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Daily digest: Half of Puerto Rico was without power, billionaires are enlarging their flood-prone beach houses, and more

Beachy Keen

Daily digest: Half of Puerto Rico was without power, billionaires are enlarging their flood-prone beach houses, and more

San Juan, Puerto Rico, pictured in 2019. (Stephanie Klepacki/Unsplash)

Welcome back to another Friday roundup of what’s going on in the world today. From climate catastrophes to the creation of a new NYC nightlife museum, there’s something for everyone to read through.

Here’s what you need to know today:

After fire and a cyberattack, Puerto Rico grapples with island-wide blackouts

Luma Energy, the private company that took over as Puerto Rico’s central power authority only 10 days ago, is already in hot water. An explosion at the Monacillo substation in San Juan left over 800,000 residents without power yesterday, June 10, the same day Luma’s website was hit with a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) that overloaded their servers and left customers unable to access account information. Luma has apologized, but critics are railing against the company, especially at a time when COVID-19 vaccines must be kept refrigerated to maintain their efficacy.

H/t to NPR

Nintendo is opening a museum in Kyoto

Nintendo is digging up its roots and putting them on display for the world to see. The gaming giant announced on June 2 that it would be converting its Nintendo Uji Ogura Plant in Kyoto, Japan, formerly a playing card factory (Nintendo has been in the game since 1889) into a new museum to showcase the company’s historic products. The factory has sat unused since 2016, and the forthcoming “Nintendo Gallery” is expected to open sometime before March of 2024.

H/t to the AV Club

Manhattan’s Museum of Arts and Design names a new director

Timothy R. Rodgers, currently the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of the Phoenix Art Museum, has been named as the new director of the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Manhattan. Rodgers will assume his new position starting September 15, 2021.

“Tim brings two decades of museum leadership experience to MAD and a lifelong passion for the intersection of art, design, and craft,” said MAD Board Chair Michele Cohen in a press release. “He clearly understands and has demonstrated his ability to realize the critical cultural, educational, and civic roles that museums play in their communities. Tim has proven himself to be both a visionary and pragmatic leader, bringing the three museums that he led to new levels of public, educational, and scholarly impact and performance.”

NYC’s Office of Nightlife wants its own museum

New York never sleeps, and now its Office of Nightlife wants to make sure everybody knows it. The relatively new agency, established in 2018, is floating the creation of a new museum that would highlight the historic nightlife locales that have made the city’s after-hours activities legendary.

H/t to The Wall Street Journal

Florida billionaires are shrugging off climate change

Palm Beach is a Florida town struggling to survive climate change-exacerbated flooding and coastal storms, but you wouldn’t know it from the blasé attitude its resident billion- and millionaires. According to a survey from Bloomberg, waterfront prices are soaring and ultra-wealthy residents are still arriving, building whatever they want by the water’s edge, and if their new homes are ruined? They’ll just move elsewhere.

H/t to Bloomberg

Hauser & Wirth teams with Selldorf Architects for its second SoCal gallery

Contrary to rumors that Hauser & Worth was decamping from its Los Angeles outpost, the international gallery is actually expanding into West Hollywood. The contemporary gallery revealed that it had tapped New York’s Selldorf Architects to design the new 10,800-square-foot space, which, from photos, will sit inside of a spacious brick building topped with a bowed timber roof. It’s expected the new WeHo offshoot will open in the fall of 2022.

H/t to the Los Angeles Times

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