LONDON Winnie-the-Pooh turns 90 this year and the much-loved children’s character returns for a new adventure in which he meets someone else celebrating the same significant birthday — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth. “Winnie-the-Pooh and the Royal Birthday” sees th... More »
DUBAI Dubai has opened what it said was the world’s first functioning 3D-printed office building, part of a drive by the Gulf’s main tourism and business hub to develop technology that cuts costs and saves time. The printers – used industrially and also on a s... More »
LONDON Prince William, his wife Kate and brother Harry urged Britons on Monday to ditch their prejudices about mental health in what is being billed as the biggest joint project the three young royals have taken on. In the “Heads Together” campaign they launch... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Warren Buffett struck media gold with a 2012 investment in debt-laden Media General Inc. Now the famed investor may try to reprise that success by supporting a bid for Yahoo Inc’s Internet assets. The Berkshire Hathaway Inc chairman is backing a ... More »
KIEV/MOSCOW Ukrainian politicians hailed their country’s surprise weekend victory in the European Song Contest as a continent-wide endorsement in their smoldering conflict with Russia, while Moscow said the competition had been hijacked by politics. Ukrainian ... More »
STOCKHOLM Politics could take center stage at the usually kitsch Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, with bookmakers making Russia favorite to win and the Ukrainian entry featuring lyrics about deportations by the Soviet Union. In “1944”, Ukraine’s 32-year-ol... More »
LONDON A London temporary worker, sent home for wearing flat shoes, has collected more than 120,000 signatures so far in a petition calling for Britain to make it illegal for a firm to require women to wear high heels at work. Reaching that total on Friday eas... More »
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. A car-sized sled powered by electromagnets rocketed to more than 100 miles (160 kph) an hour through the Nevada desert on Wednesday in what the Los Angeles company developing the technology said was the first successful test of a futurist... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday carrying about 3,700 pounds (1,680 kg) of experiment results and cargo from the International Space Station, NASA said. It was the first return load from the station i... More »
NEW YORK A painting languishing in a New Jersey basement that turned out to be one of Dutch master Rembrandt’s earliest works goes on display on Wednesday at the J. Paul Getty Museum in California as a key part of an exhibit on the 17th century artist. “The Un... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Astronomers have discovered 1,284 more planets beyond our solar system, with nine possibly in orbits suitable for surface water that could bolster the prospects of supporting life, scientists said on Tuesday. The announcement brings the to... More »
IDOMENI, Greece Within sight of a razor wire fence guarded by Macedonian police, 35-year-old Iraqi migrant Saima Hodep rolls dough with an old steel water pipe outside her tent, in preparation for customers for her unleavened bread. Saima is one of a small but... More »
WASHINGTON/WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. A fight between the Obama administration and North Carolina over a state law limiting public bathroom access for transgender people escalated on Monday as both sides sued each other, trading accusations of civil rights violations... More »
LOS ANGELES Even as a Los Angeles judge dismissed one case brought by a former girlfriend of media mogul Sumner Redstone, she filed a new lawsuit that threatens to keep salacious allegations about the 92-year-old’s lifestyle alive. The new complaint, filed by ... More »
LOS ANGELES Media mogul Sumner Redstone never set foot in the Los Angeles courtroom where his mental competency was on trial in recent days. But the 92-year-old billionaire had the final word on Monday when Judge David Cowan, citing blunt videotaped testimony ... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Tiny Mercury, the solar system’s innermost planet, sailed across the face of the sun on Monday, a celestial dance that occurs about once every decade as Earth and its smaller neighboring planet align in space. The journey, which astronomer... More »
VILNIUS Pussy Riot punk performer Nadya Tolokonnikova is looking for a new audience — readers and, ideally, financial backers who can turn her two-year-old news website into a full-blown contender on Russia’s media scene. She first rose to prominence by donnin... More »
(Note language in third paragraph. Rewrites with further quotes from court, background on Viacom) By Lisa Richwine LOS ANGELES A judge called Sumner Redstone’s deposition “strong evidence” that the media mogul knew what he was doing when he ejected an ex-girlf... More »
NEW YORK Thousands of pigeons with tiny LED lights strapped to their legs swooped through the darkening skies in a jaw-dropping display of beauty, but savvy New Yorkers gazing up at the performance art knew enough to keep their mouths shut. As evening fell ove... More »
RUDA SLASKA, Poland Janusz Urbanski has a one of a kind chessboard he never plays, a personalised guitar he does not strum and a boat he cannot sail. Why? They are all made from tens of thousands of matches. For the last 40 years, the former Polish miner and i... More »
