CHICAGO — They arrived in a kaleidoscope of colors, but one won. For decades, the American school bus has maintained such a standard look that “school bus yellow” is national shorthand for their deep, glossy hue. No act of Congress mandated the color, with its slight orange tint. Rather, a 1939 conference of transportation officials
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Masashi Nakamura, 29, who is running Nakamura Farm, a small Wagyu farm in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. His words have been edited for length and clarity. I was working at a meat processing facility in Tasmania when my interest in Wagyu began. It was 2024, and I
A statue of the Virgin Mary believed to be Europe’s tallest has been formally unveiled in a small Polish village. The 55.6-metre (182ft) concrete figure is roughly two double-decker buses longer than Rio de Janeiro’s smaller – if more prominently placed – Christ the Redeemer monument, though it still pales in comparison to a 98m
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sia and Mikael Lilja, who moved from Sweden to Japan, where they bought and are restoring an old house. It’s been edited for length and clarity. We’ve been together for 12 years and married for the last 4. In 2020, we bought a piece of land
Residents of a rural Texas county say they want more control over the gigantic AI infrastructure projects sprouting in their backyards. Nearly 900 residents of Grimes County, the site of Elon Musk’s planned 100-million-square-foot Terafab semiconductor factory, signed a petition calling for more stringent regulations on large infrastructure projects that receive public incentives. The residents
Jeff Layfield spent years imagining where in the US. He and his wife would retire after leaving Hawaii. Instead, they now live in a traditional house overlooking the sea in Japan. Before retiring, the couple lived in an apartment upstairs in their parents’ home on Oahu. Layfield worked in data management for the Marine Corps,