In brief: Hitler watercolor sells for $162,000
BERLIN – A watercolor of Munich’s old city hall believed to have been painted by Adolf Hitler a century ago sold for 130,000 euros ($162,000) at an auction Saturday in Germany.
Kathrin Weidler, director of the Weidler auction house in Nuremberg, said the work attracted bidders from four continents and went to a buyer from the Middle East. She declined to elaborate.
The auction house says the painting is one of about 2,000 by Hitler and is thought to be from about 1914, when he was struggling to make a living as an artist, almost two decades before rising to power as the Nazi dictator.
The painting was sold by a pair of elderly sisters whose grandfather purchased it in 1916.
U.S. releases detainee from Guantanamo
The U.S. military released to Saudi Arabia last week a man who was held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a dozen years and never charged with a crime but was categorized for a time as a “forever prisoner.”
A Saudi plane fetched Muhammed Zahrani, 45, on Friday, reducing the detainee population at Guantanamo to 142. Days earlier, the U.S. sent five other Arab captives to resettlement in Europe.
The United States disclosed the transfer of the Saudi citizen Saturday morning once Zahrani was back in his homeland.
The sudden spurt in transfers – Zahrani was the 13th released this year – has unsettled some in Congress as the Pentagon works toward President Barack Obama’s goal of closing the prison.
University suspends fraternity activities
The University of Virginia suspended all fraternity activities and asked police to investigate a 2012 sexual assault in the wake of a Rolling Stone article that suggested the Charlottesville campus failed to protect students from potential sexual predators lurking among the school’s Greek organizations.
In a statement issued Saturday, University President Teresa Sullivan said all fraternity activities would be suspended through Jan. 9, as officials discuss steps to prevent assaults on campus.
“The wrongs described in Rolling Stone are appalling and have caused all of us to reexamine our responsibility to this community. Rape is an abhorrent crime that has no place in the world, let alone on the campuses and grounds of our nation’s colleges and universities,” Sullivan said.
According to the Rolling Stone report, a girl, identified only as Jackie, was attacked by several members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in 2012 and sexually assaulted for hours.
Tourist fined after defacing Colosseum
ROME – Italian authorities say a Russian tourist has been fined 20,000 euros for engraving a big letter ‘K’ on a wall of the Colosseum, the latest act of vandalism by tourists at the ancient structure.
The news agency ANSA reported that the 42-year-old tourist was given a summary judgment Saturday of a fine and a suspended four-year jail sentence. He was spotted by a guard as he used a pointed stone to carve the 10-inch-tall letter.
Union leaders, citing recent acts of vandalism, have complained about the lack of personnel to properly monitor Rome’s archaeological treasures. It was the fifth incident of vandalism by foreign tourists at the Colosseum this year.