Most kids love digging in the sand … and many never outgrow that. A new and unusual attraction nicknamed “sand box for grown-ups” is a big hit among teenagers and adults in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s a heavy equipment playground that gives customers a change to operate gigantic, earth-moving bulldozers …

South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s social satire Parasite, about a poor family of hustlers who find jobs with a wealthy family, won the Cannes Film Festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or, on Saturday.      Parasite was the first Korean film to win the Palme. In the festival’s closing ceremony, jury president Alejandro Inarritu said …

In the United States, the last Monday in May is Memorial Day, a holiday that honors people who died in military service during wartime. The end of May also marks the beginning of a less serious kind of war. It is one many living Americans fight each summer. It is …

Leonardo da Vinci is renowned as a “Renaissance man” for his mastery in art, science, architecture, music, mathematics, engineering and cartography, but he was no master at completing his efforts.    Five hundred years after his death, a professor of psychiatry in Britain has suggested that the reason da Vinci left …

Vinyl records are becoming more popular in the U.S., after almost disappearing from American markets when they were replaced over the years by audio tapes, CDs and digital music downloaded onto phones and other devices. With vinyl records coming back, record-pressing plants are being established, including one just recently opened …

John Pinto, a Navajo Code Talker in World War II who became one of the nation’s longest serving Native American elected officials as a New Mexico state senator, has died. He was 94. Senate colleague Michael Padilla confirmed Pinto’s death in Gallup on Friday after years of suffering from various …

During Ramadan, when many in Muslim-majority Pakistan do not eat or drink during the day, sports enthusiasts turn to night games. For years, amateur cricketers in the capital, Islamabad, used empty roads or local play grounds — any open space with lights — to fulfill their passion. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem …

A Belgian abbey is reviving its centuries-old tradition of beer-making after 220 years. The monks at Grimbergen Abbey are using ancient recipes to offer specialty beers in their new microbrewery. Meanwhile, researchers in Israel have made beer with yeast from jars that are thousands of years old. Beer is one …

“Emma” rules the West Coast, while “Liam” reigns supreme in the American Midwest. In the southeastern part of the United States, parents prefer the name “William” for boys and “Ava” for girls, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration, which compiled a list of 2018’s most popular baby names. At …

One of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activists, Binyavanga Wainaina, has died at age 48, a colleague and friend said Wednesday. The Kenyan author died Tuesday night in Nairobi after an illness, Tom Maliti, the chairman of the Kwani Trust which Wainaina founded, told The Associated Press. Wainaina, who …

 German authorities on Tuesday handed over to Israel some 5,000 documents kept by a confidant of Franz Kafka, a trove whose plight could have been plucked from one of the author’s surreal stories. The papers returned include a postcard from Kafka from 1910 and personal documents kept by Max Brod, …

Three-time Formula One world champion Niki Lauda, who won two of his titles after a horrific crash that left him with serious burns and went on to become a prominent figure in the aviation industry, has died. He was 70. The Austria Press Agency reported that Lauda’s family said in …

Three handwritten wills have been found in the suburban Detroit home of Aretha Franklin, months after the death of the “Queen of Soul,” including one that was discovered under cushions in the living room, a lawyer said Monday.  The latest one is dated March 2014 and appears to give the …

Movie stars including Salma Hayek and Eva Longoria celebrated the role of women in cinema at a glitzy gala in Cannes on Sunday, amid a drive to promote gender equality in the industry that is still falling short of what many campaigners hoped for. Cannes’ film festival, the world’s most …

Simon Pagenaud turned a stressful weekend into an unforgettable celebration. Pagenaud earned his first career Indianapolis 500 pole with a four-lap average of 229.992 mph, edging three-time pole winner Ed Carpenter and Spencer Pigot on Sunday. He is the first Frenchman to win the Indy 500 pole in 100 years. …

The famous Las Vegas strip lights up the night with neon signs and animated images. The Las Vegas Neon Museum has been lighting up the city since 2012. That’s when activists, art lovers and local officials decided that neon signs that have seen better days deserved to be viewed and …

The Netherlands won the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv Saturday, with Duncan Laurence’s doleful piano ballad “Arcade” crowned champion of Europe’s annual music extravaganza. The 25-year-old was tapped as an early front-runner before the Grand Final but was only ranked third after the vote of professional juries from …

War of Will bounced back from a bumpy ride in the Kentucky Derby to win the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, holding off a field that included a riderless horse that threw his jockey just out of the gate and still finished the race.    Trainer Mark Casse got his first Triple Crown victory, with …

A filly collapsed and died while running at Pimlico Race Course on Friday, the day before the track was set to host the second leg of Thoroughbred racing’s  Triple Crown series.    Congrats Gal faltered in the upper stretch of the Miss Preakness Stakes in 83-degree heat and was eased to the finish …

Herman Wouk, the versatile, Pulitzer Prize winning author of such million-selling novels as “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War” whose steady Jewish faith inspired his stories of religious values and secular success, died on Friday at 103. Wouk was just 10 days shy of his 104th birthday and …

Norman Rockwell is considered one of America’s most beloved and influential artists, painting scenes of ordinary Americans at work, at play and at war, capturing simple yet compelling details that illuminated everyday life in the country. Helping tell America’s story Most Americans became familiar with his work through his hundreds …

I.M. Pei, the versatile, globe-trotting architect who revived the Louvre with a giant glass pyramid and captured the spirit of rebellion at the multi-shaped Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has died at age 102.   Pei’s death was confirmed Thursday by Marc Diamond, a spokesman for Pei’s New York …

More than 150 years after Victor Hugo’s classic novel, a French film titled Les Miserables gives a gritty, modern view of the Paris suburbs where Jean Valjean first met Cosette. Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables, which premiered Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival, contains no singing or romance, but rather a tough, The Wire-like street-level portrait …

Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms on display at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum. …

The mystery about the authenticity of a painting has been solved after 25 years. A painting given by a private collector to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1957 is indeed by Vincent Van Gogh. New imaging technology helped confirm the painting’s authenticity after years of …