Japanese chemical company DIC Corporation announced in a press release Saturday that its board of directors had decided to “downsize and relocate” the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, an institution in the city of Sakura, 25 miles northeast of Tokyo, that it owns.

In August, ARTnews reported that the company, which is severly in debt, was reevaluating the future of the museum.

In the press release, published December 26, the company said that the downsizing plan would see DIC Corp sell 25 percent of the 384 works in the museum that it owns. The total value of DIC Corp-owned works is $77.5 million, the company said in August. The museum would then relocate to “a facility in Tokyo that is accessible to many stakeholders and where the works of art can be more easily exhibited to the public.” The company is currently in negotiations with one location with the aim of reaching an agreement by March 2025.

Two other options discussed for the museum, according to the press release, were “maintaining the status quo” or “discontinuing operations.”

Built in 1990, the DIC Museum houses a collection of 754 artworks, including seven of Mark Rothko’s “Seagram Murals” and paintings by Cy Twombly, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Robert Ryman.

Weeks before the Supreme Court’s emergency session that could determine the fate of TikTok in the United States, Donald Trump on Friday issued a legal filing asking the high court to pause the law that would ban the Chinese-owned social media app if it isn’t sold by January 19.

The filing did not comment on the legal arguments of the law, which was signed under President Biden over national security concerns that have mounted in recent years. Instead, it touted Trump as “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history,” noting his 14.7 million followers on TikTok. The president also echoed TikTok’s arguments that the law illegally restricts the First Amendment.

The filing marks the latest chapter in Trump’s shifting views regarding the popular app after he tried, and failed, to ban it in 2020. After meeting with TikTok’s CEO earlier this month, Trump hinted at possibly intervening before the law’s implementation, saying that he had a “warm spot” for the platform. In March, Trump experienced a similar reversal following a meeting with Jeff Yass, a conservative hedge-fund manager who happens to have a $33 billion stake in TikTok. All of this has come against the backdrop of Trump’s increasing coziness with some of tech’s most prominent billionaires.

D. John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer and nominee for solicitor general, wrote on Friday: “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump’s incoming Administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case.”

What a year it’s been!

Martyr! came out of the gate in January as the year’s hottest debut with major book award potential, and while it didn’t win the NBA, it made the shortlist and just about every best-of list around. Jonathan Haidt sparked a new round of phone and social media concern—and some congressional hearings—with The Anxious Generation. James was indisputably the most anticipated novel of the year, and it’s ending the year as the indisputable champion. Simon & Schuster tried—and mostly succeeded—to make fetch happen with the every-genre-and-the-kitchen-sink romp The Ministry of Time. Miranda July launched a thousand midlife crises with her manic pixie perimenopause novel, All Fours (I was not a fan). Sally Rooney got adults out to midnight release parties for Intermezzo. Romantasy ruled BookTok and bestseller lists. Even Louise Erdrich got sprayed edges. A lot happened.

Update, December 28: This story has been updated to reflect Donald Trump’s position on the H1-B visa program.

Less than a month before Donald Trump returns to office, two of his most ardent allies have plunged into a fierce online debate over immigration, specifically the government’s visa program that allows American companies to hire so-called “highly skilled” foreign workers.

The clash started on Monday with Laura Loomer, the far-right social media character known for her virulent racism, condemning Trump’s decision to name Sriram Krishnan, a tech investor who was born in India, as a senior adviser on artificial intelligence. Tech leaders, including Elon Musk, weighed in to defend the practice of hiring foreign workers, specifically through the government’s H-1B visa program. (Musk, a naturalized US citizen from South Africa, once held the visa.) The debate has since devolved into a relentless string of petty insults—Loomer likened tech billionaires to “termites” at Mar-a-Lago; Musk called Loomer a troll—as well as accusations of censorship on X as retaliation. At a different point, Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in to register his support for hiring foreign workers. The former presidential candidate and now-DOGE partner blamed an American culture that has so “venerated mediocrity over excellence” that tech companies have no other option but to hire engineers from abroad.

One might be tempted to view this MAGA infighting as a signal that Musk may not be as extreme as the other faithful. Could this mean that the tech billionaire who openly embraced some of MAGA’s most pernicious racism and conspiracy theories is capable of restraint, at least when it comes to matters of business and the economy? Such a takeaway from this online war would be a mistake. After all, the tech billionaire, who just last week endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD party, is simply acting as he always does: framing any argument to be of service to himself. For him, immigration policy should be crafted strictly in terms of what is economically beneficial to a company, or individual’s bottom line. Never mind immigrants who are deemed to be less than “highly skilled.”

It was their first day in battle and the two best friends had just switched places. Bob Fordyce rested while Frank Hartzell crawled down into the shallow foxhole, taking his turn chipping away at the frozen ground. Just then, German artillery fire began falling all around them. With his body plastered to the ground, Hartzell could feel shrapnel dent his helmet. When the explosions finished, he picked himself up to find that his best friend had just been killed in the blur of combat. 

“When you’re actually in it, it’s very chaotic,” Hartzell said. 

The following day, New Year’s Day 1945, Hartzell battled Nazi soldiers for control of the Belgian town of Chenogne. In the aftermath, American soldiers gunned down dozens of unarmed German prisoners of war in a field—a clear violation of the Geneva Convention. 

