"In 45 minutes, I swam through oceans, plodded through snow, saw a cathedral grow around me and watched as a craggy mountainside spawned a gang of nefarious gremlin creatures. It was unrelentingly stimulating." - The New York Times
“A Thickly Wooded Landscape With a Rainbow Behind the Trees and a Distant Outcrop to the Right Beneath a Cloud-Laden Sky,” completed around 1520 by Albrecht Altdorfer, is one of the oldest surviving landscapes in European art. It’s expected to sell for £3 million to £5 million next month at Sotheby’s. - The Guardian
For Canada, Trump’s war on facts presents a window of opportunity. “As other countries constrain academic freedoms and undermine cutting-edge research, Canada is investing in—and doubling down on—science,” Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said when announcing the initiative in December 2025. - The Walrus
We have a real need to be needed. And yet many forces—thinking machines, aging, economic and social dislocation—appear to be making us feel redundant. Are we building a world in which no one is particularly necessary? Do we already live in such a world? - The New Yorker
The contracts banned such behavior as having an “insincere attitude,” entering “inappropriate romantic relationships” or criticizing the record label. - The New York Times
The “immersive” biography of Alexander the Great, which includes Richardson’s translations of source material from 12 different languages, is the first work about ancient history to win the £50,000 ($67,000) award. - AP
Said ex-director is Benjamin Millepied, also known as a former New York City Ballet star, founder-director of L.A. Dance Project, choreographer for the movie Black Swan, and Natalie Portman’s ex-husband. He’s staging three shows, each built on the music of great singer-songwriters, at the Folies this month. - The Times (UK)
The British actor-comedian was convicted of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault involving four women. He was acquitted of two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault. The incidents happened more than 20 years ago. - AP
“Daniel Sikkema was found guilty in May of charges tied to a murder-for-hire plot ... that took place in Rio de Janeiro in January 2024. After a two-week trial in New York, Daniel was convicted of three charges: murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country.” - ARTnews
“The networks were following the same returns, and by the end of the evening, the same political story was taking shape. What differed was how they told it — and how quickly they moved from counting votes to explaining what went wrong for Republicans and what comes next for Democrats.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)
The win of the £10,000 award makes The Rouse the longest novel to take the prize since it was launched in 2013 for fiction that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.” - The Guardian
Over his seven-decade career, he was music director or principal conductor of the flagship orchestras in Oslo, Danish and Swedish Radio, Dresden, San Francisco, and Leipzig — then spent his 80s and 90s as a surprisingly energetic and much-beloved guest conductor all over Europe, the US, and East Asia. - NPR
With their Broadway debut a smash hit, Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik expected their next musical, Nero (about the Roman emperor), would go far But, after a 2006 production in San Francisco, the piece got nothing more than workshops and showcases for producers. At long last, Nero is having its London premiere. - The Guardian
We have not a single piece of meaningful legislation in the United States Congress about artificial intelligence. We have essentially nothing about social media. This is something that we’re now battling out in the courts. - The Walrus
