"Threads is billed as a text-based version of Meta's photo-sharing app Instagram that the company says provides 'a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.' It went live late Wednesday in Apple and Google Android app stores." - AP
"The Wiener Zeitung, which is owned by the Austrian government but editorially independent, suffered a sharp decrease in revenue after a recent law dropped a requirement for companies to pay to publish changes to the commercial registry in the print edition." (It will continue publishing online.) - AP
"What we see is children who learn how to play the drums aren't afraid of making mistakes. When they stop and make a mistake in their drumming they simply pause, reset, and off they go, and it's no big deal." - BBC
“Here’s the super easy, headline statement: AI, or music that contains AI-created elements is absolutely eligible for entry and for consideration for Grammy nomination. Period,” Mason told The Associated Press. - Toronto Star (AP)
Grant recipients, including visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, actors and dancers, were chosen at random from a pool of more than 8,000 eligible applicants, the government said in a news release; 13 circus artists and 10 architects were also selected for the income grants. - NBC
The two-armed robot, designed by the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, made its debut at the National Theater of Korea, leading musicians in the country’s national orchestra. - CNN
The identification of the present, not as a hectic shimmer of zeptoseconds but a series of temporal clearings where one might deeply linger, originates in the Buddhist concept of “sati”, understood as “moment to moment awareness of present events”. - The Guardian
It will help preserve the site for future archaeologists who might have more modern methods and can study the evidence better or ask new questions. - The Conversation
About two million people call Mecca home, and while there are concessions to the city's sacredness — no movie theaters, no loud music at celebrations, and the malls are small by Gulf standards — Meccans live much like other Saudis. - AP
When did the so-called narrative turn—the doctrine of narrative supremacy—go mainstream? “At a certain point in history, people started saying, ‘We are born storytellers,’ ” the novelist Amit Chaudhuri said at a 2018 symposium he convened called “Against Storytelling.” - The New Yorker
"Ivan Dimitrov, a 27-year-old fitness instructor living in Bristol, wrote a letter of apology to the Rome mayor after allegedly engraving his and his girlfriend's names into an internal wall of the 2,000-year-old landmark with a key." (Actually, he probably didn't write it himself. Read it and see.) - The Guardian
The value of culture is hard to measure - everyone's experience is different. But governments' obsession with justifying cultural worth economically gets in the way of its real value. - The Globe & Mail (Canada)
Ten years ago, almost half of Ukrainians said Russian was their first language; now, 21% say so (or, at least, admit to it). These days, anger at the language of the war criminals is hardly surprising. Ukraine's government wants to make Ukrainian-ness civic, not linguistic. Can that work? - Prospect (UK)
As Ukraine launches its summer counteroffensive, historians fear that Ukrainian cultural objects from Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine might be moved to Russia if the Russians have to retreat again. - The Wall Street Journal
Not that it's cheerful, mind you: Picture a Day Like This is about a mother whose child has died. Yet, after Benjamin's brilliant-but grim operas Into the Little Hill, Written on Skin, and Lessons in Love and Violence, this new piece is definitely a departure. - The New York Times
