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If you got the uncanny feeling, while visiting the High Desert Art Fair (HDAF) last weekend, that you were on a movie set, that’s because, in a way, you were. The event took place in California’s High Desert, at the Pioneertown Motel, built in 1946 by Gene Autry and Roy Rogers to simulate a Western town on screen. It’s located a couple of hours’ drive (if you time it right) from Los Angeles; about an hour from Palm Springs, with its thriving artistic and design communities; and 30 minutes from the positively magical Joshua Tree National Park. HDAF, which hosted 20 galleries, nonprofits, studios, and publishers, is in its fifth year, and its second at the Pioneertown Motel (it previously occupied assorted Airbnbs).  Also a bit unreal to me was how such a successful art fair, with plentiful visitors streaming through all day Saturday, could be going on in such an out-of-the-way place, but it’s not as far out of the way as you might think.  HDAF, which ran March 28-29, is the ...

By Gregor Paul II Two years after leaving Hnry Stadium because of declining attendance and rising costs, the Wellington Lions have once again been seeking a permanent home venue for the 2026 NPC season. The Lions could no longer use Jerry Collins Stadium in Porirua, as the Wellington Centurions, effectively the Wellington B side, have...

The latest in a series of politically inflected sculptures to appear on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is a giant golden toilet that can now be found near the Lincoln Memorial. Its title, as its plaque states, is A Throne Fit for a King , and its makers is the Secret Handshake, the same group of anonymous artists that also produced Best Friends Forever , a sculpture that featured a beaming Donald Trump and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “With so much horror happening on a daily basis, it’s easy to forget what this President has actually accomplished. Like remodeling  The Lincoln Bathroom ,” the Secret Handshake told ARTnews in an email. The group was referring to Trump’s renovation last year of the bathroom attached to the Lincoln Bedroom, a guest room at the White House. At Trump’s behest, the bathroom’s Art Deco–style green tiling was switched out for sterile marble, leading to online mockery. Trump said on Truth Social that the gesture was “appropriate...

For centuries, drawings and prints were collected and exhibited together, with the blurry distinction between the two sometimes dissolving altogether. The upcoming IFPDA Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory (April 9–12) will offer an illuminating exploration of this relationship, with 80 exhibitors from Singapore to Stockholm (including blue chip galleries Hauser & Wirth, Pace Prints, and David Zwirner) presenting 500 years of drawings, prints, and editions to train your eye and, perhaps, tempt your wallet.  Related Articles Pace Prints Heads West With a Hollywood Hub, a Chuck Close Deep Dive, and a Case for Why Prints Matter Now International Fine Print Dealers Association Expands Its Mandate, Adding Drawing Dealers for First Time This year marks a milestone for the IFPDA, which recently rebranded itself as the International Fine Prints & Drawings Association. Longtime members like Hill-Stone, David Tunick, Inc., and William Shearburn Gallery will be ...

The 2026 Wellington club rugby season kicks off this coming Saturday. The season starts with the opening round of the Premier Swindale Shield, Premier 2 Harper Lock Shield and Colts competitions. A mix of historical and recent stats and updated records is collated below.  97 – The number of Jubilee Cups contested. First won in 1929...

Volatus Aerospace is sharpening its strategic edge with the appointment of Major General (Retired) Gary Deakin CBE to its advisory board—a move that underscores the company’s growing ambitions in the aerospace and defence sectors. A veteran of NATO with a distinguished military career, Deakin brings decades of operational and strategic experience to the role. His background reflects a deep understanding of defence planning and execution, positioning him to support Volatus as it continues to expand its capabilities and influence across both domestic and international markets. The appointment signals a deliberate step by Volatus to integrate high-level military expertise into its leadership framework. As the company advances its work in government and defence-related projects, Deakin’s insights are expected to strengthen advisory services and open new pathways for collaboration—particularly in areas aligned with evolving national and allied security priorities. Volatus has steadily b...

Canada is doubling down on one of the most critical—and increasingly contested—domains in modern defence: cybersecurity. With a $3.6 million investment from Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED), the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) is set to become a key node in strengthening the resilience of Canada’s defence supply chains. Announced on March 24, 2026, the non-repayable contribution—delivered under the Regional Defence Investment Initiative (RDII) for Quebec—signals a targeted push to bolster regional innovation capacity while reinforcing national security priorities. The funding will support UQO in expanding its ability to develop and transfer cybersecurity technologies, directly addressing the growing threat landscape facing defence-related industries. At the core of the initiative is the creation of a defence-standard cybersecurity laboratory. Designed as a secure and immersive environment, the lab will allow businesses to test their systems against realis...

