By JOHN DOWLING

RETETI ELEPHANT SANCTUARY, Kenya (AP) — We stood at the edge of a dusty corral baked by the equatorial sun and ringed by chest-high posts as thick as telephone poles. On some posts, workers had perched plastic jugs of goat’s milk, each holding a couple of liters and equipped with red nipples the size of a man’s finger.

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Across the corral, a young elephant ambled into view, head bobbing, trunk curling, ears flapping, trundling along as fast as its tree-trunk legs could carry it. Another followed, then a steady stream, bumping and jostling, kicking up orange dust — a joyful stampede of 2,000-pound toddlers.

It was feeding time for the orphan elephants of Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya.

The keepers tipped the jugs into the elephants’ hungry mouths while sing-chanting a traditional lyric that praises them for being good eaters. Each jug was drained in seconds. Some elephants managed to wrap their trunk around a jug and gulp down lunch on their own.

We were about halfway through a two-week trip through Kenya organized by a fledgling nonprofit that contributes a share of its revenue to local development in the country. The trek combined a traditional safari with chances to meet the Kenyan people who are working to preserve the wildlife. And, unexpected and most compelling, we saw how tourism and wildlife conservation are improving the lives of Indigenous people.

Elephants: The keystone of the economy

Reteti, run by the Samburu tribe, rescues young elephants that villagers notice have become separated from their families. A threshold problem was how to feed the orphans; manufactured formula was costly and nutritionally unsuitable. The answer was in the omnipresent goat herds in rural Kenya. Goat’s milk, it turned out, was a suitable substitute for elephant’s milk, wildlife caretakers at Reteti said.

More than 1,200 Samburu women sell nearly 185 gallons of milk from their goat herds to Reteti each day. Along with enabling them to buy better clothing and food, that gives them some financial independence from their husbands — a break from tradition.

Reteti also employs about 100 Samburu people and says it is the only elephant sanctuary in Africa entirely run by Indigenous people.

Members of Team Lioness, an all-female unit of anti-poaching rangers, pose for a photo at their headquarters in the Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya on May 18, 2025. (John Dowling via AP)

“We can say that elephants are the keystone of the entire economy,” said Dorothy Lowakutuk, a Samburu woman and elephant keeper who has become a spokesperson for the sanctuary.

Uplift Travel, which organized the safari, was founded with the intent to provide support to communities in Kenya, particularly with projects that help women and girls. Kim Schneider, a Michigan-based travel writer, created the group with a partner in philanthropy, Tanja Wittrock, after they discovered how a little money could have a huge impact on quality of life.

“I set out with a heart for travel and a heart for helping people, and this has married the two,” she said.

Highlights from the trip

“Safari” is Swahili for “journey,” and almost all of the overland drives qualified. A trip of 100 miles could take most of the day, traversing two-lane highways clogged with slow-moving semitrailers or backroads whose gullies and piano-size potholes tested the brawny, seven-passenger Toyota Land Cruisers at every turn.

In the wildlife areas, we rarely left the vehicles, save for photos at the equator and a brief stop to tiptoe across Kenya’s southern border into Tanzania.

A group of lions feeds on the carcass of a buffalo by the side of a road in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a wildlife reserve in central Kenya, on May 21, 2025. (John Dowling via AP)

Within two hours on our first drive of the trip, in Amboseli National Park on Kenya’s southern border, we saw elephants, lions, giraffe, zebras and a brief glimpse of a leopard, the most elusive of Africa’s “big five” wild animals. Amboseli is also where we met members of Team Lioness, an all-women unit of anti-poaching wildlife rangers. They are the first women in their Masai tribal community to have jobs outside the home.

At the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage in Nairobi, said to be the world’s oldest, each young elephant has its own room. Keepers sleep with babies, and human and elephant each has their own mattress.

At the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, I had the honor of feeding a carrot to one of the most celebrated wild animals in Africa – Najin, 36, one of only two northern white rhinos in existence. Najin lives with her daughter, Fatu, 25, under 24-hour armed guard on acres of fenced grassland. An international team of scientists is working to perpetuate the species using sperm from the last male northern white, Sudan, who died in 2014, and a southern white rhino as surrogate mom.

The conservancy has not lost a rhino to poachers since 2017. But much of the danger to Kenya’s wildlife today arises from conflicts between the animals and the people who live on the land. Elephants trample crops, lions and leopards prey on livestock. Giraffe and other wild animals are sometimes poached for meat.

