Travel

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Winter storms sowed more chaos across the U.S. on Thursday, shutting down much of Oregon's largest city with almost a foot of snow and paralyzing travel from parts of the Pacific Coast all the way to the northern Plains.

NEW YORK (AP) — It was 2019 and aspiring Broadway actor Eleri Ward had Stephen Sondheim’s “Every Day a Little Death” stuck in her head.

“I would see friends at auditions and whatnot, and having been awake since like 4 or 5 a.m., they’d ask me how I’m doing,” she said.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Alcohol sales will soon be allowed in a tiny Nevada town where religious roots led to a decades-long ban on buying beer, wine and liquor.

NEW YORK (AP) — There are celebrities with TV travel shows who just can't wait to show you where they came from or push the limits of their bodies or go out of their way to locate a perfect recipe. Then there's Eugene Levy.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Sunny skies and unusually warm weather fueled the street party fervor in New Orleans as the city celebrated Mardi Gras — Fat Tuesday — the annual, ebullient climax of Carnival season, marked by shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on raucous Bourbon Street and thousand lining St.

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese startup announced plans Tuesday to launch commercial space viewing balloon flights that it hopes will bring an otherwise astronomically expensive experience down to Earth.

Company CEO Keisuke Iwaya said passengers do not need to be billionaires, go through intense training or have the language skills needed to fly in a rocket.

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Some of Venice’s smaller canals have practically dried up due a prolonged spell of low tides, frustrating boat crews and bewildering tourists.

The prolonged stretch of ebb tides is linked to a lingering high-pressure weather system over much of Italy, experts say.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — On the shores of the Persian Gulf, a new complex houses a Catholic church, a Jewish synagogue and an Islamic mosque in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A teenager died and a 4-year-old girl was among the wounded when gunfire broke out along the route of a celebrated New Orleans Mardi Gras parade, police Superintendent Michelle Woodfork said Monday.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A brutal winter storm closed interstate highways from Arizona to Wyoming Wednesday, trapped drivers in cars, knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people and prompted the first blizzard warning in Southern California in decades — and the worst won't be over for several days.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona aquarium is celebrating the hatching of three endangered African penguin chicks, saying the tiny additions are genetically valuable as zoos and aquariums around the world work to ensure the species' survival through breeding programs and conservation efforts.

BERLIN (AP) — Just hours before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, actor Sean Penn had his first on-camera meeting with the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s Carnival is back.

Glittery and outrageous costumes were prepared again. Samba songs were ringing out 'til dawn at Rio de Janeiro’s sold-out parade grounds. Hundreds of raucous, roaming parties were flooding the streets.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island Senate President Dominick Ruggerio called for the resignation of Rhode Island Public Transit Authority CEO Scott Avedisian on Friday, citing what he called, “enduring challenges that have only grown more severe over the years.”

NEW YORK (AP) — A power outage in a terminal of New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport stretched into a second day Friday after forcing some flights to be canceled or diverted, including one that was turned around and sent back to New Zealand after nearly making it to the U.S.

HOUSTON (AP) — A small jet slid off a runway at a Houston airport on Friday, halting flights for several hours, officials said.

The jet landed at Hobby Airport, a Southwest Airlines hub, just before noon and slid off the runaway and onto a grassy area located between two runway safety areas.

NEW YORK (AP) — The carpets have been rolled up and the racks of clothes have disappeared, leaving only a few stray feathers and sequins behind, but some New York Fashion Week guests may still be humming the tunes they heard on the runways for days to come.

Climate change isn’t causing the multi-year drought that is devastating parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia, but warming is worsening some of the dry spell’s impacts, a new study says.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The main freeway in southern Arizona reopened in both directions Wednesday evening and officials said people living southeast of downtown Tucson could return home a day after a deadly crash sent acrid plumes into the desert sky and prompted evacuations.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Quarterback Patrick Mahomes and All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce promised thousands of fans celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl championship Wednesday that the team will be back for more.

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday the agency has taken steps to avoid a repeat of the technology failure last month that briefly halted all flights nationwide, but he said he couldn't promise there won't be another breakdown.

BERLIN (AP) — A German labor union has called on workers at seven of the country’s airports, including the two biggest, to go on strike Friday to press demands for inflation-busting pay increases. A series of flights have been canceled.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru's Machu Picchu, an Inca-era stone citadel nestled in its southeastern jungle, reopened on Wednesday after being closed nearly a month ago amid antigovernment protests, the culture ministry announced.

