A family row has broken out over an auction of George Michael memorabilia taking place on Thursday. The guitar played by the singer-songwriter in the Faith music video is one of several items being auctioned by Sworders from the collection of Siobhan Bailey, Michael's long-time personal assistant. Siobhan died in 2014 and the items are being sold by her estranged husband Ian Belcher, who inherited them after her death. Gerard Bailey, Siobhan's brother, told the BBC she would be horrified at the prospect of the auction being held in her name and that her personal, cherished possessions are being sold off to the highest bidder. Both Sworders and Belcher declined to comment.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif announced today a significant expansion of the Institute's programs in learning research and online and digital education -- from pre-kindergarten through residential higher education and lifelong learning -- that fulfills a number of recommendations made in 2014 by the Institute-Wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education. Most notably, Reif announced the creation of the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative (MITili), to be led by Professor John Gabrieli, and a new effort to increase MIT's ability to improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning by students from pre-kindergarten through high school (pK-12), to be led by Professor Angela Belcher. The announcement also included a program to support faculty innovations in MIT residential education and new work to enhance MIT's continuing education programs. In keeping with the high priority of these new efforts and of the entire field of digital learning, Professor Sanjay Sarma, now dean of digital learning, will oversee them in the newly created position of vice president for open learning, reporting directly to Reif. Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, who will share responsibility with Sarma for several aspects of this work, predicts that the programs announced today will have "far-reaching and tremendous implications for education -- for MIT students as well as for students not at MIT."