Fatu, a 25-year-old northern white rhinoceros, is shown with one of her keepers and a truck full of visitors to Ol Pejeta Conservancy wildlife reserve in central Kenya in May 2025. (John Dowling via AP)

Indigenous Kenyans sometimes lack patience for conservation efforts, said Edwin Lusichi, head keeper at Sheldrick.

But at the Masai village of Japan B, so named by residents after a visitor extolled the wonders of Japan, the chief proudly displayed one of a ring of 33 beehives used to keep lions and elephants at bay. The buzzing and stinging of the tiny insects wards off the huge animals.

The stays on wildlife reserves

Most of our accommodations in Kenya’s wildlife reserves were run by Serena Hotels, an operator of luxury resorts and hotels in Africa and South Asia. Rooms or cabins had safari-themed touches. At a couple stops, cabins were built to look like tents, with canvas roofs, solid floors, electricity and hot showers. Breakfasts and dinners were buffet-style.

The most memorable stay was at Kileleoni Mara Gateway House in the Masai region, a sprawling, comfortable home with five guest rooms and two cottages in a fenced compound. It was as if a Masai friend had invited us to stay at her country house, serving us meat and vegetable stews at a long table under the stars. Innkeeper Yianti “Sylvia” Lerionka uses proceeds to sponsor a village for women who escape abusive relationships, and young widows.

A mother and child pose for a portrait near their home in Kileleoni Cultural Village in the Masai tribal region of southern Kenya on May 27, 2025. (John Dowling via AP)

On our last night in Kenya, we were told that if each of our group pitched in $20, we could buy a cow for the women of Sylvia’s village. Sadly, cows were going for more than $300 that day — but the $240 still landed a steer.

If you go…

Uplift Travel safaris vary in itinerary and length and can be customized, so prices range. A typical 14-day trip could cost about $9,000 per person, based on double occupancy, including hotel, meals, ground transportation and guides.

My airfare in May 2025 was $1,426 on British Airways from Chicago to Nairobi via London.

By JESSICA DAMIANO

With temperatures dropping and dusk arriving early, the firepit section of my garden has been on my mind.

It’s a simple setup. Eight colorful Adirondack chairs are arranged in a circle around a stacked stone hearth, surrounded, during the growing season, by easy-growing, low-maintenance button bush, hydrangeas, hosta, clumping Liriope and coleus.

And simple is what makes it special. The important part is the feeling it provides — unfussy comfort, serenity and relaxation.

The garden, after all, is a sanctuary – a place to hide, relax our shoulders and catch our breath while the rest of the world speeds by. Studies indicate that time spent in the garden lowers stress, but the types of plants don’t matter; our nervous systems don’t require a botanical showplace to unwind.

It doesn’t take much to give yourself the gift of peace — just a chair, a few unfussy plants that won’t become burdensome and some attention to detail. And if you can enjoy it year-round, all the better.

Sights, sounds and scents

Now’s a good time to start thinking about next year’s garden.

Ornamental grass appears in a mixed garden bed on Long Island, N.Y., on June 8, 2025. (Jessica Damiano via AP)

Large, native grasses lend a sense of calm when they sway in the wind. Flowers like lilacs, old garden roses, jasmine and sweet peas bring fragrant bliss. And the sound of a windchime or a steady trickle of water can provide meditative tranquility. There’s no need to get fancy; a small tabletop bubbler will do.

You don’t need a large yard either. Tuck a chair under a shade tree, install a window box or hanging basket, or line your balcony with potted annuals. Then just sit out there for five minutes, breathing.

Wild entertainment

A fragrant Palabin lilac appears on Long Island, N.Y. on May 24, 2024. (Jessica Damiano via AP)

Nature can handle some of the work for you. A birdfeeder or birdbath and some pollinator-friendly plants will provide plenty of entertainment, allowing you to zone out as birds splash and bees and butterflies flutter from flower to flower.

Create a habit

Now think up a small ritual that will bring you to your spot every day. Maybe it’ll be where you drink your afternoon tea, read your mail or write entries in your notebook. For me, it’s a walk around the garden every summer morning in my pajamas, coffee in one hand, pruners in the other, just checking on things before the day gets away from me.

A bistro table and chairs appear under a tree in a backyard in Long Island, N.Y., on Aug. 7, 2025. backyard. (Jessica Damiano via AP)

These days, I sit on my porch for a few minutes when the weather allows, breathing in some crisp air before starting my day. Soon, I’ll sit out there with a pile of seed catalogs and my trusty highlighter, making a springtime wish list while watching over my dormant garden. And you can be sure I’ll wrap myself in a blanket and sit around the firepit on some mild winter evenings.

