RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Hurricanes, thievery and wrecks are taking out North Carolina’s popular historical highway markers faster than the state can keep up. More than 1,600 of the markers known as “history on a stick” stand along state roads, telling the stories of people and places that shaped the past. Each of state’s 100 counties has […]

“Knife,” by Jo Nesbø (Alfred A. Knopf) Full disclosure: I am not a Harry Hole junkie. I saw the movie version of “The Snowman,” the seventh in the now dozen novels featuring Michael Fassbender as Nesbø’s Norwegian detective, but “Knife” is my first written exposure to what many consider the king of Scandinavian crime fiction. […]

FRANKFURT, Germany — Volkswagen is halting production of the last version of its Beetle model this week at its plant in Puebla, Mexico. It’s the end of the road for a vehicle that has symbolized many things over a history spanning eight decades since 1938. It has been: a part of Germany’s darkest hours as […]

NEW YORK (AP) — A book by Sen. Jeff Merkley on the treatment of refugees at the Texas border is coming out next month. The publisher is calling “America Is Better Than This” a “cry of outrage.” Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, made headlines when he traveled to Texas in 2018 and streamed his efforts to […]

Trust me. When the repairman has the innards of your refrigerator strewn across the kitchen floor, the last diagnosis you want is the one with the “C” word. “Compressor,” he sighed, shaking his head sympathetically, dangling a fistful of melted wires. “You’re better off junking it and buying a new one.” Whoosh! Another five hundred […]