Music legend Prince died one day before he was scheduled to meet a doctor who specializes in addiction treatment for a “life-saving mission,” the doctor’s lawyer said at a news conference on Wednesday. California doctor Howard Kornfeld was first contacted by P... More »
LOS ANGELES A solar-powered airplane midway through a historic bid to circle the globe completed the 10th leg of its journey on Monday, landing in Arizona after a 16-hour flight from California, the project team said. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a ca... More »
ROME Leicester City coach Claudio Ranieri said on Tuesday that he believed at Christmas his team would win the Premier League, even as he continued to tell the media his only goal was avoiding relegation. “Now I can say it, I always knew we’d win,” Ranieri tol... More »
HANOVER, Germany U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday he would do whatever he could to advance a controversial trade deal with the European Union in his last eight months in office, but warned that time was running short. Obama has pushed to complete two... More »
A promise that U.S. Republican front-runner Donald Trump will adopt a more presidential campaign style does not signal a retreat from core policies such as his pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border, his top adviser said on Sunday. Senior Trump aide Paul... More »
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. Reince Priebus, the unassuming head of the Republican National Committee, often plays the piano late at night, sometimes with a glass of wine nearby. Tickling the ivories is a lifelong passion for Priebus and he has been doing it “more than usu... More »
CHANHASSEN, Minn. Prince’s remains have been cremated and his family and friends attended a private ceremony on Saturday to pay their respects to the late pop superstar at the studio complex where he died in a suburb of Minneapolis, a Prince spokeswoman said. ... More »
HOLLYWOOD, Fla./WASHINGTON Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump attacked his top Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Friday, calling her “crooked,” and promised his supporters that he would not bore them by becoming overly presidential. The commen... More »
Police found no signs of suicide or obvious trauma in the death of U.S. music superstar Prince, but it could take weeks before autopsy results reveal how the groundbreaking performer died, authorities said on Friday. The intensely private musician, whose hits ... More »
LOS ANGELES The late pop star Prince was known in life as an artist fiercely protective of his intellectual property, but how much others may profit from his legacy, including a large body of unreleased songs, hinges on how astute he was in arranging for contr... More »
BRUSSELS A new art museum has opened its doors in Brussels’ Molenbeek district hoping to help shed the negative image of the area, most recently linked to the deadly attacks in Paris and the Belgian capital. The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art (MIMA) is ba... More »
BRASILIA Brazil’s leftist President Dilma Rousseff suffered a humiliating loss in a crucial impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress on Sunday and is almost certain to be forced from office months before the nation hosts the Olympics. Fireworks lit up t... More »
WASHINGTON A senior adviser to Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Sunday accused rival Donald Trump’s campaign of taking a “banana republic approach” by complaining that party rules for selecting a nominee are rigged against him. Former Virginia Att... More »
CARACAS Venezuela on Friday reversed a half-hour time change that was one of the signature measures of former president Hugo Chavez’s idiosyncratic 14-year rule. Chavez turned Venezuela’s clocks back 30 minutes in 2007 so that children could wake up for school... More »
TOKYO Chacha the chimpanzee made his own great escape on Thursday, fleeing from a zoo in northern Japan and leading authorities on a dramatic chase. The male primate went missing from Yagiyama Zoological Park and was seen roaming in a neighborhood in Sendai. V... More »
WASHINGTON An Ohio man paralyzed in an accident while diving in waves can now pick up a bottle or play the video game Guitar Hero thanks to a small computer chip in his brain that lets his mind guide his hands and fingers, bypassing his damaged spinal cord. Sc... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will speak at an event in the Vatican next week, likely broadening his appeal to Catholic voters ahead of crucial nominating contests in a series of Northeastern states. Like Pope Francis, Sander... More »
A third of Republican voters who support Donald Trump could turn their backs on their party in November’s presidential election if he is denied the nomination in a contested convention, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The results are bad news for Trump’s ri... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on a NASA cargo run to the International Space Station on Friday, and its reusable main-stage booster landed on an ocean platform minutes later in a dramatic spaceflight first. The successf... More »
The 17-year-old daughter of late actor Paul Walker has reached a $10.1 million settlement with the estate of the man driving the car that crashed and killed them both in 2013, her attorney said on Friday. Walker was a passenger in a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT dri... More »
