The New York Times Wednesday April 9, 2025
Leaders at the National Endowment for the Humanities have informed employees that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is demanding deep cuts to staff and programs at the agency, in the latest move against federal agencies that support scholarship and culture. The cuts would encompass as much as 70 to 80 percent of the organization’s 180 staffers, as well as the possible cancellation of all outstanding grants made under the Biden administration, notes The New York Times. Art News has more.
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It’s Nice That Wednesday April 9, 2025
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv-based photographer Vic Bakin shifted from commercial to documentary work focused on Ukrainian youth. His new portrait series features “those who defend Ukraine”— young soldiers. “I photograph them in their safe places, whether it’s their home, hospital, hotel or rented apartment,” he tells It’s Nice That, adding, “the very quiet portraits in pretty quiet places give the space for reflection and deepen the feeling of the hell that awaits these soldiers on the frontlines.”
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Deadline Wednesday April 9, 2025
A handful of Hollywood studios are earning money from fake AI-generated movie trailers on YouTube, reports Deadline. Against the wishes of the union representing actors, Warner Bros., Discovery, Paramount, and Sony Pictures redirected ad revenue to themselves instead of enforcing copyright protections, adds The Verge. In response, the SAG-AFTRA union has criticized the studios for profiting off videos that use AI to exploit their members’ likenesses without permission.
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By
David Schonauer Wednesday April 9, 2025
One hundred years ago, at a trade fair in Germany, an optical-instrument company from a small town near Frankfurt quietly launched a novel camera that one of its engineers, Oskar Barnack, had been
working on for more than a decade. That product, the Leica 1 Model A, was seen by many serious photographers as a pricey little toy because it used a thin strip … Read the full Story >>
