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The moment well after midnight, when one day slides into the next, is usually a lonely moment, observed by security guards and nurses, insomniacs and students cramming for exams. But this weekend, at the National Gallery in London, thousands of people were there together. They had come from Friday to Saturday to see some of the last paintings Vincent van Gogh ever made.“There is an intrigue,” said Digenis Koumas, a visitor, reflecting on the artist's appeal. “It's kind of an enigma, his life. The struggles, the battles he had with himself, with his psyche.Koumas, like many other art lovers, had disrupted his circadian rhythms and braved London's unpredictable night-time public transport options to take one last look at "Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers," which had remained open all day. night in...

Chinese social media app RedNote is full of cute and heartwarming moments after some 500,000 American users took refuge there last week to protest the US government's impending ban on TikTok.Calling themselves “TikTok refugees,” these users paid the “cat tax” to join RedNote by posting photos and videos of cats. They answered many questions from their new Chinese friends: Is it true that in rural America every family has a large farm, a huge house, at least three children and several large dogs? That Americans have to work two jobs to support themselves? That Americans are terrible at geography and many believe that Africa is one country? That most Americans have two days off every week?The Americans also asked questions of their new friends. “I heard every Chinese person has a giant panda...

The sounds of celebration replaced those of explosions in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, as a fragile ceasefire took effect after 470 days of war, allowing some hostages to return home to Israel, Palestinians imprisoned in Israel to be released and the displaced people of Gaza search for what remained of their homes. Under the terms of the hard-won deal, fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas militants stopped at 11:15 a.m., raising hopes of a more lasting end to a war that has plunged the Middle East into fear and uncertainty .The first hostages – three women seized when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 – were released shortly after. Early Monday morning, the Israeli Prison Service said it had released 90 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, where they were welcomed by emotional ...

Three years ago, when Bob and Sandy Curtis moved into an upscale continuing care retirement community in Port Washington, NY, they thought they had found the best possible solution for senior care.In exchange for a steep entry fee — about $840,000, financed by the sale of the Long Island home they've owned for nearly 50 years — they would be taken care of for the rest of their lives at Harborside. They selected a contract from several options that set a stable monthly fee at about $6,000 for both of them and that would reimburse half of the entry fee to their estate after their deaths.“This was the final chapter,” Mr. Curtis, 88, said. “That was the deal I made.”CCRCs, or community living plans, provide increasing levels of care on a single campus, from independent and assisted living to n...

Could this be the year, as President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised, that Russia's war with Ukraine will end?The possibility of peace brings “tears to my eyes,” said Valeria, 30, an English teacher from eastern Ukraine.As Trump prepares to return to the White House on Monday, he promises peace in Ukraine but publicly offers no strategy for how to achieve it, other than his stated desire to meet with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. So Ukrainians can only imagine what the next few months will bring.No one, Valeria said, wants peace more than the Ukrainians. But having suffered so many losses, with hundreds of thousands dead and wounded, Ukrainians will not accept peace at any price, he said. She asked that her last name not be used out of fear for the safety of her father, who still...

But I've never added a friend on TikTok, sent a direct message, or thought of myself as a “TikToker.” And I don't think I'm alone. For most people I know, TikTok is not a place to connect with other people. It's a place to waste time, numb yourself, unplug from reality, and float through your feed. That passive, dissociative quality, while great for engagement, has also made TikTok feel more replaceable than other social networks. If it disappears, we will find our solution somewhere else.I am also convinced by the explanation given in The Atlantic by Hana Kiros, according to which TikTok is a victim of its own success. TikTok's popularity, he argues, has led many other social networks to copy its features. Now, users looking to dive into an endless wormhole of short, funny vertical videos...

When Hamas led the October 7, 2023 incursions into Israel, killing around 1,200 people, around 250 people were taken in Gaza as hostages, including citizens of Israel, the United States, Britain, Mexico, Thailand and other countries.Among the prisoners were the bodies of 37 people killed in the attack, Israeli officials said. Now, about 100 hostages, dead and alive, are still held in the enclave, officials say.The ceasefire agreement announced Wednesday between Israel and Hamas will begin with an initial phase lasting six weeks and will result in the release of 33 hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The agreement calls for Hamas to release three female hostages on day one, four more on day 7 and 26 more over the next five weeks, according to a copy of the document obtained by T...

While Kennedy's adoption of salvage farms may be new, the concept dates back nearly a century. In 1935, the government opened the United States Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Ky., to research and treat addiction. Over the years, residents included Chet Baker and William S. Burroughs (who described the institution in his novel "Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict"). The program had high relapse rates and was contaminated by pharmacological experiments on human subjects. In 1975, as local treatment centers began to proliferate across the country, the program was shut down.In America, therapeutic communities for addiction treatment became popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Some, like Synanon, have become notorious for abusive and cult-like environments. There are now perhaps 3,000 arou...

Loud explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, early Saturday morning as authorities warned of incoming ballistic missiles.An air raid warning had just ended when at 5.50am local time booms were heard throughout the city. Seconds later, air raid sirens began to sound.The country's air defense systems are working, the city's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote on Telegram, warning of the missile threat and urging residents to stay in shelters.Shortly after, he said emergency services were responding to the fire scene. The city's regional military administration said four people were killed.Both sides in the nearly three-year war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks.This is a developing story.

Less than six months after rolling out a slew of AI features, Apple is disabling one of its signature features: news notification aggregation and summarization.The company revealed the change Thursday in a software update for developers. This followed an outcry from the British media that Apple software was misrepresenting the news.In December, the BBC was among the first to urge Apple to change its software. The call came after the BBC sent readers a notification about Luigi Mangione, the man arrested for the murder of Brian Thompson, the health insurance executive, in New York City. Some iPhones summarized BBC news by saying: “Luigi Mangione shoots himself.” He hadn't.In addition to disabling news summaries, Apple said it will add a warning for users who have opted in to receive notifica...