Life Style

A woman who suffered a stroke at the age of 24 has described how she was able to sing before she could speak during her recovery.Summer Clarke, now 26, was given a 10 per cent chance to live, with her family told to say their “goodbyes” when she suffered a spontaneous brain haemorrhage.Clarke, from the city of Manchester in the United Kingdom, survived after being put into an induced coma, but had severe complications, including needing to learn to read and walk again.But she could sing her favourite songs, word for word, before she could even recognise her own mother.Summer Clarke suffered a stroke after a spontaneous brain haemorrhage. Photo: Facebook/TheStrokeAssociationClarke is not alone; a new poll by the Stroke Association, the UK’s leading stroke charity, has revealed 35 per cent o...

Artificial intelligence “agents” are supposed to be more than chatbots. The tech industry has spent months pitching AI personal assistants that know what you want and can do real work on your behalf.So far, they are not doing much.Visa hopes to change that by giving them your credit card. Set a budget and some preferences and these AI agents – successors to ChatGPT and its chatbot peers – could find and buy you a jumper, weekly groceries or an aeroplane ticket.“We think this could be really important,” said Jack Forestell, Visa’s chief product and strategy officer. “Transformational, on the order of magnitude of the advent of e-commerce itself.”Visa’s chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell talks about Visa Intelligent Commerce at Visa’s Global Product Drop 2025 event on April 30...

It has been almost 50 years since the United States government established that Asian-Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and their accomplishments should be recognised annually across the nation.What started as just one week in May has evolved over the decades into a month-long tribute in cities big and small.The nature of celebrations has also evolved. Asian-American and Pacific Islander or Asian-American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is not just about showcasing food and fashion, but hard subjects like grief and social justice.Drummers mark the start of the 2025 Asian-American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month at an event organised by the Laotian American Society in Atlanta, in the US state of Georgia. Photo: Instagram/sabaideeatla...

Hardly anyone gets on a plane without some carry-on luggage, whether that is a backpack or a cabin-friendly suitcase. Some people travel with nothing else, partly to save money on checked bags, which are an extra charge.Things, however, have been getting out of control on some flights.“Many people are now carrying more than one piece of hand luggage, which is often too big either because they don’t know what the airline’s bag policy is, or they do know but choose to ignore it,” says Nikolaus Moehren, a cabin manager at German carrier Lufthansa.“This creates additional problems because on fully booked flights, the overhead compartments are sometimes already overflowing halfway through boarding,” he says.“The easiest thing to do would be to check your booking before your flight and see what ...

Reclining on sofas at a South Korean cafe, customers sip iced Americanos as they gaze past barbed wire fences and watchtowers at the mountains of North Korea.Daonsoop cafe is so close to the North Korean border that to obtain the building permit, its owners had to build it with a bunker and fortified positions for tanks.Founder Lee Oh-sook and her husband, both the children of North Korean refugees, built the cafe less than 2km (about a mile) from the border in Paju, seeking proximity to their ancestral homeland.“From here, you can see North Korea, so close but inaccessible … Our parents always hoped to return to their homeland, but they died before realising this dream,” 63-year-old Lee says.Lee Oh-sook at her cafe near the North Korean border. She and her husband, who are both children o...

Directed by Leong Po-chih (or Leung Po-chi) in 1984, Hong Kong 1941 is an unflinching look at the horrors of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.In the film, Chow Yun-fat, Cecilia Yip Tung and Alex Man Chi-leung play a trio of friends who try to survive the privations and degradations of the invasion while plotting their escape.Here we discuss it with film historian Frank Djeng, who provided the commentary for the film’s Eureka Entertainment Blu-ray release.Hong Kong 1941 really gets to grips with what happened to ordinary people during the Japanese invasion, doesn’t it?Yes. Very few Hong Kong films have dealt with war seriously, and only a few, like Love in a Fallen City, have been made involving the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.Hong Kong 1941 is very character driven – there’s a love tr...

Exploring murals in the Australian city of Darwin is an enlightening experience, especially when you have artist David Collins as a guide.Collins is director of the Darwin Street Art Festival (DSAF), an annual event whose legacy can be seen in 130 large-scale works dotted around the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory.Just do not ask him to pick a favourite. “That is difficult,” Collins says. “It’s like asking a parent to choose their favourite child.”Since its inception in 2017, DSAF has turned dirty and dull surfaces around Darwin into magnificent works of art.David Collins, artist and director of the Darwin Street Art Festival. Photo: Kylie Knott“This here was derelict before the murals arrived,” says Collins, pointing to a laneway 370 metres (1,200ft) long that is now adorned wit...

We are in an interregnum.From the Latin inter- “between” and rēgnum “reign”, the latter from rex, rēgis “king”, the word refers to the gap in government or social order, archetypically the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next, or, in Christianity, the period between a pope’s resignation or death – in this case that of Pope Francis on Easter Monday – and the election of a new pope.This period is also called sede vacante – meaning “vacant seat” in Latin.The seat in question is the Holy See – from the Latin Sancta Sedes, meaning “holy chair or seat” – also known as the Apostolic See or the See of Rome, founded in the 1st century by St Peter and St Paul.Cardinal William Goh Seng Chye of Singapore arrives at the Vatican to attend the general congregation of cardinals in ...

Halfway through writing her new book, The Joy Reset, grief coach Dr MaryCatherine McDonald nearly gave up.A close friend – young and seemingly healthy – was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, and given 12 to 18 months to live.“I wanted to quit,” McDonald says. “I started thinking, ‘Yeah, I don’t actually believe in this.’”But she did not abandon the manuscript. In the midst of her doubt, a quiet realisation surfaced – and it became the heartbeat of the book.“I realised then that joy doesn’t need you to believe in it,” she says. “Whether you want it to or not, joy will find you.”“Joy is right here, and it will always find you,” says Dr MaryCatherine McDonald. Photo: MaryCatherine McDonaldThat idea – that joy is not a naive escape but a resilient force – pulses ...

Ballet is beautiful. Ballet is ethereal. Ballet is mysterious. Can ballet also be cool?The creators of the new Amazon Prime Video show Étoile – Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel fame – are betting yes.The show is split between New York and Paris as it tracks the story of two ballet companies joining forces to attract audiences and stay afloat.And “afloat” is a good word to describe the chief appeal of the show: real lifts, not to mention turns and leaps, by real ballet dancers, many of whom are in the cast.Sharp-eyed viewers might notice several New York City Ballet stars in supporting roles. A mixture of the Palladinos’ series Bunheads, Emily in Paris – with way more leg warmers – and classic ballet film The Turning Point, Étoile lives and dies by the...