"On average, each of the 300 towns in Flanders has about six churches and often not enough faithful to fill a single one. Some become eyesores, their maintenance a constant drain on finances. … Now, many once-sacred structures are repurposed for anything from clothes shops and climbing walls to nightclubs." - AP
"Many arts organizations," including such flagships as the San Francisco Symphony, "have seen their city funding reduced drastically or eliminated altogether. At the same time, up-and-coming theater companies and visual arts groups … are getting their first crack at a piece of the city's largesse." - MSN (San Francisco Chronicle)
"Under the new rules, … a film will need to continue its run beyond the current requirement, a one-week theatrical release in one of six U.S. qualifying cities, ... to add an additional run of seven days, consecutive or nonconsecutive, in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
At a time of unprecedented need, do organizations owe it to their communities to move more money out the door, even if it threatens its perpetuity? Or should trustees stay the course, ensuring that organizations can tackle challenges 10, 20 and 50 years from now? - Inside Philanthropy
The first half of the bridge—a gently sloped, 340-foot-long arm coming out of the High Line Spur, as the final section of the elevated park is called— mimics a woodland path flanked by more than 60 trees, 90 shrubs and more than 5,200 grasses and perennials. - Fast Company
“There’s no point coming here just to do one thing. Blowing in and out doesn’t work – financially! Performers get all that, and they live and play here for these two or three days alongside their audience. That’s the joy of the thing. Everyone is part of the community." - The Guardian
We lack the skill to move imagination from the brain to the real world, and, while we like to say "You can do anything you set your mind to," the grim reality is, that isn't the case. Having an AI that translates our words will democratize art in a way that's helpful for everyone. - CNET
"The first mass job cuts at the ABC since 2020 will heavily impact the corporation’s arts coverage and, some argue, may put the corporation in breach of its own Charter, which requires it to 'encourage and promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia'." - Limelight (Australia)
"One of the most eagerly anticipated new cultural venues in Europe, … the £210 million flagship building in Manchester, previously called Factory International, will now be called Aviva Studios after the insurance giant Aviva acquired naming rights for, it is understood, £35 million." - The Guardian
"What might sound empowering in the United States and thought-provoking in the Netherlands, however, is anathema to Egypt’s government and many of its people," who see themselves as not exactly "African." - The New York Times
Is this the path we should go down? "The result, Talkington said, 'was about what you’d expect from a Journalism 101 student.'" But when public meetings are going uncovered as reporters are cut, maybe J101 is better than nothing at all. - Nieman Lab
"A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a new version of the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, which could force social media platforms to hand over valuable data about their inner workings to researchers and the public." - Fast Company
"The quake, believed to have been between magnitude 5.2 and 5.8 was felt from Rennes in the north-west to Bordeaux in the south-west. Homes, schools and churches were damaged, with hundreds of buildings declared uninhabitable." - BBC
"That’s where it got really surreal, when they decided it was sexually explicit, because anybody who could get their jollies off of Maus is probably in need of far greater help than anything the school could offer." - Pen America