Worldcrunch
When people hear the word “cajun,” they automatically think about Louisiana. But a small community of these descendants of French-speaking Acadian exiles also lives in Texas. The association “Les Acadiens du Texas” was founded in Beaumont in the late 1970s to preserve their history, which included traditional dances in not-so-traditional outfits.
TEHRAN — There are 100,000 drug addicts on the streets of Iran, the country’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli estimated Wednesday, saying that his agency had a “legal duty” to “pick them up” and send them to obligatory rehabilitation centers. He said $3 billion was being spent every year on illegal drugs in the country, and […]
American singer Lauryn Hill has released a recorded version on Soundcloud of her track “Black Rage,” which she had only played live for the past two years. The former Fugees frontwoman dedicated the song to the residents of Missouri, where tension is still high after African-American teenager Michael Brown was killed by a police officer […]
From a distance, mountains look more or less the same height. But in this picture, I’m pretty sure the summit on the right is none other than Mount Everest.
In the traditional homestead of Vula Zulu, near the South African border with Swaziland, we got to witness Zulu impi perform age-old war dancing rites. As in many other places, we were told that the warriors did not actually live in the village, but returned to their homes once the show is over.
Daniza doesn’t read the newspapers or check social networks, so she probably has no idea that people are searching for her. The brown bear made Italian headlines a few days ago after she wounded Daniele Maturi, 38, who was foraging for mushrooms in the woods in the heart of the Dolomite mountains. Maturi was bitten […]
This Galapagos marine iguana looks like he was just fed up with living on a volcanic archipelago.
The news, quantified.
Most plastic bags have suffocation warnings on them, but that’s no good for whales who can’t read them. Vets from Argentina’s Patagonian National Center (CENPAT) had to remove a giant plastic bag that could have suffocated a whale who was apparently “playing” — or, rather, struggling — with it, in waters off Puerto Madryn, Clarín […]
Can you spot the Citroën deux chevaux parked next to that boat in the port of la Rochelle? Built from 1948 to 1990, the iconic “deuche,” as it is known here, leaves no room for doubt: It really is “la France.”
What happens when you mix a bunch of wannabe rock stars, a brand new music shop with probably the world’s best instruments and amps, and a lack of music cabins or headphones? The hilarious video below. It was taken at the new Guitar Center in New York’s Times Square that opened earlier in August, and […]
It’s Friday! Time to check out some of the songs currently topping the charts around the world: Finland: Cheek, “Äärirajoille” Colombia: Calvin Harris, “Summer” Burkina Faso: Floby, “My Lady” Lebanon: Maroon 5, “Maps” Russia: Lilly Wood & the Prick & Robin Schulz, “Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit)” Source: Hot Music Charts
Perched on the summit of Cairo’s Saladin Citadel is the Great Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha, also known as the Alabaster Mosque because of its white courtyard. It’s one of the first features of Cairo visitors see when they travel into the city.
As part of a plan that sounds almost like a movie plot, 500 white rhinos will be evacuated from South Africa’s Kruger National Park and secretly taken to new homes to protect them from poachers. Although international trade in rhino horns has been illegal since 1977, demand remains high in some Asian countries, the BBC […]
This nun walking under St. Peter’s Square’s colossal colonnades was looking at copies of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper founded in 1861. Zooming in, I was able to see that the front page was about Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra on the topic of Christianity and social progress — written four years […]
CORMORANT — A 7-year-old dog named Duke has been elected honorary mayor of the small town of Cormorant, Minn. Winning just 12 votes, he is said to have won by a “landslide.” Local residents hope the furry pol, who will officially be sworn in Saturday, will continue guarding the town, making the community safer and […]
A Thai psychedelic band called Khun Narin Electric Phin Band is set to release its first album Aug. 26, on Innovative Leisure records. But who are the people behind this obscure name? Not much is actually known about the musicians apart from what’s told on the band’s record cover. And this story is a special […]
“Chichi,” as it is affectionately called by visitors and Guatemalans alike, has become one of the most-visited destinations in the country. The colorful blouses these K’iche” women were selling at the city’s market contrasted nicely with the dark hair they inherited from their Mayan ancestors.
Berlin-based American musician Anton Newcombe posted a demo of his band the Brian Jonestown Massacre performing a cover of the French composer William Sheller“s “Philadelphia Story” Tuesday. Although he explains that on Twitter singing in French is difficult and that he plans to have a woman perform it for the recording, we at Paris-based Worldcrunch […]
It’s a … trio! Three bundles of giant panda joy were unveiled in Guangzhou’s Chimelong Safari Park, and are said to be the world’s first surviving set of panda triplets. They were born July 29, though the zoo delayed the announcement until they were sure that all three would survive. Proud mamma Ju Xiao, 12, […]
I’m not a big sports fan, but I do watch the Tour de France every year. These guys were about a whole other kind of cycling, racing like madmen down the stairs of Dalt Vita, Ibiza’s old town.