“I remember we had been given orders, take no prisoners,” Hartzell said. “When I walked past the field on the left, there were these dead bodies. I knew what they were. I knew they were dead Germans.” News of the massacre reached General George S. Patton, but no investigation followed.

This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

In 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on the climate crisis that, among other things, directed the secretary of the Interior to review the potential for clean energy on public lands. Later that year, he set aggressive national targets on green energy: 80% renewable energy generation by 2030 and 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035. Then came the passage of the historic Inflation Reduction Act, which showered the clean energy industry with federal incentives and encouraged private investors to cash in on its explosive growth.

Since Biden’s inauguration, his administration has approved a steady stream of solar, geothermal, and transmission projects across the West. In April, the Interior Department announced that it had permitted more than 29 gigawatts of renewable energy on public lands—an amount nearly equivalent to the total capacity of Washington or Arizona. In the following months, it released a suite of new agency rules and a regional plan aimed at boosting regulatory certainty for clean energy development for years to come.

“2024 felt like the year where all the pieces finally came together,” said Rachael Hamby, policy director for the Center for Western Priorities, a nonprofit that advocates for clean energy and conservation in the West. “A lot of that groundwork has been laid over the past four years, and we’re seeing the culmination of all of that progress.”

Archaeologists in rural Kent, UK, have unearthed a “really incredible” 6th-century sword from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery near Canterbury. Several other striking objects have also been found at the same site.

It is exceptionally well preserved; the silver-and-gilt hilt has a finely crafted decorated pattern, and the blade is embossed with runic script. Parts of the weapon’s leather-and-wood scabbard – and its beaver fur lining – have also survived. A ring is attached to its pommel, which archaeologists believe might symbolize an oath to a king.

The weapon’s condition is so impressive that it is being compared to the famously well-preserved Anglo-Saxon sword that was discovered at Sutton Hoo in the English county of Suffolk in 1939.

The exact location of the recent discovery has not been disclosed because further excavations are planned. So far, 12 burials have been excavated and it’s thought 200 more exist in the area, dating from the sixth to fifth centuries.

“We’re keeping the name of the site under wraps. It’s a very rich cemetery. It would be a real tragedy if it became well known before we’ve excavated it,” Duncan Sayer, the lead archaeologist and professor of archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire, told the Guardian.

He said the sword is “really incredible, in the top echelons of swords, an elite object in every way, which is wonderful. It rivals the swords from Dover and from Sutton Hoo.”

A golden pendant inscribed with a serpent or dragon was also found alongside the weapon. Archaeologists say such pendants would have belonged to women with lofty statuses.

The discoveries will be included in a forthcoming BBC six-part series called “Digging for Britain.” “I’ve never seen one that’s so beautifully preserved,” professor Alice Roberts, an academic who presents the show, told the Guardian. “I’ve never seen one that’s so beautifully preserved. It’s an extraordinary Anglo-Saxon cemetery, with really beautifully furnished graves, a lot of weapon burials where you find things like iron spear-points and seaxes, which are Anglo-Saxon knives – and then there’s this astonishing sword.”

UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, has granted “provisional enhanced protection” to two Ukrainian heritage sites, the Odessa Literary Museum and the National Historical and Memorial Reserve Babyn Yar, as the Russia’s war on Ukraine approaches its three-year anniversary.

One of the cultural properties, National Historical Memorial Reserve Babyn Yar in Kyviv, honors the more than 33,000 Jews, as well as Roma and Soviet prisoners, killed by the Nazis in a two-day massacre in 1941. In March of 2022, a Russian projectile hit close to the site, killing five people. A monument to Holocaust victims was not directly struck, but a nearby building the center planned to use for a new museum was damaged.

“Cultural property under the enhanced protection of UNESCO benefits from the highest level of immunity from attack and use for military purposes. Non-compliance with these clauses would constitute a ‘serious violation’ of the 1999 Second Protocol to the Hague Convention, opening the possibility of prosecution,” UNESCO said in a statement.

In February of this year, UNESCO reported that 341 cultural sites—including 26 religious structures, 150 buildings of historical or artistic importance, and 31 museums—across Ukraine have been damaged since the outbreak of war in February 2022. The following year, Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO’s director-general, promised more than $10 million to rehabilitation efforts.

“In times of war, international solidarity is crucial to protect threatened cultural heritage,” Azoulay said in a statement. “This decision will make it possible to further strengthen the safety of these two Ukrainian cultural sites, including a major site for Holocaust remembrance.”

A total of 38 photographs by Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank (1924-2019) was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), the institution announced in a statement last week.

The acquisition includes 34 photographs donated by the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation, and four works that were purchased using donated funds from the former Citibank chief executive John Reed and his wife Cynthia.

The 38 images were made while Frank was in Paris in 1949. Some offer glimpses of street scenes such as children watching a blind street performer and a “circus” trolley car. Though Frank is primarily known for his highly influential 1958 book “

The Americans, which captured post-war American society, the recently acquired photographs were taken when he returned to Europe after living in New York for two years.

“We are thrilled to add these important photographs to the Museum’s collection which give insight into Frank’s career while contributing to our ability to tell the story of artistic transatlantic connections,” said Kristen Gresh, Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Senior Curator of Photographs at MFA Boston, in a statement.