Features

Sydney / AFP Archaeologists have uncovered ancient human remains and various burial practices at the mysterious Plain of Jars in Laos, Australian researchers said, as scientists attempt to unravel the puzzle of the stone vessels. The Plain of Jars in Laos’ central Xieng Khouang province is scattered with thousands of stone jars and scientists have long been perplexed by their ...

Beijing / AP Stuffed into a tiny room off an alleyway are items that Wang Jinming readily admits were put out with the garbage: Paper string, a needle holder, a metal pancake maker built for thrusting into a fire. “These objects all look quite old and shabby,” he said. “But they record real history.” Wang’s Beijing Old Items Exhibition in ...

St Albans / AFP Once a daily sight on every British street, a dwindling but resilient band of milkmen still go out at the crack of dawn to deliver bottles of fresh milk to the nation’s doorsteps. The overwhelming majority of milk used to be sold at the front door until the supermarket revolution all but wiped out this very ...

Los Angeles / Reuters Volvo’s North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, lost his cool as the automaker’s semi-autonomous prototype sporadically refused to drive itself during a press event at the Los Angeles Auto Show. “It can’t find the lane markings!” Kerssemakers griped to Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was at the wheel. “You need to paint the bloody roads here!” Shoddy infrastructure ...

Washington / AP Americans are flooding back into the job market at the fastest pace since before the Great Recession, encouraged by steady hiring and some signs of higher pay. The flow has halted, at least temporarily, one of the economy’s more discouraging trends: the sharp decline in the percentage of people either working or looking for work. That figure ...

AFP Somalia’s bread basket has become a dust bowl as the life-giving waters of the mighty Shabelle river run dry amid intense drought in the war-torn country. River-fed farmlands have become parched playgrounds for children who kick footballs beneath a cloudless sky, as one sign among many of the failed rains that the United Nations warns has put more than ...

AFP Better known for its palm trees and celebrities, Los Angeles is also emerging as a tech hub, with its so-called Silicon Beach area offering a sun-kissed alternative to Silicon Valley. In recent years tech companies large and small, including Facebook, Google and Snapchat, have opened offices in Santa Monica, Venice or Marina del Rey — better known for shirtless ...

Bloomberg The promise of Africa’s biggest economy has turned to peril. Companies drawn to Nigeria by the prospect of a population bigger than Germany and Turkey’s combined are retreating; those staying have publicly criticized the president, a military strongman in the 1980s who came back to power via an election last year; and foreign investors are pulling their money out. ...

Bloomberg For more than a century, Dawson Singletary’s family has grown tobacco, peanuts and cotton on a 530-acre farm amid the coastal flatlands of North Carolina. Now he’s making money from a different crop: solar panels. Singletary has leased 34 acres of his Bladen County farm to Strata Solar LLC for a 7-megawatt array, part of a growing wave of ...

Bloomberg If you were a pile of garbage on the street in India, here’s what might happen to you now: A concerned citizen takes your picture, then sends it by WhatsApp to the smartphone of the garbage police. Khaki-clad cops jump in their vehicles, rush over and order your cleanup. City officials fine the offender and maybe reward the whistle-blower, ...