Villages

At night, the villages in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia fall silent early, for no electric light burns to keep the people awake. The cooking fires smolder to white powder ash, and the darkness seals down like a locked box. Mulu Abebe, 36, lay awake on the night of Feb. 8, 1984, his mind uneasy in the enveloping stillness. "Our grandmothers and our grandfathers used to tell us that one day we would go to the Holy Land," Abebe, an Ethiopian Jew, recalled recently.

At the outset of the new film"Where Do We Go Now?"the usual constant fighting between Muslim and Christian men in a remote Lebanese village has reached a fragile peace aided by the arrival of a television set. When a series of events threatens this uneasy accord, the women of the town must band together to bring things back to an even keel with a plan that comes to involve Eastern European belly dancers and baked goods laced with hashish. Directed, co-written by and starring Nadine Labaki, the film aims to be a gentle comedy (there are even some songs approaching musical numbers)

Emboldened by its takeover of a rebel-held neighborhood of Homs, the Syrian army shelled other parts of the city and nearby villages Sunday in an effort to regain control of the area, antigovernment activists said. Shells rained down through the day on the villages of Rastan, Tall Kalakh and Qusair, to which Free Syrian Army rebels were said to have fled from the battered Baba Amr neighborhood. The western city of Homs has suffered the most concentrated fighting and the highest number of casualties since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began last March.

Birds twitter and sunshine twinkles through groves of bamboo and banyan trees adorned with cascades of orchids. With every step, my Vibram boot soles crush hibiscus blossoms littering a pathway, while butterflies flutter around a group of elderly folks welcoming the morning with the gracious silent semaphore of tai chi. At a clearing where remnants of a World War ll gun emplacement rust, half-swallowed in greenery, an opening in the jungle reveals...

Reporting from Padang, Indonesia, and New Delhi, India -- Indonesian authorities said today at least three villages at some distance from the city of Padang, the port city hardest hit by Wednesday's massive earthquake, were wiped out by landslides, suggesting the disaster will claim significantly more lives than the 715 to date. At least 640 people died in Paranan Bananak, Pulau Air and Lubuk Lawe, a cluster of villages some 35 miles from Padang, said Jufnedi, a local police commissioner who only uses one name.

. . .This Tour was for 23 days, a leisurely adventure through the scenic and beautiful lands of England, Wales and Scotland. The picturesque countryside, villages, historic sites and people left us with very happy memories of an exceptional trip. JOSEPH T. RENE Leucadia

Members of Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army killed 189 people during three days of raids on villages in northeast Congo last week, a U.N. agency said, citing local officials. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the killings were reported to have taken place Thursday through Saturday in Faradje, Doruma and Gurba villages by rebels fleeing a 2-week-old multinational military offensive led by Uganda.

A sharp tremor hit two mountain villages in central Italy Friday, causing some damage to old buildings but no casualties, police reported. The tremor, registering 3.6 on the Richter scale, shook the villages of Alfedena and Villetta Barrea, in the Abruzzi Mountains, about 90 miles southeast of Rome this morning. The area is prone to earthquakes, and several houses in the villages were damaged in a sharp series of tremors in May, 1984.

In villages God does not live only in icon corners as the scoffers claim, but plainly everywhere. He sanctifies each roof and pan, divides each double door. In villages God acts abundantly-- cooks lentils in iron pots on Saturdays, dances a lazy jig in flickering flame, and winks at me, witness to all of this. He plants a hedge, and gives away a bride (the groom's a forester), and, for a joke, he makes it certain that the game warden will never hit the duck he's shooting at.

About 240 Saudi villages have been evacuated and scores of schools closed because of fighting that has spilled over from Yemen. Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive last week after Yemeni rebels seized Saudi territory along the mountainous border. The rebels said the Saudis had been allowing Yemeni troops to use the area to launch attacks on their bases.

BRACHAY, France - The drive to this picturesque village nearly 200 miles southeast of Paris winds through forests and farmland where hawks stand guard on roadside fence posts and egrets glide across empty pastures. With a population of just 60, Brachay's residents say they are "the forgotten ones. " One person did remember them: Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party. The town thanked her with a record 72% vote in her favor during the first round of France's presidential election last Sunday.

TV game show host Bob Eubanks and his wife, Deborah James, have sold their Westlake Village house for $1.982 million. The Normandy-style home, built in 2006, sits on 3.5 acres at the end of a cul-de-sac. The single-level house features wood and stone floors, custom built-in cabinetry, French doors, an office, four bedrooms and 41/2 bathrooms in 4,972 square feet of living space. The grounds include a swimming pool with spa, a two-story play fort, an outdoor covered loggia, stone walkways and fountains.

Here are some good places for eating experiences: Local eatery. Hawaiian Style Cafe, Waimea. This low-key breakfast joint is an obsession with those who have tried it. Lines of locals form on weekends, and the place closes when it runs out of food. The Loco Moco (eggs, hamburger and gravy over rice) is the "local food" you are looking for. (808) 885- 4295. Romantic dinner. CanoeHouse, Mauna Lani Bay Hotel. A beachside location, indoor-outdoor seating, live Hawaiian music and plenty of fresh fish make CanoeHouse the place for a romantic splurge or special occasion.

CAIRO - Cars raced and protests echoed across the island kingdom of Bahrain on Sunday as the embattled royal family gambled on the Formula One Grand Prix to portray stability after more than a year of rebellion, mass arrests and hunger strikes. One of the world's premier sporting brands competed with the longest-running unrest in the "Arab Spring. " Human rights groups criticized Grand Prix officials for allowing the nation's minority Sunni Muslim rulers to revel in international prestige.

Until the mats, blankets and other comforts of Necessity Village were finally packed up at sunrise Tuesday, Jerome Clark had been sleeping soundly for the first time in years. For the last decade, the 65-year-old homeless man's on-and-off residence has been the Santa Ana Civic Center, usually the lawn. Like others who live on the streets of Orange County's second largest city, Clark said his nights were fitful, sleep always elusive as he worried about being slapped with a ticket for violating the city's no-camping ordinance.

LIUYI, China — Bathed in a faint afternoon sunlight that seems to highlight every wrinkle on her face and hands, Fu Huiying hobbles around her dusty home. Nearby, chopped vegetables suggest a dinner half-made, and the smoke of years of cooking has stained the wall behind a small gas stove. But the eyes are drawn to Fu's deformed feet and the tiny, ornate shoes on the floor next to her, both objects marking the 76-year-old as one of the last of a kind. For almost a millennium, the practice of foot binding was prevalent across Chinese society, starting with the wealthier classes but over the years spreading down through urban and then poorer rural communities.

Dora Saint, a prolific and gentle chronicler of English village life who wrote a popular series of novels under the pen name Miss Read, died April 7 at her home in Great Shefford, west of London, British media reported. She was 98. Attention to the small details of ordinary life marked her fictional works, which appeared almost annually between 1955 and 1996. Her mother's maiden name was Read, and she adopted it to write of the small conflicts and quiet excitements of life in the fictional villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green.

The cafe is narrow, with a dozen little tables and a gray concrete floor. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too shiny. No espresso poured into designer porcelain with a dusting of organic cacao and a layer of orange-infused, textured milk. No movie stars. Or hardly ever. But Kaldi Coffee & Tea is home to a community of dreamers who share a singular ambition: They want to be part of the movies. Since the silent film era, people have flocked to L.A., seeking stardom. Hollywood may change, but the calculus remains the same.