In China, Some Sold-Out Hit Movies Are Really Seen By Very Few People

Many investors reportedly put money into films as a stock-market manipulation scheme, buying up blocks of unsold tickets and even entire screenings so that the perception of success will push up a company’s share price. Film production is also used as a way to evade capital-flight controls and transfer large sums of money out of the country.

New Yorker Festival Announces, Then Drops, Steve Bannon As Headliner

“The announcement [disinviting Bannon] followed several scathing rebukes and high-profile dropouts after the festival’s lineup, with Mr. Bannon featured, was announced.” (One guest who withdrew, comedian Patton Oswalt, suggested Milo Yiannopoulos as his replacement.) Top New Yorker editor David Remnick also encountered stiff resistance from members of the public and the magazine’s staff.

Israeli Public Radio Plays Wagner, Suffers Backlash, Apologizes

The station Kol HaMusica broadcast Act Three of Götterdämmerung in a 1991 Bayreuth performance led by Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. Because of the composer’s anti-Semitic beliefs and the co-optation of his music by the Nazi regime, there has been an unofficial but sternly defended ban on performing or broadcasting Wagner in Israel for the country’s entire history.

Australia’s Arts Funding Is Inadequate And Unfairly Given Out, Say Critics

The economy of “the Lucky Country” has been growing for 26 years without a recession or other break, and Australia is now second only to Switzerland in wealth per adult in the world. “Yet arts funding has not kept pace, … [and] worse in many ways, experts say, [it’s] running the same way it has for years — as an insiders’ game.”

Fire Destroys Brazil’s National Museum

“Founded in 1818 [in Rio de Janeiro], the museum is Brazil’s oldest scientific institution and one of the largest and most renowned museums in Latin America, amassing a collection of some 20 million scientifically and culturally invaluable artifacts.” Says one Brazilian scientist, “The importance of the collections that were lost couldn’t be overstated. They were unique as it gets: Many of them were irreplaceable, there’s no way to put a monetary value on it.”

What Was Lost In The Brazilian National Museum Fire?

Firefighters and museum staffers were able to remove some items from the burning building in Rio, so it will take time for the scale of the destruction to become clear, but here is an overview of what the museum contained, including an 11,500-year-old skeleton, coffins from ancient Egypt, frescoes from Pompeii, pre-Columbian and indigenous art and artifacts, and a major fossil collection.