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Festival of Light and Art 'Noor Riyadh 2023' Returns in November

The festival will illuminate Riyadh with large-scale light art installations, building projections, performances, and more. SPA
The festival will illuminate Riyadh with large-scale light art installations, building projections, performances, and more. SPA
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Festival of Light and Art 'Noor Riyadh 2023' Returns in November

The festival will illuminate Riyadh with large-scale light art installations, building projections, performances, and more. SPA
The festival will illuminate Riyadh with large-scale light art installations, building projections, performances, and more. SPA

Noor Riyadh, the largest light art festival in the world, will return in its third edition in Riyadh, from November 30 to December 16 with an associated exhibition to be held from November 30 to March 2.

The festival will illuminate Riyadh with large-scale light art installations, building projections, performances, and more. Artworks will be displayed in public spaces across five hubs.

Curated by Jérôme Sans (Lead Curator), Pedro Alonzo, Alaa Tarabzouni, and Fahad Bin Naif (Curators), the festival’s theme is “The Bright Side of the Desert Moon” and will feature over 120 artworks by around 100 artists from more than 35 nationalities (more than 35 from Saudi Arabia).

Sans is the co-founder of Paris’ Palais de Tokyo, possessing an established career as curator of major biennials around the world and artistic director of prestigious institutions in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

On the other hand, Boston-based Alonzo is currently an adjunct curator at Dallas Contemporary in Texas, and specializes in shows that go beyond museum walls. Riyadh-based Tarabzouni and Bin Naif are both artists and curators, with individual practices that utilize their architectural backgrounds to bring unique perspectives on urbanism and the built environment.

The festival’s exhibition “Refracting Identities, Shared Futures” will be held at the JAX District.

Neville Wakefield, formerly of MoMA PS1, Frieze Projects, and Desert X, returns to lead the curation of the show alongside Maya Al Athel, Curator, who served as artistic director of the festival in 2022.

Noor Riyadh 2023 will also feature over 500 community engagement programs for all visitors and families alike throughout the duration of the festival and the exhibition.

Minister of Culture, Board Member of the Royal Commission for Riyadh City, and Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Riyadh Art Program Prince Badr bin Farhan Al Saud said, “The participation of renowned global light artists in Noor Riyadh echoes our united vision. As we approach our third edition, we look forward to continuing Riyadh Art’s mission to turn the city into a dazzling gallery without walls and to ensure that art is for everyone."

Developed with the aim of nurturing local talent and amplifying Saudi Arabia’s cultural economy, Noor Riyadh is part of Riyadh Art, one of the largest public art initiatives in the world.

Riyadh Art aims to transform the Saudi capital into a “gallery without walls”, with more than 1,000 public art installations, to be spread out across the city through 10 programs and two annual events. Across its editions, Noor Riyadh has created unique moments of joy across the city and provided millions of visitors the opportunity to appreciate world-class light artworks and rediscover the city of Riyadh in a new light.

In 2022, Noor Riyadh celebrated multiple achievements, including welcoming 2.8 million visitors to the festival and winning six Guinness World Records, one of which being the largest celebration of light art in the world.

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Varieties

Tsitsipas Considered Quitting Tennis during Injury-hit 2025

29 December 2025, Australia, Melbourne: A general view of Rod Laver Arena after crews complete line-marking and painting of the Melbourne sign and court at Rod Laver Arena during preparations for the 2026 Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: James Ross/AAP/dpa
29 December 2025, Australia, Melbourne: A general view of Rod Laver Arena after crews complete line-marking and painting of the Melbourne sign and court at Rod Laver Arena during preparations for the 2026 Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: James Ross/AAP/dpa
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Tsitsipas Considered Quitting Tennis during Injury-hit 2025

29 December 2025, Australia, Melbourne: A general view of Rod Laver Arena after crews complete line-marking and painting of the Melbourne sign and court at Rod Laver Arena during preparations for the 2026 Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: James Ross/AAP/dpa
29 December 2025, Australia, Melbourne: A general view of Rod Laver Arena after crews complete line-marking and painting of the Melbourne sign and court at Rod Laver Arena during preparations for the 2026 Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: James Ross/AAP/dpa

Stefanos Tsitsipas said on Thursday he seriously considered retiring from tennis in the depths of a struggle with serious back pain during much of the 2025 season.

But the former world number three, now ranked 36th after playing just two Davis Cup matches since a second-round exit at the US Open, said his ongoing medical treatment appeared to be paying dividends.

