Features

  ROME / Reuters With scorching summer temperatures and little rainfall, the barren scrublands around the port of Aqaba in Jordan, one of the world’s most arid countries, might seem ill suited to cultivating cucumbers. Yet a Norwegian company is planning to set up a solar-powered, 20 hectare (50 acre) facility that promises to grow a variety of vegetables without ...

  NEW HAMPTON, NY / AP Through smoke and sparks and staccato banging from his anvil, John Lundemo forges swooping swords that look like they should be pulled from a stone, swung by a samurai or thrust on “Game of Thrones.” The 60-year-old has carved out a niche making pricey blades that are inspired by history but liberally mix in elements ...

  DUJIANGYAN / AP Failing eyesight, poor digestion, bad teeth, limbs no longer so limber: With captive giant pandas living longer than ever, the list of their physical and even emotional needs is growing. China, the pandas’ native home, is seeking to cater to those requirements with a special home for the old timers along with customized diets, exercise and other ...

  BUENOS AIRES / AP Let’s start at the end, with dessert at The Argentine Experience. The Buenos Aires restaurant that immerses diners in culture offers an abundance of tastes and the stories behind them. On the night my family shared a communal table with another group of US visitors, dessert included a delicacy prepared with sponge-like yacaratia wood. Alex Pels, ...

  LONDON / AP It’s a resonant moment of European cultural harmony: a Swedish soprano and a pan-European orchestra rehearsing a Bach cantata in a medieval English church. With Britain about to leave the European Union, it’s also a poignant one. The ensemble rehearsing in a York church is the European Union Baroque Orchestra, founded 32 years ago to use classical ...

  Lucknow / AP India’s most populous state is running out of meat. After the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Uttar Pradesh this month on the back of a resounding electoral victory and named a Hindu priest-cum-politician as the state’s chief minister, the government began cracking down on illegal slaughterhouses and meat shops. The new chief minister, ...

  TAMPA, Fla. / AP Dr Erin Kimmerle stands at the head of an open, watery grave and peers down. It’s a sweltering fall day in Tampa, and here’s what she knows about what’s below: It’s the grave of a murder victim. The woman’s body was found in a patch of scrub brush used as an unauthorized trash dump in 1985 ...

  Bloomberg Portia Lekgoto faced a dilemma: how to take her three-year-old daughter to a doctor without missing a day of work while waiting in line at one of only two public health clinics in the South African shantytown of Diepsloot. She decided to take her daughter to Quali Health, a new private clinic that a friend had told her ...

  BANGKOK / AP It’s more than eight times bigger than Vatican City and twice the size of Cambodia’s ancient Angkor Wat, making it quite possibly the world’s biggest religious complex. Yet few non-Buddhists have heard of Wat Dhammakaya, a sprawling, extravagant temple compound north of Bangkok that has been at the center of a high-profile power struggle between monks ...

  BOSTON / AP Mohammed-Faizul Haque makes it all look so easy. To a pan full of sizzling chicken he adds a ladle of orangey base sauce and then lemon, sending flames shooting up. He reaches to a line of vessels for pinches of cumin, coriander, salt, chili and garlic, the feel of the ingredients between his fingers as his ...