Rohit Bal, one of India's best-known fashion designers, dies at 63

NEW DELHI (AP) — Rohit Bal, one of India’s best-known fashion designers, died late Friday after a prolonged illness, the fashion designers association in the country announced. He was 63. The Fashion Design Council of India, or FDCI, said in a post on Instagram,...

TGI Friday's files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

As Mexicans celebrate Day of the Dead, they grapple with what it means to hold on to tradition

MEXICO CITY (AP) — It’s midnight on the fringes of Mexico City, and the San Gregorio Pantheon is not just alive, it’s booming. The roar of mariachis echoes over families adorning the graves of lost loved ones with rows of candles, orange cempasúchil flowers and their favorite...

How to choose the best personal trainer for your fitness goals — and budget

Irv Rubenstein holds a doctorate in exercise science and has run a personal fitness training studio for 35 years in Nashville, Tennessee. Obviously, he speaks positively about the benefits of using a personal trainer, and this goes for grizzled-gym goers as well as beginners. “Most...

‘The pictures, they look at you.’ A stroll with novelist John Banville through Spain's Prado Museum

MADRID (AP) — It’s the eyes peering from the canvases that get him, their gaze piercing the boundary between art and life. That’s why acclaimed Irish novelist John Banville prefers to visit Spain’s Prado Museum during its opening hours — even though he's been invited to...

Daylight saving time ends Sunday. Time to 'fall back' an hour

The good news: You will get a glorious extra hour of sleep. The bad: It'll be dark as a pocket by late afternoon for the next few months in the U.S. Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time Sunday, which means you should set your clock back an hour before you go to bed....

Pets join Mexico's Day of the Dead celebrations, as Fido and Tiger get their own altars

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Pets are not forgotten during Mexico's famed Day of the Dead celebrations, when even Fido and Tiger get a place at the altars Mexican families set up to honor their deceased loved ones, complete with flowers, candles and photographs. Though the human dead usually...

Crowds flock to tiny Massachusetts town to send off New York's Rockefeller Christmas tree

WEST STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree comes with a strong New England accent, and locals could not be more excited. The Norway spruce that will travel to New York City hails from West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was scheduled to be cut down...

Inside a 1760 schoolhouse for Black children is a complicated history of slavery and resilience

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — A Virginia museum has nearly finished restoring the nation's oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children, where hundreds of mostly enslaved students learned to read through a curriculum that justified slavery. The museum, Colonial Williamsburg, also...

Meet Decoy Ohtani, perhaps the most valuable pet of the World Series

NEW YORK (AP) — As Los Angeles Dodgers fans thronged to the World Series victory parade in Los Angeles on Friday, many had their eyes on most valuable player Freddie Freeman. But in the mix was another MVP — the Dodgers' most valuable pet: Decoy Ohtani, dog of Shohei. The...