Snakes on a car (The Newsroom)

First there were Snakes on a Plane; then there were Snakes on a Train (can you say "straight to DVD"?) Now ... you guessed it: Snakes on a car.

That's what the Fisher family from Memphis, Tennessee found slithering on the windshield of their SUV -- while they were driving. The sneaky serpent had snuck into the engine and decided to show himself once things got too hot under the hood.

The Fishers caught it all on video and posted it to YouTube, where, predictably, animal lovers blasted the couple for not stopping. But all's well that ends well: Hitchy McHitchhiker eventually slithered off the car and to safety.

LIFE slideshow: John Glenn, unpublished photos (The Newsroom)

No person alive has been more closely associated, for so long, with America's triumphs in space during the late '50s and early '60s than Ohio native John Glenn. Here, on the occasion of his 90th birthday (July 18), LIFE.com presents unpublished photos of the first American to orbit the earth; the decorated Marine Corps veteran (WWII and Korea); and the earnest, novice politician, taken by LIFE photographers during one of the most thrilling, inspiring, nerve-wracking eras in the nation's history: the Space Race.

Hank Walker/TIME & LIFE Pictures

Second Act: Swimmer Diana Nyad (The Newsroom)

Open water swimmer Diana Nyad is back in Key West, Florida , continuing her quest to be the first person to make a 103-mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. A Yahoo! News team recently accompanied Nyad on a grueling 9-hour training swim, shooting an episode of the award-winning show Second Act from aboard her escort vessel. Nyad, who is 61 and swims around 1.5 miles an hour,  is waiting for favorable water temperatures and ocean wind speeds to attempt the 60-hour crossing.  Hurricanes and delays with Cuban visas prevented her from trying the swim last summer.  Click here to see the video.

Yahoo! News

What’s next for America’s aspiring astronauts? (The Newsroom)

Click image to view photos of space travel's past, present and future. (AFP)

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis is seen with from the International Space Station. REUTERS/NASA TV/Handout

(This report is the third and final in a Yahoo! News series on the shutdown of the space shuttle program.)

When Atlantis lands at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, back from the very last mission to the International Space Station, 20-year-old Amanda Premer will be getting ready to move to Houston.  The fourth-year aerospace engineering major is headed to Johnson Space Center's Cooperative Education program, where she will be alternating her last semesters at Wichita State University with three "work tours" at the NASA site. She hopes to secure a full-time job with NASA.

"I want to be an astronaut," said Premer, who has spent the last four summers working at the Cosmosphere space camp in Hutchinson, Kan. "Even though NASA doesn't have anything lined up to follow the shuttle program, the world's always going to need astronauts. And I'd like to be one of them."

As NASA's 30-year space shuttle program draws to a close, the next generation of aspiring astronauts and talented aerospace engineers must rely on international vehicles to fly up to the ISS, and depend on private industry to create the next best rocket. They are entering a new, nebulous era of American spaceflight, but are fervent in their desire to carry the torch lit by their predecessors during the Apollo era.

"The shuttle is old. Amazing, but old," said Sara Gurnett, who is three semesters away from earning a degree in professional aeronautics from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., and also works summers as a counselor for the Cosmosphere. "So it's not disappointing to me that it's retiring."

She hopes to join the U.S. Navy's Officer Candidate School after graduation, and eventually become an astronaut pilot. "I want to one day be able to fly the most exotic thing out there," said Gurnett, who keeps her pilot license, along with her scuba certification, literally in her back pocket.  "That used to be the space shuttle, but now, who knows what it'll be. … It'll probably be built by private industry."

President Obama thinks so too. Atlantis' crew deposited on the ISS an American flag that flew on the first shuttle mission, and when Obama spoke to the crew last week before it returned to Earth, he challenged the commercial space industry to "capture the flag."

Shortly afterward, California-based company SpaceX posted via Twitter: "SpaceX commencing flag capturing sequence…"

Founded by engineer-entrepreneur Elon Musk (of PayPal and Tesla fame), SpaceX made history in November when it became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and guide it safely back to Earth. It plans to send that same spacecraft to the ISS by the end of this year. Fueling this effort will be the company's cadre of bright young engineers—the average age at SpaceX is early 30s.

