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Fifteen UK towns, including Basildon, Birkenhead, and Grimsby, have been shortlisted for the inaugural UK Town of Culture 2028. Each finalist receives £60,000 to develop bids, with three winners (small, medium, large) to be selected early next year. The overall winner gets £3 million for cultural events.

Actor Michael Sheen believes the Welsh public should be consulted on whether to retain the Prince of Wales title when vacant, citing its historical roots as a subjugation symbol.

Museum experts are lobbying to include fossils under the UK's Waverley criteria, which restrict the export of culturally significant items. The push follows a surge in private fossil collecting and high-profile sales of dinosaur specimens to international buyers.

London's Natural History Museum reopens a gallery closed since WWII on September 16, featuring 50 objects exploring humanity's relationship with nature as part of its NHM150 project.

Helen Cammock's video installation at the National Portrait Gallery, which referenced Winston Churchill's role in the 1943 Bengal famine, has been withdrawn following a dispute. Critics called the depiction "ideologically motivated," while the artist defended her work as an exploration of history.

Photographer Martin Parr's last project, a documentation of Lacock, Wiltshire, is on display at Lacock Abbey. The exhibition captures changes and constants in the village over 40 years, reflecting Parr's signature style of observing ordinary British life.

The entire jury of the Venice Biennale resigned just nine days before the prestigious art event's inauguration amid controversy over Russia's return for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The jury cited its previous decision not to consider countries whose leaders are charged with crimes against humanity for prizes—meaning Russia and Israel. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the government did not share the decision to allow Russia. The EU had already pulled a two million Euro grant over Russia's participation, which it called morally wrong.