Germany's air traffic control agency said Wednesday that it is diverting all flights away from the country's busiest airport, Frankfurt, after a problem with Lufthansa's computer systems caused major disruption at the German airline.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The deadly crash of a commercial tanker truck caused hazardous material to leak onto Interstate 10 outside Tucson on Tuesday, shutting down the key highway through Arizona and forcing evacuations near the accident.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Bitter cold, rain and snow blew across much of the Southwest U.S. on Tuesday, closing stretches of interstate and state highways in northern Arizona where as much as a foot (30 centimeters) of snow was possible and even colder weather on the way.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday it will investigate a December flight in which a United Airlines plane descended to within less than 800 feet (250 meters) of the ocean surface after taking off from Hawaii.

BUENA PARK, Calif. (AP) — From queens to knights, actors at a Southern California medieval-themed dinner theater have left the castle.

The Orange County Register reports Tuesday about 50 performers and stable hands have gone on strike at Medieval Times about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles in Buena Park, California.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The New Zealand government declared a national state of emergency Tuesday after Cyclone Gabrielle battered the country’s north in what officials described as the nation’s most severe weather event in years.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — A building believed to be the oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children in the U.S. was hoisted onto a flatbed truck and moved a half-mile Friday to Colonial Williamsburg, a Virginia museum that continues to expand its emphasis on African American history.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A leak in a fuel pipeline facility in California forced a shutdown of deliveries of gasoline and diesel from the Los Angeles area east to areas including Las Vegas and Phoenix, but officials said Friday they believed supplies would not immediately be affected.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A venerable fine-dining fixture on Bourbon Street helped kick off the final frantic days of New Orleans Mardi Gras season Friday — relaxing its jackets-required dress code and briefly ditching its no-pets policy for a pair of crown- and cape-wearing rescue dogs.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Don't feed the bears!

Wildlife biologists and forest rangers have preached the mantra for nearly a century at national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite, and for decades in areas where urban development increasingly invaded native wildlife habitat.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea says it will remove the entry restrictions it placed on short-term travelers from China since the start of the year as officials see the COVID-19 situation in that country as stabilizing.

A senior executive of Southwest Airlines apologized to a Senate committee Thursday for a December meltdown and said the airline is upgrading software to help fix its inability to reassign crews after the winter storm.

GOODYEAR, Ariz. (AP) — Until last summer, Ashley Montano had never flown. Now she was preparing to land a small plane with three passengers after a previous touch-and-go that had been rough.

“The plane is a bit heavy, so give it just a little more power to make a smooth landing,” flight instructor Jason Fink told her.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The western Joshua tree won't be listed as threatened — yet — as California’s Fish and Game Commission again delayed a decision Wednesday after a bill was proposed to provide protections to the native desert plant.

NEW YORK (AP) — An owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo after someone damaged his cage has become New York City's latest avian celebrity, attracting gawkers as he surveys the park from one tall tree or another but stoking fears that he can't hunt and will starve.

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Visitors to one of Florence’s most iconic monuments — the Baptistry of San Giovanni, opposite the city’s Duomo — are getting a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see its ceiling mosaics up close thanks to an innovative approach to a planned restoration effort.

NEW YORK (AP) — Gustavo Dudamel will become music director of the New York Philharmonic for the 2026-27 season, ending a heralded tenure with the Los Angeles Philharmonic that began in 2009.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Some art lovers make it a mission to visit and view as many works as possible by 17th-century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Bourbon tourism reached new heights last year in Kentucky, where visitors flocked to large and small distilleries as the whiskey-making attractions shook off any pandemic-era hangover.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Nine people died in avalanches in Austria and Italy over the weekend as heavy snow and school holidays drew skiers into the Alps, with some of the victims dying after skiing in unmarked areas despite warnings of elevated avalanche risk, police said.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Giant panda Le Le has died, the Memphis Zoo announced Friday.

The panda, born July 18, 1998, died Wednesday, zoo spokesperson Rebecca Winchester said in an email. His cause of death has yet to be determined as a medical investigation is pending, the zoo said.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Widespread power outages in the Texas capital stretched into a third day Friday for thousands of residents following a winter storm that was spiraling into a management crisis as city leaders remained unable to say when all the lights would come back on.

HONG KONG (AP) — Travel between Hong Kong and China will no longer require COVID-19 PCR tests nor be held to a daily limit, authorities announced Friday, as both places seek to drive economic growth.

HONOLULU (AP) — A whale that washed ashore in Hawaii over the weekend likely died in part because it ate large volumes of fishing traps, fishing nets, plastic bags and other marine debris, scientists said Thursday, highlighting the threat to wildlife from the millions of tons of plastic that ends up in oceans every year.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Thursday slammed a group of Western countries that temporarily closed down their consulates in Istanbul over security concerns, accusing them of waging “psychological warfare” and attempting to wreck Turkey’s tourism industry.