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Police carrying out a crackdown on the Camorra organised crime group have recovered two Van Gogh paintings stolen 14 years ago. The masterpieces - Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuene and View of the Sea at Scheveningen - were painted by the Dutch artist early in his career. "They're safe," said Van Gogh Museum director Axel Rueger. "I no longer dared to hope that I could ever say that, after so many years."

Explanation: These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 near the bottom of the frame The third, NGC 6559, is right of M8, separated from the larger nebula by dark dust lanes. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant. The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is...

New York was recently the scene of a heated debate on the status of Muslim women under Islamic law. In it, one of the bravest women in the world, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, faced off against three other Muslim women and a hostile moderator, Barkha Dutt. Dutt, known for her soft spot for Muslims in her own country of India, ... Hirsi Ali immediately recognized she was being set up to run a gauntlet of criticism and so chose to go for the jugular. “I reject Islamic law because it’s totalitarian ... because it’s bigoted and especially bigoted against women… Where...

How crop artist Stan Herd made an acre-wide ode to "Olive Trees" If you're flying through Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport this fall, keep an eye out for Vincent van Gogh's "Olive Trees" from your airplane window. It won't be hard to miss — this aerial crop art covers more than an acre of land. The unique ode to van Gogh is the work of landscape artist Stan Herd, reports Mary Abbe for the Star Tribune. It was commissioned to honor two milestones: the Minneapolis Institute of Art's centennial and the 125th anniversary of van Gogh's death. "It's an iteration of...

New York City's spring art auctions get underway Tuesday with exceptional pieces by Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Vincent Van Gogh and others whose work continues to fuel a robust market for impressionist, modern and contemporary art. Picasso's "Women of Algiers (Version O)," estimated to bring over $140 million, is poised to become the most expensive artwork sold at auction, while Giacometti's "Pointing Man" could set an auction record for a sculpture if bidding soars to an expected $130 million.

...Al-Muhallab said, “You must use deception in war, for it is more effective than reinforcements.” Some methods of deception include: a. Planting spies. b. Reconnaissance. c. Feigning an intent to attack an area other than the actual target, for when the Prophet (sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) wanted to attack one area, he would give his army the impression they were going to attack another. “If a man’s chest is too narrow to hold his own secret, then the chest of the one with whom he stores the secret is even narrower” [Poetry]. And be on guard against your enemy at...

NORFOLK Ayaan Hirsi Ali stood before a slide of the caged Jordanian pilot about to be set afire by Islamic State group extremists. That, she said at Chrysler Hall on Tuesday night, will be the norm if they are not defeated. "You are going to see people beheaded, their hands and legs cut off, the mass enslavement of women," warned Hirsi Ali, a sharp critic of Muslim leaders and radicals and an advocate of women's rights. "We have had over a long period of time... even before the Reagan administration, so many warning signs that we have ignored," Hirsi Ali...

Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s. ... Thomas Doherty, chairman of American studies, refused to sign the faculty letter. He said it would have been great for the university to honor "such a courageous fighter for human freedom and women's rights, who has put her life at risk for those values."

Christian County Sheriff Joey Kyle said investigators found the charred remains of a human ear when responding to reports of vandalism at a White River Cooperative Electric substation in Spokane Nov. 15. “We found damage to the facility,” Kyle said. “We found a knit cap that was singed and a piece of charred remains that looks like an ear. Once we figured someone got zapped we started calling around to the hospitals. Sure enough we found a burn victim at St. Johns.” Kyle said there was obviously more than one person involved. “I would imagine more than one,” he said....

SNIPPET: "British Jihadi Anjem Choudary Tweets On March 19, 2011, British jihadi Anjem Choudary, spokesman for the banned Islam4UK organization, co-founder of Al-Muhajiroun, and spiritual advisor to the UK Islamist group Muslims Against Crusades (MAC),[18] launched a Twitter account and began tweeting. MAC made headlines last week for threatening a British MP who subsequently called on their activities to be closely monitored by law enforcement.[19] According to his Twitter account, Choudary is "a Muslim who believes that Islam is something we must believe in (Tawheed), live by (Shari'ah) and struggle and sacrifice for (by way of Daw'ah and Jihad)."[20] In...