"I'm most excited to see how my actual training responds with regard to my back," the 27-year-old said as he prepared to open his 2026 campaign for Greece at the mixed-teams United Cup in Perth, Australia.

"My biggest concern was if I could finish a match," added the 2023 Australian Open finalist, who said the injury haunted him "for the last six or eight months".

"I would ask: 'Can I play another match without pain?'"

"I got really scared after the US Open loss (to Germany's Daniel Altmaier). I could not walk for two days. That's when you reconsider the future of your career."

According to AFP, Tsitsipas said that after various medical consultations he was now satisfied with his current care plan.

"My biggest win for 2026 would be to not have to worry about finishing matches," he said, adding that he completed five weeks of off-season training without pain.

"It makes great feedback knowing you had a pre-season without pain -- I hope it stays that way. I want to deliver for 2026 and the United Cup.

"I put in the work. The most important thing is full belief that I can come back to where I was. I will try everything to do that."

Greece have become regulars in the four-year history of the United Cup, played in Perth and Sydney, with fellow comeback hopeful Maria Sakkari, also a former world number three, joining Tsitsipas in the team.

"We are here again, with a good team and great spirit. We are prepared for war -- we are Greek. We're going big," Tsitsipas said.

Greece are grouped with Naomi Osaka's Japan and the Emma Raducanu-led Britain.

Varieties

Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
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Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Beside the railroad tracks of Copenhagen’s train station, right in the heart of the Danish capital, stands a red-brick building with an ornate façade and a copper-clad cupola still turning green over time.

When it opened in 1912 as the Central Post Building, its grandeur echoed the booming postal and telegraph services that crisscrossed Denmark, connecting Danes to one another.

A little over a century later and that building, now a luxury hotel, presides over a city, and a country, where the postal service no longer delivers letters, according to CNN.

Denmark’s state-run postal service, PostNord, will deliver its last ever letter on Tuesday, as the digital age brings its 400-year-run to an end. This makes Denmark the first country in the world to decide that physical mail is no longer either essential or economically viable.

Denmark’s postal service delivered more than 90% fewer letters in 2024 than in 2000. The US Postal Service delivered 50% less mail in 2024 than in 2006.
And as our correspondence has moved largely online – transfiguring into WhatsApp messages, video calls, or just an exchange of memes – our communication and language have changed accordingly.

Letters themselves “will change status” too, often coming to represent more intimate messages than their digital counterparts, said Dirk van Miert, a professor at the Huygens Institute in the Netherlands who specializes in early modern knowledge networks.

The knowledge networks that letters facilitated for centuries are “only expanding” in their online form, expediting both access to that knowledge as well as the rise of disinformation, he told CNN.

PostNord has been removing the 1,500 mailboxes scattered across Denmark since June. When it sold them off to raise money for charity on December 10, hundreds of thousands of Danes tried to buy one.

For each mailbox, they paid either 2,000 ($315) or 1,500 ($236) Danish krone, depending on how worn they were.

Instead of posting letters, Danes will now have to drop them off at kiosks in shops, from where they will be couriered by private company DAO to both domestic and international addresses. PostNord will continue delivering parcels, however, as online shopping remains ever popular.

Denmark is one of the world’s most digital nations; even its public sector utilizes several online portals, minimizing any physical government correspondence and making it much less reliant on postal services than many other countries.

Still, the need for physical correspondence continues around the world, even if it is diminished.

Almost 2.6 billion people remain offline, according to the UN-affiliated Universal Postal Union, and many more “lack meaningful connectivity,” thanks to inadequate devices, poor coverage and limited digital skills. Rural communities, women and those living in poverty are among the worst affected, it added.

And even in countries like Denmark, some groups who are more reliant on postal services, like older people, may be adversely affected by the changes, advocacy groups say.

“It’s very easy for us to access our mail on the phone or a website... but we forgot to give the same possibilities to those who are not digital,” said Marlene Rishoej Cordes, a spokesperson for the DaneAge Association, which advocates for older people.

The letter has undergone transformations before, in both medium and style. “It changed formats from papyrus or wax tablets... then paper later on, vellum in the Middle Ages, and now we have electronic devices,” said Van Miert.

In the 17th century, following the traditions laid down by great philosopher-letter-writers, like Cicero and Erasmus, students were taught “how to write a proper letter, a letter of consolation, praise or congratulations,” he added. “For a diplomatic letter, a wholly different style was required than for a personal, or what they called a familiar, letter.”

