Europe

The fifth century Byzantine Stoudios monastery in Istanbul housed a church and was later turned into a mosque and then a museum before falling into disrepair.

World News

Some Turkish Churches Get Makeovers — As Mosques

8:11pm December 03, 2013

by Peter Kenyon

A fifth century Byzantine monastery in Turkey is finally slated for renovation. But the government wants to turn it into a mosque. It's just one of several conversions of historically Christian sites that the government is considering, a move the country's dwindling number of Greeks decry.

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Swedish Inmate Escapes To Go To The Dentist

1:27pm December 02, 2013

The prisoner complained of a toothache but says he couldn't get anyone to help him treat it. So, according to Swedish media, the 51-year-old man escaped, and went to a dentist. He had his tooth pulled and then turned himself in to authorities.

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Cyclists negotiate rush hour traffic in central London on Nov. 15. Fourteen London cyclists have died so far this year, all in accidents involving heavy goods vehicles.

World News

Londoners Urged To Cycle, But Commute Can Be Treacherous

7:30pm November 19, 2013

by Vicki Barker

The London mayor has been urging people to get around by bike for years. And this year, 14 London cyclists have been killed — a higher casualty count than that of the British military in Afghanistan. In each fatal accident, a heavy truck was involved.

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Happy Birthday Prince Charles

7:12am November 14, 2013

The heir to the British throne turns 65 on Thursday, making him eligible for his government pension. The prince plans to donate his $175 a week to charity.

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Duke Will Be 'Crowned' For Foreseeable Future

7:39am November 13, 2013

Crowning the Duke of Wellington with a traffic cone is a tradition in Glasgow, Scotland. Frustrated officials wanted to raise the 1844 statue to a height that could keep the cones off the duke's head. Removing them costs the city $160 each time. But the effort to elevate the duke was stopped by a petition.

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Russian Subway Promotion Counts Deep Knee Bends

6:58am November 11, 2013

Riders are being offered a 30-ruble, one-ride ticket if they perform 30 squats. A machine counts your deep knee bends and dispenses a ticket, if you finish 30 in two minutes. It's a promotion ahead of the winter Olympics in Russia.

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Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat boards a helicopter in Ramallah, the West Bank, for the start of his journey to a hospital in France on Oct. 29, 2004. He died 2 weeks later.

Lighting Up The Investigative Path With Polonium-210

6:58pm November 10, 2013

by NPR Staff

Conspiracy theories continue over the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and polonium is suspected as the weapon of the alleged assassin. Whatever happened to Arafat, there is a case from 2006 that shows just how destructive the radioactive element can be. It all started with a sip of green tea.

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View of a destroyed Jewish shop in Berlin on Nov. 11, 1938, after the anti-Semitic violence of Kristallnacht. The pogrom unleashed Nazi-coordinated attacks on thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses.

World News

Bearing Witness To Nazis' Life-Shattering Kristallnacht

2:26pm November 10, 2013

by Esme Nicholson

On Nov. 9, 1938, the Nazis burned down synagogues, destroyed Jewish businesses and arrested more than 26,000 Jews. Germans and Jews alike are still grappling with the legacy, 75 years later. Margot Friedlander is one survivor, who has returned to Berlin after decades of exile.

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A woman walks amid both open and closed shops during a Sunday morning stroll at the Butte Montmartre in Paris, in July. Under France's Byzantine rules on Sunday trading, shops at the top of the hill are in a designated tourist area and so can open, but th

World News

France Rethinks The Sanctity Of Its Day Of Rest

8:34pm November 08, 2013

by Eleanor Beardsley

For more than a century, French law has allowed stores to open on Sundays only under specific conditions. It also tightly controls other types of Sunday work. Several stores are now challenging that ban, as people question the tradition amid a languishing economy and a 24/7 world.

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Algeria-born Albert Camus poses for a portrait in Paris following the announcement that he is being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957. Camus' views on his birthplace still stoke controversy.

Camus' Stance On Algeria Still Stokes Debate In France

2:56pm November 07, 2013

by Eleanor Beardsley

A hundred years after his birth, French writer Albert Camus is perhaps best known for novels like The Stranger and his philosophy of absurdism. But it's his views on Algeria's fight for independence that continues\ to get scrutiny.

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