Geert Wilders: "I am risking my life in defence of freedom in the Netherlands" Final remarks of Geert Wilders at his trial in Amsterdam, June 1st, 2011 Mister President, members of the Court, I am here because of what I have said. I am here for having spoken. I have spoken, I speak and I shall continue to speak. Many have kept silent, but not Pim Fortuyn, not Theo Van Gogh, and not I. I am obliged to speak. For the Netherlands is under threat of Islam. As I have argued many times, Islam is chiefly an ideology. An ideology...

A still life of sunflowers by Paul Gauguin, painted in tribute to his friend Vincent Van Gogh, is expected to fetch up to £10 million at auction. Gauguin painted the work, Nature morte à L'Espérance, in 1901 while he was living in Tahiti. It is the highlight of an Impressionist and Modern Art sale at Christie's in London on February 9. The depiction of sunflowers was a fitting tribute to Van Gogh and a reference to the months in 1888 when the two artists shared a home, a period that ended in tragedy. The pair lived together in Arles, France,...

Angela Merkel does not make the covers of Dutch newspapers very often. But the German chancellor's assertion last week that "multiculturalism has absolutely failed" in her country was headline news in the Netherlands. As far as the Dutch are concerned, the Germans - whom they consider to sometimes be politically behind the times - have finally woken up. The Netherlands' dream of a happy, harmonious multicultural society burst on a grey autumn morning six years ago in Amsterdam. On November 2, 2004, an Islamic extremist gunned down Dutch filmmaker and Islam critic Theo van Gogh in the street, then slit...

A Van Gogh painting worth $50 million stolen from a Cairo museum is still missing, Egypt's culture minister says. Earlier Farouk Hosni had said two Italians had been arrested at Cairo airport, and the small canvas found. But later he said he had been given "inaccurate" information, and the painting was still missing. The painting - known as both Poppy Flowers and Vase And Flowers - was "cut from its frame" at the Mahmoud Khalil Museum on Saturday, Mr Hosni said. Two Italians had been arrested at Cairo airport later in the day, after earlier visiting the museum. The state...

Dirk Hannema, a discredited art curator, has the last laugh after a work by Vincent Van Gogh is discovered in his collection. Dirk Hannema was known as a brilliant art curator but a bit of a fool. He claimed he had seven Vermeers in his collection, several Van Goghs and a few Rembrandts, but no one believed him. Now 25 years after his death it turned out he was right -- about one work by Vincent van Gogh. The painting, "Le Blute-Fin Mill," goes on public display Wednesday in the small Museum de Fundatie in the central Dutch town of...

A newly authenticated Van Gogh has gone on display 35 years after a discredited art collector bought it in Paris, convinced it was painted by the famed Dutch master but never able to prove it. Le Blute-Fin Mill was painted in 1886, according to Louis Van Tilborgh, curator of research at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It was bought in 1975 by Dirk Hannema, who was known as a brilliant museum curator but a fool when buying for his own collection. When he died in 1984 he claimed to have seven Vermeers, several Van Goghs and a few Rembrandts.

Found: The Clue To Van Gogh’s Ear Richard Brooks [Pic in URL] Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889 by Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) The mystery behind the most famous mutilation in art history may finally have been solved. A scholar has found evidence that a distraught Vincent van Gogh slashed his ear after learning that his brother, Theo, on whom he depended financially and emotionally, was about to get married. Martin Bailey, who has written a book on van Gogh and curated two exhibitions of his work, devised his theory after meticulous detective work on a letter in a painting...

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh Credit: Vincent van Gogh; Digital image courtesy of Wikipedia Explanation: The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style of Starry Night appears, to many, to make the night sky come alive. Although van Gogh frequently portrayed real settings in his paintings, art historians do not agree on precisely what stars and planets are being depicted in Starry Night. The style of Starry Night is post-impressionism, a popular painting...

902 surviving letters by Vincent van Gogh are to be published for the first time this week. Mostly written to the artist's brother Theo, the letters offer personal insights which give lie to the idea that van Gogh was a "reckless and unreflective genius". * ABOVE: letter by Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo, Arles, c. 21 November 1888 Translated extract from the letter: "What you write about the Dutchmen interests me greatly. I hope one day to get to know both of them personally. How old are they? I dare to believe that in the final reckoning they’ll...

Van Gogh's artistic legacy is contained within his paintings, drawings and writings. They are everlasting and will never "forget" the style that created them. They are Van Gogh's eyes that watch the world. This is all metaphorically speaking though.