POMPEII: A mosaic panel on travertine slabs, depicting an erotic theme from the Roman era, was returned to the archaeological park of Pompeii on Tuesday, after being stolen by a Nazi German captain during World War II.
The artwork was repatriated from Germany through diplomatic channels, arranged by the Italian Consulate in Stuttgart, Germany, after having been returned from the heirs of the last owner, a deceased German citizen.
The owner had received the mosaic as a gift from a Wehrmacht captain, assigned to the military supply chain in Italy during the war.
The mosaic — dating between mid- to last century B.C. and the first century — is considered a work of “extraordinary cultural interest,” experts said.
“It is the moment when the theme of domestic love becomes an artistic subject,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii and co-author of an essay dedicated to the returned work. “While the Hellenistic period, from the fourth to the first century B.C., exulted the passion of mythological and heroic figures, now we see a new theme.”
The heirs of the mosaic’s last owner in Germany contacted the Carabinieri unit in Rome that’s dedicated to protecting cultural heritage, which was in charge of the investigation, asking for information on how to return the mosaic to the Italian state. Authorities carried out the necessary checks to establish its authenticity and provenance, and then worked to repatriate the mosaic in September 2023.
The collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii was also key, as it made it possible to trace it to near the Mount Vesuvius volcano, despite the scarcity of data on the original context of its discovery, the Carabinieri said.
The panel was then assigned to the Archaeological Park of Pompeii where, suitably catalogued, it will be protected and available for educational and research purposes.
“Today’s return is like healing an open wound,” Zuchtriegel said, adding that the mosaic allows to reconstruct the story of that period, the first century A.D., before Pompeii was destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption in A.D. 79.
The park’s director also highlighted how the return by the heirs of its owner signals an important change in “mentality,” as “the sense of possession (of stolen art) becomes a heavy burden.”
“We see that often in the many letters we receive from people who may have stolen just a stone, to bring home a piece of Pompeii,” Zuchtriegel said.
He recalled the so-called “Pompeii curse,” which according to a popular superstition hits whoever steals artifacts in Pompeii.
The world-known legend suggests that those who steal finds from the ancient city of Pompeii will experience bad luck or misfortune. That has been fueled over the years by several tourists who return stolen items, claiming they brought them bad luck and caused tragic events.
Roman-era mosaic panel with erotic theme that was stolen during World War II returns to Pompeii
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Roman-era mosaic panel with erotic theme that was stolen during World War II returns to Pompeii
- The artwork was repatriated from Germany through diplomatic channels and was arranged by the Italian Consulate in Stuttgart
- The owner had received the mosaic as a gift from a Wehrmacht captain who was assigned to the military supply chain in Italy during the war
Cambridge Dictionary adds ‘skibidi’ and ‘tradwife’ among 6,000 new words
- ‘Skibidi’ is a gibberish term coined by the creator of an animated YouTube series and can mean ‘cool’ or ‘bad’ or be used with no real meaning as a joke
“Skibidi” is one of the slang terms popularized by social media that are among more than 6,000 additions this year to the Cambridge Dictionary.
“Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary,” said Colin McIntosh, lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary, the world’s largest online dictionary.
“Skibidi” is a gibberish term coined by the creator of an animated YouTube series and can mean “cool” or “bad” or be used with no real meaning as a joke.
Other planned additions including “tradwife,” a contraction of “traditional wife” referring to a married mother who cooks, cleans and posts on social media, and “delulu,” a shortening of the word delusional that means “believing things that are not real or true, usually because you choose to”.
An increase in remote working since the pandemic has created the new dictionary entry “mouse jiggler,” a device or piece of software used to make it seem like you are working when you are not.
Concerns over climate change are behind the addition of “forever chemical,” a harmful chemical that remains in the environment for a long time.
Cambridge Dictionary uses the Cambridge English Corpus, a database of more than 2 billion words of written and spoken English, to monitor how new words are used by different people, how often and in what contexts they are used, the company said.
“We only add words where we think they’ll have staying power,” McIntosh said.
A massive mountain park in Vermont celebrates the bond between dogs and their humans
ST. JOHNSBURY: Anne Pace has been hearing about Dog Mountain for years, but until earlier this month, had never made a trip to the park.
“I really wanted to see this place,” she said, during a visit to the grounds with her one-year-old border collie, Tam. “I put a note up for my previous border collie. He was my best buddy.”
Set on 150 acres tucked away on a hillside in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, Dog Mountain has become a destination for dog lovers looking to explore nature, take in art, or pay tribute to a pet.
