Entertainment

By Mayumi Maruyama, CNN (CNN) — Some little kids dream of building a treehouse. But one Japanese man turned his childhood dream into an adult reality. Growing up in Tokyo, Satoru Kikugawa frequently visited the family summer home in the countryside, where he learned to appreciate nature. A Japanese children’s book called “I Want a Big

By Suyin Haynes, CNN (CNN) — Calida Rawles has been thinking a lot about light and darkness, in her artwork and beyond. “It feels like a very dark moment in our history, and it can become very overwhelming and anxiety-building,” the Los Angeles-based painter said in an interview with CNN, referring in particular to her

By Ananda Pellerin, CNN (CNN) — Madder, cochineal, Mauveine; these words may be unfamiliar but they’re the names of dyes made from a plant, an insect and a chemical that have shaped our world. While indigo is arguably the most recognized dye — the plant which colored King Tutankhamun’s burial shrouds and more recently makes

By Chris Isidore, CNN New York (CNN) — You can add Taylor Swift to the list of things like wars, storms and other natural disasters that can prompt an airline to waive a change fee. LATAM Airlines, the largest airline in South America, announced Saturday it was waiving its change fees for customers who wanted

By Issy Ronald, Caitlin Danaher and Catherine Nicholls, CNN (CNN) — Iceland has declared a state of emergency and more than 3,000 residents have been urged to evacuate the small, coastal town of Grindavík as the country’s authorities anticipate the imminent eruption of a volcano in its southwestern peninsula. Scientists monitoring the situation, including those at the Icelandic

Silvia Marchetti, CNN (CNN) — The pandemic’s enforced period of no travel led an American couple to rethink their life and retire to sunny southern Italy. Seventysomethings Glenda and Randy Tuminello from Spokane, Washington, retired in December 2022 to Polignano a Mare, a dazzling white, cliffside town in the Puglia region, renowned for its stunning

By Maev Kennedy (CNN) — Young Derich Born’s cheekbones were not always sharp enough to peel apples. New research and conservation work on the 1533 portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger has revealed that the painter made repeated small changes, each time giving Born even more chiseled features. The dazzling result bears an inscription on

By Silvia Marchetti, CNN (CNN) — Could you survive a vacation without your mobile phone, resisting the compulsion to check emails, make a call, post a tweet or rely on the power of the all-mighty internet to get around in a foreign country? Imagine not knowing how to tell the waiter what dish you want

By Gregory Wallace and Pete Muntean, CNN (CNN) — This Thanksgiving travel period is expected to be the busiest in several years and a record-setter for air travel. In all, AAA forecasts there will be 55.4 million people traveling, including more than 49 million Americans driving, between the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (November 23) and the

By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN (CNN) — There’s nothing quite like a festive market to bring out the Christmas spirit in people. While these events can be traced back to Vienna – the city’s first recorded December market was in 1298 – the tradition has spread across the world over the centuries. From Germany, to Switzerland,