Bathers relax on inflatable water mattresses near the beach at Porto Katsiki, on the island of Lefkada, Greece. Lefkada's west coastline has among Europe's most beautiful beaches. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

More than 45,000 Boy Scouts salute during the singing of the national anthem as part of the Boy Scouts of America 2010 National Scout Jamboree at Ft. AP Hill, Va. on Wednesday. (AP Photo/DOD, Cherie Cullen)

A four-day-old Zedonk, a rare cross between a zebra and a donkey, stands next to her mother at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Lumpkin County, Ga. on Monday. The director of the preserve says it is the first time in 40 years that a zedonk has been born there. (AP Photo/The Times,Tom Reed)

The new Willis Avenue Bridge passes under the Brooklyn Bridge and in front of lower Manhattan as it is brought up the East River on a barge in New York on Monday. The bridge is replacing the existing 109-year-old span that connects Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Gavin Parfitt, 19-months, gets a ride on his father's shoulders, Joseph Parfitt of Baldwinsville, in a sea of sunflowers at the Camillus Sunflower Maze on Route 5 in Camillus, N.Y. on Sunday. (AP Photo/The Post Standard, Mike Greenlar)

The Springfield News-Leader in Missouri published a sweet and poignant story about the enduring nature of friendship. Watch the video below, and visit the News-Leader website to read the story.

Photographer Wes Skiles, whose work will soon grace the cover of the August 2010 National Geographic, loved water and braved countless dangers filming it. He died Wednesday, July 21, in a diving accident off Boynton Beach. He was 52. The cause of his death is unknown. Read the story.

Septemeber, 2005: Cave divers Tom Morris and Jill Heinerth enter an enormous room inside Silver Glen Spring in order to gather water chemistry data from its depths. (Photo by Wes Skiles)

Comic-Con attendee Cher Delacy, dressed as a character from "Alice in Wonderland" talks on her cell phone at Comic-Con International on Thursday, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

An Indian Bodo tribal man fishes near a paddy field in Kokrajhar, about 140 miles west of Gauhati, India on Wednesday. With the arrival of monsoon rains, farming activity has resumed in the paddy fields. ( AP Photo/ Anupam Nath)

China and environmental observers said cleanup efforts on the country's largest reported oil spill were progressing Thursday, but the environmental and economic damage was clear.

The cleanup - marred by the drowning of a worker this week, his body coated in crude - continued over a 165 square mile (430 square kilometer) stretch of the Yellow Sea off the northeastern city of Dalian, one of China's major ports and strategic oil reserve sites. READ THE LATEST STORY

Firefighters walk near flames towering from a pipeline explosion at a Chinese port in Dalian in northern China's Liaoning province on Saturday, July 17, 2010. The oil pipeline at the busy Chinese port exploded, causing a massive fire that burned for 15 hours before being put out Saturday. (AP Photo)