Carhartt announces $375,000 grant to 15 high school via skilled trades nonprofit

Woodworking Network: Carhartt has announce a $375,000 grant through its "For the Love of Labor" program to the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER), a nonprofit leader in skilled trades workforce development.

15 New Milwaukee Tools & Products For Construction Jobs Coming In 2026

www.slashgear.com: Milwaukee might have one of the most comprehensive tool and accessory lineups on the market, but the brand doesn't rest on its laurels. It already showed off a collection of exciting new products that are set to launch in early 2026, and at World of Concrete, Milwaukee previewed even more brand-new products that are on the way soon.

The Bafta film awards are going greener – but some climate problems are hiding off camera

theconversation.com: The Bafta film awards are brilliant at making film feel like it matters. The clothes, the cameras, the applause, the shared cultural moment. That spectacle is the point. But it also has a climate shadow. Not just from the night itself, but from the behaviour it effectively rewards and normalises in the weeks around it.

Young Martial Artists Perform a Spectacular Traditional Dance in Perfect Sync With Humanoid Robots

laughingsquid.com: During the 2026 CMG Spring Festival Gala in Beijing, a group of very talented young martial artists performed a spectacular dance in perfect synchronization with a group of elaborately costumed humanoid robots.

Record scratch—Google's Lyria 3 AI music model is coming to Gemini today

Ars Technica: The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called music “the universal language of mankind.” Is that still true when the so-called music is being generated by a probabilistic robot instead of a human? We’re about to find out. Google has announced its latest Lyria 3 AI model is being deployed in the Gemini app, vastly expanding access to AI music generation.

WOOD Taiwan to showcase sustainability solutions

Woodworking Network: Sustainability is a global imperative in the woodworking industry. Net-zero goals along with smart and energy-efficient production, are helping redefine wood products manufacturing.

Google Rolls Out Nano Banana 2, Now Faster Than Ever

gizmodo.com: Get ready to check the corners of images you see on social media for the Gemini watermark so you can figure out if it’s fake or not. On Thursday, Google announced that it is rolling out Nano Banana 2, the latest version of its image generation model, which the company claims comes imbued with “advanced world knowledge” and “precision text rendering and translation.”

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Announces 2026–2027 Season, “Escape Into Wonder”

onstagepittsburgh.com: Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre has unveiled its 2026–2027 season, Escape Into Wonder, a five-program lineup running October 2026 through May 2027. The season features four full-length narrative ballets and one mixed-repertory program, combining classical works, a world premiere, and contemporary creations.

Why Those Post-Show Diner Trips Meant Everything

OnStage Blog: Theatre people understand that post-show hunger is not normal hunger. It is a full body emergency. You just spent two hours singing, dancing, quick-changing, carrying set pieces, pretending to die, or all of the above. Of course you need mozzarella sticks at 12:14 a.m. Be serious.

NFTRW Weekly Top Five

Here are the top five comment generating posts of the past week: 

Disney World's Villains Land Is Pivoting Away From Scaring Kids

gizmodo.com: When Disney announced it was going to build a villains-themed section at Magic Kingdom in Florida, it was a little hard to get your head around. Villains, of course, are a key part of Disney’s legacy. You can’t have heroes without them, and people absolutely love them. But villains also suggest darkness, evil, and fear. Not exactly emotions you want in a theme park. So what, exactly, was this land dedicated to villains going to be?

Paddington Bear costume designer ‘overwhelmed’ by response to musical’s puppet

Yahoo News Canada: Costume and creature effects designer Tahra Zafar has worked on a number of productions and national events, including the 2012 London Olympics where she met the late Queen to design a replica wig for a stunt double for a James Bond sketch.

Olaf animatronic coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios

attractionsmagazine.com: The Olaf figure will be part of Olaf Draws!, a new attraction debuting inside The Magic of Disney Animation. Disney revealed Olaf Draws! on Feb. 23, 2026, following the initial summer 2025 announcement of The Magic of Disney Animation at large.

