OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Rudveep Randhawa’s three kids competed in eight consecutive Scripps National Spelling Bees from 2016 to 2024, with four appearances by daughter Aisha and two each by daughter Lara and son Avi. Yet when Avi’s spelling journey concluded in last year’s semifinals, Randhawa, a pediatric endocrinologist who goes by “Dr. Happy,” […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Twice a year, New Yorkers and visitors are treated to a phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge, when the setting sun aligns with the Manhattan street grid and sinks below the horizon framed in a canyon of skyscrapers. The event is a favorite of photographers and often brings people out onto sidewalks on […]
It’s the last day to book a flight on Southwest Airlines without being hit with a fee to check bags after the airline abandoned a decades-long luggage policy that executives had described last fall as key to differentiating the budget carrier from its rivals. The airline announced the change in March, saying at the time […]
NEW YORK (AP) — You’d be forgiven for looking around Andrei Kozlov’s studio, dotted with paintings inspired by his eight months as a hostage of Hamas, and seeing only darkness — canvases splashed with gray and ocher, guns tucked into waistbands or resting against a wall, moments of angst and disbelief and pain. He is […]
WEST MONROE, La. (AP) — Phil Robertson, who turned his small duck calling interest in the sportsman’s paradise of northern Louisiana into a big business and conservative cultural phenomenon, died Sunday, according to his family. He was 79. Robertson’s family announced in December on their Unashamed With the Robertson Family podcast that the patriarch of […]
MIAMI (AP) — Flamingos, pelicans, herons and parrots are just a few of the wild birds that call Miami home, but it’s the roosters, hens and baby chicks that have come to rule the roost in recent years. Not only found in residential neighborhoods like Little Havana, Little Haiti and Wynwood, the fowl families are […]
U.S. children whose parents divorce when they are age 5 or younger have reduced earnings as adults and increased chances by young adulthood of teen pregnancy, incarceration and death, according to a study released this month. After a divorce, a household’s income typically is halved as a family splits into two households, and it struggles […]
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Hercules and Ned have quite the spacious office at West Virginia’s busiest airport. The border collies and their handler make daily patrols along the milelong airfield to ensure birds and other wildlife stay away from planes and keep passengers and crew safe. Hercules is also the chief ambassador, soaking in affection […]
HONOLULU (AP) — An Oregon man who quit his job at a tire company and liquidated his retirement savings to set sail for Hawaii with his cat, Phoenix, reached his destination Saturday, welcomed by cheering fans at the end of a weekslong journey that he documented for his mass of followers on social media. Oliver […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Ask someone for their thoughts: Could it now cost you a nickel? If you want to call somebody stingy, would you say they’re a quarter-pincher? And if they spend money unwisely, are they now dime-wise but pound-foolish? OK, maybe those are some minor, small-stakes, dare we say penny-ante concerns in the […]
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law Thursday curtailing what kind of development can happen in Florida’s prized state parks — giving his approval to legislation that came in direct response to his administration’s push to build golf courses, pickleball courts and hotels on conservation lands. Unlike issues of […]
BOSTON (AP) — Three months after his release from Hamas captivity, Omer Shem Tov stood on the pitcher’s mound at a Boston Red Sox game. Surrounded by supporters, he tossed out the first pitch, then raised his arms in celebration. His name flashed on the stadium billboard. The moment was emblematic of the new-found — […]
NEW YORK (AP) — A jury on Thursday convicted a woman who sneaked onto a flight from New York to Paris without a boarding pass by slipping past security and airline gate agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport last year. The short trial of Svetlana Dali concluded with a guilty finding on a stowaway […]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — No Mow May encourages homeowners to stash the lawn mower each spring and let flowers and grass grow for pollinators and water retention. And if your neighbor’s lawn already looks like a wildflower field most of the time, it could be more intentional than passersby might assume. The movement has expanded […]
NEW YORK (AP) — The recommended reading list contained some works of fiction. It also contained some works that were, in fact, actually fictional. The content distributor King Features says it has fired a writer who used artificial intelligence to produce a story on summer reading suggestions that contained books that didn’t exist. The list […]
NEW YORK (AP) — More Klarna customers are having trouble repaying their “buy now, pay later” loans, the short-term lender said this week. The disclosure corresponded with reports by lending platforms Bankrate and LendingTree, which cited an increasing share of all “buy now, pay later” users saying they had fallen behind on payments. The late […]
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday that’s supposed to be about mourning the nation’s fallen service members, but it’s come to anchor the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and discounts on anything from mattresses to lawn mowers. Iraq War veteran Edmundo Eugenio Martinez Jr. said the […]
José Andrés remembers when he went to Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake that the government estimates killed more than 300,000 people. “We began cooking in the streets, you know?” said the James Beard award-winning Spanish chef, whose group operates more than 40 restaurants around the world. “I’m feeding people after an earthquake so there […]
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s still just 21 in dog years. But the Westminster Kennel Club is gearing up for its 150th annual dog show next year and announced plans Tuesday for the milestone event, expected to draw about 3,000 champion dogs. It’s slated to start Jan. 31 with agility and other canine sports, including […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — By the middle of last week, it became clear that something odd was happening. It was about the time that the fake video started circulating about the woman purporting to recount the “situationship” she’d had with Robert Prevost, the new American pope, decades ago when he was just another guy from Chicago. […]
DALLAS (AP) — Whether it’s a road trip to a nearby lake or jumping on a plane to explore a big city, Americans are expected to get away in record numbers over the long Memorial Day weekend even as economic and technical worries rattle the U.S. travel industry. Over 45 million people — 1.4 million […]
FREEDOM, Maine (AP) — Heather Donahue is walking through the woods once again. The star of the successful low-budget horror movie “The Blair Witch Project” has an on-screen history of getting into scary situations in a forest. But this time she is merely picking up an old soda can someone carelessly left on a trail. […]
