National Lifestyle

CINCINNATI — Author Margaret Atwood thinks an American defiant streak is the country's defence against the kind of nightmarish totalitarian future she depicts for the United States in “The Handmaid’s Tale.

Celebrity birthdays for the week of Sept. 20-26 Sept. 20: Actor Sophia Loren is 86. Bassist Chuck Panozzo (Styx) is 72. Actor Tony Denison (“Major Crimes,” “The Closer”) is 71. Actor Debbi Morgan (“Power”) is 69. Jazz guitarist Peter White is 66.

LONDON — The sea voyage that changed Peter Padfield’s life more than six decades ago started with an act of chance. In 1956, Padfield was third officer aboard a British cruise liner in Sri Lanka when he stumbled across a magazine in a ship wardrobe.

PENTICTON, B.C.

NEW YORK — Billy Ocean is angry. But you won't hear it in his music. Now 70, he's frustrated by structural racism and by Black people being shot by police. He's fed up with hatred and thinks society is often going backward.

NEW YORK — Jason Wu did what few designers dare during New York Fashion Week: He put on a live show Sunday with a tiny audience present in the middle of a pandemic.

NEW YORK — British perfume brand Jo Malone has apologized to Black actor John Boyega of “Star Wars” fame after cutting him out of the Chinese version of a cologne commercial he helped create.

NASHVILLE — Country-turned-pop star Taylor Swift is coming back to her roots with a performance at this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards.

Moviegoing audiences in North America are not rushing back to the theatre just yet and “Mulan” is also faltering in its China release as the global box office slowly comes back online in the COVID-19 era. In the second major weekend for U.S.

RIO RANCHO, N.M. — Since the Great Recession, cities like Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and Hobbs, New Mexico, have seen construction booms.