Latest news with #Christmas-themed
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Machete-wielding man attacks security guard at Frisco mosque, police say
A security guard was attacked by a man with a machete at a Frisco mosque during prayer on Sunday, June 8, police said. Officers responded at 11 a.m. to the Islamic Center of Frisco at 11137 Frisco St., after reports of a person being stabbed at the location, Frisco police said in a news release. Police said a 911 caller provided a description of the suspect, who was still at- large. Based on that description, the suspect, 26-year-old Malik Davis was taken into custody, police said. The initial investigation by officers found that the victim, who is a uniformed security guard at the mosque, was praying inside when Davis approached him from behind and assaulted the security guard multiple times with a machete, police said. The victim suffered injuries to his head and one of his hands, police said. Police said Davis took possession of the victim's gun but later ditched it before being confronted by officers. The victim was taken to the hospital, where he was treated and subsequently released, police said. Davis was transported to the Collin County Jail and faces charges of aggravated assault against a security officer and theft of a firearm with a bond set at $60,000. The victim's gun was recovered at the scene, police said. 🚨 More top stories from our newsroom: → Widow of Arlington firefighter who died in Cancun seeks $35M at trial → Christmas-themed restaurant Campo Verde reopens → Teen arrested in stabbing death of his father [Get our breaking news alerts.] The person arrested is a Muslim who had been regularly attending the mosque for the past several months, the Islamic Center of Frisco said in a statement on social media. The mosque resumed regular activities on Sunday evening, according to the statement. 'The investigation into this incident is ongoing, but nothing suggests that this is a hate crime,' Frisco police said in the release. Anyone with related information is asked to contact the Frisco Police Department's non-emergency number at 972-292-6010 or submit a tip using Tip411 (text FRISCOPD + the tip to 847411).
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
We're having sex inside Moby Dick! The wild architectural world of Japan's love hotels
Do whales make you horny? How about UFOs? Maybe you've always dreamed of having a tryst in a fairytale castle, or making love inside a gigantic biscuit tin? Whatever your weird fantasy may be, it can probably be catered for on a roadside somewhere in Japan, if a new book on the curious phenomenon of love hotels is anything to go by. French photographer François Prost has been on a 3,000km pilgrimage of passion, driving from Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, to the island of Shikoku in the south, to document Japan's unique architecture of furtive liaisons. What he found spans from manga-embellished motels and Christmas-themed love nests to pastel-hued stage sets worthy of Wes Anderson. And some things stranger than your most eccentric kinks could dream of. Some of the reviews don't inspire confidence. 'I found a pillow with dried semen,' reads one 'I find love hotels culturally fascinating,' says Prost, whose previous projects have included photographing the facades of strip clubs in the US and nightclubs in Ivory Coast. 'Japan is generally a fairly conservative society, but these are places of escapism, fantasy and almost childlike wonder. And you find them everywhere.' Estimates vary, but some put the number of love hotels – or rabu hoteru – in the country as high as 37,000. They pop up in city centres and rural villages, at busy highway junctions and secluded among fields in the middle of nowhere. As Prost's photographs show vividly, they come in all shapes, sizes and stylistic genres. Some are modelled on castles, topped with pink crenelations and turquoise turrets. Some look like alpine chalets, others like tiki huts, while plenty are modelled on cruise ships, promising to take you on a voyage to love paradise. Whether French chateaux get your juices flowing or you have a penchant for Arabian onion domes, there's a place waiting for you to be greeted by an anonymous receptionist, pay for a kyukei, or 'rest', and live out your carnal dreams. While most of the buildings in Prost's book date from the 1960s onwards, the Japanese love hotel has its origins as far back as the 1600s. They began to emerge during the Edo period, in the form of discreet establishments known as deai chaya, or lovers' teahouses, where couples could meet away from the prying family gaze. They looked like regular teahouses from the outside, but were designed with secretive entrances and multiple exits, and – crucially, for a shoes-off-at-the-door society – somewhere for customers to hide their footwear so as not to be identified. By the early 20th-century Shōwa era, these teahouses had transformed into themed, colourful places that offered a sense of escape from the daily routine. Japan's