#cultural-heritage

#cultural-heritage

Italian officials have reacted with outrage after Russia used the partial collapse of a medieval tower in central Rome to claim that Italy's support for Ukraine has drained funds needed to preserve its cultural heritage. The Torre dei Conti, a 29m-tall fortified residence built near the Colosseum in the 13th century, partially collapsed on Monday (4 November), causing the death of a Romanian worker who was trapped under rubble for 11 hours.

This week's practical must-reads from The Local include common traps that catch out property hunters, what increasing the 'franchise médicale' means for your health bills, and the small town in south-west France that's up there with Europe's big cultural guns. Buying a house always carries a risk, but it can be harder doing it in a foreign country where you are unfamiliar with the sales process, tax regulations or local bylaws.

The bronze "Momotaro" statue was reported missing earlier this month, cut from its stand in San Jose's Guadalupe River Park. This week, officials released new details about the theft and now believe the statue was cut down and taken on Sept. 25 just after 7 a.m. New photos from the day of the theft show two people appearing to take away the statue in a shopping cart. Police said the people were last seen walking north through the park.

There's been nonstop news coverage since two men were arrested Saturday night - one, as he tried to board a plane to Algiers, a second in the Paris suburbs. They were tracked down through their own fingerprints and DNA on objects left behind at the scene of the crime - a circular saw, a reflective vest, a motorcycle helmet, a gas canister, a glove and a walkie-talkie. French media say the men were already known to police.

A motion approved approved at Peel Regional Council last month proposes control of the Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives (PAMA) be transferred to the City of Brampton, with a plan to enhance programming and modernize the funding model. The site, which was originally the Peel County courthouse and jail, was built in 1867. But for more than 55 years it's housed thousands of pieces of art and artifacts representing the history of the region.

October 2025 was absolutely wild for LEGO fans. We saw everything from nostalgic computer builds to kinetic sculptures that actually move. The month delivered some seriously impressive creations that pushed boundaries and made us remember why we love playing with plastic bricks in the first place. These ten builds represent the cream of the crop from October 2025. Each one brings something different to the table, whether it's mind-blowing engineering, cultural significance, or just pure fun.

Among the eight pieces stolen from the Apollo Gallery, two imperial jewels contain precious gems extracted from the Muzo mines in the Colombian department of Boyaca: a necklace and earrings that belonged to Marie Louise of Austria, the second wife of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte after his separation from Josephine de Beauharnais, whom he divorced in January 1810 due to her inability to produce an heir. The gems are a clean, intense green known as Muzo green, a hue that has captivated European fine jewelry.

Lalitha Krishnan wore a sari on the plane from the south Indian state of Kerala to New York, where she was traveling to study for a Ph.D on a full scholarship. Krishnan would go on to do pioneering work developing pharmaceutical drugs that combat multi-drug resistant infections. When Dr. Krishnan finally received an award for her work in 1991-as a rare woman of color in her field, often witnessing others take credit for her research-once again, she wore a sari.

"Bullfighting doesn't sustain itself, it's sustained by public funds," he stated, asking that these resources be allocated "to creation, not cruelty."

For this year's Black History Month, the theme is Standing Firm in Power and Pride, honouring the resilience, innovation and fortitude of Black people in the UK and beyond. It celebrates the community's contributions across many fields, including the arts and culture, as reflected in a selection of brilliant new exhibitions. These range from explorations into the artists and groups

As a Japanese man born and raised in the United States, Kitamura said he struggled with imposter syndrome. Though he was part of a Japanese tattoo family, apprenticed to a Japanese tattoo master, and works with primarily Japanese-American clients, he worried that his own style was Americanized compared to the traditions he was studying. Now, nearly 29 years into his own practice as a tattoo artist (Kitamura opened his own studio, State of Grace Tattoo, in 2002 in San Jose) he feels "This is me accepting who I am and being proud of that," he said.