"There's all this incredible energy happening in the private sector," said Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who rode on Atlantis' penultimate trip to the ISS last year, but recently hung up his spacesuit to join SpaceX as a senior engineer. "We have a great mix of these senior guys and these young guys who are the best and the brightest."

One of those young guys is 26-year-old Matt McKeown , who sat in mission control during SpaceX's historic launch last year. A lead propulsion engineer, he gave the iconic "go/no-go" cues from the propulsion standpoint.

"It's definitely a challenge for us young engineers because we've never done this before," said McKeown, who joined SpaceX after earning a master's degree—and a 3.9 GPA—in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 2008. "But we know we have to make progress or we're not going to have jobs!  That's a great motivator."

McKeown started building model rockets in elementary school, and he continued to build them throughout junior high and high school. In college, he set his sights a little higher and co-founded the Michigan Aeronautical Science Association, an organization specifically designed to construct space vehicles.  He received a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which was founded by the six surviving astronauts of Project Mercury, NASA's first major undertaking. The foundation rewards college students who excel in the sciences.

"Ever since I was 5, I knew I wanted to be an engineer," said McKeown, who was inspired by shuttle technology. "Now I'm working on vehicles that will take manned spaceflight to the next level. … I hope that will inspire people."

Sara Gurnett believes that renewing public interest in space exploration is the key to continued funding and support.

"We have to get parents interested in space, and then they'll inspire their kids," she said. "Some kids see these things as faraway dreams and they don't feel like they're good enough. … But they could really do this one day!"

Aerospace engineer Doug Hofmann, 30, was inspired to pursue a career in space by his father, a retired Army lieutenant colonel with a strong interest in the space program. (In 1985, the elder Hofmann, then a seventh-grade teacher, was a finalist for the ill-fated Challenger mission.)

"I grew up wanting to be an astronaut," said Hofmann, who knew his best chances were to become an engineer or a military fighter pilot. "My dad told me I was more apt for research than the military."

From then on, Hofmann relentlessly pursued the space field and took every opportunity to get advice from former astronauts. Sally Ride, the first American woman to enter space, and one of Hofmann's professors at the University of California, San Diego, convinced him to go to Caltech for graduate school rather than MIT. He went on to earn both a master's and PhD in materials science.

Hofmann is now working in what he calls his dream job, designing new materials for spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  He hopes the job will bring him one step closer to becoming an astronaut (he currently has funding for research projects on the ISS).

In the meantime, he's trying to pass on the wonder and excitement for all things space to his 5-month-old son: "When I was in Washington, D.C., I got the autographs of three astronauts for my son.  When he's older he'll appreciate them."

Though many view the end of the shuttle program as an end to American spaceflight, this new generation of aspiring astronauts, engineers and space enthusiasts are excited as ever for the future, and hope that they can leave their mark, much as their predecessors from Apollo and the shuttle missions did. Whether it's by hitching a ride on another country's vehicle or inaugurating a shiny new ride built by commercial industry, they will continue to explore the great unknown, and stake their flag to inspire the next generation.

More specifically, according to Gurnett: "Space travel to the moon, Mars and beyond: That's the legacy I want my generation to leave."

LIFE slideshow: Druids, mystery, faith, myth (The Newsroom)

In early October, 2010, the ancient pagan tradition of Druidry was, for the first time, formally classed as a religion in Britain. The legal significance of this new status for those who today call themselves Druids is considerable: they can, for instance, receive exemptions from taxes on donations. The spiritual significance, meanwhile -- of having one's religion recognized on a par with, say, the Church of England after years of living on the very margins of Europe's great faiths -- can hardly be overstated.

Keystone/Getty Images

Ryan’s shrewd budget payday (The Newsroom)

When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP blueprint for cutting government spending, he asked Americans to make sacrifices on everything from Medicare to education, while preserving lucrative tax subsidies for the booming oil, mining and energy industries.

It turns out a constituency within his own personal investments stood to benefit from those tax breaks, Newsweek and The Daily Beast have learned.

The financial disclosure report Ryan filed with Congress last month and made public this week shows he and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan's budget plan.