postwar economic boom saw love hotels blossom into elaborate sexual amusement parks in the 1970s and 80s, with themes ranging from fairytale to sci-fi to medieval cosplay. The country's high population density, small apartment sizes and tradition of living at home until marriage helped fuel the appetite for places for people to meet in private. Some have also put love hotels' continuing success down to the sexual liberation of women in Japan, sometimes highlighting the cute, cartoonish nature of the decor – designed to feel safe and inviting, rather than tacky and sordid. Quite different from seedy pay-by-the-hour motels elsewhere in the world, love hotels aim to cater to everyone. In his 2005 book, Law in Everyday Japan, legal scholar Mark D West estimated that Japanese couples make more than half a billion trips to love hotels each year, suggesting that as much as half of all sexual intercourse in Japan could be taking place in these establishments. In turn, that would mean that a good deal of the country's population were conceived on a rotating bed, in a beshackled boudoir, or inside a fantastical tropical grotto surrounded by model dinosaurs. Prost's photographs don't take you inside the bedrooms (there are other books for that), but instead focus on the exterior iconography of the hotels. Far from fading into the background, they stand as loud roadside billboards, designed to be easily identifiable by libidinous couples at a glance from a moving vehicle. Who could miss the Hotel Artia Dinosaur, which rises on the corner of a highway intersection in Machida city near Tokyo, crowned with a huge T rex? A tableau of a Jeep being crushed by a velociraptor at the entrance sets the tone. Online reviews warn that the bedroom doors lock automatically once you're inside, and you have to call reception to be let out – a feature common to love hotels, but here adding an extra frisson of danger, in tune with the Jurassic Park-inspired theme. Or might you live out your Moby-Dick fantasy at the huge pink concrete whale of Hotel Festa Qugiela, in Okayama, which waits ready to swallow you inside its grinning mouth? Or embrace the kinky King Kong spirit at the LaLa Resort in Kobe? It features a massive gorilla climbing up its bright red and orange-striped facade, and a model tiger keeping watch over the underground car park (a common feature so punters can be shuttled directly to their rooms). 'The hotels are often designed so you don't have to cross paths with anyone else,' says Prost. 'You can go straight from your car into a lift going up, and there is always a separate lift to go back down, to avoid bumping into people. A lot of the hotels don't even have receptionists any more – you book online, or choose your room from an automatic vending machine.' The faded decor and tatty appearance of many of the establishments makes you wonder if love hotels are becoming a thing of the past. A lot of them have the forlorn look of semi-abandoned amusement parks, with flaking paintwork and sun-bleached signage. And some of the online reviews don't inspire much confidence. Who could resist the lure of Shibuya's Sweets Hotel, a pink battenberg fantasy dripping with huge slices of cake, cookies and plastic icing? It turns out those aren't the only treats on offer. 'I found a pillow with dried semen,' reads one review. 'The walls and doors were covered in scratch marks,' says another, 'more fitting for a murder hotel than a love hotel.' 'This place is gone now,' adds the most recent entry. 'Too bad.' Despite some seedy failures, Prost says that love hotels are still just as popular as ever, and they are evolving to keep up with changing habits. 'Nowadays, many young people go to love hotels to have parties,' he says. 'They have karaoke machines, big TVs, massage chairs and hot tubs – people rent them in groups for a few hours.' The Bali An group, for example, offers big rooms for joshi-kai, or girls' nights out, complete with bars, 75in TVs and eight-person beds. The rooms also come with hammocks and camping equipment. After castles, cruise ships and cartoons, glamping appears to be the latest love hotel design trend, so you can sample the romance of the great outdoors without venturing outside. Love Hotel is out now. The Love Hotel exhibition is at Galerie du jour Agnès B, Paris, until 18 May
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rite Aid returns to bankruptcy protection as it seeks to sell most assets
