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A truck driver built a model of NYC with over 800,000 structures for fun. Now it’s a museum exhibit
NEW YORK | For more than two decades, truck driver Joe Macken spent his free time building a massive scale model of his native New York City out of balsa wood and foam board. When he finished, his daughter convinced him to show off the sprawling basement creation — encompassing over 800,000 structures — on […]
Fall movie season has arrived. Here are 5 early Oscar predictions
NEW YORK | Fall movie season also means Oscar season. It might be only just September, but the jockeying for next March’s Academy Awards is well underway. Movies first started revving up their Oscar campaigns at the Cannes Film Festival in May. But now that the fall festivals, in Venice, Telluride and soon Toronto, are […]
America’s long history of falling for hucksters and their outlandish promises
NEW YORK | America: land of possibility. And also: land of suckers. Our enduring belief that anything is possible — whether based in reality or not — has helped the nation become the world’s largest economy. It has also led us to fall head over heels for hucksters and charlatans, again and again. If so […]
Converse apologizes and pulls sneaker ad that critics said included racist imagery
The sneaker company Converse has removed a social media ad that sparked outrage among critics who viewed it as evoking the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. The Instagram ad photo showed K-pop singer Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Chuck 70 X sneakers. Critics lashed out online, saying that a white triangular […]
Prenatal appointments and no place to pump: Navigating pregnancy and postpartum needs at work
NEW YORK | The ambulance dispatch station where Heydi Fernandez waited for calls as an emergency medical technician didn’t have a private place to pump breast milk when she returned to work three months after giving birth to her son. So she expressed her milk sitting at a dining table when none of her colleagues […]
Two brothers carry on the traditional art of handmade Chinese coffins in Malaysia, in photos
MUAR, Malaysia | Goh Khuay Par has spent more than five decades making traditional Chinese coffins called Mei Hua in Malaysia, carrying on a family craft passed down through three generations. Each coffin is made by hand and requires many days of work. Years ago, when the workshop had more craftsmen and more orders, they […]
Back in black: Princess Diana’s ‘revenge dress’ goes on show ahead of Sotheby’s auction
LONDON | Revenge has rarely been so stylish. A striking black dress worn by the late Princess Diana on the day her estranged husband publicly admitted adultery is going up for auction at Sotheby’s, with a presale estimate of up to $300,000. First, the “revenge dress,” as it has become known, is going on an […]
Martin McDonagh on being scared of John Malkovich, the CIA and ‘Wild Horse Nine’
TORONTO | Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Martin McDonagh has unveiled a dark comedy of mischievous wit and melancholy soulfulness, and it’s immediately been hailed as one of the best movies of the year. Yes, the British-Irish writer-director of “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “In Bruges” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” has been […]
Struggling US home buyers, and market, face new hurdles as mortgage rates near 7%
Home shoppers holding out for relief from rising mortgage rates may be in for a long wait. The weekly average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan has been rising for months and reached its highest level in over 14 months last week at 6.76%, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. This week’s snapshot, due […]
Movie Review: Ethan Hawke leads a tense, Depression-era thriller in ‘The Weight’
In April 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order banning the hoarding of gold and requiring Americans to deliver excess quantities to a Federal Reserve Bank by that May. The policy isn’t the subject of much discussion in the tense and earthy thriller “The Weight,” but it does set the stage for a […]