6 mins read

Trump confirms he called Netanyahu ‘crazy,’ as he says Israel is complicating peace talks with Iran

BEIRUT | President Donald Trump in an interview released Wednesday confirmed an earlier report that he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “crazy” in a Monday phone call, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fighting of Hezbollah in Lebanon was holding back peace talks with Iran. But even as the U.S. […]

3 mins read

Australian judges weigh Indigenous activist’s bid to prosecute King Charles for genocide

MELBOURNE, Australia | Three Australian appeals court judges reserved their decision Wednesday on whether an activist can prosecute Britain’s King Charles III for alleged genocide of Australia’s Indigenous people. Uncle Robbie Thorpe, 68, turned to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Victoria state after two lower courts rejected his bid to launch a private prosecution […]

8 mins read

Trump’s Education Department is backing away from addressing civil rights for Black students

WASHINGTON | For generations, the federal government enforced civil rights laws with an eye toward remedying historic, systemic discrimination against Black people and other people of color. The Justice Department pressed schools to desegregate. The Education Department worked to promote equal opportunity and held schools accountable for racial bias. But under the Trump administration, efforts […]

5 mins read

EDITORIAL: Aurora needs an alternative to shooting people having a mental crisis

An observation last week from the city’s police reform monitor is both spot on and dead wrong. That it comes from the paid agent overseeing the city’s reform efforts to prevent police from using excessive force, is problematic. IntegrAssure’s recent report correctly points to the glaring fact that the mental health system in Aurora, and […]

6 mins read

Iran and the US trade strikes in the Persian Gulf, further testing ceasefire

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates | Kuwait briefly shut its main airport Wednesday after Iranian drones heavily damaged a terminal building, killing one person and wounding dozens — the latest in back-and-forth attacks by Tehran and Washington that have tested a fragile ceasefire. Semiofficial Iranian news agencies have said the country had stopped communicating with mediators […]

6 mins read

Feeling a little bleak about the world? There’s a film festival for that

Bleak Week, a film festival celebrating “cinema of despair,” started as a contrarian response to cries for feel good movies after the pandemic. Programmers at the American Cinematheque, a non-profit arts group that curates for several historic theaters in Los Angeles, heard the cries for comedies and thought, well, what if they did the opposite? […]

2 mins read

Tens of thousands are making annual peony pilgrimage to University of Michigan’s garden

ANN ARBOR, Mich. | Nicole Calvin has been visiting the University of Michigan campus annually over the past 16 years to catch a peek — and a whiff — of the school’s sizable peony collection. She even came twice this year. “I just love walking through the gardens,” Calvin said Monday. “I love that they […]

6 mins read

YouTuber box office boom: ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ draw Gen Z to theaters

Young audiences turned out in droves to movie theaters around the country this weekend. It wasn’t for the big budget “Star Wars” movie, “The Mandalorian and Grogu, ” which fell sharply in its second weekend, however, but for a small budget horror from a 20-year-old first-time filmmaker that began on the internet. “Backrooms,” released by […]

5 mins read

A mop, a broom and a calmer mind. Why some find mental health benefits in everyday tasks

NEW YORK | Amid spring cleaning season, it can be easy to dismiss housework as drudgery, so dreaded or anxiety-inducing that it’s best delegated to others if at all possible. But experts from Zen monks to psychologists say there are mental health benefits to be found in such manual chores as sweeping, mopping and clearing […]