4 mins read

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 […]

2 mins read

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 […]

2 mins read

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 […]

5 mins read

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, […]

7 mins read

Memorial Day: Higher fuel prices have some Americans scaling back their travel plans

As someone who is “not the best person with bugs and stuff,” Stephanie Bernaba never imagined herself becoming an outdoorsy mom. But the mother of three is getting more daring as gas prices and other travel costs make vacations more expensive. Bernaba, 47, has been steering her family toward local beaches, bike rides and hiking […]

6 mins read

A new Swatch model is introduced, and a case study in overexcited ‘drop culture’ plays out

LONDON | In Paris, police deployed tear gas. In Milan, Italy, a fistfight erupted. In London, Singapore and New York, all-night queues snaked from the doors of Swatch stores — the latest examples of status-symbol “drop culture” to flash across the globe when status symbols and resale value collide. The company at the center of […]

2 mins read

Lettuce introduce you to the live frog found in this grocery store salad bag

MELBOURNE, Australia | When Australian farmer Rhys Smoker announced he’d found a live frog in a bag of lettuce, his housemates didn’t believe him. Smoker had been preparing a steak and salad dinner on Saturday for the three people who share his house in Esperance in Western Australia state when he spotted the frog among […]

2 mins read

Animal welfare groups say 3 South African zoo elephants are depressed and sue to move them

CAPE TOWN, South Africa | The mental well-being of three elephants in a zoo in South Africa is the subject of an unusual court case, with animal welfare groups saying they are depressed and should be moved to a larger conservation park where they can be happy. The case this week will ask a South […]

6 mins read

Demand for cruises appears undimmed despite hantavirus and other onboard outbreaks

Recent outbreaks of hantavirus and norovirus on cruise ships are making headlines, but they’re unlikely to dim the growing popularity of vacation cruises, according to industry representatives and travel experts. In fact, many within the industry still expect a record number of people worldwide to take cruises this year despite three passengers aboard the MV […]

8 mins read

Walmart and Amazon race to win over rural America with speedier deliveries

PEA RIDGE, Ark. | Walmart and Amazon are racing to speed up online order deliveries in rural areas of the U.S., a rich source of untapped sales that major retailers long wrote off as too sparsely inhabited, too remote or too impoverished to serve profitably. Walmart has a running start in the contest to build […]