arts

A brawl broke out between the two MMA fighters and their team members inside a hotel before a wrestling event.

The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court has convicted 10 people over a mass brawl ⁠involving mixed ⁠martial artists Usman Nurmagomedov, Merab Dvalishvili and their teammates at a hotel.

The brawl broke out ahead of a wrestling event organised ⁠by Real American Freestyle (RAF), where Usman Nurmagomedov’s brother Umar and Dvalishvili were scheduled for matches against different opponents.

“An Abu Dhabi court has convicted 10 defendants in connection with a brawl ‌inside a hotel and has sentenced them to six months’ imprisonment … along with deportation from the country,” read the announcement from the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department on Friday.

ESPN reported that six members of Team Nurmagomedov were sentenced to six months in prison, fined 300,000 dirhams (approximately $81,600) and ordered to be deported after serving their sentences.

According to Abu Dhabi-based The National newspaper, former UFC bantamweight ⁠champion Dvalishvili and a friend were fined 50,000 dirhams ($13,600) for “disturbing public security and assaulting others”.

Two additional people were handed six-month prison sentences for privacy violations after they filmed the ⁠brawl and published the footage online, the reports added. The court also ordered the confiscation of their phones and deletion of the footage.

The brawl broke out on Wednesday when Georgian Dvalishvili, who was scheduled to appear at RAF Abu Dhabi on Saturday, was being interviewed in the lobby of the Yas Hilton.

PFL lightweight champion Usman – the cousin of retired MMA legend Khabib Nurmagomedov – and his associates approached Dvalishvili. Videos shared online showed ‌Usman coming in from behind and slapping Dvalishvili, which started the melee.

Usman was not scheduled to feature at the RAF Abu Dhabi card but travelled to the UAE capital to accompany his older brother, Umar, who was scheduled to face Urijah Faber.

Later on Friday, the event organisers removed Umar from the card, replacing him ‌with ‌Saba Lazishvili, Dvalishvili’s friend who was also involved in the brawl.

RAF cofounder Chad Bronstein said Dvalishvili has been released from custody. He remains available for his scheduled match with Marlon Moraes.

“I’m pleased to share that Merab Dvalishvili is back with us in Abu Dhabi,” Bronstein said in a statement. “We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the relevant authorities in Abu Dhabi for their professionalism and support.”

Dvalishvili posted several videos on social media after the incident and released his personal statement on X, saying: “Just want to let everyone know I have been released, and I am good, healthy and ready to go.

“I want to thank everyone in Abu Dhabi for your help in resolving this matter … I do hope that they release everyone; I would not press charges. I want peace and the best for all,” he added.

Wednesday’s incident wasn’t the first time Dvalishvili and Team Nurmagomedov clashed. Tensions also escalated in January last year after Dvalishvili defeated Usman’s older brother Umar in a UFC bantamweight title fight. They also had a smaller altercation at an RAF event in Georgia in July.

Lagos, Nigeria – A woman in an elegant red dress walks down a hallway, turning to take in her surroundings. A large painting catches her eye, and she steps into the booth for a closer look.

Around her, visitors move between 15 partitioned exhibition spaces, pausing to study the artworks. Thousands have gathered to admire, connect with and collect works from across the world.

It is the third day of ART X Lagos, West Africa’s premier and largest art fair, held from November 5–8 as the centrepiece of Nigeria’s annual art week. This year’s programme features exhibitions, installations, music, discussions and film screenings at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island. Galleries and museums across Lagos are also hosting exhibitions.

Together, the exhibitions explore cultural erosion, migration and belonging, examining how art can preserve collective memory and reconnect people with their heritage. They also reveal a cultural side of Lagos that extends beyond its reputation for commerce, traffic and relentless hustle.

The past in the present

Ndidi Dike, a contemporary sculptor and multidisciplinary artist, is among those exhibiting. Her installation, Residues of Past Encounters II, features a wooden canoe suspended above a glass surface, with sand arranged around its edges. Above it hangs fabric in the Adire style, associated with Yoruba women of southwest Nigeria,  bearing silhouettes of tightly packed people.

The sound of waves crashing against the shore plays softly in the background, evoking the Atlantic coastline at Badagry, a historic Nigerian town that was once a notorious transit point for enslaved West Africans. The sand and sound were sourced from the town.

Dike’s installation explores the intertwined histories of the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, memory and migration. The reflective surface beneath the canoe evokes absence, remembrance and the passage of time.

“The sound of the waves makes you contemplate, makes you think deeper, and then you begin to imagine, perhaps, how those who have left our shores under various circumstances must have been feeling mentally, the prospect of leaving home and never, perhaps, seeing it again,” Dike told Al Jazeera.

The work draws a connection between historical displacement and contemporary migration. Centuries after the transatlantic slave trade, many young Africans still undertake dangerous journeys to Europe, crossing the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. Some die along the way, while others face exploitation and trafficking.

“I find that there is a correlation between slavery and what is happening now. It’s always the best of our demographic that are taken or who decide to go abroad. For me, I think it’s good to look at that correlation between the historical and contemporary circumstances,” she said.