Black Actress Sues Harvard Theater Over Horrific Hair Experience

www.theroot.com: Her story revolves around the 2025 production of “The Odyssey” that was taking place at Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. While there, Imoru said she was made to get cornrows in her hair as required for her role.

How to Fill a Clown Car (Lessons from Julia Proctor’s Clown Gym)

HowlRound Theatre Commons: New York City, 2021. Isolated, over-snacked, and starved for a creative community, I joined a virtual playwriting group. I was writing an existential dark comedy (as one does during a pandemic-induced lockdown) and thought, this play has clowns. Where do I find those?

 

When Beck Did Beckett: The Last Days of a Living Theater Cofounder

AMERICAN THEATRE: He would perform in one final serious theatre work, a Beckett play, That Time, at La MaMa, directed by Gerald Thomas, who was making his mark in the downtown theatre world and created a significant event by bringing together three well-known actors of the avant-garde—Julian Beck, George Bartenieff, and Fred Neumann—in three short American premieres by Beckett.

How “Tell Me Lies” Costuming Captures the Unraveling of Girlhood

www.harpersbazaar.com: Perhaps the hardest task for any costume designer is to make the clothes feel invisible. What’s more challenging still is to do so using a collection of coconut bras, fur-trimmed coats, and low-rise True Religion jeans. But for an all-too-relatable portrayal of college years, rich with friendship fallouts, toxic relationships, academic stress, and family drama, crafting looks that feel as real as the emotions behind each scene is crucial. Just ask Tell Me Lies costume designer Charlotte Svenson.

Far-right character’s monologue prompts violent scenes at German theatre

Germany | The Guardian: An actor at a theatre in Germany was at the weekend shouted down, pelted with fruit and subjected to an attempted stage invasion as he delivered a final monologue in character as a far-right activist. The violent scenes came on Saturday during the German premiere of the Portuguese playwright Tiago Rodrigues’s work Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia.

The end of experimentation with AI agents

Fast Company: For the last several years, enterprises have treated AI as something to test. A pilot here, a proof of concept there. That era is ending. According to new global DeepL research, a survey of 5,000 global executives on the impact of AI agents reshaping business, 69% expect AI agents to fundamentally change how their companies operate in 2026. Nearly half anticipate major transformation, while another quarter say that change is already underway.

Martha Graham Took Classic Ballet and Turned It Into Modern Dance. It’s Still Moving Us 100 Years Later

www.smithsonianmag.com: This past fall, in a sunlit studio in Manhattan’s West village, the Martha Graham Dance Company was rehearsing a production of Cave of the Heart, a fiery one-act ballet created in 1946.

Q&A: Hybrid conference explores the potential of VR theatre in Canada

Intermission Magazine: A conference exploring digital and mixed-reality Canadian performance is happening in Vancouver. And Kingston. And Toronto. And online. Across these settings, Single Thread Theatre’s Performance and Extended Realities Conference (PXR) features a mix of live performances, interactive digital presentations, and technical deep dives, as well as virtual and in-person installations.

Disney World's Villains Land Is Pivoting Away From Scaring Kids

gizmodo.com: When Disney announced it was going to build a villains-themed section at Magic Kingdom in Florida, it was a little hard to get your head around. Villains, of course, are a key part of Disney’s legacy. You can’t have heroes without them, and people absolutely love them. But villains also suggest darkness, evil, and fear. Not exactly emotions you want in a theme park. So what, exactly, was this land dedicated to villains going to be?

Black Actress Sues Harvard Theater Over Horrific Hair Experience

www.theroot.com: Her story revolves around the 2025 production of “The Odyssey” that was taking place at Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. While there, Imoru said she was made to get cornrows in her hair as required for her role.

If you have federal student loan debt, here's what experts want you to know

PBS News: With the passage of President Donald Trump's signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, the repayment landscape will look substantially different for new borrowers starting July 1, more so than for existing borrowers who are grandfathered into older plans for two more years.

Live Nation to Operate New Amphitheater in Cleveland

www.ticketnews.com: Bedrock and Rock Entertainment Group have unveiled plans for a 6,200-seat outdoor amphitheater along downtown Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, marking the first new large-scale music venue built in the city in more than two decades.