Features

Nailing down success!

  OAKLAND, Calif / AP It was the swag-bags that convinced community health organizer Julia Liou to redraw the battle plan in a fight to reduce the hazardous chemical exposures of nail-salon workers, most of them low-paid Asian immigrant women. In 2005, Liou watched at California’s state Capitol as dozens of lobbyists gave away bags of lipsticks and other beauty ...

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For them, trip to China can be deadly

  BOGOTA / AP In a tiny brick apartment above a lottery shop, Martha Antivar waits for a sign of life from her husband, who is languishing in a Chinese prison an ocean away. Five years ago, Oscar Hilarion, a 45-year-old taxi driver, told his wife and family in Colombia that he was going to China on a business venture ...

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Dutch treat!

  PHILADELPHIA / AP Visitors arriving at the Philadelphia Flower Show this year will feel as if they’re stepping into the endless flower fields of Holland. A rainbow sea of 30,000 tulips and other blooms will stretch seemingly into the horizon as a canopy of 6,000 cut and dried flowers floats overhead. Bridges covered in Delft tiles, illuminated windmills and ...

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A stranger’s living room

  LONDON / AP Claire Brynteson had a house, a job and a dining table that was empty once she got her three children out the door every morning. When she received a flyer telling her she could make money by renting seats at the table to people looking for short-term office space, she jumped at the chance to list ...

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A hotel with the worst view!

  AP A Palestinian guesthouse packed with artwork of the elusive British graffiti artist Banksy unveiled itself in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, with a sneak peek of what the owner sarcastically called the ‘hotel with the worst view in the world.’ Wisam Salsaa, 42, said the nine-room establishment named ‘The Walled Off Hotel’ will officially open on March ...

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Museum to host exhibit of civil rights photography

  ALBUQUERQUE, NM / AP Mexican-American photographer Maria Varela was present at some of the most dramatic moments of the Civil Rights Movement, capturing images of voting rights demonstrations in Alabama and efforts to create Head Start programs in poor, rural areas. As one of the few Latinas involved in the black Civil Rights Movement, historians say, her work has ...

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‘Ghost Tower’ — A symbol of financial crisis

  BANGKOK / AP The 49-story Bangkok high-rise was supposed to feature luxury condos for hundreds of newly affluent Thai families, but it was abandoned unfinished when the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997. Now called the “Ghost Tower,” it’s a monument to mistakes made and an object of curiosity to a steady stream of visitors. “Sathorn Unique,” named after ...

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Shoot melons, kill bugs: How businesses make creative videos

  NEW YORK / AP Melons going splat in slow motion. Drawn-as-you-go animation about machines. A behind-the-scenes look at winery operations. Not the usual viral videos, but small business owners have realized offering something to watch and having a sense of humor about themselves can help grab customers’ attention. In more than a hundred videos he’s posted on YouTube, Tom ...

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Tales of abuse!

  PALORINYA / AP In the bushland of northern Uganda, a recently arrived refugee from South Sudan describes how soldiers detained and tortured him for two months back home for reading an article online. Tall and thin as a reed, dirt coating his tattered T-shirt and jeans, the young man is one of more than 100,000 people who have fled a ...

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The death cult that is spreading beyond Mexico

  Mexico City / AP The life’s work of Dona Queta is inconspicuous from the street, only the presence of a few flowers on the path in front of the white bars indicate there’s anything special behind them. But every day hundreds of people make the pilgrimage to the shrine, created by the 62-year-old to honour Santa Muerte in Mexico City’s ...

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