Features

  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 ...

  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 ...

  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 ...

  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 ...

  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 ...

  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 ...

  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 ...

  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 ...

  Hanoi / DPA Pham Thi Minh Thinh, a 52-year-old Hanoi native, spent her early childhood amidst the backdrop of catastrophic American bombings against her home city. Born in 1965 at the onset of the US-Vietnam War, she clearly remembers hiding in underground shelters as explosions rocked the surface. “It was a very painful time because the bombs nearly killed ...

  KABUL / AP Raheem Rejaey was a drug addict for 17 years. He lived under bridges in Kabul or in the ruins of buildings. His clothes reeked. In his misery, he tried suicide several times, he said, once intentionally overdosing and lying unconscious in a street for two days, undiscovered. So he can feel the pain of other addicts ...