As Brazilian philosopher Marilena Chauí reminds us, the word derives from the Latin colere, which means "to take care of." In that sense, agriculture means taking care of the soil, while religious cults are the care of the gods. At its core, culture is the creation of symbolic universes, expressed through different languages, including architecture, that weave connections across time.

From a young age, I was sketching, experimenting with lettering, and playing with design," he recalls.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

By noon, the sun is high over Petra, bleaching the coloured sandstone cliffs and temporarily emptying its celebrated ruins of tourists. Vines and a canopy keep the terrace of Mohammed Feras s cave home cool despite the searing summer heat rising from the rocky valley. I have lived here all my life. I've never been anywhere else and I cannot imagine not living here. This area is part of who I am and I cannot leave it, the 44-year-old farmer and sometime tourist guide said.

Surrounded by nature, the locality of Santa Eufemia, near the village of Espinhal, is a region known for its high cultural and historical value due to its antiquity.

The Geneva Museum of Art and History (MAH) played a key role in a frantic operation to evacuate thousands of artefacts from the Gaza's main archaeological storage facility on Thursday (9 September), ahead of an Israeli strike that destroyed the building. On learning of the planned strike, MAH staff scrambled to find support to delay the attack and organise an evacuation. The facility contained finds from key archaeological sites in Gaza, including the ruins of the fourth-century Saint Hilarion Monastery,

UNESCO estimates that 80% of Mosul's historic town was destroyed during this period, which led to one of the most ambitious reconstruction campaigns in recent decades: "Revive the Spirit of Mosul." Since 2019, UNESCO has carried out large-scale efforts to rebuild the city's landscapes and monuments, reconstructing three religious and cultural landmarks and 124 heritage houses, along with other buildings located in the Old City.

In the front rows that are filled with tourists, phones are raised to film the fighters with commentary in English, French and Japanese. In the stands, there's a torrent of insults and cheers typical of local long-term fans. The scene reflects a recent change: once the poor man's sport in Mexico City, lucha libre a popular form of wrestling in Mexico has become a tourist and cultural attraction with a global reach.

There are so many reasons to explore Uganda's capital before heading out on safari. Most visitors landing in Uganda skip Kampala and head straight for the untamed upcountry for up-close encounters with elephants and mountain gorillas. Yet the capital city's dusty urban sprawl-set among seven green hills dotted with terracotta red roofs and traditional Ganda huts peeking out from tropical tangles of mango trees-is more than worthy of exploration.

In 1857, the S.S. Central America (also known as the Ship of Gold) sank off the coast of South Carolina after sailing into a hurricane in one of the worst maritime disasters in American history; 425 people were killed and thousands of pounds of gold sank with the ship to the bottom of the ocean. In 1940, the Lascaux cave paintings, estimated to be 17,000 years old, were discovered in southwestern France.

The Trump administration's efforts to reshape federal cultural institutions as part of a broader attack on what the president characterizes as "woke" or diversity, equity, and inclusion policies have left many Indigenous arts and culture institutions in a challenging position, according to leaders at those institutions as well as culture workers and advocates who spoke to Truthout. Institutions offering Indigenous arts and culture programming,

LOEWE Perfumes has revealed its latest creation, the "Palo Santo" candle, a luxury home fragrance that merges centuries-old tradition with contemporary craftsmanship. Known for curating scents that balance nature's raw power with artistic refinement, LOEWE Perfumes continues to expand its home fragrance collection with offerings that resonate far beyond aroma. "Palo Santo" is the brand's modern take on one of the world's most storied natural incenses, designed to evoke calmness, sophistication, and cultural heritage in every burn.

Before arriving in Edinburgh, Nataliya Bezborodova's impression of Scotland was shaped largely by Hollywood. My knowledge of this country was pretty much based on the film Braveheart, she admits with a laugh, standing before the grand neoclassical columns of the National Galleries of Scotland. As if on cue, the castle's daily gun salute fires overhead, scattering pigeons and punctuating our conversation with a jolt.