Beyond the vessel

Now in its 11th edition, this year’s fair takes the theme ‘A New Chapter, A New Decade’, drawing inspiration from the pioneering generation of Nigerian artists, architects, educators and thinkers who helped shape modernism in the country.

ART X founder Tokini Peterside said the older generation demonstrated that innovation need not mean abandoning cultural inheritance. Instead, it can emerge from a deeper understanding of identity and the confidence to interpret it in new ways.

“For me, the thread connecting these presentations is the idea that our histories are not simply things to preserve or look back upon. They are living sources of knowledge that can inform what we create next,” Peterside told Al Jazeera. “While the exhibitions are distinct, collectively they reveal a creative landscape that is increasingly self-assured, intellectually ambitious and deeply engaged with the world around it.”

One artist whose legacy is being celebrated is Ladi Kwali, a Nigerian potter and ceramicist. Her work features in an exhibition titled Beyond the Vessel. Beside a large photograph of Kwali at work, her handcrafted pots and ceramics display motifs of scorpions, lizards and butterflies, alongside intricate patterns.

Kwali came from a long line of Gbari women potters in the village of Kwali, near Abuja. Pottery was part of everyday life in the community, but her talent took her from local recognition to international acclaim. Her work has been exhibited and collected by museums and galleries around the world. Her portrait has also appeared on Nigerian currency.

Jareh Das, curator of the exhibition, said preserving Kwali’s legacy would remind future generations of her achievements and inspire young artists, particularly in a country where documenting and maintaining cultural heritage can be challenging.

“Culture is not always outside, but looking at what exists within and how you can draw from that, how you can rise above immediate challenges … through something as familiar as pottery,” Das said.

Art and a new generation

Barbara Barungi, dressed in Adire, moves between booths in search of new works. At Afriart Gallery, a Kampala-based space exhibiting Ugandan art, she finds a painting by Daniel Atenyi made with coffee.

“It is very Nigerian and it also just shows you the vibe of Lagos, but it creates a safe place to just relax to forget the hustle and bustle out there,” she said of the fair.

Barungi jokingly described it as Nigeria’s ‘Met Gala’, comparing the fashion on display with the annual fundraising event in the United States known for its celebrity outfits.

The fair also aims to widen access to art, particularly for younger generations. Its educational programme welcomed more than 750 schoolchildren, introducing them to contemporary art and the stories behind the works.

“For many of these children, visiting ART X Lagos may be one of their earliest encounters with contemporary art. That experience can be transformative. It allows them to see creativity not as something distant or inaccessible, but as something they can participate in and contribute to,” Peterside said.

Adeniyi Adewole’s Breath Beneath the Waters, a fibreglass sculpture, reflects his personal struggles with depression, which kept him indoors and unable to work for a time.

“When I came back to work, I started creating work on how I have been able to move away from that blue period to a period of peace,” he said. He hopes viewers will experience sombre reflection, calm and peace when they encounter the work.

Beyond the main fair, Mercy Imiegha’s group exhibition, Every House Remembers, brings together four artists exploring how bodies, objects and domestic spaces preserve memory, history and spiritual identity. The Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, a Nigerian-founded artist residency programme, is also organising a citywide art tour, extending the programme across Lagos.

Memory, loss and belonging

Joel Benson’s feature-length documentary, Mothers of Chibok, explores the lives of three parents and a woman abducted and later freed during Boko Haram’s 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from their dormitory in Chibok. Amnesty International reported in April 2024 that 82 girls remained in captivity. The film follows relatives still grieving the absence of their daughters.

“It is important to tell this type of story because it is more convenient to forget and just move on,” Benson said. The film prompted conversations about insecurity and attacks on girls in Nigeria.

Despite more than a decade of grief, Benson said, the parents have continued to navigate life through laughter, humour, pain, tears and faith. He hopes the film will move audiences and authorities beyond empathy towards action that can shape policy and improve security.

As the afternoon sun gives way to dusk, more visitors arrive in bold Afrocentric fashion. Some browse art books in the fair’s library, while others discuss the works that have caught their attention. Outside, people gather beneath umbrellas in the cafe area to eat, relax and network.

“I hope the fair offers a space for discovery and connection, and that visitors leave with a deeper appreciation of the richness and complexity of artistic expression from Africa and its diaspora, as well as a desire to continue exploring the histories, ideas and perspectives they have encountered,” Peterside said.

In Jim Ruland’s twisty and mordantly funny novel “Mightier Than the Sword,” four academics toiling in the English department at a tiny college in Flagstaff, Ariz., fall way off the tenure track by committing heists. Beset by a college culture that venerates football and disparages the liberal arts, Ruland’s working class strivers are barely scraping by, and vent their frustration by striking at the very heart and soul of a rah-rah student body that venerates jocks and can’t distinguish Billy Collins from Phil Collins.

Ruland is also an acclaimed nonfiction writer; his book “Corporate Rock Sucks” is the definitive history of L.A.’s great punk record label SST. I recently talked to Ruland about Flagstaff, fiction and football.

✍️ Author Chat

What is it about heist stories? They have eternal appeal, it seems.

The idea of people getting away with something is always appealing, right? There’s a mixture of motives, and many of the stories have characters that you don’t expect to be involved in such a thing, which is the case in my novel.

It’s even more engaging for the reader when it’s poor lovable saps trying to pull off something big.