Ryan's father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.

Some of these firms would be eligible for portions of the $45 billion in energy tax breaks and subsidies over 10 years protected in the Wisconsin lawmaker's proposed budget. "Those [energy developing companies] benefit a lot from these subsidies," explained Russ Harding, an energy policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, when presented with the situation, without reference to Ryan. "Without those, they're going to be less profitable."

To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest.

"To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. "

"Sure, senior citizens should have to pay more for health care, but landholders like [Ryan] who lease property to big oil companies, well, their government subsidies must be protected at all costs," says Melanie Sloan, the director of the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It smacks of hypocrisy."

Ryan's office says the congressman wasn't thinking about himself or the oil companies that lease his land when he drafted the budget blueprint that extended the energy tax breaks. "These are properties that Congressman Ryan married into," spokesman Kevin Seifert said. "It's not something he has a lot of control over."

Nonetheless, the properties have been a lucrative investment for Ryan and his wife, earning them as much as $117,000 last year, and $60,000 the year before, his personal financial disclosure reports show. Overall, Ryan, 41, listed assets worth between $590,000 and $2.5 million, putting him in the top third of the richest members of the House.

Ryan and his wife reported owning minority stakes ranging from nearly 1 percent to 10 percent in the following four family companies: Ava O Limited Company, which holds mining and mineral rights; Blondie and Brownie, which holds gravel rights; Red River Pine Company, which holds timber rights; and Little Land Company, an oil and gas corporation.

While Ryan's stake in the oil and gas firm was his smallest at 0.8 percent, it was listed as one of his most valuable assets, generating as much as $50,000 of his income last year, the report shows.

Aside from the land-lease income, Ryan could also personally benefit from the package of subsidies and incentives he has fought to protect. According to a report from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Ryan himself would be eligible to recover money from the government for investments the four family companies might make in such things as machines and maintenance if they didn't pan out on the properties and failed to generate revenue.

Stephen Comstock, a tax analyst with the American Petroleum Institute, says the provision and several others like it would be protected under Ryan's budget.

Rep. Dan Boren, a Democrat from Oklahoma who has announced his retirement next year, also owns stakes in three of the four same companies as Ryan. The two lawmakers are related through marriage. Boren is the first cousin of Ryan's wife.

Boren aligned with his party and voted no on Ryan's budget. But a month prior, Boren voted with Republicans (and only 12 other Democrats) to oppose an amendment that would have financially constrained major oil companies.

In a written statement, Boren told Newsweek and The Daily Beast, "It should come as no surprise the way I voted because the oil and gas industry is the largest private employer in Oklahoma."

In addition to the tax breaks, Ryan's family has benefited in recent years from another form or federal largesse—farm subsidies. Federal records show his father-in-law and great-aunt have collected more than $50,000 in agriculture subsidies on lands owned by the family.

Ryan's budget had proposed cutting $30 billion in farm subsidies over the next 10 years, although some conservatives criticized the number for being too low.

Long a star among young conservatives who admired his commitment to fiscal discipline, Ryan soared onto the national political scene earlier this year, when Republicans chose the youthful, handsome lawmaker to give the nationally televised response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

Ryan then opened the floodgates of criticism a few months later, when he submitted his "Path to Prosperity" plan to slash $6.2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, going further than the president or other major politicians in the scope of his cuts.

Democrats pounced on the depth of cuts, including the virtual elimination of Medicare for retirees who are not yet 55.

Ryan's Medicare program also drove a wedge through his own party. When former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now a presidential candidate, referred to the idea as "right-wing social engineering," the blowback was so severe that Gingrich had to immediately apologize to Ryan.

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Daniel Stone is Newsweek's White House correspondent. He also covers national energy and environmental policy.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

LIFE slideshow: NASA envisions alien worlds (The Newsroom)

For decades, NASA has delighted stargazers with pictures taken by astronauts, telescopes, and rovers across the galaxy -- photographic glimpses of real planets, moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies. When illustrators, meanwhile, stretch their imaginations -- giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world -- their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. Captured by a camera or, as in this gallery, envisioned by artists, the far reaches of space continue to humble and amaze.

NASA/ JPL-Caltech