Author: Reporter

The American front door is a place where the welcome mat offers friendly greetings, where affable neighbors knock or ring, where boxes brimming with possibility are delivered. It is where home meets a world full of potentially good things. The American front door is a place where signs trumpet words of warning, where cameras monitor visitors in high definition, where intruders find an entry point. It is where only a hunk of wood or metal separates the innermost spaces of home from a world full of chaos. Both conceptions are real. They can and do exist together — usually...

Andrew Lester had already gone to bed when the doorbell rang a little before 10:00 p.m. He got up, grabbed a gun and went to check it out. Seeing a Black male appearing to pull the handle of the front door, police say the 84-year-old White man opened fire. No questions asked. Lester told police he believed someone was attempting to break into his house. That belief, though wrong, could become a defense as Lester faces charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action for shooting 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, an honor student who went to the wrong Kansas City...

Every year, the night sky grows brighter, and the stars look dimmer. A new study that analyzes data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers finds that artificial lighting is making the night sky about 10% brighter each year. That is a much faster rate of change than scientists had previously estimated looking at satellite data. The research, which includes data from 2011 to 2022, is published Thursday in the journal Science. “We are losing, year by year, the possibility to see the stars,” said Fabio Falchi, a physicist at the University of Santiago de Compostela, who was not involved...

People squeezed by inflation and demanding economic justice took to the streets of cities across Asia and Europe to mark May Day on May 1, in a global outpouring of worker discontent not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic sent the world into lockdowns. While May Day is marked around the world on May 1 as a celebration of labor rights, this year’s rallies tapped into broader frustrations. Climate activists spraypainted a Louis Vuitton museum in Paris, and protesters in Germany demonstrated against violence targeting women and LGBTQ+ people. Celebrations were forced indoors in Pakistan and tinged with political...

Takeshi Kitano’s new film, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is a samurai story without heroes, mercilessly portraying human greed, betrayal and cruelty. Kitano, awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his “Hana-Bi” in 1997, wanted to make a different kind of period piece in “Kubi,” or “neck,” a reference to traditional Japanese beheadings. “Most samurai films portray famous people and don’t focus on the dirty side of human existence or show how evil people don’t care a hoot about slaughtering regular people,” Kitano told reporters recently. The story features a 16th-century feud centered...