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he wealthiest people often have extremely complicated, long-standing financial arrangements, including philanthropic planning that could negate any benefits for donating more under a billionaire’s tax.

Owens also noted that current tax law caps charitable deductions at 60 percent of adjusted gross income. If that provision remains in effect, wealthy people who hit that cap even before a billionaire tax is imposed may see no tax benefit from additional giving,

Economists who study taxes on the ultra wealthy say they think people overestimate the impact of new taxes on charitable giving.

“Sometimes people get the false impression that philanthropy actually is a roundabout way to save money on taxes that exceeds the cost of the gift, and that just isn’t true,” says Duquette. “If you give your money away, then even if you do get some tax benefits, you still have less wealth than you did when you started, so that’s not really a reason why philanthropists do philanthropy.”

Rural four-day students generally learned as much as rural five-day day students. Statistically, both groups’ test scores rose by about the same amount every year.

small town and suburban students who switched to four-day weeks were far worse off than other students in the state

One possible explanation, Morton says, is sports. Many rural athletes and young student fans leave school early on Fridays or skip school altogether because of the great distances to travel to away games. In effect, many five-day students are only getting four-days of instruction in rural America.

The four-day work week is an attractive work perk in rural America that may lure better teachers.

By this theory, four-day schools may make it easier to hire better teachers, who could accomplish in four days what a less skilled teacher accomplishes in five days.

five-day weeks have their own drawbacks in rural America: hidden absences, skipped lessons and lower quality teachers.

Hispanic students, who accounted for one out of every six rural students in this study, suffered much more from four-day weeks than white students did. (Native American students, who made up one of every 10 rural students, did relatively better with the four-day week.)

biggest surprise to me in this review of the research is how tiny the cost savings are: 1 to 2 percent.  It does save some money not to run the heat or buses one day a week, but the largest expenses, teacher salaries, stay the same.

a key turning point there occurred in 2019, amid growing public pressure.

a rising awareness in Germany of its own colonial crimes — including the killing of tens of thousands of Nama and Herero people in what is now Namibia. The atrocity, carried out between 1904 and 1908, is widely seen as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Until then, the main vehicle for discussing the return of the Benin Bronzes had been the Benin Dialogue Group, a network founded in 2010 that brought together Nigerian representatives and figures from European museums with bronzes in their collections. The group, however, favored loans over transfers of ownership.

The agreement stipulated that all objects that had been obtained “unethically” would be liable for return and directed institutions to facilitate claims by producing publicly available inventories.

obstacles remained on the Nigerian side. Although the country had requested the return of the bronzes since the 1970s, there was conflict over who would take ownership of the artifacts. Both the Nigerian government and the oba of Benin, whose family ruled the historical Kingdom of Benin from which they were looted, claimed that they owned the items. Godwin Obaseki, the governor of Edo State, where Benin City is, said he acted as a facilitator to resolve the dispute.

Ultimately, he said, the oba’s family, Nigeria’s museum commission and the government of Edo State agreed to join a trust together, with independent directors that oversee the construction and operation of the new museum.

the agreement allows for 168 pieces chosen by Nigeria’s museum commission to remain in Germany “so that Benin’s art can be shown to the world.” The approximately 350 other bronzes that were part of the Berlin museum collections will be transported to Nigeria once the pavilion is completed.

Edo Museum of West African Art

It remains unclear who will pay for the shipment and insurance of the remaining items in Germany, and he noted that the bronzes’ storage and upkeep will come at a considerable cost, including electrical bills for climate control.