Ksenia Karelina (also known as Ksenia Khavana), a 33-year-old native of Yekaterinburg who holds both Russian and US citizenship, had been visiting her hometown since early January. Her alleged act of treason: donating $58 to a Ukrainian charity. - NBC News
Unlike Google’s search engine, generative AI models sometimes do produce creative works that compete directly with the works they were trained on. And this puts these defendants in a weaker legal position than Google was in a decade ago. - Ars Technica
WJLX (1240 AM) in Jasper has an FM-frequency repeater, but without the AM station's tower providing the original signal and programming, the repeater was useless. Then an exec from the country's largest radio broadcaster, iHeartMedia, came to the rescue, offering use of the HD3 signal from WDXB in Birmingham. - Inside Radio
The performance on Feb. 17 began 40 minutes late, the company did one piece, then there was another 40-minute wait before the audience was told the show was over. The dancers' contract requires a backstage temperature of 72°F.; the venue claims the temperature was 68°F to 70°F. - WBMA (Birmingham, AL)
In Birmingham, which faces a long-brewing cash crisis, "grants to regularly-funded arts organisations will face 50% cuts this year and 100% next financial year." This includes, among others, the City of Birmingham Symphony, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham REP Theatre, IKON Gallery, and Birmingham International Dance Festival. - Birmingham Live
"(It's) a finely tuned and precisely orchestrated operation, requiring months of advance planning and permitting, a crew of nearly a dozen workers and an all-hands effort by the musicians themselves." Michael Andor Brodeur watches as DC's National Symphony prepares and sets off. - The Washington Post (MSN)
"Preliminary work has begun on a $335-million expansion of the Colburn School of performing arts designed by Gehry that includes a mid-size concert hall he expects to be in near-constant use for events put on by students, professional artists and academics." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
"Cairo's citadel, one of the Egyptian capital's most prominent landmarks, opened another wing housing two semi-circular towers to the public on Sunday. … (The 12th-century fortress) was the base of Egypt's government for over 700 years." - Reuters
It turns out that the volumes most frequently pilfered from SFPL shelves aren't, say, bestselling thrillers; they're books about addiction and recovery. So city officials want to start giving such books away for free. - AP
The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity. - Honest Broker
The Presidents Day Weekend was like a little Christmas gift for Broadway, with grosses for the 23 productions posting a hefty 27% increase over the previous week, topping out at $26,946,864. - Deadline
“We’re at the place where the straw breaks the camel’s back,” Kate Scher said. She called the crisis a “combined product” of the museum’s lack of long-term funding, the pandemic, and shifts in audience habits and philanthropic priorities. - Seattle Times
AI is already changing how musicians compose and play music in ways hard to imagine only a few years ago, opening up new horizons for creative expression and challenging traditional conceptions of musicianship. - San Francisco Chronicle
