In brief

Manchester Art Gallery and the Gallery of Costume at Platt Hall are open seven days a week for the first time. Manchester Art Gallery is also extending its opening hours until 9pm every Thursday, so that it can host social activities and live music. A spokesman for the city council said the extended opening times would benefit tourists and residents, and give more children and young people a chance to visit.


Two suspects have been charged following the theft of 18 Chinese carvings, worth an estimated £10m, from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge on 13 April.

Officers believe that up to four men were involved and have released CCTV footage of a white Volkswagen Caddy van seen near the museum on the evening of the burglary, which is believed to have been stolen in east London on 7 April.

optundra@cambs.pnn.police.uk


Three men have appeared in court charged with stealing an 18th-century jade bowl and a porcelain figurine from Durham University’s Oriental Museum on 5 April. Two women have been charged with assisting them. The Chinese artefacts, which are worth about £2m, were found undamaged in a field.


The Whitechapel Gallery’s chief curator, Achim Borchardt-Hume, has been appointed head of exhibitions at Tate Modern.He will oversee the gallery’s exhibitions, commissions and live-events programme, as well as developing the new spaces being created by the Tate Modern Project.