"Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced Thursday to 30 months of felony probation, including 150 days in jail, and ordered to pay restitution of more than $120,000 and a $25,000 fine for making false reports to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in January 2019. - CNN
As more become victims of the city’s fantasies of walling itself off from the climate crisis, what is increasingly obvious is the city’s willingness to sacrifice the older and more decrepit areas—those spaces occupied by the poor and undocumented—to benefit the growth of new and more “resilient” spaces for the wealthy. - The Baffler
The service will allow musicians to upload songs directly to the app and receive royalties for plays, managed through a designated artists' platform. The platform also includes analytical tools to help artists leverage virality. - Protocol
Ukrainians frequently speak of the need to become Ukrainians: to consolidate their culture, language, and institutions after centuries of imperial domination. What Ukrainians see as a work in progress, however, Russia interprets as weakness; it views Ukraine as an accident of history. - The Atlantic
A lot has already been lost or destroyed. Museums in the homes of folk artists and folk production are found throughout the country. - The Conversation
Living as we are, in a time of social, political, economic, and environmental crisis, I believe we must resist the temptation to view the arts as a subsidiary or accompaniment to our social, political, and economic experiences and concerns. I believe we have to argue for what I call the freestanding value of art. - The Easel
Time was, folks on a budget could see a film at cinemas where titles that were no longer brand-new were shown at discounted ticket prices before being released for home video. As Hollywood makes that window before video release ever smaller, those theaters are becoming unfeasible. - The Hollywood Reporter
As the pandemic enters its third year, a cluster of new studies now show that about a third of children in the youngest grades are missing reading benchmarks, up significantly from before the pandemic. - The New York Times
She sang with such conductors as Bernstein, Solti, and Karajan (whom she told she wouldn't work with him again), with a repertoire from Mozart to Rossini to Verdi to Wagner to Tippett, and she was a mainstay at Covent Garden, where she sang 780 performances in 60 roles. - The Guardian
Scientists tested 11 strains of bacteria on marble before it was decided that three non-toxic varieties would be the most effective for Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Serratia ficaria, a bacterium that causes urinary tract infections, managed to remove dirt from the tomb in two days. - The Guardian
The holiday season in particular was plagued by constant cast changes or cancellations when someone in the company got sick or tested positive. With the pandemic now receding among the vaccinated, Broadway will have 16 productions opening over about six weeks. - Variety
The Humana Festival of New American Plays, as envisioned prior to the Global Pandemic, has inspired a new approach to develop and produce new work on multiple platforms year-round,” Fleming’s emailed statement read, in part. - WFPL
The open-source online project — started by Bangalore's Museum of Art and Photography, with entries written by Indian experts — will include textiles and craft arts as well as painting, sculpture, and photography and will range from ancient work to the 2010s. - The New York Times
The Getty invested $60 million in the fund, which was titled “structured alpha,” in 2016. Three years later, the investment had grown to $73 million. But in early 2020, when the pandemic hit, the fund suffered devastating losses: The Getty only had $2 million left, or “97 percent of its assets.” - Artnet
