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Naples Museum to Allow Visually Impaired Visitors to Experience Art Through Touch

Giuseppe Sanmartino's sculpture of the Veiled Christ housed in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, Italy, 10 March 2026. EPA/CIRO FUSCO
Giuseppe Sanmartino's sculpture of the Veiled Christ housed in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, Italy, 10 March 2026. EPA/CIRO FUSCO
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Naples Museum to Allow Visually Impaired Visitors to Experience Art Through Touch

Giuseppe Sanmartino's sculpture of the Veiled Christ housed in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, Italy, 10 March 2026. EPA/CIRO FUSCO
Giuseppe Sanmartino's sculpture of the Veiled Christ housed in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, Italy, 10 March 2026. EPA/CIRO FUSCO

The Sansevero Chapel Museum in Naples will allow dozens of visually impaired visitors to take part in a rare tactile experience, letting them touch celebrated works of art including the Veiled Christ, which is widely regarded as one of the most striking masterpieces in the history of sculpture.

On March 17, the museum will host an initiative called La meraviglia a portata di mano – Wonder within reach – organized in partnership with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired of Naples, offering about 80 blind and partially sighted visitors a chance to encounter the marble masterpieces.

According to The Guardian, visitors will be guided through the chapel by guides who are also visually impaired in a program designed to place accessibility at the center of the museum experience.

The protective barrier surrounding the sculptures will be removed, allowing participants, wearing latex gloves, to explore by touch the intricate marble surface of the sculptures including Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ, which depicts Jesus covered by a transparent shroud made from the same block as the statue. The tactile route will also extend to the reliefs at the feet of the sculptures La Pudicizia and Il Disinganno.

Chiara Locovardi, a guide, told the state agency Ansa: “The veil covering Christ is extraordinary. It’s impossible to understand how Sanmartino managed to create it. The veil defies explanation – for those who can see and for those who cannot. When you touch it, you can feel the veins pulsing beneath.”

“This initiative forms part of our wider program to create a cultural space that is inclusive and accessible through dedicated pathways and tools tailored to the different needs of museum visitors,” Maria Alessandra Masucci, the president of the Sansevero Chapel Museum, said.

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Mexican Baby Monkey Finds Comfort in Plush Companion

A baby monkey named Yuji drinks milk while receiving care at a special care center at the zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Refugio Ruiz)
A baby monkey named Yuji drinks milk while receiving care at a special care center at the zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Refugio Ruiz)
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Mexican Baby Monkey Finds Comfort in Plush Companion

A baby monkey named Yuji drinks milk while receiving care at a special care center at the zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Refugio Ruiz)
A baby monkey named Yuji drinks milk while receiving care at a special care center at the zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Refugio Ruiz)

Yuji, a 6-week-old patas monkey in Mexico, wakes up every day clinging to a stuffed dog. More than a toy, this plush companion acts as a surrogate mom after the tiny primate was rejected by his own mother, Kamaria, a first-time parent unable to form a maternal bond.

Weighing a mere 673 grams (1.4 pounds), Yuji represents the most recent case of assisted rearing at the Guadalajara Zoo in western Mexico.

The story of Yuji has captured the attention of the Mexican public, drawing parallels to Punch, the Japanese macaque that went viral on social media after growing up clinging to a stuffed orangutan following his mother’s rejection, The Associated Press reported.

Unlike Punch, Yuji has not yet had physical contact with other members of his species; he spends most of his time inside a monkey crate at the Guadalajara Zoo’s Comprehensive Center for Animal Medicine and Welfare, CIMBA, where he is under the care of 12 veterinarians and biologists.

No date has been set for Yuji’s transfer to a habitat shared by 12 other adult patas monkeys and three other infants. That will depend on when he is weaned from a milk-only diet and starts an adult diet complete with fruits and vegetables, said veterinarian Iván Reynoso Ruiz, head of the primate section at the Guadalajara Zoo. That could happen when Yuji is around 6 months old, he said.

Just hours after giving birth on March 3, Kamaria began exhibiting irregular behavior. She struggled to hold her firstborn correctly, leaving the infant unable to secure a grip on its mother.

After noticing a problem, keepers separated the mother from her newborn, who weighed just 443 grams (less than a pound) and required immediate placement in an incubator at CIMBA to stabilize his temperature and safeguard his health, Reynoso Ruiz said.

This was the start of the infant's assisted rearing, a process often used by zoos to protect the health and development of at-risk offspring. A caregiver named him Yuji after a popular Japanese manga character.

During his first few weeks, Yuji was under round-the-clock supervision and was bottle-fed fortified milk.

From the start, Yuji was given a stuffed animal for comfort. Reynoso Ruiz explained that the toy fulfills the role of a mother by serving as his primary source of security. To maintain hygiene, staff rotate the original stuffed dog with two other toys — a bear and a monkey — to ensure he always has a clean companion.

To stimulate his development, caregivers outfitted Yuji’s crate with a small hammock and ropes. As he began gaining weight and sleeping for longer intervals, his team adjusted his feeding schedule. Yuji now receives the first of his four daily bottles at 7:00 a.m.

While the stories of Punch and Yuji have been popular on social media, some animal rights advocates oppose the practice of assisted rearing.

Diana Valencia, an animal rights activist, argues that there is no substitute for a natural habitat, and that animals “have the right to be born, grow, develop, and die where they belong.”

