A Detroit museum displaying a 1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh as part of a showing of 80 of his works said it shouldn't be pulled into a dispute over ownership of the multimillion-dollar artwork.

The Detroit Institute of Arts said federal law gives it immunity in a lawsuit by a Brazilian collector who claims to be the owner of the painting, titled "The Novel Reader." The museum responded in court Monday, less than a week before the rare U.S. exhibition ends.

Archeologists in Norway said Tuesday that have found a runestone which they claim is the world's oldest, saying the inscriptions are up to 2,000 years old and date back to the earliest days of the enigmatic history of runic writing.

The flat, square block of brownish sandstone has carved scribbles, which may be the earliest example of words recorded in writing in Scandinavia, the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo said. It said it was "among the oldest runic inscriptions ever found" and "the oldest datable runestone in the world."

Attorneys for an adjunct art professor said Tuesday she is suing the Minnesota university that dismissed her after a Muslim student objected to depictions of the Prophet Mohammed in a global art course, while the university admitted to a "misstep" and plans to hold public conversations about academic freedom.

In her lawsuit, Erika López Prater alleges that Hamline University — a small, private school in St. Paul — subjected her to religious discrimination and defamation, and damaged her professional and personal reputation.

Weary parents in China say the difficulties of juggling work and childcare in a costly and ultra-competitive society with little help from the state are at the root of the country's dwindling birth rate.

A hundred years after taking in scores of children whose parents were killed in the Armenian genocide, a 19th-century orphanage in Jerusalem's Armenian Quarter has reopened its doors as a museum documenting the community's rich, if pained, history.

The Mardigian Museum showcases Armenian culture and tells of the community's centuries-long connection to the holy city. At the same time, it is a memorial to around 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Ottoman Turks around World War I, in what many scholars consider the 20th century's first genocide.

China has announced its first population decline in decades as what has been the world's most populous nation ages and its birthrate plunges.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday that the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year. The tally includes only the population of mainland China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao as well as foreign residents.

Under the Taliban, the mannequins in women's dress shops across the Afghan capital of Kabul are a haunting sight, their heads cloaked in cloth sacks or wrapped in black plastic bags.

The hooded mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban's puritanical rule over Afghanistan. But in a way, they are also a small show of resistance and creativity by Kabul's dress merchants.

SchoolTec, the first event of its kind in the country, is inviting school principals, school administrators, teachers, IT managers, professionals, university teachers, training managers, trainers, and parents to get ready to attend the exhibition that will take place for three days starting Wednesday January 18th until Friday January 20th, 2023, from 3:00 until 9:00 p.m. in Mövenpick Hotel Beirut.

WHY ATTEND?

Greece's top Jewish body said a memorial to thousands of Jews killed in the Holocaust had been vandalized in Thessaloniki, the second such incident in as many weeks.

Donkeys pulling wooden carts churn up the desert dust as they race down a track in Bahrain, the riders whipping their backs with sticks as an excited crowd looks on.