Letters have come to represent an “element of nostalgia” and a permanence that technology cannot match, Nicole Ellison, a professor at the University of Michigan specializing in computer-mediated communication, told CNN.

Still, like the students who altered their letter-writing styles according to different contexts, digital communication has evolved to compensate for some of the personal touches and emotional cues a handwritten letter can convey.

Nonetheless, the demise of the letter is already sparking nostalgia in Denmark.

“Look closely at the picture here,” one Danish user on X said, alongside a photo of a mailbox. “Now in 5 years I will be able to explain to a 5-year-old what a mailbox was in the old days.”

Varieties

Cities Around the World Welcome 2026 with Fireworks and Heightened Security

Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS
Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS
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Cities Around the World Welcome 2026 with Fireworks and Heightened Security

Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS
Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS

From Sydney to Paris to New York City, crowds rang in the new year with exuberant celebrations filled with thunderous fireworks or light shows, while others took a more subdued approach.

As the clock struck midnight in Japan, temple bells rang and some climbed mountains to see the year’s first sunrise, while a light show with somersaulting jet skis twinkled in Dubai. The countdown to 2026 was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, while in Moscow people celebrated in the snow, The Associated Press reported.

In New York City's Times Square, revelers braved frigid temperatures to celebrate with the famed New Year’s Eve ball drop.

In Rio de Janeiro, crowds packed more than 4 kilometers (2 1/2 miles) of the city’s Copacabana Beach for concerts and a 12-minute fireworks show, despite high tides and large waves that rocked barges carrying fireworks.

Other events were more subdued. Hong Kong held limited celebrations following a recent fire at an apartment complex that killed 161 people.

Australia saluted the new year with defiance less than a month after its worst mass shooting in almost 30 years.

Crowds bundled up against the chilly temperatures cheered and embraced as the New Year’s Eve ball covered in more than 5,000 crystals descended down a pole and confetti fell in Times Square.

Revelers wearing tall celebratory hats and light-up necklaces had waited for hours to see the 12,350-pound (5,602-kilograms) ball drop. The festivities also included Tones and I performing John Lennon's “Imagine” just before midnight.

The television hosts interviewed visitors who were attending from such places as Florida, Mexico and South Korea, and read people's wishes for the new year.

A sixth grader from Dallas, Texas, told one of the hosts that he wants to get good grades in 2026 and have a better year.

Police in the city had planned additional anti-terrorism measures at the ball drop, with “mobile screening teams.” It was not in response to a specific threat, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Moments after the ball dropped it rose again, sparkling in red, white and blue, to mark the country’s upcoming 250th birthday.

A few miles away in a decommissioned subway station, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor during a private event just after midnight Thursday.

A heavy police presence monitored crowds watching fireworks in Sydney.

Many officers openly carried rapid-fire rifles, a first for the event, after two gunmen targeted a Hannukah celebration at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, killing 15.

An hour before midnight, victims were commemorated with a minute of silence, and the crowd was invited to show solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns had urged residents not to stay away from festivities, saying extremists would interpret smaller crowds as a victory: “We have to show defiance in the face of this terrible crime."

Indonesia scaled back festivities in solidarity with communities devastated by floods and landslides in parts of Sumatra a month ago that killed over 1,100. Fireworks on the tourist island of Bali were replaced with traditional dances.

Hong Kong rang in 2026 without fireworks over Victoria Harbor after the massive fire in November. Facades of landmarks were turned into countdown clocks and a light show at midnight.

And in Gaza, Palestinians said they hope the new year brings an end to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“The war humiliated us,” said Mirvat Abed Al-Aal, displaced from the southern city of Rafah.

Around Europe Pope Leo XIV closed out the year with a plea for the city of Rome to welcome foreigners and the fragile. Fireworks erupted over European landmarks, from the Colosseum in Rome to the London Eye.

In Paris, revelers converged around the glittering Champs-Élysées avenue. Taissiya Girda, a 27-year-old tourist from Kazakhstan, expressed hope for a calmer 2026.

“I would like to see happy people around me, no war anywhere,” she said.

“Russia, Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, I want everybody to be happy and in peace."

In Scotland, where New Year’s is known as Hogmanay, First Minister John Swinney urged Scots to follow the message of “Auld Lang Syne” by national poet Robert Burns and show small acts of kindness.

Greece and Cyprus turned down the volume, replacing traditional fireworks with low-noise pyrotechnics in capitals. Officials said the change was intended to make celebrations more welcoming for children and pets.