If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. And it doesn’t take much to gift it to yourself.

Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.

For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

By LOUISE DIXON

LONDON (AP) — After years of minimalist, pared-back drinks, maximalism is back.

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Drinkers are looking for more than just a simple serve, and bartenders are dreaming up bold color palettes, layered flavors, oversize garnishes, theatrical glassware and playful twists on classic drinks.

The trend harks back to the “really out there” drinks service of the ‘90s, says Hannah Sharman-Cox, who with Siobhan Payne cofounded The Pinnacle Guide, which rates cocktail bars around the world with a three-“pin” system.

“It’s a little bit like that era’s grown-up cousin has taken the reins,” says Sharman-Cox. “More decadent luxury rather than garish waste.”

“Even the simple martini is starting to get more elaborate garnishes — big pickles, colorful cornichons — and we’re here for it,” she adds.

Mason Park, the bar manager at Alice, in Seoul, South Korea, agrees that today’s maximalism takes a more thoughtful approach. In the past, it was about flashiness and “prop” garnishes. The focus now, he says, is on the flavor impact, as well as sight, touch and smell.

Sustainable in more ways than one

There’s also thought given to environmental sustainability, says Payne. “Garnishes are increasingly designed to be edible or reusable, so we’re seeing more elaborate partnerships between the bar and the kitchen to create something delicious that truly compliments the cocktail.”

For Park, creative, attention-grabbing drinks also fuel and sustain the art of mixology.

“We work with so many elaborate elements and get so many ‘wow’ reactions from customers when we serve them, we believe that this maximalism — making these fun cocktails — actually plays a role in sustaining the profession of bartending itself,” he says.

Especially at a time when people are more cautious with their money, the industry needs to level up to give them a reason to visit bars — “not just for the simple experience of enjoying the night, but also to get something completely different,” says Emanuele Pedrazzani, head bartender at London’s subterranean bar Nightjar.

Drinks that wow

At the Alice bar, which takes its inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” the signature cocktail is “Foggy Fongo,” a riff on the book’s famous depiction of a caterpillar smoking a pipe on top of a mushroom. Served in a smoky, mushroom-shaped glass, the cocktail is built on bourbon, frankincense and palo santo (a Peruvian wood), with macadamia and hazelnut, as well as artichoke, sherry and the prized pine mushroom.

“We extract the aroma from pine mushrooms using glycerine, and then we infuse that mushroom fragrance into the cocktail as smoke,” Park explains. They then 3D-print the mushroom-shaped cap and place a truffle cookie inside.

“You can think of it as a cocktail that offers an experience where you eat and drink together,” Park says.

The ‘Beyond the Sea’ cocktail pictured at the Nightjar cocktail bar, Nov. 22, 2025 in London. (AP Photo/Louise Dixon)

Across the globe, Nightjar has the elaborately presented “Beyond the Sea” cocktail, served in a giant shell. It’s loosely inspired by the Salty Dog (gin or vodka and grapefruit juice with a salty rim), with a combination of gin, fino sherry with kombu seaweed, shiso leaves, limoncello, absinthe and grapefruit, finished off with a briny foam to evoke sea spray, and an olive.

It’s an immersive experience and it’s hard to know where to start.

“From one of the narrow ends!” quips Pedrazzani. He loves to make customers laugh, he says — “to create some sort of connection” — and he jokes that in this case, sometimes they don’t listen and the drink ends up all over them.

Social media plays its part

This image provided courtesy of Bon Vivants shows the ‘Mama Maggie’ cocktail pictured at the Bon Vivants resort, Nassau, Bahamas. (Bon Vivants via AP)

At the Bon Vivants craft cocktail bar in Nassau, the Bahamas, experience is everything.

If you order the Mama Maggie, a fruity mix of coconut rum, passion fruit liqueur, hibiscus, mango lime and orange juice will be delivered to you in a photogenic porcelain pig topped with colorful fresh flowers.

“When it comes to these types of drinks, (customers) want something they can post,” says Niko Imbert, senior vice president of hospitality.

They also want to see you put care and effort into the product, he adds.

“It’s just like a culinary experience in my opinion. If I see someone taking their time to create special for me, I’m very thankful for it.”

Bringing the trend home

The ‘Rey Bucanero, The King Buccaneer, cocktail’ pictured at the The Bedford Stone Street bar, Dec. 2, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo/Guido Neira)

To up your maximalist cocktail game at home, Imbert says, consider using vintage and unusual glassware, bar tools, garnishing, glitter or even a cocktail smoker.

