Category: issues

The DC title Injustice depicts a Superman who has become a global dictator. (He sends the Green Lantern to Congress to break the debt ceiling deadlock.) And the Godzilla spin-off Monstrous looks at what happens after one giant radioactive monster defeats and kills another: the corpse is now toxic waste.

“Russia’s parliament passed a law on Friday to force Internet sites that store the personal data of Russian citizens to do so inside the country, a move the Kremlin says is for data protection but which critics see an attack on social networks. The law will mean that from 2016, all Internet companies will have to move Russian data onto servers based in Russia or face being blocked from the web.”

“In their fight against feared closure, more than 300 residents, according to campaign group Save Braunton Library, borrowed several books each on Saturday.”

“The prosecution alleges film-makers had ‘unlawfully and without authority’ entered onto the railway tracks ‘after receiving, prior to that entry, notice from the owner thereof that such entry was denied’.”

“Whenever Amazon sells a Bonnier e-book, it collects 30 percent of the retail price. But now Amazon wants its share hiked to 50 percent. So far, Bonnier is refusing to budge.”

“The ACE have the arrogance to declare that London vs the rest of the UK is an equal match worth fighting, and one in which funds can be distributed equally between the two. The extensive nature of their report proves that despite their attempts to disguise the vicious nature of the cuts with a garish pink font, the ACE cannot claim ignorance about the existence of a 14:1 imbalance of London’s arts budget compared to the rest of England.”

“New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced on Tuesday their plan to put $23 million toward hiring 120 new arts teachers and boosting arts resources in public schools across the city. The plan uses additional money from this year’s budget to guarantee the growth of arts programs in 2015.”

“The new, spectacular opera house, the third largest in the world, with state-of-the-art acoustic design, seating for 1250, three stages, and a vast backstage area as big as an aircraft hangar (to enable the creation of the most elaborate possible sets, no expense spared), is in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.”

Wolf Trap will announce Tuesday that it will use new supertitle technology that allows audiences to follow the French narrative of the opera in English from their smartphones, tablets or Google Glass eyewear. The technology from Figaro Systems debuts during the July 25 performance of “Carmen.”

“Overall, 33 organisations have been removed from the Arts Council’s roster and three quarters of the 670 organisations have had their funding frozen. The ENO has had its annual grant cut from £17.2m in 2014/15 to £12.4m in the next financial year.”