French archaeologists have unearthed a Roman neighborhood in the country's southeast, calling the discovery a "real little Pompeii." The findings include the remains of luxury homes and public buildings.

The discovery took place on the banks of the Rhone river in the city of Vienne, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Lyon. It was found on land awaiting the construction of a housing complex and covers nearly 7,000 square meters (75,000 square feet).

The neighborhood includes homes dating back to the 1st century AD, and is believed to have been inhabited for around 300 years before being abandoned after a series of fires.

"We're unbelievably lucky. This is undoubtedly the most exceptional excavation of a Roman site in 40 or 50 years," lead archaeologist, Benjamin Clement, told AFP.

The French culture ministry termed the discovery an "exceptional find."

Many artefacts at the site have been well-preserved, prompting Clement to refer to the area as "a real little Pompeii in Vienne." The remark references the Roman-city state, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was extremely well-preserved after being covered in volcanic ash.

Ten-year-old Jude Sparks was hiking in the desert near Las Cruces in New Mexico with his family in November when he tripped over something extraordinary-a large, well-preserved, 1.2 million-year-old fossilized skull.

"I was running farther up and I tripped on part of the tusk," Jude said. "My face landed next to the bottom jaw. I looked farther up and there was another tusk."

The late Princess opened up in a series of tapes in 1992 and 1993 - but it is the first time they will air in the UK

Sensational and previously unseen tapes have revealed Princess Diana feared her close friend and protection officer was "bumped off".

The shocking TV documentary, never seen on British TV, lays bare Diana's disastrous marriage to Prince Charles.

In it she speaks candidly about his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, her struggles within the Royal Family, her battle with bulimia and her love for late protection officer Barry Mannakee.

Viewers will see the sadness in Diana's eyes as she speaks about her love for protection officer Mannakee who died in a motorbike crash in 1987 weeks after being sacked.

Diana believed he had been "bumped off". While never using his name, she says: "When I was 24 or 25 I fell deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment.

DNA is setting the record straight on ancient Canaanites.

For the first time, scientists have deciphered the complete genetic instruction manuals of Canaanites. By comparing five Canaanite genomes with those of other ancient and modern populations, the researchers identified the Canaanites' ancestors and discovered their descendants, modern Lebanese people.

The results, reported online July 27 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, give new insight into the origins and fate of a people whose story has largely been told through the secondhand accounts of its contemporaries.

The Canaanites emerged in the Levant, a region east of the Mediterranean Sea, 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. This cultural group, which established extensive trade networks and colonies across the Mediterranean region, left behind few written records, perhaps because they wrote on papyrus rather than clay. So most knowledge of the Canaanites comes from ancient Egyptian, Hebrew and Greek documents.

The US has been engaged in regime change for decades, including in these instances that are rarely discussed by mainstream media.
Some anniversaries are widely observed in the West: Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Holocaust Memorial Day, the September 11 atrocities, and so on. Yet there are other undesirable anniversaries that have been largely disappeared.

1. US-backed forces overthrow Goulart in Brazil (1964)

Considering its vast size and abundant natural resources, Brazil should long have been one of Latin America's richest countries. Instead, it has been something of a horror story, as Brazilians have been repressed and brutalized across decades by military dictatorships. Brazil's plight strikes a common theme across a region of the world in which the great superpower, the United States, has sought to continually control.

Brazil had especially come under the unblinking eye of the empire during the 1960s. US president Lyndon B. Johnson was hell-bent in ensuring such a massive country did not become"the China of the 1960s". Johnson was referring indiscreetly to Mao Zedong, a Communist revolutionary whose influence in China continued to rise.

The first time I met Princess Diana, at a charity event in London when I was editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper, she marched over to me and declared: 'Ah, the man who thinks he knows me so well!'

I suggested she take this golden opportunity to enlighten me on what I should know, and she burst out laughing. 'I don't have the time...or the inclination, come to that!'

She then glided on, working the room as only she could, melting everyone in her wake with her dazzling beauty and charm.

Diana was one of the most fascinating, complex, passionate, sexy, scheming and unpredictable women I have ever met. She was also utterly fabulous.

"...I have learned much about William A.M. Burden II from Peggy and I...I was best acquainted with his 20-year tenure...as Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] and his contribution to the quality of the output of this 'think tank's serving the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff...His government service reached its apogee during his two years, 1959-61, as Ambassador to Belgium...He has been most responsive over these years also to the needs of Columbia University which he has served as a trustee..."

-- General and former IDA President Maxwell Taylor in foreword to Columbia University Life Trustee William A.M. Burden's 1982 book, Peggy and I: A Life Too Busy For A Dull Moment

"Before I accepted my ambassadorship in Belgium I had been given in 1957...appointment as 'a public trustee' of the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA]. It became one of the top priorities of my life...I...was elected chairman in May, 1959...One of the unfortunate side-effects of the student protest movement against the Vietnam War was that IDA itself became a target for anti-war protests, and its member universities were subjected to faculty and student pressure to cancel their ties..."

--Columbia University Life Trustee William A.M. Burden in his 1982 book, Peggy and I

"Only prudent, therefore to plan on basis that Lumumba Government threatens our vital interests in Congo and Africa generally. A principal objective of our political and diplomatic action must therefore be to destroy Lumumba government as now constituted..."

--Columbia University Life Trustee and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium William A.M. Burden in a July 19, 1960 cable to the U.S. State Department

"The Belgians were sort of toying with the idea of seeing to it that Lumumba was assassinated. I went beyond my instructions and said, well, I didn't think it would be a bad idea either, but I naturally never reported this to Washington-but Lumumba was assassinated. I think it was all to the good..."

--Columbia University Life Trustee William A. M. Burden in a 1968 Oral History Interview with Columbia University School of Journalism's Advanced International Reporting Program Director John Luter

"I saw a fair number of corpses," recalled former Knesset member and Israeli government minister, Yair Tsaban, on the massacre carried out on the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, for director, Neta Shoshani. "I don't remember encountering the corpse of a fighting man. Not at all. I remember mostly women and old men."

"An old man and a woman, sitting in the corner of a room with their faces to the wall, and they are shot in the back," he recounted. "That cannot have been in the heat of battle. No way."

Yet, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, critics vituperatively insist no such assault occurred, as Deir Yassin villagers were the aggressors against several pre-state militias battling for an independent, demarcated Israel.

A few of the surviving smattering of eyewitnesses and participants in the atrocity relayed to Shoshani haunting memories of the decimation of the village - which began on the morning of April 9, 1948, as part of an operation meant to destroy a blockade on the road to Jerusalem in one of many incidents ultimately leading to what Israelis call the War of Independence - for a documentary entitled "Born in Deir Yassin."

New research shows that ancient humans had sex with non human species.

According to a study conducted by Omer Gokcumen, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo, ancient humans had intercourse with a "ghost species" of "proto human".

Gokcumen explains that humans are only one member of a broader species named "hominins".

The research found that humans had sex with other members of the hominins group.

A museum is offering rewards of up to $15,000 to anybody who can help decipher an ancient Chinese text.

The National Museum of Chinese Writing in Anyang in China's Henan province issued the worldwide appeal after failing to crack more than half of the 5,000 characters found carved into oracle bones - skeletal remains of oxen and turtle shells discovered in the late 19th century.

Speaking to the Chengdu Economic Daily, bone specialist Liu Fenghua of Zhengzhou University, said the majority of the inscriptions were names of people and places.