Excavations in the Lachish Forest, about 40 miles southwest of Jerusalem, have uncovered the remains of a Hellenistic fortress — a structure which the Israel Antiquities Authority says was destroyed by the Maccabees' army during the rebellion commemorated by Hanukkah. (Other scholars aren't so sure.) - Yahoo! (The Daily Beast)
As of January 1, shortly before his 49th birthday, the Peruvian will take the reins at the event where his international career was launched: the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy. He succeeds his longtime mentor and manager, former tenor Ernesto Palacio, now the festival's superintendent. - OperaWire
After “community,” the second-most used word at NFT.NYC is probably “rich.” As in, “Do you want to be rich?” The speakers ask the audience variations on that question a lot. -Artnet
It’s been quite the turnaround. Utah’s largest newspaper escaped the clutches of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital in 2016 only to see its local owner, Paul Huntsman, lay off a third of staff two years later in the face of plunging ad revenue. - NiemanLab
Tied to both the 2011 revolution and, to a lesser extent, the 1952 military coup that reshaped Egyptian society, the works reflect the ways in which those upheavals affected the imaginative lens through which people relate to themselves and each other. - LitHub
The sculptures dating from the second or third century were smuggled into Switzerland in 2009 or 2010, before the outbreak of the Syrian war. Customs officers discovered them, along with one looted piece from Libya and five from Yemen, during a routine check at the freeport in 2013. - The Art Newspaper
The gift represents an important leap forward for the Met project, which is now expected to cost about $500 million and calls for creating 80,000 square feet of galleries and public space with an architect to be announced this winter. - The New York Times
"The online world should not be a wild west where bots and bigots and trolls and others are anonymously going around and can harm people. That is not what can happen in the real world, and there is no case for it to be able to be happening in the digital world." - Reuters
The changes are the result of a yearslong effort by performers and activists to draw attention to Asian stereotypes in “Nutcracker.” - The New York Times
He became a star in his home country playing the lead in Nicholas Roeg's Walkabout and familiar internationally for his role in Crocodile Dundee. He won acclaim and awards for other film and TV performances and helped end the use of blackface in Australia. - The New York Times
“We discovered early on that if you could make someone who disagreed with you laugh, then you had a hook inside their brain. Once you were in there, you just might be able to change their minds about things.” - Glass Tire
King Mohammed VI's government says it's making art accessible to more ordinary people and promoting Morocco as an island of stability; some artists and critics argue that it's all just attempting to artwash the image of a repressive regime that keeps its censors busy. - Bloomberg CityLab
Because taping a goddamn banana to a wall was not enough, no, the art world needed to do something even more stupid involving food. At sea! - Hyperallergic
More than 250 media outlets have closed since the takeover; those that remain are losing their audience because people are scared of being caught listening to music or watching anything unapproved. A few brave TV stations are still employing women. - The Guardian
The pandemic has created a labor shortage of plant workers and drivers that has clogged up supply chains in the face of rising demand for paint, especially for construction and home improvement projects. - Hyperallergic
