Communications minister Shlomo Karhi pushed for the authority to unilaterally shut down the Qatar-based network's Israeli reporting operations (and, presumably, those, of other foreign outlets if he wishes), though he settled for doing so only with the approval of several Cabinet members and a court. - Columbia Journalism Review
The initiative by Opera America, described as a discount exchange for traveling audience members, has 85 participating companies across the US and Canada offering a 10% discount on tickets to subscribers of any other participating company. - Ludwig Van
"The stolen U-Haul truck contained 500 shadow puppets, props, costumes, projectors and other items used to stage puppet master Hamid Rahmanian’s Persian epic Song of the North, … leaving the production company empty-handed after four San Francisco shows." - MSN (San Francisco Chronicle)
"Police said the 11 ancient gold pieces were smuggled out of Ukraine in 2016 to be resold in Spain. The bracelets, necklaces and earrings, from the 8th to 4th Centuries BC, had forged documents saying they belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church." - BBC
"92NY, one of the city’s leading cultural organizations, announced Monday that it was putting its prestigious literary reading series on pause, following an outcry over its decision to cancel an appearance last week by a prominent writer who had been critical of Israel." - The New York Times
The former Italian prime minister, who died in June, bought many of the paintings and sculptures from late-night telesales programmes. Managing the extensive collection is proving a headache for his descendants. - BBC
The problem with monuments and statues goes far beyond the issue of the legacies of slavery, important as that issue is. We need to learn to question all monuments rather than read them as factual documents of the past. - The Conversation
Some organizers said they were calling off the Palestinian-themed events because of security concerns. Others cited sensitivity, calling the cancellations and postponements understandable, if unfortunate, responses at a moment when emotions are raw. - The New York Times
Falletta has produced 54 recordings for Naxos – a rate of two per year. Two of those BPO recordings, and a third that Falletta recorded with the London Symphony, have won Grammy awards. - Buffalo News
"These platforms effectively position themselves between business customers and end users. They extract rent from the business customers who then raise prices on the end users. In doing so, they also manipulate and exploit the end users, all in the service of business customers and the bottom line." - Jacobin
In recent years Mexico has mounted an ambitious series of investigations and restitution efforts to reclaim the nation’s stolen cultural heritage, joining with other countries to correct decades of theft and colonial plundering. - The New York Times
When Claude is asked for lyrics to the song “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, for example, it responds with “a nearly word-for-word copy of those lyrics,” Universal, Concord, and ABKCO said in a filing with a US court in Nashville, Tennessee. - Ars Technica
The company is facing a $2.5 million budget shortfall, managing director Danny Williams said. It will need to raise the money through ticket sales and philanthropy by the end of 2023 in order to present the productions scheduled for the second half of this season, he said. - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Why? She had only been on the job for two years. Now, "virtually no member of the staff, faculty, or administration, including those who left during the past two years, would talk on the record about Muhl." - Boston Globe
