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Rubens' 'Portrait of a Lady' to Go up for Auction in Warsaw

Peter Paul Rubens' 17th century masterpiece "Portrait of a Lady" is set to go up for auction in Poland next month, the DESA Unicum auction house said.

The Flemish master's oil-on-canvas portrait of a dark-haired woman in a rich black velvet dress has an estimated value of 18 million to 24 million zlotys ($4.5 million- $6 million).

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Race Excluded as WH Rolls out Climate Justice Screening Tool

The Biden administration on Friday released a screening tool to help identify disadvantaged communities long plagued by environmental hazards, but it won't include race as a factor in deciding where to devote resources.

Administration officials told reporters that excluding race will make projects less likely to draw legal challenges and will be easier to defend, even as they acknowledged that race has been a major factor in terms of who experiences environmental injustice.

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Iconic Gaza Bookstore Reopens, Months after Israeli Strike

An iconic Gaza bookstore destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last year has reopened, lifting the spirits of its ecstatic owner and a large crowd of well-wishers celebrating the moment.

The five-story building that housed Samir Mansour's bookstore on its ground floor was reduced to rubble during the 11-day war between Israel and the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers in May. The 100,000 books at the shop became piles of torn papers mired in ash and dust.

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A Sea of Red in Saudi Shops -- but Don't Mention Valentine's

Red clothing and underwear are displayed in Saudi shopfronts, but the increasingly popular Valentine's Day promotions are missing one thing: the festival's name.

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Lebanon's Crash Snuffs Out Beirut's Fabled Hamra Street

From his small music shop on Beirut's Hamra Street, Michel Eid witnessed the rise and fall of Lebanon through the changing fortunes of this famed boulevard for more than 60 years.

Hamra Street represented everything that was glamorous about Beirut in the 1960s and 1970s, with Lebanon's top movie houses and theaters, cafes frequented by intellectuals and artists, and ritzy shops. It saw a revival the past decade, with international chain stores and vibrant bars and restaurants.

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Russian Gallery Says Guard Added Eyes to Avant-Garde Work

A Russian gallery says one of its security guards has vandalized an avant-garde painting on loan from the country's top art repository by drawing eyes on the picture's deliberately featureless faces. It said the damage can be repaired.

The Yeltsin Center in Ekaterinburg said the vandalism of the painting "Three Figures" by Anna Leporskaya occurred Dec. 7. It said the suspected culprit worked for a private company providing security at the gallery.

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U.N. Labor Agency Cites Concerns about China's Xinjiang Region

An annual report from the United Nations labor agency Friday highlighted the work conditions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China's western Xinjiang region, noting signs of "coercive measures" that deprive workers of free choice in selecting jobs and calling on Beijing to provide more information about how it's respecting their rights.

The report from an International Labor Organization committee of experts tasked with helping countries uphold their own international commitments emphasized the labor rights aspect of China's policies in Xinjiang. Advocacy groups and Western governments, among others, have voiced human rights concerns over the treatment of the region's Muslims.

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Indian Students Protest Religious Clothes Ban

A court in a southern Indian state told students on Thursday not to wear any religious clothing until it delivers a verdict on petitions seeking to overturn a ban on hijabs, headscarves used by Muslim women.

The court in Karnataka state is considering petitions filed by students challenging a ban on hijabs that some schools have implemented in recent weeks.

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Mexican Skater is a Rare Latin American at Winter Olympics

They said he should play football. They said figure skating was for girls. They said winter sports made no sense in temperate Guadalajara.

But none of those naysayers deterred Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo, the rare Latin American athlete at the Winter Games, who has now become an even more rare Beijing Olympics success story – however relative – from that part of the globe.

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Lebanon Returns 337 Artifacts of Different Eras to Iraq

Lebanon's Ministry of Culture handed over to Iraq on Sunday 337 ancient artifacts that had been on display in a Lebanese museum for years.

The items, which included clay tablets, were returned by Minister of Culture Mohammed Murtada to Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon during a ceremony held at the National Museum of Beirut.

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