The most popular songs people played on the digital jukebox app TouchTunes in Denver and Colorado in 2024 are an ode to the state’s cowboy-hat-tipping, boot-scootin’ roots. TouchTunes is featured in more than 65,000 bars, restaurants and venues across North America and Europe. The app allows users to pay to play songs of their choosing … Read more
MEXICO CITY — On a Sunday afternoon in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood, Rosa María Espinosa joins nearly 80 men under a park pavilion to play poleana, a board game requiring mental dexterity that was born in the city’s prisons nearly a century ago. Espinosa blows smoke rings with her cigarette and laughs with the others. … Read more
SAN FRANCISCO — A photojournalist who captured one of the most enduring images of World War II — the U.S. Marines raising the flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima — had a block in downtown San Francisco named for him Thursday. Joe Rosenthal, who died in 2006 at age 94, was working for … Read more
BEIJING — The former coach of the Chinese men’s national football team has received a 20-year-prison sentence for bribery, Chinese state media reported Friday. Liu Tie, who once played in the English Premier League as a midfielder for Everton, was found guilty of “leveraging his positions” as head coach of the national football and national … Read more
ZURICH — Saudi Arabia scored a major win in its campaign to attract major sports events to the kingdom when it was formally appointed as the 2034 World Cup host on Wednesday. Still, many questions remain about the tournament as well as the 2030 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, … Read more
NEW DELHI — A popular actor in southern India was released from jail on bail on Saturday, a day after he was arrested by police in connection with a stampede that led to the death of a woman at the premiere of his movie earlier this month. A 35-year-old woman died and her 8-year-old son … Read more
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — A New Zealand man playing his first-ever competitive Scrabble game in Spanish, a language he doesn’t speak, has won the board game’s Spanish-language world title. Nigel Richards, a professional player who holds five English-language world titles, won the Spanish world Scrabble championships in Granada, Spain, in November, losing one game out … Read more
MINNEAPOLIS — A pair of iconic ruby slippers that were worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and stolen from a museum nearly two decades ago fetched $28 million in an auction Saturday. Heritage Auctions had estimated that they would fetch $3 million or more. Online bidding opened last month and by Friday … Read more
BANGKOK — In case you can’t get enough of the little pygmy hippo Moo Deng from Thailand, there’s now an official song featuring the internet’s favorite baby animal — released in four languages for her global fans. The upbeat 50-second song Moodeng Moodeng, available in Thai, English, Chinese and Japanese versions, features simple lyrics like … Read more
BEIRUT — Declassified 1970s-era U.S. spy satellite imagery has led a British-Iraqi archeological team to what they believe is the site of a seventh-century battle that became decisive in the spread of Islam throughout the region. The Battle of al-Qadisiyah was fought in Mesopotamia — in present-day Iraq — in the A.D. 630s between Arab … Read more
