Kensal Rise library was opened by Mark Twain in 1900 -- and how it could do with the support of the great American man of letters now to fight off its threatened extinction as government cuts bite.

The red-brick Victorian building has closed its doors and will be shut down permanently unless a determined campaign organized by the residents of the multi-ethnic district of north London can save it.

One hundred years ago Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen won the race to the South Pole in a dramatic and ultimately fatal duel with British adventurer Robert Scott that captured the world's attention.

On December 14, 1911, not long before the outbreak of World War I as nationalism was on the rise in Europe, Amundsen and the four members of his team were the first to plant the Norwegian flag at the southernmost tip of the globe.

The United States has returned a gold monkey head to Peru dating back to the Moche civilization that flourished in northern Peru from the second to eighth centuries, officials said Friday.

The gold pendant, which was returned Thursday during a repatriation ceremony at the Peruvian Embassy in Washington, had been exhibited for years at the Museum of New Mexico, Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. It had been donated by private collector John Bourne.

A brass desk set inscribed "AH" and used by Adolf Hitler at the signing of the Munich Pact, which preceded World War II, has sold for $423,000, a U.S. auction house said.

The ceremonial desk set, including ink wells and the Nazi crest of an eagle and swastika, had been expected to fetch at least half a million dollars.

Artists pore over their computers -- drawing up work experience and not sketches -- in a rigorous "boot camp" inspired by Nelson Mandela that combines practical business sense with talent.

The five students are in a six-week residency in the isolated hills of Qunu at the Nelson Mandela Museum, overlooking the icon's childhood home where he has been living for the last four months.

A recently attributed painting by 17th century Spanish artist Diego Velazquez sold at auction in London on Wednesday for £3 million ($4.7 million, 3.5 million euros), Bonhams auction house announced.

"Portrait of a Gentleman" -- a painting of a bald, middle-aged man with a moustache wearing a collar similar to those worn by men in the 1600s -- was bought by a US art dealer for a price within the auction house's estimate.

Artists pore over their computers -- drawing up work experience and not sketches -- in a rigorous "boot camp" inspired by Nelson Mandela that combines practical business sense with talent.

The five students are in a six-week residency in the isolated hills of Qunu at the Nelson Mandela Museum, overlooking the icon's childhood home where he has been living for the last four months.

One of Paris's top theaters was bracing Thursday for a showdown with Catholic extremists vowing to disrupt the opening of "Golgota Picnic", a virulent on-stage attack on consumerism and religion.

French fundamentalist Catholics have been waging a sometimes violent campaign of protests in recent months against works they perceive as blasphemous, picketing plays and pelting theatre-goers with eggs.

Tattooed mummies in ancient Egypt, Crusaders who branded their foreheads with crosses, and New Zealand's inked Maori warriors were fodder for an unusual conference at a Vatican university Tuesday on the role of tattoos in shaping identity.

"Into the Skin: identity, symbols and history of permanent body marks" was the brainchild of a Christian arts association and Israel's ambassador to the Holy See, an unlikely expert in the field given Judaism's prohibition of tattooing and the painful role that tattooed serial numbers played in the Holocaust.

Mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years ago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalem have archaeologists stumped.

Israeli diggers who uncovered a complex of rooms carved into the bedrock in the oldest section of the city recently found the markings: Three "V'' shapes cut next to each other into the limestone floor of one of the rooms, about 2 inches (5 centimeters) deep and 20 inches (50 centimeters) long. There were no finds to offer any clues pointing to the identity of who made them or what purpose they served.