The park was created 25 years ago by Vermont folk artist Stephen Huneck and his wife, Gwen, and features hiking trails, swimming ponds, an art gallery and a Dog Chapel where visitors can add to the thousands of photos and notes to pets that cover the chapel walls.
“It is absolutely breathtaking. That’s a lot of love when you think about each picture that’s here,” said Vanessa Hurley, who was visiting with her husband and two dogs from Ohio. “Dogs and cats both, they just bring so much enjoyment to our lives,” she said.
Inspired by the bond he shared with his dogs, Huneck wanted to create a space where other animal lovers could celebrate their beloved pets, gallery manager Pam McCann said.
“Dog Mountain is really a pilgrimage place and a sanctuary,” she said.
Huneck’s sculpture, prints and furniture are featured in the gallery and scattered throughout the park, including inside the chapel he built himself. With black labs and golden retrievers carved into the ends of each pew and images of his own dog, Sally, in the stained-glass windows, his love of dogs is evident in every detail.
Scott Ritchie and his wife, Julie, have been traveling the country in an RV with their three large dogs and thought Dog Mountain would be the perfect place for them to stretch their legs. They enjoyed it so much on their first visit, they decided to come back the next day.
“It’s very rare you see something like this anywhere. We’ve been traveling all over the US for five and a half months. Just a beautiful area,” he said.
McCann says the park was made for visitors like Ritchie.
“That’s what it’s for, people who really care and people who are very connected to everything around them,” she said. “Including the animals that they are the guardians of.”
Thieves grab $2 million in jewelry in Seattle heist that took less than 2 minutes
SEATTLE: Smash-and-grab thieves in Seattle made off with an estimated $2 million in diamonds, luxury watches, gold and other items in a daring midday jewelry store robbery that took just about 90 seconds, police said Friday.
Video from the West Seattle store’s surveillance cameras shows four masked suspects shattering the locked glass front door with hammers and then ransacking six display cases Thursday.
One display held around $750,000 worth in Rolex watches, police said in a statement, and another had an emerald necklace valued at $125,000.
A masked suspect threatened workers with bear spray and a Taser, police said, but no one was injured.
“We’re pretty shook up as a staff,” Josh Menashe, vice president of the family-owned store, said by phone Friday. “We’re gonna be closed for a while.”
Menashe said workers finished cleaning up the broken glass and were working on a full inventory of the losses.
Police said they responded to the robbery but the suspects had already fled in a getaway car and eluded a search of the area.
Stressed UK teens seek influencers’ help for exams success
- Former teacher Waqar Malik tells thousands of followers that he can predict this year’s exam questions
- But educators and examiners are concerned some pupils are relying too much on online advice
LONDON: Posing as a fortune teller on his YouTube channel, former teacher Waqar Malik tells thousands of followers that he can predict this year’s exam questions.
He is among online study influencers gaining popularity among stressed British teenagers in search of exam success.
But educators and examiners are concerned some pupils are relying too much on online advice.
Malik posts videos on TikTok and YouTube forecasting questions on classic English literature for the UK GCSE school exam taken at 16.
Last year “I predicted the entire paper,” he says on his popular “Mr Everything English” channel.
Malik, who says he is a former assistant head teacher, notes that he is just making an “educated guess,” but educators remain concerned.
“If you are a 15- or 16- year-old doing your GCSEs and you’ve got somebody in your phone who’s telling you ‘this is what the English exam is going to be about’... that is so appealing,” said Sarah Brownsword, an assistant professor in education at the University of East Anglia.
After British pupils sat their exams in May, some complained that Malik’s predictions were wrong.
“Never listening to you again bro,” one wrote, while others said they were “cooked” (done for) and would have to work in a fast food restaurant.
With GCSE results set to be released on August 21, one exam board, AQA, has warned of “increasing reliance on certain online revision channels.”
“Clearly this is an important source of revision and support for students,” it said.
But the examiners want “your interpretation of the texts you have studied, not some stranger’s views on social media.”
Students are overloaded, school leaders say.
“With so much content to cover and revise in every subject it can be completely overwhelming,” Sarah Hannafin, head of policy for the school leaders’ union NAHT, told AFP.
“And so it is unsurprising that young people are looking for anything to help them to cope.”
Malik, whose prediction video has been viewed on YouTube 290,000 times, did not respond to a request for comment.
Brownsword praised TikTok, where she posts grammar videos for student teachers, saying: “You can learn about anything and watch videos about absolutely anything.”
