Cave is named World Heritage Site

PARIS » Drawings of mammoths and other art carved on cave walls in Southern France about 30,000 years ago have been inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.

The U.N. cultural agency says the Decorated Cave of Pont d’Arc contains the best-preserved figurative drawings in the world.

The agency’s World Heritage Committee said in a statement that it added the cave and other sites during a meeting June 22 in Doha, Qatar.

More than 1,000 images have been recorded from the walls of the cave, also known as the Grotte Chau­vet-Pont d’Arc. The drawings, among the oldest known human drawings, were discovered in 1994 by researcher Jean-Marie Chau­vet.

Tour balloon tested at 120,000 feet

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. » An Arizona company says it has completed the first scale test flight of a high-altitude balloon and capsule being developed to take tourists to the edge of space.

World View Enterprises of Tucson said Tuesday that it launched the flight from Roswell, N.M.

CEO Jane Poynter says the system broke the world record for highest para­foil flight, lifting a payload one-tenth of what is planned for passenger flight to 120,000 feet, and that the company is still planning to begin its $75,000-per-person flights in 2016. The balloons will lift a capsule carrying six passengers to about 100,000, where they will float for about two hours.

9/11 museum proves a big draw

NEW YORK » More than 300,000 people have visited the Sept. 11, 2001, museum since it opened little more than a month ago, exceeding expectations, officials said this week.

Organizers see it as a strong start for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, which had faced questions about its $24 ticket price. The attendance total has topped projections by about 5 percent since the institution opened to the public May 21 and to 9/11 survivors and victims’ relatives six days earlier, President Joe Daniels said.

Built amid the former World Trade Center’s footprints, the underground museum was designed as a more historical, immersive complement to the memorial plaza and waterfall pools above.

The museum includes profiles of the nearly 3,000 victims, recordings of survivors telling their stories, and artifacts ranging from a giant steel column to shoes shed as people fled the burning towers.