“Just don’t go overboard, right?” says José Maria Dondé, beverage manager and head mixologist at The Bedford Stone Street in New York.

He creates a theatrical take on the Paloma, the Rey Bucanero (King Buccaneer). Alongside the traditional tequila and grapefruit, it contains rum, elderflower, cacao liqueur and yuzu, and is garnished with shiso leaf “waves” and an orchid flower.

At home, Donde suggests, start with something “that’s going to make you feel good and looks nice,” and add to it later as needed.

Though tanning may be far from the minds of chilly Illinois residents at the moment, a new study out of Northwestern Medicine is highlighting the risks of tanning beds, and showing how they can lead to skin cancer.

Not only is the use of tanning beds associated with nearly triple the risk of developing melanoma, but heavy users of tanning beds also had more damage to the DNA of their skin cells, according to the study published Friday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.

Dr. Pedram Gerami, a professor of skin cancer research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, decided to look into the issue of tanning beds and melanoma after noticing that an unusually large number of his patients were women younger than 50 who had melanoma multiple times.

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, though it is highly curable if caught early.

“You’d see the common thread linking all these women was a history of tanning bed exposure,” said Gerami, who is also director of the Pigmented Lesion and Melanoma Clinic at Northwestern Medicine.

Gerami teamed up with researchers from the University of California at San Francisco to examine the medical records of nearly 3,000 patients who used tanning beds at least 10 times in their lives and nearly 3,000 patients who never used tanning beds. They found a 2.85-fold increase in melanoma risk for patients who used tanning beds compared with those who did not, after adjusting for age, sex and sunburn and family history, according to the study.

The researchers then sought to find out how much DNA damage may be caused by tanning beds by examining skin samples from 27 patients. Eleven of those patients reported that they had used tanning beds at least 50 times in their lives, nine patients were at high risk for skin cancer but not from frequent tanning bed usage, and six of the skin samples were taken from cadavers, to augment the control group.

The researchers used relatively new technology to perform single-cell DNA sequencing on melanocytes, which are the skin cells that produce pigment.

They found that skin cells from patients who used tanning beds had nearly twice as many mutations as skin cells from patients who didn’t use tanning beds, and they were more likely to have melanoma-linked mutations.

“In the skin that looks normal in a tanning bed patient, you can find that their skin cells will have the DNA mutations that we know predispose (a person) to melanoma,” Gerami said.

“(For) a lot of these patients, the majority of their tanning bed exposure occurred in their youth, maybe even when they were minors,” he said. “Now, as adults, often early adults or mid-adult life, is when they’re finally dealing with the consequences of those exposures.”

That’s what happened to Heidi Tarr, a patient of Gerami’s who agreed to be part of the study.

In high school and college, Tarr said she used tanning beds multiple times a week. At the time, she thought it was safer than potentially burning in the sun.

“My friends and I, in high school and through college we used tanning beds regularly,” Tarr said. “It was part of feeling beautiful, I guess, having a tan.”

In 2011, she noticed that a mole on her back had changed in color and size. She underwent a biopsy and learned that she had melanoma. Luckily, she caught it early, underwent surgery and has been cancer-free ever since. But she must continue to get her skin checked every six months for the rest of her life, she said.

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“You think you’re getting a tan but what you don’t see is you’re damaging your skin cells, and that damage can lead to melanoma,” Tarr said.

Tarr didn’t hesitate to participate in Gerami’s research. “I wanted to help the medical community and his research, but I really wanted to help other patients,” she said. “I just wanted to do anything I could to give back.”

Pedrami would like to see more states limit use of tanning beds among minors and stronger warnings of the risks of tanning beds. Illinois, like a number of states, prohibits people younger than 18 from using tanning beds.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already requires tanning beds to have labels informing people of the risks of using them and urging against their use for people younger than 18.

Industry group the American Suntanning Association has criticized past research on tanning beds and skin cancer, saying on its website that many of the studies have relied on self-reported survey data and fail to “isolate independent variables, such as assessing whether subjects sunburned repeatedly or exposed themselves responsibly.”

“We acknowledge that there are risks associated with overexposure to the sun and sunbeds, including skin cancer,” the association says on its website. “But it’s important that we keep these risks in perspective while determining public health policy decisions. Discussion of the nuance and critical confounding factors in the research isn’t happening yet.”

Meanwhile, the American Academy of Dermatology association opposes indoor tanning and would like to see a ban on the production and sale of indoor tanning equipment for nonmedical purposes.