The Royal Academy of Arts in London launched a crowdfunding appeal on Wednesday for an installation by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei that would see its courtyard filled with giant reconstructed trees. The world-famous gallery hopes to raise £100,000 (142,000 euros, $156,000) on Kickstarter to display eight trees that Ai has assembled from parts of dead trees collected in the mountains of southern China. It is thought to be the
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three armed men in masks forced their way into a Los Angeles home owned by Chris Brown, locked the R&B singer’s aunt in a closet and then ransacked the place for valuables, police said.
NEW YORK (AP) — Tony Award-winner and “30 Rock” star Jane Krakowski has jumped aboard the upcoming Broadway revival of “She Loves Me.”
By Costas Pitas and Lefteris Karagiannopoulos ATHENS (Reuters) – Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras battled to win lawmakers’ approval on Wednesday for a bailout deal to keep Greece in the euro, while the country’s creditors, pressed by the IMF to provide massive debt relief, struggled to agree on a financial lifeline. Having reluctantly conceded to negotiating a third bailout from international lenders on stringent terms, Tsipras must face down a rebellion
Mexico’s government on Tuesday broadcast security camera footage of fugitive drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the final moments before he escaped from a maximum security prison through a tunnel in his cell on Saturday night. National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido showed a grainy video of a dressed Guzman pacing the room, looking behind the partition wall by his shower, sitting on his bed, then crouching again behind
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army backed by Lebanese ally Hezbollah has advanced deeper into the besieged Syrian city of Zabadani two weeks into a campaign to capture it from insurgents, rebels and the army said. The control of the city, about 45 km (30 miles) northwest of the capital Damascus, is seen as crucial to consolidate government-held areas linking Lebanon and Syria. Zabadani is a former
Bahrain hit back at U.S. expressions of concern over the Gulf Arab kingdom’s treatment of opposition figures on Wednesday, saying all its actions followed due legal process. The State Department on Tuesday said the arrest of Ibrahim Sharif, prosecution of Majeed Milad and reports that a case against Ali Salman, head of Bahrain’s main opposition group, had been reopened, “raise serious concerns about restrictions on freedom of expression”.
Kuwait seeks the death penalty for 11 out of 29 suspects being prosecuted for their alleged role in a deadly suicide bombing in a mosque last month, newspaper al-Qabas reported on Wednesday. The Gulf state launched a security crackdown on Islamist militants after the June 26 attack claimed by Islamic State, when a Saudi suicide bomber blew himself inside a Shi’ite Muslim mosque, killing 27 worshippers. The interior minister said
The screams were so loud that neighbors took notice, said Ali Abu-Freij, a resident in the northern Sinai village. Two local tribal leaders said she had been raped. One of them, Mousa al-Delh, said a note found with the body said the woman had been killed because she had cooperated with the Egyptian army.
Pluto’s surface has long been a blur to sky watchers on Earth, but a NASA spacecraft on Wednesday should provide the first high-resolution images of the distant dwarf planet after a historic flyby mission. The unmanned, $700 million nuclear-powered spacecraft known as New Horizons spent much of Tuesday snapping pictures and collecting data as it zoomed by Pluto. “Sending back ‘first-look’ data to the team ‘down under’,” the New Horizons