Since their country’s 2011 revolution, cynical Tunisians say a laundry list of ills have plagued them: an incompetent president who refuses to wear ties; a self-interested Constituent Assembly that is charged with creating a new constitution; high inflation and a rapidly devaluing currency; and a deeply uncertain security situation. But Al Jazeera has recently reported […]
The owners of SeaWorld San Diego bought Los Angeles’ Marineland of the Pacific in early 1987 before suddenly closing it. That meant all the animals had to be transferred to San Diego. A year later, when we went to see them, Corky the killer whale had been renamed “Shamu.”
Inspired by the Black Cab Sessions in London and the Take-Away shows in Paris, the Australian project Tram Sessions puts bands on Melbourne trams for the pleasure of commuters. Since 2010, the small team, equipped with cameras and recording devices, brings various musicians and bands such as Vance Joy or Passenger onto public transportation to […]
What’s most interesting about this shot is not the Swiss wrestlers (or Schwingen) in the foreground — meaning no disrespect, guys — but instead the rapt audience in the background, all wearing their Sunday best.
Tehran’s city government is trying to separate male and female employees within its offices, a move parallel with moral norms favored by Iran’s Islamic government but likely to irk less conservatie segments of the population. This would not be the first such move in Iran since the 1979 revolution. There have been previous attempts to […]
It’s hot in Colombia, and severe drought conditions are affecting most of the country. Though forest fires have sadly killed thousands of wild animals, those at the zoo in the southern city of Cali are getting some pampering and a little help cooling off. Staff there have decided to mix the animals’ food with ice, […]
Was this Tuareg going to the “fête du Mehri,” the spring celebration during which Algerians attend and participate in camel races? Or was he simply leading his mount to water in Ghardaïa, the city known as the “pearl of the oasis”?
We had a friend take this family shot in the spectacular theater of Epidaurus, in the sanctuary of Asclepius. The place is impressive, but unlike the Ancient Theater of Orange in southern France, it’s missing its scaenae frons (its decorated rear wall). Too bad we missed Maria Callas by just a couple of years: The […]
Siavash Mozaffari, a professional musician based in San Francisco, plans to travel to Iran to record sounds from the country’s traditional instruments and gather them into a sample digital library. With this project, he aims to make Persian music more accessible to the Western world. On Kickstarter, where his “Sonic Journey Through Iran” project has […]
The four members of Chicago Toys are actually neither from Chicago nor toys. They are from Santiago, Chile, and have recently made their latest tracks free to download. If it weren’t for the Spanish lyrics, the casual listener hearing their reverb-filled guitars, energetic drumming, and dreamy vocals for the first time might think Chicago Toys […]
The swarms of motorcycles and rickshaws, known as samlo in Thailand, can be pretty scary for the uninitiated. But there are so many rental places that business is sometimes slow for the drivers.
To remember the iconic canopied path of the Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana, I took both this picture and a piece of bark that had fallen down. I keep it in my living room, next to an ornate leaf from the Taj Mahal which had also fallen down — I’m not that kind of tourist! […]
Going up to Funchal’s Monte neighborhood in a cable car is very picturesque. But the way down is all about fun. Two gentlemen dressed in white and wearing straw boaters will take you downhill at relatively high speeds in these large wicker baskets they call “toboggans.”
The feluccas of Aswan, Egypt, with their huge triangular sails, are used to ferry visitors to Elephantine Island, to visit their rich pharaonic ruins — and where we were able to walk in two Nubian villages that a guide guaranteed were “genuine.”
I can’t say we always knew for sure what was on our plate when we toured China in the mid-1990s. Grilled scorpions, grasshoppers, we tried it all — probably one of these big rodents too, on sale for consumption in Guangzhou’s street market.
When you think of a wild cat (i.e. a lion, tiger or panther) you often assume they live on rolling plains, or wild jungles. A few hundred meters outside of Bogotá is not the first place that comes to mind. The woolly margay — an Ocelot-like creature described as the American continent’s smallest feline — […]
Who’d have thought Lebanon’s cedars could actually root out loud for their own preservation? The country’s Ministries of Environment and Education have helped a team of bioacoustic engineers extract the natural sounds emitted in the Barouk Forest by a cedar tree, the endangered national symbol of Lebanon. They then let Beirut-based DJ ESC work his […]
BUENOS AIRES — They lived in the same building in the Argentine capital — two couples, one on the ground floor and the other above them. Their dispute began 10 years ago, when the two women began bickering constantly. They argued over who would sweep the patio, their barking dogs — they both had poodles, […]
Up on Moscow’s Sparrow Hills, newlyweds take pictures and tourists buy souvenirs. Grand-Mère (a.k.a. babushka) was contemplating a vast array of matryoshkas; we brought a couple of these Russian nesting dolls back — they don’t take much space in your luggage!