PARIS (AP) – The Mona Lisa may maintain her famously enigmatic smile because she benefits from one of Paris’s best-kept secrets: An underground cooling system that’s helped the Louvre cope with the sweltering heat that has broken temperature records across Europe.
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – Apollo John Rwamparo speaks forlornly of the eight-legged stool, a symbol of authority for his ancient kingdom in Uganda, now glimpsed through a glass barrier at a museum thousands of miles away in Britain. The wooden stool is permanently exhibited at the University of Oxford, one of at least 279 objects there taken from Bunyoro-Kitara kingdom during the colonial era. Oxford has resisted attempts to have the stool repatriated, saying it was donated by a royal from a breakaway kingdom. “It’s quite frustrating,” said Rwamparo, a deputy prime minister and minister for tourism for the kingdom. “The best is for them to swallow their pride, like the French and the Germans have done, and return the artifacts.”
African countries’ efforts at restitution, after long resistance from authorities in Europe, are now blossoming with the return of treasured pieces that once were thought unattainable.
NEW YORK (AP) – A decades-old, mint condition Mickey Mantle baseball card could break a record at auction.
CHAUVIN, La. (AP) – Authorities in south-central Louisiana are looking for those responsible for vandalizing the Chauvin Sculpture Garden, a local landmark created by a self-taught artist. Three concrete sculptures were broken, and one is missing, said Gary LaFleur, head of the Center for Bayou Studies at Nicholls State University.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – A 500-year-old Orthodox icon that was looted from a church in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus has been returned to the island. The icon of the Enthroned Christ, which Cyprus’ Antiquities Department dates to around the end of the 15th century to the early 16th century, was presented at a ceremony July 12 to the head of the island’s Orthodox Church, Archbishop Chrysostomos.
ROME (AP) – On July 22, Italian environmental activists glued their hands to the glass protecting Sandro Botticelli’s painting Spring in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, police said. The museum said thanks to the glass, which was installed as a precaution several years ago, the masterpiece was unharmed.
NEW YORK – On July 25 at Sotheby’s, Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 inflight coverall jacket, worn during the historic 1969 mission to the moon and back, achieved $2,772,500 – making it the most valuable American space-flown artifact ever sold at auction, and the most valuable jacket sold at auction. The exceptionally rare garment was chased by multiple bidders for almost 10 minutes before selling to a bidder on the phone.
DALLAS (AP) – Muhammad Ali’s championship belt from his 1974 Rumble in the Jungle heavyweight title fight was sold at auction on July 24 for $6.18 million. The winner of the heated competition for the belt was Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, according to Heritage Auctions in Dallas.
VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Vatican Museums are home to some of the most magnificent artworks in the world, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel to ancient Egyptian antiquities and a pavilion full of papal chariots. But one of the museum’s least-visited collections is becoming its most contested before Pope Francis’ trip to Canada.
BOSTON (AP) – A Boston suburb that was the birthplace of two of the nation’s earliest presidents is planning to build a center honoring their legacies. Officials in Quincy, Massachusetts, announced on July 12 the formation of a new nonprofit foundation to raise money and oversee the design and construction of the Adams Presidential Center honoring former President John Adams and his son, former President John Quincy Adams, as well as former First Ladies Abigail Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams.