Features

  DALLAS / AP A Faberge egg and the jeweled elephant designed to fit inside it are being reunited for the first time in almost a century thanks to a loan from Queen Elizabeth II to a Texas museum. A gallery that opens on Monday at the Houston Museum of Natural Science features the elephant, which only recently was discovered to ...

  PORT-AU-PRINCE / AP Aspasie Tanis lives hand-to-mouth on the edge of eviction in the best of times, scraping out a living selling packets of spaghetti and cookies outside her low-slung concrete shack in Haiti’s capital. Now the death of her father by stroke threatens to send her into a lifetime of debt. The distraught single mother is frantically seeking loans ...

  NEW YORK / AP If you build it, they will stay. The small businesses that dominate the home remodeling industry are expecting robust growth in the next few years, thanks partly to baby boomers who want to remain in their homes. Home remodelers say they’ve had a pickup in projects from boomers who are in or approaching retirement and are ...

  SEOSAN / AP Chung Young-chul takes a drag on his cigarette and watches as wild ducks fly across rice fields and land on a reservoir in this remote farming village. He’s among nearly 2,000 people — ex-gangsters, ex-convicts, orphans — who were once held here, forced to work without pay for years and are now largely forgotten. “Some died after ...

  PESHAWAR / AP When Durdana married for a second time and to a man of her own choosing, her parents threatened to kill her if she tried to see her new husband. They imprisoned her in their home, but she still had her mobile phone and had learned that a helpline for women had been set up. She noted the ...

  NEW DELHI / AP From Bollywood superstars to political heavyweights, the Regal theater hosted some of India’s biggest names over more than eight decades. But with nostalgic theater-goers singing their way to the exits after a final showing of a Bollywood classic, the iconic New Delhi theater has closed its doors to make way for a multiplex. “It’s the end ...

  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, ...