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Amid a broad crisis in higher education in the US resulting from demographic trends and a combative Trump administration, enrollment at New York’s School of Visual Arts (SVA) is down some 34 percent since 2019, and the school faces a $22 million structural budget deficit, “the largest in its nearly 80-year history,” according to a previously unreported July 1 email to faculty and staff from interim president Christopher J. Cyphers. The school’s annual operating budget is around $200 million. SVA is largely dependent on tuition; full-time tuition is $55,270 annually for the coming school year. The drop in enrollment is partly due to the so-called demographic cliff, a plunge in enrollment resulting from a drop in birth rates in the US at the advent of the Great Recession, starting around the end of 2007. The email also puts the crisis partly down to “the ongoing dismantling of education and the arts by the federal government, and an onslaught of threats to ...

Pacific health leaders recognised for decades of service and leadership at the Pasifika Medical Association’s 30th anniversary conference. Photo: Pasifika Medical Association Members of the health sector were recognised for their decades of service and leadership with a commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Pacific communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.  As part of the Pasifika Medical Association (PMA) 30th anniversary conference held in Auckland this week, PMA honoured 13  health leaders and advocates with Life Member and Service Awards and President’s Medals. PMA Chief Executive Debbie Sorensen says the awards are an important opportunity to acknowledge the people whose service has helped shape Pacific health over generations. “Leadership in Pacific health has always been grounded in service. These awards recognise our outstanding leaders who have given their knowledge, expertise, time and leadership to our communities, often over many decades.”...

Above: Thumbs up to Ma’a Nonu, who will wear the #23 jersey for the Sharks against the All Blacks on Wednesday at 5.00am at Durban.  Monday morning edition (updates expected): It’s school finals week in Wellington, with the schoolgirls finals at Porirua Park on Wednesday evening, Premier 2 and lower grade boys college finals at...

A Pablo Picasso etching stolen from Milwuakee’s DeLind Art Appraisals in 2018 was handed over to the city’s plice department on Thursday, according to a press release . The etching and aquatint printed in ink on paper, titled Torero , is the ninth in an edition of 30. When it was stolen in 2018, Bill DeLind told news organizations that it was worth between $35,000 and $50,000. “It was like, ‘Oh my God,” DeLind told local news station 12 News on Thursday. “I never thought I’d see this again. And there it was.” In 2018, DeLind described the work as having “walked off the wall,” telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he did not see anyone in the business on the day the work disappeared, and that the office did not have security cameras. At one point, police offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the work’s whereabouts, but that offer expired in 2019. Police broug...

The federal government has conditionally sold ten CC-130H Hercules aircraft to Coulson Aviation (Canada) Ltd. of Port Alberni, British Columbia, giving the retired military transports a second life as aerial firefighting platforms. The deal Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State (Defence Procurement), announced the sale today on behalf of Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement. Coulson plans to convert, maintain and operate the aircraft for wildfire response once they clear Transport Canada certification for civil use. The ten aircraft come from a fleet of 12 CC-130H Hercules the Royal Canadian Air Force retired in January 2026. The remaining two will go on public display at bases and museums across the country instead of returning to service. The sale runs through GCMil, the Public Services and Procurement Canada group that handles surplus military asset sales on National Defence’s behalf. It remains conditional on complete...

A new megalithic funerary monument, one of the many so-called “Giants’ Tombs” scattered around Sardinia, has been uncovered in the central part of the Italian island. The Bronze Age tomb was discovered at Carrarzu Iddia, an archaeological site near the town of Macomer, as reported in Finestra Sull’Arte . The excavation was overseen by two local archaeology and fine art organizations, who were already working in the area. This tomb, and others in Sardinia, was built as a collective burial site around 1800 BCE by the Nuragic people. It was previously unknown due to thick vegetation and other debris concealing the structure, made up of a burial chamber and a semicircular exedra, or an area by the entrance, where members of the  Nuragic civilization would gather to worship their ancestors. Over time, this element would become a recognizable feature of Nuragic funerary architecture. One particular detail stood out to the archaeologists overseeing this e...