The Office of the Procurement Ombud (OPO) has found significant compliance gaps in the federal program for directing contracts to Indigenous businesses. Since 2022, federal departments have been required to ensure that at least 5% of the total value of their annual contracts are awarded to Indigenous businesses. The OPO’s review of four departments and 27 set-aside contracts found the program lacks the centralized policy, enforcement mechanisms, and accountability structures to reliably meet that commitment. Key findings include the absence of a centralized Indigenous procurement policy, inconsistent departmental practices including skipped pre-award audits and failure to verify supplier eligibility, no recourse mechanism for Indigenous suppliers challenging contract awards, and a reporting methodology that overstates actual economic benefit by including work performed by non-Indigenous subcontractors. The Ombud made three recommendations: develop a government-wide Indigenous Procur...

Guillaume Cerutti, the former CEO of Christie’s auction house, has left his position at the Pinault Collection after just 13 months, the French investigative news outlet Glitz reported earlier this week. In February 2025, Cerutti became president of the collection owned by French billionaire François Pinault. In addition to the 10,000 works in its holdings, the Pinault Collection also maintains several private museums: the Bourse de Commerce in Paris and the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, which regularly stage exhibitions. The Paris location opened in 2021, while the Venice outposts opened in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Pinault also owns Venice’s Teatrino, a 225-seat auditorium that reopened in 2013 after a renovation by Tadao Ando, who also worked on the other two Venice spaces. Neither Cerutti nor the Pinault Collection has commented on his departure, with a spokesperson telling the Art Newspaper there are no plans to appoint a new president or an interim....

Hong Kong may be halfway through Mega 8, the city’s new name for its months-long lineup of major arts, culture, and sporting events, but the undoubted highlight is this week’s Art Basel Hong Kong. The fair has become a must-attend for locals and a major draw for international visitors, with attendance reaching 80,400 in 2024 and 86,500 last year. As such, it is no surprise that the city has signed a new agreement with Art Basel to ensure it remains the region’s sole host for another five years. Rosanna Law, the special administrative region’s culture secretary, announced the deal on Wednesday, which calls for Art Basel to expand the fair in both scale and impact. “We will actively complement the Art Basel fair with top-tier cultural performances and Hong Kong’s mega events, so that attending collectors and art appreciators can experience our city’s unique cultural atmosphere and its charms,” she said , according to Radio Television Hong Kong. While Law confirmed that the fair will ...

Representatives from eighteen countries gathered in Montreal on March 23 to begin drafting the charter for the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank , a new multilateral institution designed to mobilize private capital for defence and security investment across allied nations. The negotiations, which ran March 23 to 26, mark the first in-person round of charter talks. Isabelle Hudon, President and CEO of the Business Development Bank of Canada, is serving as Canada’s lead negotiator. The DSRB would provide long-term, low-cost financing for defence and security initiatives, with particular focus on the capital gaps that constrain governments and industry suppliers, including small and medium-sized enterprises operating within complex, long-cycle procurement environments. The institution is designed to work alongside existing national and multilateral financing mechanisms rather than replace them. The bank’s structure is designed to address a core financing gap among NATO allies. Acco...

After 16 years helping build one of the most powerful galleries in the world, Cristopher Canizares is stepping away from Hauser & Wirth to try something the art market still hasn’t quite figured out how to define: an artist management agency. The longtime partner will leave at the end of May to launch the Artist Legacy Bureau, a tightly run operation focused on long-term career strategy. He plans to work with a small group of artists—around five or six—keeping the model intentionally narrow and hands-on. Canizares announced his intention to leave just over a week ago, with the support of Hauser & Wirth president Marc Payot, who described him as a “trusted colleague” and “powerful advocate” for the gallery’s artists and program. Payot added that the gallery expects to remain in close collaboration with Canizares in his next chapter. Over more than a decade at Hauser & Wirth, Canizares cycled through roles spanning sales, artist management, and exhibition planning. What s...

Barry Cull was Wellington’s first choice halfback for several seasons from the second half of the 1950s to the early 1960s. Cull played for the Athletic club and was a leading player and personality in Wellington club rugby throughout this time in the competition. He was known to have a swift, accurate pass and a...

If you want to see one of Peter Paul Rubens’s beloved paintings in the Marie de’ Medici cycle, head to the Louvre before the fall. After that, these canvases, considered by some to be the high watermark of Rubens’s career, will be off view for four years. The reason they will leave the public eye for so long is a restoration project that was announced by the Louvre on Tuesday. In its release about the project, the Paris museum called the initiative “the most ambitious restoration in the history of the Department of Paintings.” Composed of 24 paintings that all hang together in one dedicated gallery, the paintings were commissioned in 1621 by Marie de’ Medici, the queen to France’s Henry IV and a member of the Italian family whose patronage shaped European art history during the time of the Renaissance and the age of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters. The paintings narrate the princess’ life, though in typically Baroque fashion, they are heightened portrayals of real events, replete with...

