"One minute, your heart and mind are overthrown by a life-changing film (or) a miraculous performance. ... The next you're nearly sobbing with hunger and fatigue, wondering who exactly thought that watching a bunch of really intense movies from 8:30 a.m. to midnight was a good idea." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
"The U.S. Department of Education has found that a suburban Atlanta school district's decision to remove some books from its libraries may have created a hostile environment that violated federal laws against race and sex discrimination." - AP
"He wrote a stream of reviews but refused, to the displeasure of bosses, to rate films by a star system. 'He always defended that by saying 'If we give stars, no one will read the review. And movies are more complicated than that', said (his wife,) Pat." - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
"Meta has been hit with a record-breaking $1.3 billion fine (€1.2 billion) by EU data regulators, and ordered to stop transferring the Facebook data of EU citizens to the US. … The fine exceeds the previous EU record of €746 million levied against Amazon in 2021 for similar violations." - The Verge
In April, the Pops filed an antitrust lawsuit claiming the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center used tactics intended to force the company out of business and create a monopoly in the city. On Wednesday, the orchestra amended its lawsuit in hopes it can begin playing shows again at Verizon Hall. - Philly Voice
Some of the laws impose severe penalties on librarians, who until now were exempted in almost every state from prosecution over obscene material — a carve-out meant to permit accurate lessons in topics such as sex education. - Washington Post
An Angeleno who emigrated from Mexico at age 8, grew into a first-generation college student and climbed his way through the ranks of the city’s arts scene has been named executive and artistic director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. - Los Angeles Times
“Let’s not forget that the word ‘climax’ is a common musical term,” the soprano Renée Fleming told me. “It has to do with musical tension and its release.” She said Rachmaninoff and Liszt “had it down” when it comes to sexy pieces. - The New York Times
The most surprising aspect of “The Naked Comedy Show” might be how asexual it is. The audience is meticulously polite, quick to laugh. The jokes were less bawdy than what you might find at the Comedy Cellar. There’s even an incongruous innocence to some of the sets. - The New York Times
In a dizzying fall from grace, Lisa Schiff was accused by a close friend and client of running a “Ponzi scheme” and misappropriating millions of dollars from art deals. Her website quickly disappeared from the internet, and on May 17, she filed a notice with New York Supreme Court that her business was defunct. - The Daily Beast
The number of students nationwide seeking four-year degrees in computer and information sciences and related fields shot up 34 percent from 2017 to 2022, to about 573,000. The English-major head count fell 23 percent in that time, to about 113,000. History fell 12 percent, to about 77,000. - Washington Post
No full-body imagery of Michelangelo's David here, the Scots say: "The designs commissioned by the Barolo restaurant were rejected from spaces in the subway over modesty concerns." - The Guardian (UK)
OK, and this is possibly unexpected, "Coloring within the lines — of an intricate pattern, for example — appears to be especially effective" at dealing with anxiety. - The New York Times
"One glance at Filipino social media and you will find a recurrent set of waves, twists and inverted heart shapes. They’re more than just symbols — they’re part of the 17-character writing system called Baybayin, which is making a comeback after hundreds of years." - NBC News
"The weight of what happened was so heavy you can’t hold it in your head forever. If you forget things that’s OK because of the magnitude.... It’s a lot to juggle. Like a classical concert, you drift away in one place and come back into another." - Los Angeles Times