Responding to these criticisms, the Guadalajara Zoo’s primate expert emphasized that modern zoos provide a unique opportunity to protect species from global threats. He said the intervention was a matter of life or death, and that Yuji likely would have perished in the wild without a “second chance” at survival.

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Trump's Triumphal Arch Gets Official Name

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shows off an artist's rendering of President Donald Trump's planned Triumphal Arch. Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shows off an artist's rendering of President Donald Trump's planned Triumphal Arch. Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP
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Trump's Triumphal Arch Gets Official Name

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shows off an artist's rendering of President Donald Trump's planned Triumphal Arch. Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shows off an artist's rendering of President Donald Trump's planned Triumphal Arch. Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP

It's been dubbed the "Arc de Trump." But now President Donald Trump's latest building project has an official name -- the "United States Triumphal Arch."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed the formal title on Wednesday, saying the giant structure was being built to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence, AFP reported.

"In honor of this historic occasion, President Trump and the Department of Interior will submit plans for the United States Triumphal Arch," Leavitt told reporters.

Showing off a picture that she initially held upside down, Leavitt said the "monumental" arch would stand 250 feet (76.2 meters) tall "in honor of 250 years."

Its colossal height, including a huge golden Lady Liberty statue on top, means it will dwarf perhaps its most famous predecessor, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which stands at 164 feet.

In fact it is set to be the largest structure of its kind in the world, pipping Mexico City's Monument to the Revolution and knocking Pyongyang's Arch of Triumph to third place.

Plans for the arch were first revealed in October when AFP journalists spotted a model on Trump's desk in the Oval Office, after which it was quickly dubbed the "Arc de Trump" by US media.

Trump revealed the first full renderings for the structure last Friday.

The arch is one of several architectural projects -- including the construction of a gigantic White House ballroom and renovations to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts -- that Trump has undertaken to leave a mark on Washington in his second term.

Critics say the gold-accented arch, which will tower over the 99-foot-tall Lincoln Memorial, is a monument to the 79-year-old Trump's vanity.

The arch will partly be funded by US taxpayers, getting $2 million in special funds from the US National Endowment for the Humanities, with up to $13 million in funds to match any donations, ABC News reported.

But Leavitt said it was aimed at celebrating US national pride.

"Long after everyone in this room is gone, our children and grandchildren will remain inspired by this national monument," she told reporters.

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Much-hyped Alzheimer's Drugs Do Not Help Patients, Review Finds

New research has cast doubt on Alzheimer's drugs once hailed as a gamechanger. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP/File
New research has cast doubt on Alzheimer's drugs once hailed as a gamechanger. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP/File
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Much-hyped Alzheimer's Drugs Do Not Help Patients, Review Finds

New research has cast doubt on Alzheimer's drugs once hailed as a gamechanger. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP/File
New research has cast doubt on Alzheimer's drugs once hailed as a gamechanger. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP/File

Drugs once hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's disease do not meaningfully help patients, a major review found Thursday, however some experts criticized the research.

The review by the Cochrane organization -- which is considered the gold standard for analyzing existing evidence -- looked at drugs that target a plaque called amyloids which builds up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.

Researchers have long sought a way to eliminate this plaque, believing it could be the cause of the most common form of dementia which affects millions of elderly people every year, said AFP.

After decades of costly yet unsuccessful research, two anti-amyloid drugs called lecanemab and donanemab were initially hailed as gamechangers that finally offered a way to slow the progress of the debilitating disease.

Both drugs were approved by the United States and European Union over the last few years.

However concerns about their effectiveness, cost and side effects including an increased risk of brain swelling and bleeding have since prompted caution. State-run health services in the UK and France have refused to cover the drugs.

The new Cochrane review combined data from 17 clinical trials that included a total of more than 20,000 people with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia.

The trials, which took place over roughly 18 months, studied seven different anti-amyloid drugs.

Only one of the trials examined donanemab -- sold under the name Kisunla by US pharma giant Eli Lilly -- while one studied lecanemab, sold as Leqembi by Biogen and Eisai.

While early trials suggested these drugs made a statistically significant difference, this did not translate into "something clinically meaningful for patients," lead study author Francesco Nonino of Italy's IRCCS institute told a press conference.

Brain scans showed that the drugs successfully removed amyloids, the researchers emphasized.

This means "the idea that removing amyloids will benefit patients was refuted by our results," said study co-author Edo Richard of Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

- 'Not delivering on promise' -

Richard, who has previously expressed skepticism about anti-amyloid drugs, said he hopes efforts targeting other mechanisms that potentially cause Alzheimer's lead to more effective drugs in the future.

British biologist John Hardy, who first developed the amyloid hypothesis in the 1990s, criticized the review for lumping together data about lecanemab and donanemab along with drugs that are known to be ineffective, therefore dragging down the overall average.

"This is a silly paper which should not have been published," Hardy told AFP, disclosing that he has consulted for Eli Lilly, Biogen and Eisai.

In response to such questions, Richard said that while the drugs included in the study may work in different ways, they all have the same target: amyloid beta proteins.

Australian neuroscientist Bryce Vissel, who was not involved in the research, said it "does not prove amyloid has no role in Alzheimer's, and it does not rule out future amyloid-directed therapies that may yet help patients".

"But it does show that the current generation of anti-amyloid drugs is not delivering the promise that has surrounded it."