Life

By Jessie Yeung, CNN A man who was abducted as a child in China more than 30 years ago has been reunited with his parents — thanks to social media, online sleuths and a crude map drawn from memory. Li Jingwei was only 4 years old when he was kidnapped by a man he knew

By Sana Noor Haq, CNN Footprints discovered on a beach in Wales are believed to have been made by an early dinosaur more than 200 million years ago, experts say. Paleontologists at London’s Natural History Museum said the footprints, which date back to the Triassic period, were thought to belong to a very early sauropod

By Sara Smart and Jeevan Ravindran, CNN After a woman tested positive for Covid-19 midflight, the bathroom became her seat for the next few hours. Marisa Fotieo was on an Icelandair flight from Chicago to Reykjavik, Iceland, on December 19, en route to her final destination of Switzerland with her brother and father. Before the

Jacqui Palumbo, CNN Each year, over one million people visit Neuschwanstein, a 19th-century castle in the Bavarian alps, famous for its Romanesque Revival style and Gothic details, including vertical limestone towers and turrets topped with deep blue pointed roofs. Once home to a famously introverted Bavarian monarch known as “the fairytale king,” the idyllic architecture

Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN The launch of the new Orient Express La Dolce Vita might still be a while off, but it seems as though the highly anticipated service will definitely be worth the wait. Renderings of the 11-carriage train, which pays homage to the “La Dolce Vita” period of the 1960s, have been unveiled, revealing

Marianna Cerini, CNN When Dubai-based Basma Abu Ghazaleh launched her luxury ready-to-wear brand Kage in 2009, she said she could count the number of fellow fashion designers in the region on one hand. “There were couture labels, sure — we’ve always been known for that — but very few high-end contemporary options,” she said in

Julia Buckley, CNN The first thing it resembles — this private, manmade island, straddling the Adriatic Sea and the Venetian lagoon — is a Bond villain’s lair. The second — as you dock at the private pontoon, walk past the Brutalist concrete façade, and into a “control room” where staff watch monitors tracking the waters

Reuters New crystals from Irish company Waterford have joined over 2,000 sparkling triangles covering the ball that drops over New York’s Times Square every year, days before the countdown to 2022. “We’re here today replacing 192 of the Waterford crystal triangles on that ball behind me with a new design, ‘the Gift of Wisdom,’” said

David McElhinney Perhaps surprisingly, fewer than 10% of the 6,852 islands making up the Japanese archipelago are inhabited. But among those 400 or so, travelers are treated to a rich tapestry of natural treasures, deep-seated mysticism, thriving cultural assets and stretches of sprawling urbanity. Covid restrictions mean that most of us can only dream about

Oscar Holland, CNN | Joe Sutton, CNN and Carma Hassan, CNN Artist Wayne Thiebaud, whose paintings breathed color into the everyday symbols of post-war America, has died age 101, according to a statement from the University of California, Davis, where he taught for more than 40 years. Known for his vibrant depictions of ordinary life

By Jason Hanna, CNN At least four ocean cruise ships were turned away from ports of call or were prohibited from letting passengers disembark in the Americas this week because of Covid-19 cases aboard. Though other cruises have had cases since US-based ships resumed service this summer with vaccine requirements and other measures meant to

By Alaa Elassar and Sonnet Swire, CNN While the number of people flying out of US airports this year has matched, and at one point exceeded, 2019 levels, Christmas Eve air travel fell sharply below pre-pandemic levels. Thousands of Christmas weekend flights were canceled at the last minute because of staff and crew calling out

By Maureen O’Hare, CNN As Omicron grips the world, the only person enjoying frictionless global travel this Christmas is Santa, thanks to his very well-ventilated sleigh. CNN Travel wishes you happy holidays if you’re celebrating and for better times ahead for those missing loved ones this year. Here are the biggest developments in travel this

By Carma Hassan and Jason Hanna, CNN A Carnival cruise ship that departed Miami has “a small number” of people aboard who have tested positive for Covid-19, and it has been denied entry to ports at two Caribbean islands, the cruise line said. However, the Carnival Freedom ship was granted access to visit Amber Cove

By Terry Ward, CNN Ever since the movie “Moana” first hit theaters, 8-year-old Mathias Pascal from Cuxac-d’Aude, France, has dreamed of visiting the land of “Vaiana” — the name for the ebony-haired heroine of the 2016 Disney blockbuster in its French release. “He watched the film ever since he was little, and I’d tell him,

Francesca Street, CNN On Christmas morning 2011, Linda Wenger boarded a Metro-North train from New York’s Grand Central Station to head upstate to Katonah. She was in her mid-50s and had been divorced for 10 years. Her daughters always spent the holidays with her ex-husband — Wenger is Jewish, so she didn’t have much affiliation

Jacqui Palumbo and Scottie Andrew, CNN Acclaimed American writer Joan Didion, an essayist and novelist who rose to prominence in the 1960s, has died at age 87, her publisher confirmed to CNN on Thursday. “We are deeply saddened to report that Joan Didion died earlier this morning at her home in New York due to

Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN The notion of what the world would look like if humans were to vanish has been explored extensively by scientists, as well as many post-apocalyptic movies. However, French photographer Romain Veillon is making it his mission to capture in pictures the potential result of a planet without people. The 38-year-old has spent

By Melissa Alonso and Aya Elamroussi, CNN A Royal Caribbean cruise ship was denied entry into two island nations after 55 fully vaccinated crew members and passengers contracted Covid-19 only days after the ship had set sail from Fort Lauderdale, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday. Odyssey of the Seas was barred from entering Curacao and

Oscar Holland, CNN In the 40-year history of the official White House Christmas ornament, produced annually by the White House Historical Association (WHHA), this year’s design is among the most conventionally festive. Depicting a Christmas tree displayed in the residence’s Blue Room in 1967, the new ornament features a reproduction of a painting originally commissioned

Leah Dolan, CNN As the trend for Y2K-inspired fashion continues to resurface wardrobe staples from 20 years ago, it was only a matter of time before the Ugg boot made its divisive return. Over the past year, reformed versions of the classic beige sheepskin shoes have been spotted on Hailey Bieber and Bella Hadid, as