BOSTON For days after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Americans were glued to the news, eager to know who had planted the homemade devices that ripped through the crowd at the finish line, killing three people. The world got its first look at the suspects th... More »
NEW YORK A wooden chair used by J.K. Rowling when she wrote her first two “Harry Potter” books has sold for $394,000 at a New York auction – more than eight times its opening bid. The chair, on which the British novelist painted the words “I wrote Harry Potter... More »
JERSEY CITY, N.J. With the push of a button, a perfectly healthy 34-year-old museum-goer named Ugo Dumont was transformed into a confused 85-year-old man with cataracts, glaucoma and a ringing in his ears known as tinnitus. Dumont had volunteered at Liberty Sc... More »
LOS ANGELES Tom Staggs, the veteran Walt Disney Co executive who had been widely seen as the media company’s next CEO, will step down on May 6 as the board expands its search for a successor to Bob Iger, Disney said on Monday. The unexpected move came little m... More »
DIKILI, Turkey/LESBOS, Greece Migrants sent back from the Greek island of Lesbos began arriving in Turkey on Monday under a disputed European Union scheme aimed at closing the main route by which a million people poured across the Aegean Sea to Greece in the l... More »
GAZA Israel on Sunday extended the distance it permits Gaza fishermen to head out to sea along certain parts of the coastline of the enclave, which is run by the Islamist group Hamas. The fishing zone was expanded from six nautical miles (11 km) to nine (16 km... More »
LAS VEGAS Chris Stapleton, in his breakthrough year, took home more hardware at the Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday, winning Male Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year with “Traveller” and Song of the Year with “Nobody to Blame.” Before success on ... More »
WASHINGTON Donald Trump’s prediction that the U.S. economy was on the verge of a “very massive recession” hit a wall of skepticism on Sunday from economists who questioned the Republican presidential front-runner’s calculations. In an interview with the Washin... More »
MILWAUKEE Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump predicted that the United States is on course for a “very massive recession,” warning that a combination of high unemployment and an overvalued stock market had set the stage for another economic slum... More »
NEW YORK A bull that bolted on its death march to a New York City slaughterhouse and was rescued with the help of comedian Jon Stewart will find out soon there is a price for freedom. The Angus bull that escaped on Friday, and whose life was spared when animal... More »
LONDON From the busy, brassy “All You Need is Love” to the softer “Yesterday”, a new show takes audiences back in time to when The Beatles recorded their famous hits at London’s Abbey Road Studios. “The Sessions – A Live Restaging of The Beatles at Abbey Road ... More »
WASHINGTON Donald Trump is facing bipartisan pressure to adopt a more presidential tone in his White House run including from Democratic President Barack Obama and Republicans who worry his missteps may do irreparable harm to the party and his campaign. The Re... More »
BEIRUT Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support drove Islamic State out of Palmyra on Sunday, inflicting what the army called a mortal blow to militants who seized the city last year and dynamited its ancient temples. The loss of Palmyra re... More »
WASHINGTON Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders easily won nominating contests in Alaska, Washington and Hawaii on Saturday, chipping away at front-runner Hillary Clinton’s commanding lead in the race to pick the party’s candidate for the White Hou... More »
ISLAMABAD Pakistan and Iran aim to increase annual trade volumes between the two countries to $5 billion by 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday. Sharif spoke at a business conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who arrived i... More »
HAVANA The Rolling Stones rocked a massive crowd at a free, outdoor concert in Havana on Friday, capping a week of engagement with the West for the Communist-led country that once censored the veteran British band’s music. The Stones started their first-ever s... More »
HAVANA When Carlos Carnero’s rock band Los Kent plugged in guitars and drums to play Rolling Stones covers on Cuba’s Island of Pines in the 1960s, soldiers stopped the gig at gunpoint in minutes and marched the musicians onto a boat heading back to the mainlan... More »
WASHINGTON The feud between Republican presidential contenders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz over their spouses heated up on Thursday, with Cruz calling the party front-runner “a sniveling coward” for threatening his wife on Twitter. The senator from Texas also sh... More »
LOS ANGELES Comedian and actor Garry Shandling, who made his name as a frequent guest host on late-night television and for parodying himself as star of the pioneering cable TV comedy series, “The Larry Sanders Show,” died on Thursday at age 66. Shandling, who... More »
LOS ANGELES “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” is centered on the clash of two of the most recognizable caped heroes of the comic book world but it is the women of the DC Comics universe who defy expectations. The movie has “four really great female characte... More »
