Free Republic

Is he even real? The internet had many questions after a photo began to circulate.It was, in nearly every way, an ordinary photo distributed by The Associated Press to news media outlets. It showed three policemen leaning against a silver car parked in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris just hours after the brazen theft of a collection of French crown jewels on Sunday.But then there was the dapper man standing jauntily on the right side of the photo.The officers, the A.P. caption said, were there to block the entrance to the museum. But the man, dressed in...

The Mona Lisa (search), Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece of a mysterious woman with a slight smile, is deteriorating, and the Louvre Museum (search) said Monday it will conduct an in-depth technical study to determine why. The thin panel of poplar wood that the work is painted on has become deformed since conservation experts last evaluated the painting, the Louvre said in a written statement. It did not say when the last evaluation was. The Louvre said the condition of the Mona Lisa was causing "some worry" and that a new study on the state of the work has been launched....