Arts, Culture & Books

When Keiron Marshall was 15, he found his way out of a desperate situation with help from an unexpected source: Eric Clapton. The guitar great was host at the first gig Marshall ever went to, and he was joined on stage by Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, The Who’s Pete Townshend and Beatle Ringo Starr. […]

Four hundred years after English colonists landed on Plymouth Rock and upended the lives of her ancestors, Paula Peters is on a quest to recover a small part of what her people have lost. A year of trans-Atlantic commemorations marking the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage opens in Southampton, England, on Saturday with an […]

Mexico´s Pacific coast resort of Acapulco is putting its hopes on a return of tourists as the number of coronavirus cases drops and the violence that drove travelers away slowly declines. The governor of the state of Guerrero said Friday that hotels will now be allowed to accept guests at 40% capacity, up from 30% […]

In twos and threes, in small groups or alone, they came. Most walking, many crawling, ignoring bloodied knees and aching arms to climb a hill to the famed church housing an icon of the Virgin Mary believed to perform miracles. Some wept openly, the anguish of their personal strife painted on their faces. All stopped […]

A Mississippi man who submitted a proposal to place a giant mosquito on the new state flag, a design that went viral on social media, said he created it as a joke. Thomas Rosete, a deckhand on the Yazoo River, told the Clarion Ledger he created the “mosquito flag,” which features a giant mosquito surrounded […]

Wearing face masks on public transport will be compulsory in Denmark from Aug. 22 following a spike in numbers of new coronavirus cases, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Saturday. In mid-April, Denmark became one the first European countries to ease its coronavirus lockdown as the epidemic appeared to be contained, but the reproduction rate […]

In late April, a coalition of New Mexico healthcare systems began asking local COVID-19 survivors to donate their plasma, the antibody-rich blood product used to help treat people hospitalized with the disease. More than 50 people donated in May, but then the numbers starting falling, according to data from Vitalant, a nonprofit blood bank that […]

The US political convention, a presidential campaign ritual dating to the 1830s, is being reinvented on the fly after being short-circuited by the coronavirus pandemic – much like the campaign itself. Here is a look at how the Democratic and Republican conventions will be different this year – and maybe for campaigns to come. SEIZING […]

British holidaymakers in France were scrambling to return home Friday to avoid having to self-isolate for 14 days following the U.K. government’s decision to reimpose quarantine restrictions on France amid a recent pick-up in coronavirus infections. The British government announced late Thursday that it was taking France off the list of nations exempt from quarantine […]

A cartoon in Australia’s biggest national newspaper drew condemnation on Friday as being racist for portraying U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden describing his new running mate, Kamala Harris, as “this little brown girl”. The cartoon by Johannes Leak in Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper, known for its conservative views, depicted a beaming Biden saying […]