In my book, the main characters aren’t even very good writers. I didn’t want this to be the kind of story where their exceptional literary gifts make them master criminals. These are working-class teachers who are victims of the class struggle, and they are being exploited by the university. They have this pretense of respectability, but they are treated poorly.

Your novel takes place at a fictional college in Flagstaff, Ariz. You taught at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, right?

I did teach for three years in Flagstaff — two years as a teaching assistant, and one year full time, because how could I turn down the allure of a low five-figure salary?

Author Jim Ruland

(Edward Colver)

In the novel, the school is all about sports culture. The administration pumps all their money into the football team, while the English department languishes.

The book is set in 1993, and that was the beginning of the growth of creative writing classes at colleges. And it was a big money maker for a while in the ‘90s until the growth stalled, and all of that stopped. The idea of a heist at a football game was that it was the next step up from robbing a bookstore. I like unusual settings for big heists, like Steven Soderbergh’s film “Lucky Logan” where the characters rip off a racetrack. Or [Stanley] Kubrick’s “The Killing,” which is also a racetrack theft that I allude to in the book. I’m not so much trying to critique football other than make the obvious swipes at it. It’s more like: Here’s this venue where you’re going to have a lot of money and people who are enthusiastic about violence.

Your novel is an ensemble piece, shifting between four major characters. How is that for you?

I really love that aspect of it. It’s almost cinematic. You can get someone in trouble and then move to the next point of view, then some time passes and you can go back.

You tend to toggle between fiction and nonfiction. Does one inform the other, or are they different muscles?

I think they help each other. When I run into something in fiction that I don’t know, I’m more apt to just push forward, instead of getting lost in a research hole, which can happen in nonfiction. I’ll just dig in and know I can figure out the answer later.

It’s definitely a case of the grass being greener. When I’m in the middle of a fictional story, I’m like, “Man, it would be really easy just to write what actually happened here.” And then when I’m working on a nonfiction book and hit a snag, I think, “I’d really love to make something up right here.”

What crime novels do you admire?

The Richard Stark novels by Donald Westlake. I loved those and reread them all before writing my book.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; book jacket from Knopf)

Lawrence Wright, one of America’s greatest investigative journalists, turns his forensic eye to the death penalty in the U.S. in his new book, “Redemption.” Yet according to Julia M. Klein, Wright’s book makes for a baggy read. “Wright sometimes loses the thread, indulging in digressions that detract from his study of transformation and redemption,” she writes.

Anna Holmes, founder of influential feminist website Jezebel, has written a slim, potent book called “The Power of No,” about the power of a woman’s right of refusal in the public and private spheres. “I don’t purport to be good at it,” she tells Meredith Maran. “But I’m more cognizant now of wanting to say it, at least.”

A scant four years after publishing her Pulitzer Prize-winning stunner “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver has returned with “Partita,” a love story about musicians that is also “a meditation on how a composition is different each time a musician plays it,” according to Heather Scott Partington.

Finally, Catapult Books, a beloved local indie publisher with a national reputation, is being sold, reports Emily St. Martin.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Annabelle’s Book Club L.A.

(Felicia Lasala)

Annabelle’s Book Club L.A., the brainchild of Annabelle Chang, is decked out like a birthday cake at a “sweet 16” party, all bright pastels and a beribboned book display shaped like a flowing Victorian dress. The store’s inventory is primarily geared to young readers, the inventory subdivided by categories like “Riveting” and “Intoxicating.” Annabelle’s location on a busy stretch of Studio City’s Ventura Boulevard has made it one of L.A.’s most Instagrammable bookstores. In an email exchange, Chang tells us what’s selling at her store.

What prompted you to open the store?

I’ve always been an avid reader, and during the pandemic, I received so many requests for book recommendations that I decided to start an Instagram account and blog to share some of my favorite books. In early 2022, I also started selling books at pop-up events like the L.A. Times Festival of Books. After seeing the overwhelmingly positive response, I started to think about creating a store where my curation would be more permanent. As I researched bookstores in L.A. and across the country, I realized that there weren’t any Y.A.-focused ones, and I wanted to fill that gap in the market.

Romance and Romantasy are the hottest genres in publishing. Why do you think that is so?

I think romance has always been popular because love, connection and the desire to be understood are fundamental to the human experience. Women’s stories, especially those focused on their desires, have historically been dismissed as unserious, but romance has always had a huge, loyal readership. Now, the publishing industry recognizes that these books aren’t just culturally relevant, they’re commercially successful.

As for romantasy, I think BookTok has been a huge catalyst. TikTok really gave users a way to share their enthusiasm for these books and find a community of like-minded readers. What might once have felt like a niche interest has become a total cultural phenomenon.

Who are your customers?

Our store is young adult-focused, but we truly aim to have something for everyone. I’m thrilled that our customers are readers of all ages, whether it is kids who are just beginning to discover their love of reading, teenagers coming by with their friends after school, or adults shopping for their book clubs.

What’s selling right now?

“Hollywood Ending” by John Green, “Threshing Day” by Rebecca Yarros and “Exit Party” by Emily St. John Mandel.

Everyone seems to be writing off books, yet it seems that those obituaries are highly premature. Why will books continue to prevail in a digital world?

