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Over 100 Japanese Students Evicted from Dorm for Drinking

A Japanese university has taken the step of evicting all 105 residents of a school dormitory for breaching its no-drinking rule, according to media reports.

Peeved officials at Tohoku University banned drinking in the dorm earlier this year, but their patience finally ran out after failing in their attempts to curtail rowdy behavior, including cases of students vomiting out of windows, the Japan Times said on Tuesday.

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Wine Cup Used by Pericles Found in Commoner's Grave

A cup believed to have been used by Classical Greek statesman Pericles has been found in a pauper's grave in north Athens, Greece's top daily reported Wednesday.

The ceramic wine cup, smashed in 12 pieces, was found during building construction in the northern Athens suburb of Kifissia, Ta Nea daily said.

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Family Says it Found Gold from 1700s Spanish Shipwreck

A family of treasure hunters in Florida say they found a golden pyx -- a eucharist case -- from a shipwrecked 16th century Spanish galleon, local media reported Tuesday.

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Films Help Lebanese Come to Terms with Dark Past

Lebanon's civil war ended a quarter of a century ago but its filmmakers remain fixated on this dark period, seeing their movies as a kind of catharsis to help heal collective trauma.

The industry's focus contrasts sharply with a society that has yet to come to terms with its devastating past, where war has marked the last five generations -- and each community, be it Christian or Muslim, looks back through a different lens.

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Go For the Food: Traverse City, Michigan's Harvest

Let's face it: In today's hurry-up culture, there always will be a need for fast food. Even when you're enjoying a leisurely vacation in a place like Traverse City, a Lake Michigan resort community with a nationwide reputation for restaurants serving high-quality, farm-to-table fare.

You could head for the outskirts and one of the chain eateries your kids so cherish. But if you're sunbathing on the Grand Traverse Bay waterfront, shopping in downtown's many boutiques or taking in a film at the glamorous State Theater, chances are you'll have no appetite to navigate the traffic for another assembly-line lunch.

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Indian Senior Community Part of Growing U.S. Niche

When Arun and Usha Pancholi were deciding where to spend their retirement years, they wanted a place that combined the culture and camaraderie of life in India with the comforts and conveniences they had grown accustomed to after nearly five decades in America.

They found both at Florida's ShantiNiketan, the first retirement community in the United States catering to people born in India. ShantiNiketan — Bengali and Hindi for "House of Peace" — is one of a number of growing niche retirement communities aimed at people of specific ethnic backgrounds, hobbies or college allegiances.

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Britons Seen Abroad as Boozy with Bad Diets, Study Says

Young foreigners are drawn to Britain by its rich culture and good manners but are put off by its weather and passion for binge-drinking and lousy food, according to a survey published Tuesday.

The study commissioned by the British Council cultural agency asked 18-34 year-olds in Brazil, China, Germany, India and the U.S. to name British people's best traits, to which 46 percent responded "good manners".

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Classes Aim to Hook U.S. Blacks on African Foods

Rickey Dorsey knows he doesn't have the best diet, and his plump belly proves it.

"I'm definitely used to a lot of fried food and sweets," the U.S. man said. "And sweet tea."

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At 60, Newport Jazz Fest Looks to the Future

Newport Jazz Festival founder George Wein is more interested in where jazz is going than in where it's been as he marks the 60th anniversary of the granddaddy of all outdoor jazz festivals.

That's why the 88-year-old Wein is celebrating the milestone by adding a third day of music at Fort Adams Park on Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay dedicated to emerging artists such as trumpeter Amir ElSaffar's Middle Eastern-influenced quintet, the jazz-funk-rock band Snarky Puppy and Darcy James Argue's Secret Society.

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Xinhua: Historic Chinese Church Gutted by Fire

A fire largely destroyed one of China's oldest churches early Monday, state media reported, gutting the inside of the late 19th century structure.

"The inside of the building is totally destroyed," a firefighter told the official Xinhua news agency after the blaze at the gothic-style Jiangbei Cathedral in Ningbo, in Zhejiang province.

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