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Jessica Vincent had just started surveying the shelves of a Virginia thrift store when a vase caught her eye. It was shaped like a bottle and had ribbons of color, aqua green and amethyst purple, that spiraled up its glass surface like stripes of paint. The piece looked old amongst the clutter of measuring cups, candles and other tchotchkes. After adjusting her eyes, Vincent made out the words “Murano” and “Italia" on its base. “I bought it thinking it would look beautiful in my house somewhere,” said Vincent, 43, a horse trainer who paid $3.99 at a Goodwill outside of...

The year 2019 has expired, along with Kim Jong Un’s promise/threat to send President Donald Trump “a Christmas gift” by the end of the year. Since the proffered holiday present was tied to North Korea’s demand that Washington lift sanctions for its nuclear program, it was widely interpreted by U.S. experts to portend an escalation in the negotiations standoff, such as a new long-range missile launch or even a nuclear test. As Gift Day approached, Pyongyang increased its warnings with escalating rhetoric harkening back to the personal insult stage of the early Trump administration. Western concerns and tensions mounted amid...

The 18th century Qianlong porcelain vase had been estimated to fetch between £800,000 and £1.2 million by Bainbridges, the provincial auction house handling the sale. The 18th century Qianlong-dynasty porcelain vase is believed to have fetched the highest price for any Chinese artwork sold at auction However both the auctioneers and the owners were stunned when it went for the highest price of any Chinese artwork sold at auction. The elaborately decorated piece was put up for sale by a brother and sister who found it while clearing out their parents’ home in Pinner, north-west London after they recently died.

Archaeologists have discovered vases of perfumed ointment which may have been used by Mary Magdalene to anoint the feet of Jesus. The Italian team have been digging for several months at the ancient Palestinian town of Magdala – from where Mary gets her name. The archaeologists of the Franciscan academic society Studium Biblicum Franciscanum found the unopened vases dating to the first century AD conserved in mud at the bottom of a swimming pool in Magdala's thermal complex. The town is on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and Mary Magdalene is mentioned several times throughout the Bible....

LONDON (Reuters) - A British plumber was fined and given a community service order Tuesday after being captured on hidden cameras urinating into a vase in a customer's attic and pouring the contents into the central heating system. Roy Williams, 47, was caught in the act by trading standards officers who had rented the house in Leatherhead in southern England and rigged it with cameras as part of a sting operation to check on tradesmen. The plumber had been called out to fix a simple fault but instead missed this and charged 203 pounds for unnecessary work, Steve Playle of...

Expert: Cleopatra Seduces Antony on Vase By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Cleopatra Seducing Antony? April 13, 2004 — The epic romance between Egyptian queen Cleopatra and the Roman general Marc Antony was immortalized on a Roman vase that is now housed at the British Museum, according to an expert in classical art. Susan Walker, former deputy keeper of Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum who is now the head of a similar department at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, believes the Portland Vase shows Cleopatra seducing Antony, while cupid and Anton, the son of Greek mythological hero Hercules,...

<p>LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) --  Police said they shot an 81-year-old nursing home resident three times with bean bags and hit him with pepper spray when he became suicidal and brandished a small glass vase.</p> <p>Willie D. Foster, who was in wheelchair and has a pacemaker, was holding the vase over his head and threatening the nursing home staff and police officers, a report of the incident said.</p>