By Danica Kirka
The British Museum said Wednesday that a member of its staff has been dismissed after items dating back as far as the 15th century B.C. were found to be missing, stolen or damaged.
The museum said it has also ordered an independent review of security and a ‘‘vigorous program to recover the missing items.″
The stolen artifacts include gold jewelry and gems of semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15th century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. Most were small items kept in a storeroom and none had been on display recently, the museum said.
“Our priority is now threefold: first, to recover the stolen items; second, to find out what, if anything, could have been done to stop this; and third, to do whatever it takes, with investment in security and collection records, to make sure this doesn’t happen again,″ said George Osborne, the museum’s chair.
“This incident only reinforces the case for the reimagination of the museum we have embarked upon," Osborne said.
The museum said legal action would be taken against the dismissed staff member and that the matter was under investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police Service.
The 264-year-old British Museum is a major London tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the world who come to see a vast collection of artifacts ranging from the Rosetta Stone that unlocked the language of ancient Egypt to scrolls bearing 12th century Chinese poetry and masks created by the indigenous people of Canada.
But the museum has also attracted controversy because it has resisted calls from communities around the world to return items of historical significance that were acquired during the era of the British Empire. The most famous of these disputes include marble carvings from the Parthenon in Greece and the Benin bronzes from west Africa.
Hartwig Fischer, the director of the British Museum, apologized and said the institution was determined to put things right.
“This is a highly unusual incident,'' said Fischer said. “I know I speak for all colleagues when I say that we take the safeguarding of all the items in our care extremely seriously.''
The backlash from President Trump's meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin continued well into Tuesday, with politicians from both sides of the aisle condemning Trump. During his meeting with Putin on Monday, Trump seemed to side with the Russian President over U.S. intelligence officials on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Shares of Netflix tumbled after the company reported lower-than-expected subscriber growth in its quarterly earnings report on Monday. The streaming giant also missed Wall Street estimates on revenue and earnings per share.
And Jonathan Trager, CEO of Group Elephant, joins Cheddar to talk about his organization's mission to stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos in South Africa.
The home rental company partnered with the nonprofit to provide website knowledge and expertise, and to help the organization grow. "We started to touch on what I call 21st-century philanthropy, which is companies not only giving checks to help organizations but actually giving their time and their resources and their talents to go out and solve for problems in the world," says Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia.
The online travel company announced on Tuesday it will invest $500 million in the Chinese ride-hailing company, in a bid to get in on the country's booming tourism industry. "When you see the number of airports that China's building, that's another sign that the tourist area in China is going to continue to grow very strong. That's why we're invested there," says Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel. The two companies have also entered a partnership to offer their services on the other's apps.
A big priority for the company when introducing delivery was retaining quality. "We spent a year engineering proprietary packaging specifically designed just to protect the pancakes themselves, to make sure that they would transport well," says the chain's president Darren Rebelez in an interview with Cheddar. IHOP announced its partnership with DoorDash on Tuesday, coinciding with its 60th anniversary.
Shares of the streaming giant fell a day after the company announced it missed estimates for user growth and revenue in the second quarter. "I think Netflix is approaching a ceiling of subscriber growth, especially here in the U.S.," says Paul Verna, principal analyst of video at eMarketer. "They're going to have to do something bold and different."
The streaming player company introduced a set of wireless speakers to be integrated into the Roku system. “We know that when users sit down, and they stream their favorite shows or listen to music, if they’ve got great sound as a part of that, it’s just a more immersive experience,” says Mark Ely, vice president of product management for Roku.
In an era where many production companies are bringing back old TV hits, the "How I Met Your Mother" actor doesn't think there's a real future for Doogie Howser. "The whole conceit of that show was that he was a child who was a super smart doctor," Neil Patrick Harris tells Cheddar's Tim Stenovec.
The show, which features political figures like Bernie Sanders and Trent Lott, premiered last night on Showtime. While it taps into political and social issues like gun control, popular.info’s Editor in Chief Judd Legum doesn’t know if it will significantly affect the public’s attitudes. “I don’t think this is a complete game changer, but I do think that things like this can contribute into some of the changes and attitudes on guns."
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
*President Trump meets with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, Finland, days after the indictment of 12 Russian operatives for trying to disrupt the 2016 election.
*A federal judge blasts the HHS giving them one more week to reunite 2,000 families at the border after the administration missed the initial deadline.
*Protests erupted in Chicago over the weekend after a popular barber was shot and killed by the police.
*Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber won Wimbledon titles over the weekend. And France took home the World Cup.
Cheddar's Hope King gives us the details.
Despite last year's devastating box office summer and the growth of streaming, box office sales rebounded this summer. "Sometimes you actually want to go outside of the home," says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
