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TIANJIN, China — China's rulers are planning a megacity that will be home to 130 million people and cover an area the size of New England. Sitting on the northeast coast of China, Jing-Jin-Ji — which stands for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei — is a central plank of the country's economic development plan over the next century. The sheer numbers around the the project are startling. In November, the government approved $36 billion to build some 700 miles of new rail there within just three years' time. Residents of bedroom communities just outside Beijing's city limits who now spend five to six hours...

[S]cholars digitally removed the tree canopy from aerial images of the now-unpopulated landscape, revealing the ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed. “The LiDAR images make it clear that this entire region was a settlement system whose scale and population density had been grossly underestimated,” said Thomas Garrison, an Ithaca College archaeologist....who specializes in using digital technology for archaeological research. The project mapped more than 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Petén region of Guatemala, producing the largest LiDAR data set...

Francis Ford Coppola on Thursday premiered his self-financed opus “Megalopolis” at the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling a wildly ambitious passion project the 85-year-old director has been pondering for decades. Reviews ranged from “a folly of gargantuan proportions” to “the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.” But most assuredly, once again, Coppola had everyone in Cannes talking. No debut this year was awaited with more curiosity in Cannes than “Megalopolis,” which Coppola poured $120 million of his own money into after selling off a portion of his wine estate. Not unlike Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” some 45 years ago, “Megalopolis” arrived trailed by...

Explanation: Can you identify a familiar area in the northeast USA just from nighttime lights? It might be possible because many major cities are visible, including (right to left) New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond and Norfolk -- Boston of the USA's Northeast megalopolis is not pictured. The featured image was taken in 2012 from the International Space Station. In the foreground are two Russian cargo ships with prominent solar panels. This Northeast megalopolis of the USA contains almost 20 percent of the people of the USA but only about 2 percent of the land area. Also known also as...

The seats of Messene’s grand theater in the southwestern Peloponnese have remained empty since 300 C.E. Long gone are the days when a general from the Achaean league or the king of Macedonia would host events with thousands of visitors. After 20 years of excavation and restoration, the theater will be reopened—as both an archaeological site and a contemporary cultural institution. Excavation director Petros Themelis told the Greek publication Αρχαιολογìα Online, “We want the theater to operate for events, schools, conferences. We want all areas of ancient Messene to operate in a multifaceted manner. We want the whole city to...

Messene's 9.5km-long circuit of stoutly constructed defensive walls enclosed an extensive array of uniquely designed public and private structures... Mt Ithome and its southwestern slopes are soaked in history, their occupation dating back to at least the Early Bronze Age. The city of Messene, within the larger region of the same name, was only founded in 369BC, at the behest of the Theban leader Epaminondas, two years after Boeotian forces had defeated the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra and ended their domination over the Peloponnese. Messene and its northeastern neighbour Megalopolis, established in 371BC, were intended as a pair...

The Supreme Court turned down an appeal Monday that sought to open U.S. presidential elections to voters in Puerto Rico. The court's action, taken without comment, is the latest setback in a long-running legal fight over voting rights of residents of the U.S. territory. Attorney Gregorio Igartua, who filed the appeal, said that "for 107 years and 22 presidential elections since Puerto Rico became part of the United States, the American citizens of Puerto Rico" have been unfairly treated. He told justices that the residents have "an inferior type of American citizenship." The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had...

It is becoming painfully clear that after decades of fighting and carping, the city of Madison and the rest of the state of Wisconsin simply do not get along. Of late this point has been hammered home by the fierce city-state debates over the minimum wage, smoking bans and all manner of crunch-time hassles over the city's treatment in the state budget. But it is not a recent phenomenon. It probably goes back further, but from at least the 1960s, Madison and Wisconsin have not understood one another. In the '60s, many out-state parents were loath to send their graduating...

Should New York City become the 51st state? A bill that would create a commission to study whether the city should secede from New York state will get another hearing soon — after sitting in the City Council for nearly two years The bill was introduced on Feb. 26, 2003. A hearing was held shortly after, but no action has been taken on the bill since then. "I expected delays and opposition when we got to the state level, but I never thought it would be held up for two years trying to get out of a City Council committee,"...