Teachers have always flagged questions that could come up, she said, but predicting exam questions online is “really tricky.”
“But I think there’s a real difference between doing that and doing it on such a scale, when you’ve got thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers online.”
Other content creators defended such videos, however.
“Those kinds of videos were never to mislead,” said Tilly Taylor, a university student posting TikTok videos with candid revision advice to 100,000 followers.
“I make it very clear in my videos that these are predictions,” based on past papers and examiners’ reports, said Taylor, who appeals to younger viewers with her fashionable eye makeup.
Other content creators sell predicted papers “all the time,” Taylor said, but “I don’t think it’s right.”
Other educational influencers were more in favor.
“If you’re marketing it as a predicted paper, that’s completely fine... you just can’t say guaranteed paper,” said Ishaan Bhimjiyani, 20, who has over 400,000 TikTok followers.
He promoted a site offering an English predicted paper for £1.99 ($2.70) with a “history of 60-70 percent accuracy.”
Predicted papers allow you to “check whether you’re actually prepared for the exam,” said Jen, a creator and former teacher who posts as Primrose Kitten and declined to give her surname.
Her site charges £4.99 for an English predicted paper and includes a video on phrasing to score top marks.
Bhimjiyani, who went to a private school, started posting on TikTok at 16, saying he was “documenting my journey, posting about how I revise.”
“And then it kind of took off.”
He founded an educational influencer agency, Tap Lab, that now represents over 100 bloggers in their mid-teens to mid-20s.
Influencers earn most from paid promotions – for recruiters or beauty or technology brands – which must be labelled as such, he said.
Bhimjiyani made £5,000 with his first such video. Taylor said she recently promoted student accommodation.
No one explained “how do you actually revise,” Taylor said of her school years. So she turned to YouTube for ideas.
“I wanted to help someone like myself,” she said, “who couldn’t necessarily afford to go to private school or have private tuition.”
World’s first humanoid robot games begin in China
- Over 500 androids alternated between jerky tumbles and glimpses of real power as they compete in events from the 100-meter hurdles to kung fu
BEIJING: The world’s first-ever humanoid robot games began Friday in Beijing, with over 500 androids alternating between jerky tumbles and glimpses of real power as they compete in events from the 100-meter hurdles to kung fu.
Hundreds of robotics teams from 16 countries are going for gold at the Chinese capital’s National Speed Skating Oval, built for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The games include traditional sports like athletics and basketball, as well as practical tasks such as medicine categorization and cleaning.
“I believe in the next 10 years or so, robots will be basically at the same level as humans,” enthusiastic 18-year-old spectator Chen Ruiyuan told AFP.
Human athletes might not be quaking in their boots just yet.
At one of the first events on Friday morning, five-aside football, 10 robots the size of seven-year-olds shuffled around the pitch, often getting stuck in a scrum or falling over en masse.
However, in a 1500-meter race, domestic champion Unitree’s humanoids stomped along the track at an impressive clip, easily outpacing their rivals.
The fastest robot AFP witnessed finished in 6:29:37, a far cry from the human men’s world record of 3:26:00.
One mechanical racer barrelled straight into a human operator. The robot remained standing, while the human was knocked flat, though did not appear to be injured.
Robot competitions have been held for decades, but the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games is the first to focus specifically on robots that resemble human bodies, organizers said.
The Chinese government has poured support into robotics hoping to lead the industry.
Beijing has put humanoids in the “center of their national strategy,” the International Federation of Robotics wrote in a paper on Thursday.
“The government wants to showcase its competence and global competitiveness in this field of technology,” it added.
Authorities are working to raise awareness of the sector across society.
Cui Han, accompanying her 10-year-old, told AFP that her son’s school had organized and paid for the trip to the Games.
“I hope it will encourage him to learn more about these new technologies,” she said.
In March, China announced plans for a one-trillion-yuan fund to support technology startups, including those in robotics and AI.
The country is already the world’s largest market for industrial robots, official statistics show, and in April, Beijing held what organizers dubbed the world’s first humanoid robot half-marathon.
Chen, the spectator, told AFP he was about to begin studying automation at university.
“Coming here can cultivate my passion for this field,” he said. “My favorite is the boxing, because... it requires a lot of agility and I can really see how the robots have improved from before.”
Meanwhile, at the kung fu competition area, a pint-sized robot resembling one from the popular Transformer series attempted to execute a move, but fell flat on its front.
It spun around on the floor as it struggled to get back up, the crowd happily cheering.
