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03:39Major events reaffirm Hong Kong as a global art hubMajor events reaffirm Hong Kong as a global art hubVisitors to Hong Kong last month would have seen first-hand how the dynamic metropolis has fully embraced art.Major international events, including the 12th edition of Art Basel Hong Kong and the city’s own Art Central fair, had – very visibly – taken up residency in the heart of the city, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and Central Harbourfront, where local galleries hosted exhibitions and parties.Other activities including special auctions under the “Art March Hong Kong 2025” celebration initiated by Hong Kong’s art and culture hub, the West Kowloon Cultural District, and the fourth Museum Summit, organised by the city’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department, em...

OpenAI has announced that ChatGPT is now helping users find products online, enhancing its challenge to Google amid regulatory pressure on the search giant’s market dominance.The new shopping capability further blurs the line between AI chatbots and search engines, signalling OpenAI’s ambition to compete with Google in a market the latter has controlled for decades.“Search has become one of our most popular and fastest-growing features, with over a billion web searches just in the past week,” the San Francisco-based company said in a post on X.The update allows shoppers to find and compare items through natural conversation, then connect directly to merchants for purchases.“Instead of scrolling through pages of results, you can simply start a conversation,” OpenAI’s post said, adding that ...

In less than two hours in a hire car you can travel to any drivable part of southern Portugal’s Algarve region from Faro Airport, its only international airport, even at a leisurely pace.The region is a well-known holiday destination for families. Other than the beautiful beaches and weather – it is said to have one of the best year-round climates – there are also plenty of places and activities that are suitable for children of all ages, including water parks and theme parks, family golf centres, go-karting, food festivals, and fun daily excursions.What is more, the Algarve has reclaimed the “best value spot” after nine years in the UK Post Office’s 2025 Holiday Money Report, its list of the best holiday hotspots for bargain-hunters.But where should you head to if you are travelling as a ...

The effects of smoking, drinking too much and not exercising enough are felt by the age of 36, researchers have warned.By stopping these behaviours early in adulthood and midlife, years of subsequent ill health can be prevented, according to the study, which tracked people for more than 30 years.Smoking causes lung cancer and heart and breathing problems, while a lack of exercise and too much alcohol are linked to issues such as cancer, stroke, heart attacks and early death.In the new research, published in the Annals of Medicine, experts from Finnish universities found that people as young as 36 were showing signs of poor health choices.Smoking, which is linked to cancer and heart and breathing problems, is one of the poor health choices researchers say should be tackled early to avoid he...

Meghan Markle has bared her soul and her bare face in her first ever podcast interview, appearing make-up free in a black sweatsuit and white trainers.“Meghan is opening up like never before, and shares real, raw and soul-filling stories, insights and inspiration. I’ve never cried so much in an interview, in the BEST possible way,” host Jamie Kern Lima teased about the latest episode of her podcast in an Instagram post.“And she and I decided to do the episode the same way we spend most of our time together – with no make-up on, in our sweats and cosied up in these two rocking chairs I have at my house. And today, we’re inviting YOU to join us in the rocking chairs!”In the interview, Meghan is visibly emotional while speaking about her husband, Prince Harry, and the public scrutiny she face...

When Bain, the vocalist of K-pop boy band Just B, came out as gay during a concert on April 22, it sparked a discussion in the broader K-pop scene about how such moments – still rare in the industry – may shape its future.The singer made the announcement during a stop on the group’s “Just Odd” world tour in Los Angeles, telling the crowd mid-show, “I am proud to be a part of the LGBTQ community.” His words were met with loud cheers and applause as he waved a rainbow flag onstage.Although several K-pop artists have come out as gay in recent years, Bain is the first active member of a Korean boy group to do so publicly.Korea’s entertainment industry has long been shaped by a conservative cultural backdrop, whereby open discussions of sexual orientation have remained limited.Queer representat...

The Vietnam war cast a long shadow across one of the most fertile periods of American filmmaking, and for the half-century since it ended, filmmakers have reckoned with its complicated legacy.These 10 films, assembled to mark the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, range from indelible anti-war classics to Vietnamese portraits of resistance, capturing the vastness of the war’s still-reverberating traumas.1. The Big Shave (1967)A 25-year-old Martin Scorsese made this six-minute short. In it, a man simply shaves himself before a sink and a mirror. After a few nicks and cuts, he does not stop, continuing until his face is a bloody mess – a neat but gruesome metaphor for Vietnam.Peter Bernuth in a still from The Big Shave (1967).2. The Little Girl of Hanoi (1974)A young g...

The great theatre composer Stephen Sondheim loved puzzles, and when he died in 2021, he left one for his good friend, British super-producer Cameron Mackintosh. He left him an unfinished show.The two men conceived of a revue of Sondheim’s songs during the pandemic and began listing tunes they wanted. But with the death of his friend, it was up to Mackintosh to make the show real.“I did say to him, ‘I really want to concentrate on the music’,” recalls Mackintosh. “I want it to be personal, but we never really got that far with the construction of it.”Sondheim died in November 2021. Soon afterwards, Mackintosh created the skeleton of what would be Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, which has landed on Broadway and stars Tony award-winners Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga.The final rundown has ...

Independent French studio Sandfall Interactive’s first video game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, only launched worldwide on April 24 but has already built up a solid community of fans eager to discover its post-apocalyptic fantasy world.According to Metacritic, which aggregates video game reviews, the turn-based role-playing game had a 92 out of 100 “universal acclaim” score based on critic reviews – the joint-highest so far this year.One of the studio’s three co-founders said the high numbers – rare for a game developed by an independent studio – were “extremely encouraging”.“We are coming to the end of four years of production and even longer for some of us,” Francois Meurisse said a few days before the game’s release. “We’re now at a crucial moment.”Sandfall Interactive’s 20 or so employ...

This article contains minor spoilers.Lead cast: Bona, Yook Sung-jae, Kim Ji-hoonLatest Nielsen rating: 9.2 per centIn The Haunted Palace, a period drama with shades of horror, comedy and romance, Bona (Twenty-Five Twenty-One) and Yook Sung-jae (The Golden Spoon) play a spectacles maker and a dragon in human form who find themselves within the walls of the royal palace, where they tackle a mystery.That sounds like a lot to take in, but the set-up is even more complicated than that, as we discover through the show’s opening episodes, which bring us up to speed on the many events that led the protagonists to that point.Yet it is to the show’s credit that it pulls off a heady mix of disparate genres and dense plotting with relative aplomb.