Rite Aid is again seeking bankruptcy protection as the struggling drugstore chain says it will try to sell substantially all of its assets. The company said Monday that its stores will remain open as it returns to Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company said it will work to ensure that customer prescriptions are transferred to other pharmacies as it goes through the sale process. The drugstore chain has lined up from some of its lenders $1.94 billion in new financing which help fund it through the sale and bankruptcy proceedings. The company initially filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2023, with plans to sell parts of its business and restructure. The company ran more than 2,300 stores in 17 states before the filing. Rite Aid said then that its initial voluntary Chapter 11 filing would allow it to slash debt and resolve litigation. The company sold its relatively small pharmacy benefits management business, Elixir Solutions, for around $576 million. Rite Aid emerged from Chapter 11 nearly a year later as a private company. The drugstore chain said in a statement that it came out of the process stronger, 'with a rightsized store footprint, more efficient operating model, significantly less debt and additional financial resources.' Rite Aid's creditors took ownership of the chain, which shrank to 1,245 stores in 15 states, according to its website. A spokeswoman said in March that the company was 'laser focused' on its retail pharmacies, including restocking its stores. But in early May, empty white shelves dotted a store that sits a few miles from Rite Aid's corporate headquarters in Philadelphia. The only rolls of wrapping paper in the store were some Christmas-themed offerings that leaned next to empty shelf space beneath a sign advertising 'Great Value!' The location also had a limited selection of profitable beauty products and drugstore staples such as Qtips and cotton balls. Retail analyst Neil Saunders said such a look encourages shoppers not to return. 'They're actively pushing customers away,' said Saunders, managing director of the consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData. Rite Aid was attempting to turn around its business in a tough environment for drugstores. Major chains and independent pharmacies have been closing stores and struggling with several challenges. Prescription profitability has grown tight. The chains also are dealing with increased theft, court settlements over opioid prescriptions and shoppers who are drifting more to online shopping and discount retailers. Walgreens, which has more than six times as many stores as Rite Aid, agreed in March to be acquired by the private equity firm Sycamore Partners. Philadelphia-based Rite Aid was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as Thrif D Discount Center. The company had struggled with debt, posted annual losses for several years and was cutting costs and closing stores well before its initial bankruptcy filing. Rite Aid also explored sale offers. Walgreens attempted to buy it for about $9.4 billion a decade ago, when Rite Aid ran more than 4,600 stores. But the larger drugstore chain eventually scaled back its ambition and bought less than half that total to get the deal past antitrust regulators. In 2018, Rite Aid called off a separate merger with the grocer Albertsons. There are no Rite Aids left in Rhode Island, but there are locations in the nearby cities of Fall River and New Bedford. Download the and apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch or with the new . Follow us on social media: Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Globe and Mail
05-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Rite Aid returns to bankruptcy protection as it seeks to sell most assets
Rite Aid is again seeking bankruptcy protection as the struggling drugstore chain says it will try to sell substantially all of its assets. The company said Monday that its stores will remain open as it returns to Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company said it will work to ensure that customer prescriptions are transferred to other pharmacies as it goes through the sale process. The drugstore chain has lined up from some of its lenders $1.94 billion in new financing which help fund it through the sale and bankruptcy proceedings. The company initially filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2023, with plans to sell parts of its business and restructure. The company ran more than 2,300 stores in 17 states before the filing. Rite Aid said then that its initial voluntary Chapter 11 filing would allow it to slash debt and resolve litigation. The company sold its relatively small pharmacy benefits management business, Elixir Solutions, for around $576 million. Rite Aid emerged from Chapter 11 nearly a year later as a private company. The drugstore chain said in a statement that it came out of the process stronger, 'with a rightsized store footprint, more efficient operating model, significantly less debt and additional financial resources.' Rite Aid's creditors took ownership of the chain, which shrank to 1,245 stores in 15 states, according to its website. A spokeswoman said in March that the company was 'laser focused' on its retail pharmacies, including restocking its stores. But in early May, empty white shelves dotted a store that sits a few miles from Rite Aid's corporate headquarters in Philadelphia. The only rolls of wrapping paper in the store were some Christmas-themed offerings that leaned next to empty shelf space beneath a sign advertising 'Great Value!' The location also had a limited selection of profitable beauty products and drugstore staples such as Qtips and cotton balls. Retail analyst Neil Saunders said such a look encourages shoppers not to return. 