Frozen wonders built with icicles

LINCOLN, N.H. » Farming is tough in New Hampshire in the winter — unless you’re growing icicles.

That’s what’s happening at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, where thousands of icicles have been grown, picked and assembled to create an ice castle not unlike the palace in the Disney movie "Frozen." It’s one of three ice castles being built this winter — the others are in Breckinridge, Colo., and Midway, Utah.

Brent Christensen started his Ice Castles company a few years ago after building elaborate slides and ice towers for his kids in his Utah backyard. The construction process involves spraying water onto metal racks to produce icicles that are stuck to the ground around sprinkler heads. After a few weeks, towers, tunnels, archways and caves emerge.

Hours expand for panda’s debut

WASHINGTON » The National Zoo is extending its hours for the giant panda house this weekend as panda cub Bao Bao makes her public debut.

Saturday was scheduled to be the first chance for the public to see the 5-month-old cub. The exhibit is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. till Monday.

Beginning Tuesday, the panda house will be open to zoo members at 8 a.m. before it opens to the general public at 10 a.m.

The zoo says the amount of time Bao Bao and panda mother Mei Xiang will be on exhibit each day depends on their behavior. They will have access to their private den if they choose.

Other immigrants will join exhibit

NEW YORK » A museum that focuses on the European immigrant experience in lower Manhattan says it’ll expand to include the stories of other ethnic groups that settled there after World War II.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is in the planning stages of adding permanent exhibits on Chinese immigrants, Jewish Holocaust survivors and Puerto Rican migrants. An opening date hasn’t been set.

The museum is housed in a historic tenement building that was the home of more than 7,000 immigrants between 1863 and 1935.

The post-World War II immigrant exhibit will be housed in a nearby tenement building on Orchard Street. The museum says it’ll show how Chinese, Puerto Rican and Jewish experiences intersected.