Celebrating community rugby 2016-25 in highlights. As we continue to go through our library of highlights clips, part 12 of this series for the first part of 2026 is looking at a compilation of tries that were scored from broken play or by threading through defenders on the way to the chalk zone. See below...

A 15th-century altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini in Venice’s vaunted Gallerie dell’Accademia will be restored behind glass—giving viewers a chance to peer in and follow the process—over a two-year period estimated to cost €500,000 (around $580,000). The work will be conducted in what the Gallerie Dell’Accademia described as “a construction site open to the public that will allow visitors to closely follow all the phases of the conservation of this masterpiece.” Painted between 1478 and the late 1480s, the so-called San Giobbe Altarpiece marks “a decisive turning point in the evolution of the Venetian altarpiece, according to the Gallerie dell-Accademia, which has undertaken the restoration in collaboration with the international non-profit Venetian Heritage. (The work’s official title, for the record: Madonna and Child Enthroned with Musician Angels and Saints Francis, John the Baptist, Job, Dominic, Sebastian, and Louis of Toulouse .) As reported in Artnet News , the altarpiece was...

Documents in the Justice Department’s release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein appear to show ties between the financier and convicted sex offender and a New York art collector and magazine publisher, and her developer-investor husband. Lisa Fayne Cohen and her husband, Jimmy Cohen—founder, CEO, and chairman of the real estate and development firm Hudson Capital Properties—were in close contact with Epstein in 2015 and early 2016, long after his crimes were a matter of public knowledge, according to emails released in the so-called Epstein Files, which began to be released in December. There is no indication in the files of any wrongdoing on either’s part. In one email exchange, Lisa Cohen was laying the groundwork for the launch of Galerie magazine. Not long after, Epstein’s Paris apartment appeared anonymously on the cover of the magazine’s second issue, in fall 2016, and in an extensive spread inside. The Cohens began collecting art in 2009 with a work by French modernist Fe...

Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, on the banks of the Nile River, is one of the most popular travel destinations in the world. Newly translated graffiti reveals just how long visitors have come from far and wide to this region, and felt compelled to mark their presence by inscribing their names on the walls of tombs. Earlier this month, Live Science reported on the findings from a February conference held in Chennai, India, that translated several examples of 2,000-year-old graffiti found on the walls of six Egyptian tombs. The newly translated texts—in Old Tamil, Sanskrit, and Kharosti—are from around the 1st to 3rd centuries CE. There is also evidence of Greek and Roman inscriptions on Egyptian tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Archaeologists have been aware of the presence of graffiti since the 19th century, but the texts weren’t translated until recently. On individual, Cikai Korran, wrote his name eight times in Old Tamil, in five tombs, stating “Cikai Korran came here and saw.” ...

Archeologists working near Luxor have uncovered 22 painted wooden coffins containing mummies, according to the Daily News Egypt , which reported the news in February. The well-preserved sarcophagi date to Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period (1077–664 BCE). The archeological mission, which was affiliated with the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Zahi Hawass Foundation for Heritage and Antiquities, also found a group of eight papyrus scrolls, some with their seals intact, in a pottery jar. The discovery was made during excavation work at a previously known tomb in the Theban Necropolis, a site on the Nile’s west bank where rulers, officials, and nobles were interred during Egypt’s Pharaonic period. The presence of mummies in the coffins makes the find particularly significant, with Zahi Hawass, head of the mission, saying it provides new insights into the Third Intermediate Period. Crowded into a rock-cut chamber, the sarcophagi were separated from their lids and stacked to save ...

As the strategic environment evolves and the boundaries of conflict extend beyond land, sea, and air, space is rapidly emerging as a critical domain for national security. For Canada, safeguarding that domain is no longer optional—it is essential. In a move that underscores this reality, the Defence Investment Agency (DIA) has awarded a $32-million contract to MDA Space of Richmond, British Columbia, to deliver a ground-based optical capability for the Surveillance of Space 2 (SofS 2) project. The announcement, made by the Honourable Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State (Defence Procurement), signals a decisive step forward in Canada’s effort to strengthen space domain awareness while advancing its broader Defence Industrial Strategy. At its core, the investment is about visibility—ensuring Canada can see, understand, and respond to activity in an increasingly contested orbital environment. Building a Ground-Based Space Surveillance Network By 2028, MDA Space will establish three remo...