NEW YORK Love at first whiff is the idea behind Smell Dating, a New York matchmaking service that promises to help single people sniff out their perfect match by breathing in the odors from dirty T-shirts. Artist Tega Brain, who teaches at New York’s School fo... More »
HONG KONG U.S. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has been pilloried in many ways, over his bouffant hair, orange skin and supposedly small hands, but a British artist has now used raw pig and sheep parts to sculpt him for a Hong Kong art show. T... More »
BRUSSELS Belgian police were hunting on Thursday for a “third man” filmed with two Islamic State suicide bombers at Brussels Airport as investigators accumulated evidence that the same jihadist network was involved in the deadly Paris attacks last November. As... More »
WASHINGTON Atlanta’s airport was briefly evacuated on Wednesday over a suspicious package while U.S. law enforcement agencies and travelers were on edge a day after deadly suicide bombings by Islamist militants rocked Brussels. Passengers were ordered out of p... More »
BUENOS AIRES U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday championed Argentina’s new center-right leader Mauricio Macri as an example for other countries in Latin America, praising the fast pace of reforms to strengthen the economy. Obama, on a two-day visit to Ar... More »
HAVANA The Rolling Stones are welcoming Cubans to their free concert on Friday with Mick Jagger speaking Spanish in a video on YouTube, though few are likely to see it, given Cuba’s scant Internet penetration. “We have played in many incredible places but this... More »
ROME A sixth-century church boasting a rare collection of early Christian art is reopening to the public in Rome after a restoration that took more than 30 years. Nestling at the foot of the hill where Rome’s emperors once lived, Santa Maria Antiqua was buried... More »
HAVANA U.S. President Barack Obama finally got a chance to meet Pánfilo, the Cuban television character, when he appeared in a skit shot in Havana for a popular comedy show that sometimes pokes fun at the Cuban government. The U.S. embassy in Cuba released the... More »
BUENOS AIRES U.S. President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he did not expect a breakthrough on Middle East peace before he leaves office and reiterated his support for a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians could live peacefully side by side. ... More »
LOS ANGELES British actor Tom Hiddleston explores the short life of country music star Hank Williams in “I Saw the Light”, and performs the singer’s hits himself in the new biopic. The movie follows Williams’ career from his breakthrough in the 1940s to his de... More »
NEW YORK Along with oil, stocks and steel, China’s roiling economic slowdown has deflated the buoyancy of another sector: the Asian Art market. Wealthy Chinese art collectors had driven art sales skyward in recent years for Chinese and Western art, such as the... More »
SÃO PAULO If any symbol captures the anger of rich and upper-middle class Brazilians who have taken to the streets to protest against President Dilma Rousseff, it might be a giant, inflatable yellow duck. The 40-foot (12-meter) high duck presides over Sao Paul... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, ending a nearly six-hour flight, a NASA TV broadcast showed. U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams and cosmonauts Ole... More »
HAVANA Global ballet star Carlos Acosta returns to his Cuban roots when his new dance company takes to the stage next month. Since retiring last year from London’s Royal Ballet where he was principal guest artist, the 42-year-old has gone back to his native Ha... More »
ROME Silhouettes of emperors, popes and artists are slowly emerging on the grimy walls of the Tiber River in Rome, part of an epic mural that tells the history of the Eternal City. Technicians are using power hoses on the dirty stone to stencil the 550-metre-l... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The most detailed look at Pluto’s surface to date has revealed an unexpected range of mountains, glacial flows, smooth plains and other landscapes, according to studies released on Thursday. The unprecedented window into the so-called dwar... More »
SAO PAULO/BRASILIA Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians flooded the streets on Sunday in the biggest ever protests calling for President Dilma Rousseff’s removal, reflecting rising popular anger that could encourage Congress to impeach the leftist leader. The d... More »
WASHINGTON/BLOOMINGTON, Ill. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump refused to take responsibility on Sunday for clashes at his campaign events and criticized protesters who have dogged his rallies and forced him to cancel one in Chicago last week. ... More »
SEOUL South Korean Lee Sedol won his first match against a computer program developed by a Google subsidiary on Sunday in the ancient board game Go, denying a clean sweep for the artificial intelligence in a five-match series. Lee, one of the world’s top playe... More »
DAYTON, Ohio Secret Service officers rushed on stage to protect U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump during a disturbance at a rally on Saturday, a day after rowdy protests shut down his event in Chicago. Trump briefly ducked at the podium an... More »
A spokeswoman for U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Saturday denied a media report that he had canceled an Ohio rally because of security concerns. The Cincinnati.com news website had quoted Eric Deters, a local spokesman for Trump’s ca... More »