'They're actively pushing customers away,' said Saunders, managing director of the consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData. Rite Aid was attempting to turn around its business in a tough environment for drugstores. Major chains and independent pharmacies have been closing stores and struggling with several challenges. Prescription profitability has grown tight. The chains also are dealing with increased theft, court settlements over opioid prescriptions and shoppers who are drifting more to online shopping and discount retailers. Walgreens, which has more than six times as many stores as Rite Aid, agreed in March to be acquired by the private equity firm Sycamore Partners. Philadelphia-based Rite Aid was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as Thrif D Discount Center. The company had struggled with debt, posted annual losses for several years and was cutting costs and closing stores well before its initial bankruptcy filing. Rite Aid also explored sale offers. Walgreens attempted to buy it for about $9.4 billion a decade ago, when Rite Aid ran more than 4,600 stores. But the larger drugstore chain eventually scaled back its ambition and bought less than half that total to get the deal past antitrust regulators. In 2018, Rite Aid called off a separate merger with the grocer Albertsons. ___ Jonathan Poet contributed to this report from Philadelphia. ____
The Hill
05-05-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Rite Aid returns to bankruptcy protection as it seeks to sell most assets
Rite Aid is again seeking bankruptcy protection as the struggling drugstore chain says it will try to sell substantially all of its assets. The company said Monday that its stores will remain open as it returns to Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company said it will work to ensure that customer prescriptions are transferred to other pharmacies as it goes through the sale process. The drugstore chain has lined up from some of its lenders $1.94 billion in new financing which help fund it through the sale and bankruptcy proceedings. The company initially filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2023, with plans to sell parts of its business and restructure. The company ran more than 2,300 stores in 17 states before the filing. Rite Aid said then that its initial voluntary Chapter 11 filing would allow it to slash debt and resolve litigation. The company sold its relatively small pharmacy benefits management business, Elixir Solutions, for around $576 million. Rite Aid emerged from Chapter 11 nearly a year later as a private company. The drugstore chain said in a statement that it came out of the process stronger, 'with a rightsized store footprint, more efficient operating model, significantly less debt and additional financial resources.' Rite Aid's creditors took ownership of the chain, which shrank to 1,245 stores in 15 states, according to its website. A spokeswoman said in March that the company was 'laser focused' on its retail pharmacies, including restocking its stores. But in early May, empty white shelves dotted a store that sits a few miles from Rite Aid's corporate headquarters in Philadelphia. The only rolls of wrapping paper in the store were some Christmas-themed offerings that leaned next to empty shelf space beneath a sign advertising 'Great Value!' The location also had a limited selection of profitable beauty products and drugstore staples such as Qtips and cotton balls. Retail analyst Neil Saunders said such a look encourages shoppers not to return. 'They're actively pushing customers away,' said Saunders, managing director of the consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData. Rite Aid was attempting to turn around its business in a tough environment for drugstores. Major chains and independent pharmacies have been closing stores and struggling with several challenges. Prescription profitability has grown tight. The chains also are dealing with increased theft, court settlements over opioid prescriptions and shoppers who are drifting more to online shopping and discount retailers. Walgreens, which has more than six times as many stores as Rite Aid, agreed in March to be acquired by the private equity firm Sycamore Partners. Philadelphia-based Rite Aid was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as Thrif D Discount Center. The company had struggled with debt, posted annual losses for several years and was cutting costs and closing stores well before its initial bankruptcy filing. Rite Aid also explored sale offers. Walgreens attempted to buy it for about $9.4 billion a decade ago, when Rite Aid ran more than 4,600 stores. But the larger drugstore chain eventually scaled back its ambition and bought less than half that total to get the deal past antitrust regulators. In 2018, Rite Aid called off a separate merger with the grocer Albertsons. ____
