Category: today’s top story

“State-run Russian museums, including the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, are canceling long-scheduled loans to American institutions in response to a decision by an American judge in a case involving Jewish religious documents held by Russia.”

“U.S. bank Citigroup (C.N) seized control of troubled music company EMI from its private equity owner Guy Hands on Tuesday … Citigroup took control of the firm – and wrote off most of its debt – after Hands’ company Terra Firma defaulted on its loans.”

“Reports indicate that middle-class Egyptians, the tourism police and later the military secured the museum. But now it appears that many other museum’s and storehouses have been looted, along with archaeological sites.”

“A tiny lost treasure of ballet history has been discovered – 30 seconds of the Ballets Russes dancing in 1928, the only film ever found of a performance by one of the most influential and famous companies in dance history.”

Zahi Hawass “said the Coptic Museum, Royal Jewelry Museum, National Museum of Alexandria and El Manial Museum had all been broken into. He also said he is afraid the ruling National Democratic Party headquarters in Cairo, torched and vandalized by demonstrators on Friday, could collapse and topple onto the 100-year-old Museum of Egyptian Antiquities next door.”

“You can either increase demand or decrease supply. Demand is not going to increase, so it is time to think about decreasing supply.”

Koons believes he owns the image of balloon animals and has sued a gallery to stop it from selling small balloon dogs. “As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain.”

Europeans “have reacted to the Smithsonian flap with the same mildly appalled bafflement that they express toward American opposition to the health care bill. It all seems inexplicable to them.”

“Billed as ‘the largest data set ever assembled describing arts and culture in America,’ the National Arts Index released Monday by the advocacy group Americans for the Arts aims to capture in a single number how the arts and entertainment sector has been doing – much as the Dow Jones and S&P indices do for stocks. The news is not good.”

“The BBC is to cut about 200 websites as it reduces the amount of money it spends on its online output. The changes, which will see BBC Online’s budget cut by £34m, will also result in the loss of up to 360 posts over the next two years.”