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. First lady Michelle Obama and representatives from nine former presidential families led a bipartisan gathering of politicians and celebrities in paying memorial tribute to Nancy Reagan, whose love for her late husband, Ronald Reagan, was h... More »
NEW YORK British-born keyboardist Keith Emerson of the 1970’s progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer died from a self-inflicted single gunshot to his head, police said Friday. He was 71. Emerson’s body was found by local police at his Santa Monica, Calif... More »
SEOUL Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) program on Saturday took a 3-0 lead in a five-match series against one of the world’s top players of the complicated board game Go. The victory for the AlphaGo program, designed by Google subsidiary DeepMind, over So... More »
Popular U.S. television dog trainer Cesar Millan, known as the “Dog Whisperer,” said on Friday he understands why he is being investigated for animal cruelty but stands by his training methods, as thousands signed a petition demanding his show be canceled. Mil... More »
SEOUL Google’s AlphaGo computer program on Wednesday won the first of five matches against one of the world’s top players of a complex board game, Go, marking a dramatic advance for the field of artificial intelligence (AI). South Korean professional player Le... More »
U.S. networks are changing the way they develop and release new shows, and even commercials, as they seek to adapt to new TV viewing habits and profit from the “binge-watching” made popular by video streaming services like Netflix. The changes could help offse... More »
BERLIN Chihira Kanae is greeting visitors to the world’s biggest travel fair in Berlin this week, answering questions and guiding people in the right direction. But one passer by’s attempt to ask her out for dinner is met with silence. That’s because Chihira K... More »
TOKYO Sharp Corp’s (6753.T) two main banks are set to lower interest rates on billions of dollars in loans and offer other financial support as part of a planned takeover by Taiwan’s Foxconn, a source with direct knowledge of the plan said. The move is partly ... More »
In the day following Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova’s admission that she failed a drug test, sponsors Nike, Porsche and Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer dropped her like a hot potato. Before social media demanded instant responses, sponsors often waited weeks o... More »
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. Sixteen-year-old Emma Joy and her younger sister Quinn recently spent an evening stuffing bags with a full year’s supply of tampons or sanitary pads for women who often miss work or school because they cannot afford menstrual products. The S... More »
DETROIT Republican front-runner Donald Trump racked up primary wins in the big prize of Michigan and in Mississippi on Tuesday, brushing off a week of blistering attacks from the party’s establishment and expanding his lead in the White House nominating race. ... More »
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. As a larger-than-life celebrity, Hulk Hogan considered it entertainment when he embellished his sex life but the Gawker news website crossed a line by posting a video of him having sex with a friend’s wife, the former professional wrestler... More »
LOS ANGELES “The Matrix” filmmaker Lilly Wachowski, formerly known as Andy, came out as a transgender woman on Tuesday in a candid post entitled “Sex change shocker – Wachowski brothers now sisters!!!,” four years after her sister Lana Wachowski revealed she w... More »
LOS ANGELES Fans of the late Joan Rivers will have the chance to buy items from the acerbic comedian’s New York home at an auction later this year, auctioneers Christie’s said on Tuesday. Pieces of art, jewelry, furniture and clothing will be among the 200-plu... More »
LONDON Fans of “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling are in for a treat this week when her digital publisher website Pottermore releases a series of four pieces of writing about wizardry entitled “History of Magic in North America”. The writings, posted at 1400 G... More »
ISTANBUL A day after Turkey’s top-selling newspaper Zaman was taken over by the state, it dropped its criticisms of the government on Sunday and published flattering stories on President Tayyip Erdogan. The episode is the latest twist in a long-running conflic... More »
LOS ANGELES Catholic Church abuse movie “Spotlight” was named best picture, the top award at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, after a night peppered with pointed punchlines from host Chris Rock about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy that has dominated the industry. In ... More »
LOS ANGELES They were supposed to free up Oscar recipients to say something profound during their 45 allotted seconds on stage. But the thank-you scrolls that ran at the bottom of the screen for the first time at the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday didn’t notice... More »
LOS ANGELES Comedian Chris Rock launched his return stint as Oscar host on Sunday by immediately and unabashedly confronting the racially charged elephant in the room – the furor over the all-white field of performers nominated for Hollywood’s highest honors. ... More »