In a digital world, teenagers and young adults are gravitating toward physical media and the genuine connection it offers more than ever. Every day, teenagers visit Annabelle’s Book Club L.A. to browse new titles with their friends, attend our author events or simply unplug from their phones and read in our book nook. It’s also been so exciting to see the resurgence of independent bookstores in L.A. and beyond. It’s a true testament to the unmatched power of storytelling to bring us together, especially in a digital world.

Annabelle’s Book Club L.A. is located at 12200 Ventura Blvd., Studio City

Port Sudan, Sudan – Awad Haroun, 45, a visual artist and theatre director, fled his home in Al-Halfaya, Khartoum North, after war destroyed a life he had worked hard to build in the capital.

He moved to Port Sudan with his wife and son, leaving behind his home, artistic workspace and the tools he needed to work, shortly after fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary in April 2023.

When he fled, he carried little: Two shirts, two pairs of trousers, two books and a few torn drawing papers, expecting to return soon. Instead, he has been forced to rebuild his life far from home.

He lost not only his home but also the tools and materials he relied on to work and make a living.

In Port Sudan, he looked to use his skills in sculpture, design and decoration for some money. He has since participated in theatrical performances at Wasel Festival, organised by Ahalina Cultural Group in partnership with UNESCO, and led traditional arts workshops with cultural groups.

Awad founded Ahalina cultural group in 2013 with a group of young people, using theatre, visual arts, music and puppetry to engage with young people and promote peace and social cohesion.

Drawing, storytelling, music and play have also given children opportunities to express themselves and connect with others.

“Losing my tools does not mean I have lost my skills, and losing my workspace does not mean I have lost my ability to create,” Awad told Al Jazeera.

Awad and other displaced artists found shelter at an old school in Port Sudan, where they helped clean and prepare the building for families forced from their homes.

“Now, concerns about the possibility of eviction have left us uncertain about where we will go next,” he said.

While art cannot replace a lost home or end the war, Awad believes it can preserve memories, bring communities together and offer children space to play and express themselves.

“From the ashes, we will rise” is the motto of Ahalina cultural group. This is more than a slogan for Awad; it is a reminder to keep creating, despite everything the war has taken from him.

The war has taken a heavy toll on Sudan’s cultural life, damaging heritage sites and disrupting the livelihoods of artists across the country.

In June 2026, UNESCO estimated that Sudan’s cultural sector faced a $30m funding gap. But behind this figure are deeply personal losses: Artists killed by the war or forced to leave behind studios, galleries, artworks and the tools they need to create.

In April 2024, UNESCO reported that the Artists and Writers Union in Port Sudan had provided shelter to more than 112 displaced artists and other cultural professionals.

The challenges remain significant, but cultural initiatives have continued. In April 2026, UNESCO said its initiatives in Port Sudan had benefitted more than 350 artists, women, girls and internally displaced cultural professionals, supporting efforts to sustain Sudan’s cultural life amid the conflict.

Asim Abdelaziz, 31, a musician and filmmaker, left El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, amid escalating fighting and repeated drone attacks. He arrived in Port Sudan in November 2023, hoping to find safety and work.

Separated from his family, who are scattered between Omdurman and El Obeid, Asim lives alone in a shelter for displaced artists. The war has uprooted his life and disrupted his career, but he continues to use music to preserve Sudan’s cultural heritage and bring communities together.

In Port Sudan, he has worked with the local Artists and Writers Union, UNESCO and community organisations.  He has also collaborated with the Ministry of Culture and Information and other artists on music programmes to address social issues, including hate speech and racism.

Asim said the war has spurred hate speech and deepened divisions between Sudan’s different communities. He believes art can counter these differences by promoting diversity, mutual acceptance and peaceful coexistence.

“I have seen firsthand how hate speech affects people’s lives,” Asim told Al Jazeera. “Through music, I try to remind Sudanese people that we are all brothers and sisters, and that war does not represent who we are.”

Mokhalaya, a project he founded to document and archive traditional music and rhythms from across the country a year ago, is one avenue for this.

“I hope to take the project to international festivals, introducing audiences abroad to [showcase] Sudan’s rich musical traditions and cultural diversity,” he said.

Preserving heritage is not just about safeguarding the past, but also about keeping Sudan’s cultural identity alive during a war that has displaced communities and disrupted lives, he said.

Abdelqader Hashem, secretary of the Red Sea State Writers and Artists Union, told Al Jazeera the union has supported artists and their families who fled fighting in other parts of Sudan since the war began on April 15, 2023.

“We worked to establish a shelter for displaced artists in a school in Port Sudan and sought support from local and international organisations to provide for their basic needs,” he said.

Beyond providing shelter, the union has helped displaced artists take part in the city’s cultural activities, contributing to community awareness programmes that address important societal issues such as the dangers of drug use, a growing concern in Sudan.

“We have also implemented projects in partnership with UNESCO to train children in displacement camps in handicrafts, including concrete crafts,” Hashem said.

“Most of the displaced artists have since returned to their homes in Khartoum following the Sudanese army’s recapture of the capital.”

Patrick Stewart, the acclaimed British actor who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek” and Professor Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” films, has died. He was 86.

