prevent the loss of 300 million gallons of water per year. The mayor of the city, Eric Garcetti, released the shade balls this week into the LA reservoir to help conserve the local water supply.

British architects and die-hard “Lord of the Rings” fans are such fans of the film’s location that they launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to build a replica of “Minas Tirith” where people can live and work in real life.

Tianjin is in the midst of dealing with a terrible explosion that claimed the lives of 44 people and injured hundreds more. The explosion was caused by stored explosives that went off unexpectedly near a hazardous chemical plant.