ARTE

Bitcoin is up close to 40% in the third quarter, putting it on course for its strongest Q3 performance in ten years. The rally has drawn attention from traders and financial media, with many watching whether the momentum can hold through the end of September. Analysts are debating what is driving the gains and whether further upside is likely in the final days of the quarter.

Artists from New Mexico State University have unveiled collaborative installations at the El Paso Museum of Art, marking a debut for the joint works at the Texas institution. The installations bring together university artists across a shared project and are now on public view, drawing regional attention to the cross-border art collaboration between Las Cruces and El Paso.

Revised figures show the UK economy expanded faster than previously estimated in the second quarter, strengthening its position as the fastest-growing economy in the G7 this year. The stronger growth data offers a rare positive signal for the government and comes amid ongoing debates about UK productivity, living standards, and the outlook ahead of upcoming budget decisions.

University of North Dakota Theatre will inaugurate its new Starcher Stage venue with a production of the musical 'The Addams Family'. The show will serve as the opening production for the space, marking a milestone for the university's theatre programme. Local audiences can expect the kooky, spooky family comedy on stage as the venue's debut.

A viral trend is spreading across Bluesky in which users are posting vampire-themed images, artwork and jokes under the phrase 'post a vampire'. The prompt-style meme has quickly drawn participation across the platform, with people sharing their favourite vampire characters and art as a playful, low-stakes bit of collective fun.

The production company behind Heated Rivalry has launched the Irina Foundation, a new organization supporting inclusivity in sports and the arts. The announcement ties the drama series to real-world advocacy, extending its themes of belonging in competitive environments. The move is drawing attention as the show's popularity continues, with commentators noting the company is using its platform to fund broader access and representation initiatives.

A photographer has published a black-and-white image of the Église Saint-Sauveur in Locminé, a town in the Morbihan department of Brittany, France. The picture presents the church in a minimalist, contemplative style and is drawing appreciative engagement from viewers interested in Breton heritage, religious architecture and monochrome photography.

A new feature examines five key works by the American painter Elaine de Kooning, noting that she painted presidents, compared basketball games to works by El Greco, and brought abstract painting back to reality. The piece surveys her career and most significant paintings, drawing attention to an artist often overshadowed by her husband Willem de Kooning.

Amazon has announced that Alexa+, its upgraded AI assistant, is being integrated into Fire TV, extending the smarter voice experience from the television to the phone. The rollout means users can control content, search and interact across devices more conversationally. The move is seen as part of Amazon's broader push to embed generative AI across its hardware ecosystem.

An artist has been commissioned to create a book cover for a Naruto fanfiction, given as a birthday present to the story's author. The artist described the gift as a really sweet gesture and said it was a fun commission to work on, sharing the finished cover artwork with fellow fans and artists online.

Samantha Valenzuela is organizing SLAYYY!, a celebration of queer style, as part of Pride Twente in the Netherlands this Saturday. Attendees are invited to join a catwalk, take part in a photoshoot, or dance to sets by RADIO GALACTICA. Organizers describe the event as inclusive, telling participants that everybody is a work of art.

Musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra have ended their strike, according to local news reports from Ohio. The dispute, part of a broader wave of labor actions, appears to have been resolved, though details of any agreement between the musicians and orchestra management have not yet been made public. The strike had drawn attention as one of the most prominent labor standoffs in the American classical music world, and the news of its resolution is being met with interest from classical music audiences and labor observers.

A developer has built FeedbackMind AI, a tool that uses Groq's fast inference and Hindsight to collect scattered customer feedback from different sources and turn it into a lasting product memory. The project, shared publicly under build-in-public and startup tags, aims to make sure user input is no longer lost across emails, tickets, and chats, and it is drawing attention from founders and builders interested in AI-powered product development workflows.

A set of parody covers riffing on classic Atari 2600 video game box art, originally created in 2008, has drawn renewed attention. The artwork plays on the distinctive painted style of 1970s and 1980s game packaging, and readers are sharing and discussing the nostalgic takes on the retro designs.

Sculptures of birds made from recycled plastic by US artist Thomas Deininger, born in 1970, are drawing wide admiration online. Viewers are sharing footage of the works, praising how discarded plastic debris is assembled into remarkably lifelike birds, highlighting Deininger's reputation for transforming found materials into detailed assemblage art.

Artists are posting traditional coloured pencil drawings celebrating the autumn season, featuring fall foliage, wildlife and spooky-season themes shared from personal sketchbooks. The pieces highlight hands-on, traditional media rather than digital art, and are being shared as part of the seasonal mood as autumn gets underway.

A fish vendor at a traditional market in Sorong, Southwest Papua, is attracting large audiences for skilful tuna-cutting, with clips framed as 'the art of fish cutting'. Viewers are praising the vendor's precision and technique, highlighting everyday market craftsmanship from Papua to a global audience.

A late 19th-century Japanese painting of a tiger by Meiji-era artist Mochizuki Kinpou (1846-1915) is being shared and appreciated among art enthusiasts online. Kinpou was known for his depictions of animals, and tigers in Japanese art traditionally carried symbolic weight. The post is simply a celebration of the artwork's craftsmanship, with no news event attached.

The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York is presenting dolls as the ultimate fashion influencers, according to a Gothamist report. The piece frames dolls as long-standing vehicles for fashion trends and style inspiration, positioning them as precursors to today's social media influencers. The story is drawing attention among fashion and art readers interested in how museums reinterpret everyday objects.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics report that reinforcement learning outperforms state-of-the-art techniques for shuttling ions in trapped-ion quantum computers. Machine learning was used to optimize the transport of ions, a key operation for scaling up this leading quantum computing platform. The results were published in Physical Review Research, with physicists highlighting the promise of AI methods for controlling quantum hardware.