The city government is facing possible bankruptcy due to a £52 million budget gap over the next five years. Among the drastic measures being seriously considered are winding down and ending the Cultural Investment Programme (which distributes funding grants to arts institutions) and closing three local historic sites. - The Guardian
The danger of blaming the Ivy League for today’s overreliance on blunt ranking-and-sorting instruments is that we may be tempted to wait for the Ivy League to fix it. Instead, let’s agree that we also need leaders who flourished in local community colleges, regional universities, apprenticeships. - The Atlantic
"A group of civic, business and community leaders calling themselves 'Team Culture' wants to reimagine major parts of downtown — filling vacant, often shadowy spaces with light and art." - Chicago Sun-Times
There is a particular ugliness, a virulent ignorance, to the reaction in this case that speaks to a broader sense of unease in the culture. Call it anti-artist or anti-imagination or even anti-success, but it boils down to this... - The Globe & Mail
Shakespeare helps me envisage the unimaginable, and a speech from “The Tempest” has been running through my mind since images of charred sections of Pacific Palisades and Altadena started circulating. - Los Angeles Times
Two activists from the group Just Stop Oil used orange chalk to scrawl "1.5 is dead" (referring, in degrees Celsius, to the rise in global temperature beyond which scientists believe climate damage can't be reversed) on the naturalist's grave marker on the floor of Westminster Abbey. - BBC
The museum, in Hilo (scene of three deadly tsunamis in the past 80 years), has laid off its staff and cut opening hours, but the director and volunteers are fighting to keep it open in the face of a post-pandemic drop in visitors and desperately needed building repairs. - Hawai'i Public Radio
Spanish language factchecker Laura Zommer says, “Far from censoring, fact-checkers add context. ...We never advocate for removing content. We want citizens to have better information to make their own decisions.” - Wired
“‘It’s staggering and heartbreaking — I don’t know any other way to put it,’ said Ken Bernstein, principal city planner at Los Angeles City Planning’s Office of Historic Resources. ‘This is widespread destruction of significant architecture and places that are cherished in our communities.’”- Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
“The argument really felt like a national security case and a First Amendment case walk into a bar. There’s two totally different cases, and you could feel everybody toggling back and forth, depending on which of those they thought they were going to win in the moment.” - Slate
On Wednesday, the Palisades fire claimed Will Rogers’s historic ranch house and other structures on the Will Rogers State Historic Park, according to a news release by the California State Parks. - Artnet
"(The move) follows years of campaigning by politicians, musicians and the theatre industry to stop professional 'resellers' hoovering up tickets at the expense of fans and selling them on for huge mark-ups in alliance with platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub, which take a cut of the profits." - The Guardian
Figures from every corner of politics have used the hall for events and rallies, amplifying the legend “that this is where the idea of American liberty is born.” Frederick Douglass argued here before packed houses of abolitionists in 1849 and 1858. That same year, Jefferson Davis, future leader of the Confederacy, gave a speech.” - Smithsonian
"Ushers at the Kimmel Center, the Academy of Music, and Miller Theater have struck a tentative deal on a new labor contract. If approved, the contract would give the members of the union a 23% raise over five years." - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
