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Greece’s Parthenon gets a facelift, revealing a look not seen for 220 years

By The Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Visitors to the Acropolis can now see the Parthenon’s western side looking whole for the first time in about 220 years.

Officially unveiled Thursday, restorers have slotted two new marble blocks into long-empty gaps high on the temple’s western end — the view visitors see when they first enter the ancient monument in Athens.

The 25-century-old monument overlooking the Greek capital attracted about 4.6 million visitors last year. Long-term restoration projects address damage caused by war, weather and looting, including the broken outline of the western side.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni described the sight after the latest restoration as “truly stunning.”

The two new stones, she said, do more than fill a gap.

“They allow the unique proportions and the geometric perfection of the Parthenon’s western face to be seen once again,” she said.

The project was funded through a European Union program. It is part of a broader restoration effort that began in 1975.

France sizzles in punishing heat that is already causing deaths

By The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — France gritted its teeth Monday for a week of record-busting temperatures, sweltering in a heat wave with daytime highs above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and sleep-robbing sweaty nights. The national weather service, Meteo France, said most of the country — the largest in the European Union — was entering conditions that likely won't ease before Friday. Meteo France called the heat wave exceptionally intense and similar to the August 2003 heat wave, "but with a still uncertain duration.” France introduced a heat watch warning system after that heat wave, when the highest temperatures in over half a century caused an estimated 15,000 deaths, many of older people in apartments and retirement homes without air conditioning. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing at twice the speed as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
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