Stewart died on Wednesday in Los Angeles following “a brief and poignant journey” with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said in a statement on Thursday.

Although best known for his film and television roles, Stewart spent much of his career onstage, performing Shakespeare and other classics.

His career included performances as Claudius and Macbeth, a one-man adaptation of “A Christmas Carol”, and West End and Broadway productions of Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” alongside longtime friend Ian McKellen.

Stewart earned some of the best reviews of his career for his 2007 portrayal of Macbeth, including his only Tony Award nomination. The Times of London described his Macbeth performance as “an enthralling creation of frailty, appetite, egotism and grim humour”.

“Nearly 50 years I’ve waited,” Stewart told the Associated Press news agency in 2008. “I learned it when I was 14. I memorized all the soliloquies just because I thought they were great. And they stuck, so I didn’t have to learn those bits of the play, which is a blessing, because learning lines has now become the one curse of this job.”

From working-class Yorkshire to Shakespeare

Raised in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, a working-class corner of northern England, the future 24th-century commander of a starship grew up without a bathroom in his house.

He joined an amateur drama group at 12 and, as a teenager, memorised Shakespeare for fun. A scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School helped launch his acting career.

Stewart, who developed alopecia at a young age, had been bald since he was 19.

His childhood was also marked by domestic violence. His father, a former regimental sergeant major in the British Army, was prone to outbursts of “repeated violence against my mother,” as Stewart wrote in a newspaper piece. “Violence is always a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.”

Stewart later became a patron of Refuge, a charity supporting survivors of domestic abuse.

From Shakespeare to Captain Picard

Stewart spent 14 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing everyone from Mark Antony and Henry IV to Shylock and Oberon.

“People who were not in the company would say to me, ‘Give it a break. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’ And I would say, ‘To do what?’” he told the AP. “Telly?”

He eventually left and appeared in the 1981 film “Excalibur”. In 1987, shortly after performing in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, he was offered a role in a science fiction series.

“I found myself in Hollywood shooting a syndicated science fiction series, which I was assured would fail,” he said.

But “Star Trek: The Next Generation” ran for seven seasons and 178 episodes. Stewart became known worldwide as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, whose command, “Make it so”, became one of the show’s best-known lines.

Stewart also played Professor Charles Xavier, the leader of the X-Men, beginning with the 2000 film “X-Men”. He returned to the role in several sequels, including 2017’s “Logan”, alongside Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

Stewart died just days after Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov in the original “Star Trek” series, which aired from 1966 to 1969.

Queen Elizabeth II knighted Stewart in June 2010. He also served as an ambassador for the International Rescue Committee.

Alexander Volkanovski secured a total knockout in the closing seconds of second round at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi.

Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski has retained his featherweight title after making short work of Russia’s Movsar Evloev in the UFC 333 main event in Abu Dhabi.

Volkanovski secured a technical knockout (TKO) with a right hand, followed by a ground-and-pound move in the closing seconds of the second round of their scheduled five-round fight on Saturday.

The official time was 4:54, as the fight was called off with six seconds left to the jubilation of the Etihad Arena crowd in the United Arab Emirates capital.

It was Evloev’s first professional loss and he remained classy in defeat.

“Like I said, Alex is a great champion and it was an honour to share the cage with him,” Evloev said after the loss.

Meanwhile, Volkanovski said he wants to keep stacking wins for as long as he can.

“I’m choosing to do [fight], I don’t have to. I said if I didn’t take too much damage, we will probably keep going. So maybe we keep going,” Volkanovski said.

In the co-main event, Petr Yan won his three-fight series against Merab Dvalishvili in a Russia vs Georgia showdown as Yan swept the scorecards 48-47, 48-47, 48-47 with a mix of a gruelling pace, wrestling, dirty boxing and keeping Dvalishvili at distance to defend his UFC bantamweight title.

Yan beat Dvalishvili last December to regain the title for the second time, having previously won it in July 2020 against Jose Aldo at UFC 251.

The finishes kept coming, but this time in the flyweight division. England’s Lone’er Kavanagh secured a TKO stoppage against Uzbekistan’s Ramazan Temirov with an uppercut, followed by strikes, at 4:28 of Round 1.

At heavyweight, Russia’s Alexander Volkov won a unanimous decision over Rizvan Kuniev utilising dominant wrestling and top control to earn his third-straight win. Volkov called for a title shot at Thursday’s presser, which may have stumped UFC CEO Dana White when addressing him.

Kuniev had his two-fight winning streak snapped.

Opening the main card, Aaron Pico needed just over a minute to TKO Losene Keita of Guinea in their featherweight fight. Pico has won back-to-back fights, while Keita has split his last four.

Even as recently as a decade ago, Las Vegas hotel concierges and plenty of locals would have described the gap between the Strip and Fremont Street as something of a dead zone. This was a ragged corridor of old warehouses and auto shops, with more boarded-up storefronts than open doors.

“You couldn’t park your car and not worry,” remembers artist Gem Jaxx, who moved to Vegas in 2006 from Monterey County, Calif. “You couldn’t even walk the streets.”

