According to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, reading is something a majority of Americans enjoy, and want to get better at. But it's nowhere near a top priority. - NPR
A team of artists and neuroscientists took white blood cells donated by the composer (who cooperated with the project), reprogrammed them to be stem cells, grew cerebral organoids (clusters of neurons that mimic the human brain) and used customized technology to render the organoids’ neural signals into music. - The Guardian
At the emotional core of “The Last Repair Shop” are the stories of the dedicated technicians and the students who benefit from the free instruments. The message: Music education has the power to transform lives. - Los Angeles Times
"Unfortunately I had to cancel all my upcoming events in the United States as I felt unsafe traveling, especially after watching students and university professors abducted on the street just in front of other people." - CBC
“The historic fantasy of the Great White Way as a glamorous montage of gleaming marquees, sparky backstage romances, and elegant audiences reveling in black tie was a Hollywood concoction, arguably false from the start.” - New York Magazine (MSN)
“Yorgos Lanthimos had filed a request to film scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at the fifth-century BC site in April. But in a statement on Thursday, the culture ministry said permission had been refused because ‘the proposed scenes are incompatible with the symbolism … and the values the Acropolis represents’.” - The Guardian
“Call them what you like — mud trays, clay troughs, unbaked earthen dishes — but the four 3x1½-inch dull-colored things hardly get the pulses racing. … A new study … (suggests they were) objects used in the funerary rites of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife.” - Artnet
“The (NPS) on Monday appeared to restore its original webpage on the history of the Underground Railroad after it was met with backlash for deleting a prominently featured photo of abolitionist and women’s suffragist Harriet Tubman, as well as segments of text describing the horrors of slavery.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
“The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), whose members include museum and library workers nationwide, have sued over what the ALA called, in a release, ‘the Trump administration’s gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).’” - Publishers Weekly
“72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups, government entities and elected officials, board members and administrators, reported the American Library Association (ALA). Just 16% of ban attempts were made by parents, while 5% were brought forward by individual library users.” - The Guardian
“(He) became a heavily autobiographical musical theatre writer, folding his experiences as a gay Jewish man with a brain stem malformation into some of his most lauded work.” - Playbill
“Perched on a hillside on Lefkada, an island off the west coast of Greece, the structure has been excavated by archaeologists from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Aitoloakarnania and Lefkada over the past decade.” - Artnet
The college essay is a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests. It wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they’ve faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. - Yascha Mounk
During 2023 and 2024, a troupe calling itself “Ballet of Ukraine” played dates in several cities in Sweden and Finland — but an investigation by Swedish television found that the group is registered in Russia and had its fees sent to a Russian-owned company in Switzerland, thus deceiving audiences and violating sanctions. - BroadwayWorld
