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How to mulch your garden beds without harming plants
When you look at your garden beds and borders, do you see any bare soil? If so, mulch is in order. Mulch is defined as a protective layer applied over soil to retain moisture, suppress weeds and moderate soil temperature around plants, as well as in uncultivated areas. But if used incorrectly, mulch can cause […]
Tiny patients, big fight: NICU parents win leave in 2 states and push for more
NEW YORK | As his daughter Olivia was born, Marlon White felt his wife’s hand slacken as she fainted. The baby, born at 29 weeks and weighing about 2 pounds, wasn’t making a sound as she was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit. Terrified, he waited in the hall while the doctors stabilized his […]
A Latino grocery store in Delaware turns its produce aisle into a music stage
NEW CASTLE, Del. | A neat stack of 79-cent bananas and rows of colorful fruit flanked the bilingual alternative pop band Luna Luna as they performed for a small audience at a Latino grocery store in northern Delaware. The show was part of the monthly Mercadito sessions put on by the Fiesta Fresh Market, a […]
The balikbayan box: The way Filipino Americans have sent love all the way back home
PHOENIX | Beginning in the 1970s, just about every Filipino household in America was either hauling balikbayan boxes in person or mailing them to relatives back in the Philippines. These care packages that held goodies from the U.S. were seen as an expression of support during hard economic times — as well as one of […]
Movie Review: Boots Riley’s ‘I Love Boosters’ is a wild, surrealist social satire
Boots Riley holds nothing back in his audacious, surrealist social satire “I Love Boosters.” The film is a go-for-broke expression of wild imagination and social consciousness that’s impossible not to admire for its wacky, bold vision, with teleporting, high fashion snobbery and pyramid schemes. Here is a movie where we get Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie […]
Cambodian villagers honor guardian spirits to pray for rain and good fortune
PHUM BOEUNG, Cambodia | Hundreds of Cambodians on Thursday morning honored their village’s guardian spirits by holding a colorful centuries-old ceremony to pray for good fortune, rain and prosperity. The “He Neak Ta” ritual has been celebrated annually for several hundred years by the villagers in Phum Boeung, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of […]
French artist JR begins his giant ‘cave’ art inflation over Paris’ oldest bridge
PARIS | The oldest bridge in Paris has begun to vanish this week, as the artist JR — who is known as the “French Banksy” — began inflating a giant “cave” over the Pont Neuf. The monumental, rocky illusion is swallowing the 17th-century landmark, which has carried Parisians across the Seine for more than 400 […]
‘Minotaur,’ about murder and corruption in Putin’s Russia, jolts the Cannes Film Festival
CANNES, France | Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev sent shock waves through the Cannes Film Festival with a soberly damning crime film about murder and corruption in Russia, set against the conscription of young men into President Vladimir Putin’s war with Ukraine. “Minotaur,” which debuted Tuesday night at the French festival, was one of the most […]
Six tax tips you should start thinking about now
Here are six common ways taxpayers get off track and the questions they should ask themselves during the tax year. Don’t assume the answer is the same as last year Taxpayers often default to “same as last year” thinking. But tax outcomes depend on variables that shift constantly, like income, markets, tax laws, interest rates, […]
Rami Malek explores art, love and death in Ira Sachs’ Cannes entry ‘The Man I Love’
CANNES, France | In Ira Sachs’ 1980s-set drama “The Man I Love,” Rami Malek finds the most well-tailored role since his Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” While Sachs’ film, which is a competition entry at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, likewise centers on a performer dying of AIDS, it’s otherwise an altogether […]