Yet the idea of an arts district had been taking shape since the early ’90s, when the city identified an 18-block area south of downtown as ripe for creative development. Loosely framed by Hoover Avenue to the north and Colorado Avenue to the south, with Commerce Street and Fourth Street marking its west and east edges, this region became known as the 18b Arts District. First Friday, launched by a small group of artists and gallery owners in 2002, started pulling crowds into the neighborhood. Sometimes tens of thousands at a time, if only once a month.

The regular influx of visitors (combined with cheap rents and plenty of retail space) drew a wave of interesting tenants: antique dealers, secondhand clothing boutiques, microbreweries, cocktail bars. As the mix of businesses grew, 18b began to matter less as a set of boundaries and more as an identity.

“Very quickly it changed,” says Josh Kellman, president of the Arts District board. “Businesses here were saying, ‘Hey, I want to be in 18b.’ No one wants to feel like they’re outside the neighborhood.”

Today, the Las Vegas Arts District is a low-key alternative to the Strip for dining, drinks, art, shopping and beyond. Centered on Main Street, but with plenty to explore on neighboring Commerce Street and Casino Center Boulevard, it’s easy to spend an afternoon browsing vintage shops and gallery spaces, catch live music or a stage show, grab dinner, coffee and craft beer — and still have money left for tomorrow.

But the neighborhood is at a crossroads. After a tragic shooting happened earlier this month during First Friday, the monthly arts festival is now on hold as organizers and city officials consider how to move forward. Meanwhile, a proposed Business Improvement District intended to fund additional safety measures and neighborhood services has stirred debate over how to improve the area while preserving the independent spirit that made it a destination in the first place.

As questions swirl, fans of the Arts District hope it holds on to what makes it such a distinctive place. At a time when Las Vegas can feel increasingly engineered around sky-high bottle service, celebrity-chef tasting menus and cocktails edging toward $30, the neighborhood remains one of the places locals actually hang out and where tourists can experience Sin City beyond the slot machines. Here are 11 worthwhile stops on a visit to the creative hub.

Caracas, October 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Students from the Venezuelan Experimental University of the Arts (UNEARTE) have staged multiple demonstrations in recent days to press for solutions to infrastructural and administrative issues.

Students from the UNEARTE branch in Maracay, Aragua State, blocked a major intersection on Tuesday to demand “dignified” studying conditions.

“We are staging a peaceful demonstration to demand improvements to our academic conditions,” student José Pérez told local reporters. “We do not have our own campus, and the facilities are inadequate for the artistic areas we are studying.”

Protesters held billboards and banners calling for a “dignified campus.” UNEARTE’s Maracay education programs function in different rented spaces, which students have complained are in deteriorating condition.

The Maracay demonstration followed a number of protests and sit-ins at UNEARTE’s main campus in Caracas. Students denounced that multiple university installations are shut down or in a state of disrepair. The Modest Bor center, which houses UNEARTE’s music program, has been partially closed for several years.

In addition, students decried that UNEARTE centers’ cafeterias have been shuttered for months, while many have additional grievances including inoperative bathrooms and software issues that  left many students unable to properly register for classes. 

In response to the protests, Venezuelan authorities vowed to address the concerns raised by students. UNEARTE Rector Ignacio Barreto approached students during a demonstration and promised that the registration process would start over.

The Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for UNEARTE alongside the Ministry of Higher Education, held an assembly with all university personnel and announced the creation of working groups with student representatives in several areas.

“This commission, apart from listening to the students and the authorities, should have a weekly plan that can be supervised,” Culture Minister Alejandro López told press. “Accountability before the students is key.”

López, Barreto and other officials were seen inspecting several university facilities last week. The minister pledged to address issues of running water, internet connectivity, and transportation in the near term.

UNEARTE was created by former President Hugo Chávez in 2008, bringing together several educational institutes dedicated to the arts with the aim of advancing a popular and anti-colonial pedagogical approach. It offers degrees in music, dance, film, theater, photography, and plastic arts.

The protests over UNEARTE’s disrepair and deficient conditions coincided with the Venezuelan government’s launch of the José Antonio Abreu Music University. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez headlined the inauguration ceremony earlier this month.

The new public university will have its state-of-the-art campus in the traditionally middle-class southwestern Caracas parish of El Paraíso, including three concert halls and a research center. It will also have 18 regional branches, with a maximum enrolment capacity of around 3,500 students.

Other Venezuelan universities have likewise seen student demonstrations in recent days. In the “Dr. Humberto Fernández-Morán” National Sciences University, students held a protest and an assembly on Monday over what they characterized as inadequate transportation.

The campus is located in Los Teques, some 25 kilometers outside Caracas, and was formally inaugurated in December 2024. Though the university promised to provide transportation, students have complained that the assigned buses are unreliable and have insufficient capacity.

Higher education trade unions have also been at the forefront of regular labor protests in recent months. Venezuelan working-class organizations have called for non-wage bonuses to be converted to salaries and for the restoration of collective bargaining agreements.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

Far-right President Abelardo de la Espriella says he will wage a ‘counterrevolution’ against cultural institutions.

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has announced he is spearheading a cultural “counterrevolution” that includes removing dozens of exhibits from the National Museum, drawing protests and comparisons to United States President Donald Trump.

