“A Hollywood writer-director was arrested Tuesday on charges that he swindled $11 million from Netflix for a sci-fi show that never aired, instead steering the cash toward cryptocurrency investments and a series of lavish purchases that included a fleet of Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari.” - AP
The satirical artist’s piece, titled America, was stolen in September of 2019 while on display at an exhibition at Blenheim Palace in England. Michael Jones was convicted of planning the heist, while Frederick Doe was convicted of helping to sell the gold in the object. James Sheen had already pled guilty to burglary. - BBC
Two decades ago, despite the strength of traditional Irish dancing, the Republic had no national ballet or dance company, a handful of independent troupes and just a few choreographers. Now there are several internationally-renowned dancemakers, a healthy crop of trained performers, and a new national dance company called Luail. - Dance Magazine
According to those who depend on them, local libraries are far more than a repository of books - they are community focal points and, for some, a vital lifeline to the outside world. What happens when one closes? - BBC
The Irish Pub Company has created over 2,000 pubs in more than 100 countries, in places from Berlin to Bahrain to Nigeria to Novosibirsk to Tokyo to Tulsa to Tashkent. This isn’t a prefab bar-in-a-box business; the pubs are custom-designed, with the owner having final choice on the many details. - Smithsonian Magazine
The truism has it that most great New York magazine editors come from away—from the West or the Midwest or across the Atlantic—and arrive with an ability to see what natives don’t. - The New Yorker
There are two errors we must avoid if we want to get closer to the truth: we shouldn’t believe things that are false, and we shouldn’t discount things that are true. If we focus solely on reducing belief in false content, as current efforts tend to do, we risk targeting one error at the expense of the other. -...
Hertz Hall, the existing classical venue at UC-Berkeley, seats 600; it wasn’t uncommon for some concerts to attract 100 people or fewer, but there were no concert halls that size anywhere nearby. That is, until the opening on Sunday of the 100-seat Wu Performance Hall. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
The initiative by Il Foglio, a conservative liberal daily, is part of a month-long journalistic experiment aimed at showing the impact AI technology has “on our way of working and our days”, the newspaper’s editor, Claudio Cerasa, said. - The Guardian
Beckett is perennially timely because his works concern themselves with those eternal questions that the political emergencies of the day cannot override. Even as we confront impossible times, we remain planted in that greater impossibility — human existence. - Los Angeles Times
Tony- and Pulitzer-winning actor-playwright Tracy Letts (August: Osage County and The Minutes) is writing the story and book for the jukebox show, titled Fire and Rain, and another Tony winner, David Cromer (The Band’s Visit), will direct. - Variety
“It’s in tremendous disrepair, as is a lot of the rest of our country, most of it because of bad management,” Trump told reporters Monday after he toured the Kennedy Center and met for the first time as chair of its board. - The Hill
Through all his binges and bankruptcies, through every setback and depressive spell, he kept making art because he knew that’s where the best of him lay. - Washington Post
