Andrew Wyatt serves as CEO for the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, a trade association battling the Defenders of Wildlife in a federal rule making at US Fish & Wildlife Service that could turn over 1 million American citizens into potential felons and negatively impact $1.4 billion in safe, legal trade; costing thousands of American jobs nationwide. He has lived on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for 25 years.

An expedition partially funded by NASA, part of a program to search extreme environments for geological, biological and chemical clues to the origins and evolution of life, has discovered the deepest known hydrothermal vent in the world, nearly 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) below the surface of the western Caribbean Sea.

By CATHERINE KOZAK, JEFF HAMPTON, KRISTIN DAVIS AND LAUREN KING By Catherine Kozak, Jeff Hampton, Kristin Davis and Lauren King The Virginian-Pilot Tropical Storm Hanna paid a quick visit to the Outer Banks and checked out before noon Saturday, leaving a stiff breeze and rough surf behind.

The Virginian-Pilot Bodie Island Spit at Oregon Inlet reopened on Wednesday to off- road vehicles, just in time for the Labor Day weekend.

By Wade Rawlins CAPE HATTERAS, N.C. - Turtles are crawling ashore and laying eggs on this windy elbow of sand in record numbers.