De la Espriella, a conservative Trump ally, said last week that he wants to prevent cultural institutions from being taken over by what he calls “atheist social communism”.

Since then, exhibits have been taken down that once addressed the history of social movements, including feminist and LGBTQ+ activism, and Colombia’s political violence.

The changes have sparked protests by civil rights groups, artists and students who have accused the government of censorship and warn that important parts of the country’s history could be erased.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered on Wednesday outside the National Museum in downtown Bogota as riot police guarded its entrance.

“I find it outrageous that they want to erase part of our history,” said Azul Riascos, a history student.

He said the government was promoting a vision of Colombia as exclusively white, Catholic and Spanish-speaking. That image, he explained, excluded Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.

Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy organisation, said the Colombian government’s approach reflects a broader trend among Trump allies who are copying US political narratives and strategies.

Trump has been fiercely critical of museums in Washington, particularly those tied to the Smithsonian Institution.

The White House released a report in July branding leaders of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as radical activists and has ordered signs to be installed outside the museum telling visitors that some of the exhibits are inaccurate.

Nearly three months after that order, such signs haven’t been installed. The museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, told Congress that the White House report “does not fairly or accurately characterise the full body of work at the museum”.

Sanchez-Garzoli said Trump’s cooperation with allied Latin American governments on security and counternarcotics efforts also has an ideological dimension.

“These are imported narratives about terrorism and about being ‘woke,’” anthropologist Arturo Sanabria said during Wednesday’s protest, describing the Colombian government’s approach as a form of neocolonial intervention.

Colombia’s Culture Minister Paola Holguin said the government was reviewing and redesigning exhibitions and curatorial practices at other museums overseen by her ministry.

The Foreign Ministry also renamed a courtyard previously honouring an Indigenous leader, describing the change as part of the president’s campaign against “woke” ideology.

“The government is making serious efforts in a cultural battle that probably doesn’t exist,” political scientist Estefania Cardozo said outside the museum. “It is inventing one to erase identities that cannot be erased because they already exist.”

Bitupan Deka was out shopping for a “gamusa” (traditional scarf) with his mother in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya when he noticed something unusual.

“Every shop selling the scarf had the same handful of patterns repeated over and over,” he told Al Jazeera over the telephone from Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya.

“When I asked around, I found that weavers in Sualkuchi [district in neighbouring Assam state] are paid a one-time fee of roughly 2,000 rupees [$21] for each design they develop, instead of royalties. Cutting down the number of designs they produce was a cost-saving practice followed by the manufacturers.”

This discovery prompted Deka, an assistant professor of computer technology at Shillong’s MIT University, to create a system that can produce infinite new designs for such fabrics.

“My work isn’t meant to replace the traditional designers. I hope, instead, that it will become a tool in their hands to create new and modern motifs more easily, so the consumers can have variety,” Deka said.

Once the patent, which is being applied for under the research and development department of his university, comes through, Deka plans to monetise the system by making it a commercial designing service that the textile industry can avail.

In India’s varied textile traditions, patterns and motifs carry the memory of a place and the mythology of its people – sometimes even the history of migrations.

The designs are imagined by weavers from things that exist around them, and then painted with locally available colours, mostly using carved clay and wooden frames. These weavers do not simply reproduce a pattern; they inherit it. Their hands hesitate where their grandmother’s did, and they know why a particular flower must face left.

A computer has no such inheritance or hesitation. It learns by analysing pictures and repeating them in endless variations. And yet, as Deka’s system shows, the computer can now draw and weave the same flower.

The Rekh Sanganeri Dataset is a similar system developed for hand-block printed Sanganeri textiles from the western Indian state of Rajasthan. It includes high-resolution images of printed patterns, annotated down to ink bleed and slight misalignment – the imperfections that are the hallmark of the handmade work.

Its developer, Reddy Sai Nivas C, says it should be used as a resource for research and art, not as a substitute for artisans.

But the disclaimer is the paradox: Tools built to preserve a craft are making its visual language easier to digitally reproduce without involving the craftsperson.

Dinesh Chhipa comes from one of the oldest Chhipa families, an artisan and merchant caste renowned for dyeing and block printing. He is a Bagru designer – a block printing technique from Bagru town in the western state of Rajasthan – and a textile businessman.

“Traditional craft is slow to produce. Even if someone offered us a fortune, we wouldn’t be able to produce these pieces in mass numbers, so I don’t fault those using digital technology and AI to fill the gap,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But don’t borrow craft and regional names like Bagru and Jaipuri [named after the capital city of Rajasthan]. These designs and motifs were born out of a culture and necessities of the communities they come from.”

Who owns culture when it turns into plain data?

India has been digitising its textile memory for years – from the Botanical Survey of India’s historical collections to the Bharatiya Vastra Shilpa Kosh, a national portal built by the state-run National Institute of Fashion Technology and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).

Without documentation, the fragile traditions and knowledge could disappear. But digitisation also allows the same archive to be used by an AI system seeking to reproduce these crafts at scale.

At the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi in February this year, Indian software company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) showcased Bridgital Loom, an AI system that converts textile designs into loom-ready instructions. LED lights on the loom guide a weaver through the thread sequences of intricate Banarasi and Kanchipuram patterns – named after the cities where these iconic arts grew.

