"Our public libraries are public and should stay public. We don't need private corporations coming in and laying people off and censoring material." - ABC Fresno
“Kyle Abraham’s company is now officially the Kyle Abraham Dance Vanguard. It’s not the first time the contemporary troupe has changed names: Abraham launched it in 2005 as Abraham.In.Motion, later revising it to A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in 2019.” - Dance Magazine
“Why are our playwrights so ill at ease with middle-class educated characters? ... In our contemporary affluent society, with its energetic social mobility, it is the middle class, not the working class, which gives Australia its character and flavour. - The Saturday Paper
The legal fight over Mr. Trump’s takeover of the center has revolved largely around one important statute, first passed by Congress in 1958. It established a National Cultural Center and then was amended in 1964 to dedicate the institution to President Kennedy after his assassination. - The New York Times
The sounds of the city weren’t just decorative, musical — they could define the physical contours of a space as dramatically as a concrete wall or an open door to the street. - Reasons to be Cheerful
“Tashkent is reinventing itself. The Uzbek capital, which is home to 3 million, was once the fourth-largest city in the Soviet Union and has long been a cultural hub in Central Asia. … The Center for Contemporary Arts Tashkent has opened. It’s a watershed moment for the nation as it expands its cultural ambitions.” - Artnet
A bipartisan effort to ban the demolition of presidential memorials — including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — was blocked Monday night in the Senate by an objection from Sen.Mike Lee (R-Utah). - Washington Post
Layoffs seem inevitable, considering, again, the amount of debt Paramount has gone into just to acquire Warner Bros. The settlement demands that Paramount contribute $47.5 million to a “workforce fund” over five years to aid those laid off, but giant corporate mergers have a history of massive layoffs whose costs may exceed that sum. - The Atlantic
Across millions of math sessions by a group that ranged from fifth graders to college students, the researchers compared performance from before 2022, when ChatGPT first came out, with the work that followed its arrival. - The New York Times
A forward-looking director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art wooed Duchamp, that’s how. Sidney Fiske Kimball “offered what Duchamp wanted: space and control. Lots of it.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
“(Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel) has long been popular in China and was already recommended reading for schoolchildren. But this fall, ninth-grade students across the country are being required to read (it) in full. … One report in an official newspaper held it up as an anti-materialistic love story young people could learn from.” - The New York Times
“On Tuesday, the ax fell. A few hundred employees, mostly in human resources and tech, were laid off, a person familiar with the situation confirms. … The cuts are the fourth round of layoffs this year.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“In the 19 months since President Trump took over the Kennedy Center, the institution has borrowed everything its bank would lend it, dipped into money donors had given on condition it never be spent, and written off pledges from supporters who stopped paying.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
“The staggering amount (pledged by hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin) is the largest-ever gift by an individual in higher education, surpassing Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8 billion donation to Johns Hopkins in 2018. Griffin’s donation will be split: $1 billion will support CMU’s original campus in Pittsburgh and $2 billion will help launch CMU’s Miami campus.” - CNN
The awardees working in the arts are choreographer Trajal Harrell, poet Layli Long Soldier, jazz saxophonist and composer Immanuel Wilkins, novelists Maaza Mengiste and Bryan Washington, and artists Christine Sun Kim, Chip Thomas, Vincent Valdez and Rodney McMillian. - NPR
