Author: admin

CHONBURI, Thailand (AP) — It was 5-year-old Tod’s first time competing in a beauty pageant and the bright red interior of his ears turned out and popped against his black fur.The main stud for his owner, food vendor and farmer Thawatchai Daeng-Ngam, Tod was one of the competitors Monday at the annual water buffalo racing festival in Chonburi, a city about an hour drive from Bangkok.Formerly considered humble draft animals, water buffaloes have become prized show animals in Thailand. They are celebrated at the festival, held at the end of the 11th lunar month to celebrate the beginning of the…

PARIS (AP) — Chemena Kamali said it with flower prints. A good old-style collection that set a few themes on the table and spent the rest of the Paris Fashion Week Sunday show refining them — proof that focus can still feel new.Kamali, now in her third stint at Chloé, knows the house from the inside. German-born like Karl Lagerfeld, she worked here under both Phoebe Philo and Clare Waight Keller before returning as creative director last year.Chloé was founded in 1952 by Gaby Aghion and is widely credited with inventing Parisian ready-to-wear — a freer, more feminine alternative to…

PARIS (AP) — Against strobe lights that suggested seediness more than spectacle, Alessandro Michele’s Valentino collection showed restraint where once there was riot. Prim ’70s silhouettes — bows, ruching, velvet skirts — set a mood at Paris Fashion Week of controlled nostalgia.The high point was a draped gold gown with a feathered white collar, evoking myth and Valentino’s Roman past. A polka-dot shirt, satin skirts split with bright yellow panels, and occasional colorblocking kept the eclectic spirit alive, though without the exuberant force Michele has deployed before.That was the story of the show: less spectacle, more editing. Where Michele’s early…

Forget the fancy Ferraris and precious Picassos. Instead, new Forbes 400 member David D. Halbert chose the ultimate flex: convincing Tom Fazio to build him a “no-budget” 18-hole golf course in Texas. “If you don’t have a hole named after you then you’re not a member,” laughs David D. Halbert, as he pulls the cart up to the first tee at his personal golf course. This one is called the “Jake hole” – because that’s the nickname his grandkids call him. Located on 170 acres along Lake Granbury, 60 miles southwest of Dallas Fort-Worth airport, the championship length (7,500 yards…

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — More than 600 couples married simultaneously Saturday in Asunción, Paraguay. Thousands said “I do” in unison as part of a government initiative to make civil weddings more accessible across the country.The campaign, called “United by Love and Protected by Law,” aims to legalize relationships in which couples forgo marriage because of economic or bureaucratic reasons, preventing them from receiving benefits such as social security, pensions and inheritance rights.The Civil Registry and the first lady’s office prioritized weddings for long-term couples considered vulnerable. Nearly half of the newlyweds brought their children to the ceremony.“It was about…

PARIS (AP) — Light streamed through the stained glass of the Institut de France onto a surreal stage: a lone cellist playing a melancholy air, next to an upside-down umbrella and a rotating tableau of dying sunflowers. It was a theatrical overture for Saturday’s Paris Fashion Week. This was spring — Vivienne Westwood style.Andreas Kronthaler, who has helmed the house since Westwood’s death in 2022 and whose name joined the label in 2016, leaned hard into the madhat energy that made the brand a legend. Leopard-print men’s underwear sat alongside sheer, ribbed tunics with a medieval air. Punk flashed in…

WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — The pumpkin in Tony Scott’s backyard weighs almost as much as a small car.He’s been tending to it for months, feeding it fertilizer and covering it with a blanket at night to keep it at a stable temperature. A roll of measuring tape wrapped around the pumpkin gives him a rough estimate of its size.“I’ve never seen anything grow this fast,” said Scott, a semiconductor engineer from upstate New York.Every year, growers like Scott push their pumpkins to the limit. They compete in annual weigh-offs with colossal fruits that are well over 2,000 pounds (900…

It’s late at night, and you have been stewing all day about something your partner did to annoy you. The time to resolve it is now because, as everyone knows, you should never go to bed angry, right?Though it’s conventional wisdom, many relationship experts say sticking to such a rule is counterproductive. It may even harm the relationship.“It’s completely wrong,” said Samantha Whiten, a clinical psychologist in Maryland. “All it does is make sure that people are fighting when they’re tired.”Instead, couples can learn habits that help them get rest while boosting the relationship long term.No one wants to go…

NEW YORK (AP) — To make bread, you need flour, water, salt and, usually, a rising agent, like yeast. To break bread, CNN has enlisted someone special — Tony Shalhoub.The Broadway and “Monk” star enters the crowded field of celebrity travel hosts this fall with “Breaking Bread,” which follows the actor across the globe as he explores cultures and food through the lens of bread. “It is about bread, but bread really as a kind of a vehicle, a vessel, to illustrate and billboard history and culture and people and find out what they do and why they do what…

PARIS (AP) — Issey Miyake ’s spring 2026 show at Paris Fashion Week posed a question: what if clothing were alive?Booming electronics inside the Centre Pompidou venue Friday accompanied an opening of crisp monochrome shirts and high-waisted trousers, shoulders drawn upward into a compact line, as if shrugging to the guests.The concept arrived quickly and clearly: in this collection the wearer served the garment’s will, not the other way round. Silhouettes remapped the body — trousers integrated sleeve-like panels at the sides that impacted the model’s stance, and single-sheet wraps and supple faux leathers seemed to “grow” around the torso.…