TCS says the technology helps weavers execute complex designs faster and with fewer errors, and is meant to be a bridge between the artisans and technology. A pilot project that uses the loom is already under way at Kanchipuram, a town in southern Tamil Nadu state.

In an interview with the online platform Digit at the New Delhi summit, the head of AI strategy at Bridgital Loom, Muthulakshmi Nellaiappan, pointed out that a new weaver takes more than 15 years to master the art.

“With the technologies we have in hand … the younger weaver who has just entered the skill can become a master much sooner,” she said.

Technology flattens the master-apprentice hierarchy of traditional knowledge systems. The weaver no longer has to conceptualise or remember patterns, colours and codes; he blindly follows the machine’s instructions, handing creativity and memory to AI.

Nellaiappan said that since a large percentage of India’s looms are non-electronic, TCS has ensured its system works with handlooms as well and that it was essential for scaling up the technology.

But digital looms also raise another question: Who owns culture when it turns into plain data?

For generations, India’s textile knowledge sat outside intellectual property systems. It lived in community memory, passed from master to apprentice with no certificate of ownership. Kanchipuram, Mekhela-Sador, Sanganeri and Banarasi are names for places that these textiles helped shape, not merely emerged from.

Now, this knowledge is entering generative models that owe nothing to these traditions.

For designers and manufacturers, the possibilities are seductive: Motifs combined at will, colours changed with a command, and thousands of designs generated instantly. The machine offers abundance.

The artisan, on the other hand, has always lived with scarcity: Of money, bargaining power, or recognition.

Ananthalakshmi Vadivel, a third-generation weaver and owner of Vadivel Silk Looms in Kanchipuram, says their venture is already competing in the market with cheaper Kanchipuram sarees produced on electronic looms.

“Perhaps, with AI, these sellers can create trending designs faster and cheaper to attract mass consumers. But these imitations can never replace the original,” she told Al Jazeera.

“There will always be a market for authentic Kanchipuram and handcrafted textiles, no matter how much technology makes the imitation cheaper. True Kanchipuram weave, colour, and designs can only be created by hand, and discerning buyers know this.”

Then again, the question is no longer whether AI can recreate a textile. It sure can. The question is: Who gets paid when it does?

Legal gaps

In December 2025, the federal government’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade floated a statutory “blanket licence” – a system where AI developers could train models on lawfully obtained copyrighted material without seeking permission from each rights holder. Once commercialised, those systems would owe royalties to copyright owners at rates set by the government.

But intellectual property (IP) laws assume a traceable work with a traceable author. A motif, on the other hand, is communal property, its technique passed down through generations with no single originator.

In such cases, who is entitled to royalty and copyright? The artisan who first created the design? The photographer who documented it? The researcher who assembled the dataset? The developer who built the tool? India’s laws offer no clear answers. The artisan whose name never appeared on a label may once again be missing from the paperwork.

Meanwhile, the government is planning a dedicated AI-handloom research department under the Centre of Excellence for Handloom Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in the capital, New Delhi. Inaugurated in August, the $1.4m facility aims to modernise India’s handloom sector by combining traditional weaving heritage with contemporary technology.

The government also plans to register thousands of weavers and fit their handlooms with sensors that convert weave patterns into digital data, and issue QR-coded tags to trace provenance. Maharashtra’s Vingatha system does something similar at the state level by authenticating handloom sarees such as Paithani and Karvat Kathi.

The idea is simple: If a saree can tell you where it came from, the person who made it becomes harder to erase.

While these measures cannot stop AI-enabled design and mass production, they may give artisans more visibility and turn each piece into an archive.

In art galleries, the traditional textiles are increasingly shedding the label of craft for the more lucrative category of contemporary art.

Gurjeet Singh, an artist from Chandigarh city, recently hosted a textile-based solo show in New York. His work transforms discarded fabrics, buttons and embroidered scraps into sculptures that explore queer identity and social prejudices surrounding gender and sexuality.

Sayan Chanda, an Indian artist based in London, works with cut and rewoven vintage Bengali quilts to question fixed notions of cultural belonging. Gurugram-based artist Sumakshi Singh uses delicate embroidery and suspended thread structures to reconstruct the architectural fragments of vanished homes, gardens and personal histories. There are many more.

In New Delhi, 20 such artisans and craft-led collectives featured last month at an art show celebrating the traditional textile crafts.

“Our aim is to present these traditional crafts as living practices that continue to evolve through contemporary artisans, rather than as heritage to be archived. Kanmai Payun, one of the artists featured in the show, for example, is the last practitioner of Fulor Saneki, a flower pattern used by Assamese weavers. We encouraged her to teach her 17-year-old son so the craft outlives her,” Aparupa Ray Ganguly, the curator of the show, told Al Jazeera.

But as textiles gain value in art galleries, their makers do not necessarily gain automatic control over their work.

In April, another art exhibition in New Delhi, titled No ‘One’ Maker, saw artisans missing from the show’s preview, exposing how traditional textiles are aestheticised, but the people who carry that knowledge remain unrecognised.

“You cannot separate the names from the community. Call your mass-produced work digital prints and leave the traditional names to the original artisans,” says Chhipa, the artisan and merchant from Rajasthan.