Israeli authorities on Monday unveiled 11 ancient burial boxes dating to around the time of Jesus, recovered by police during a midnight raid on antiquities dealers suspected of stealing the artifacts.

Relatives shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably. Men and women nearly collapsed, held up by loved ones. Their grief came pouring out after 17 days of waiting for definitive word on the fate of the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.

Search planes flew out of Australia on today to scour rough seas in one of the remotest places on Earth for objects that may be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

The plane must be somewhere. But the same can be said for Amelia Earhart’s. Ten days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people aboard, an exhaustive international search has produced no sign of the Boeing 777, raising an unsettling question: What if the airplane is never found?

Meteor showers, terrorism, pilot suicide, alien invasion — countless theories have surfaced surrounding the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 that lost contact with air traffic controllers on March 8. The unexplained disappearance of this Boeing 777 aircraft, which was headed to Beijing, has dumbfounded both airline officials and the rest of the world.

In a gilded Kremlin hall used by czars, Vladimir Putin redrew Russia’s borders Tuesday by declaring the Crimean Peninsula part of the motherland — provoking a surge of emotion among Russians who lament the loss of empire and denunciations from Western leaders who called Putin a threat to the world.

Officials revealed a new timeline Monday suggesting the final voice transmission from the cockpit of the missing Malaysian plane may have occurred before any of its communications systems were disabled, adding more uncertainty about who aboard might have been to blame.

MOSCOW — Stepping back from the brink of war, Vladimir Putin talked tough but cooled tensions in the Ukraine crisis Tuesday, saying Russia has no intention “to fight the Ukrainian people” but reserves the right to use force.

Dr. Sergiy Kudelia of Ukraine is an assistant professor in the political science department. Kudelia has done research in political regimes, revolutions, insurgency and counterinsurgency. He also teaches a class on the government and politics of Russia. He shared some of his thoughts on the Ukrainian conflict.

KIEV, Ukraine — Russia ordered 150,000 troops to test their combat readiness Wednesday in a show of force that prompted a blunt warning from the United States that any military intervention in Ukraine would be a “grave mistake.”

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration signaled Monday it no longer recognizes Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president. The shift of support for opposition leaders in Kiev came even as U.S. officials sought to assure Russia that it does not have to be shut out of a future relationship with a new Ukrainian government.

For many students, spring break is a nine-day break from the chaos of midterms and a chance to let off some steam after those long All-University Sing rehearsals have finally ended.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged Ukraine to avoid violence against peaceful protesters or face consequences, as the United States considered joining European partners to impose sanctions aimed at ending deadly street clashes that are sparking fears of civil war.

The winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia has been creating a lot of buzz lately – seemingly about anything but the Olympic events. From terrorist threats and government spending to the Sochi Problems Twitter account, the amount of media coverage on the Olympics can be confusing. Assistant professor for the political science department in the school of arts and sciences, Dr. Sergiy Kudelia teaches a class on terrorism and will teach a government and politics of Russia class in the fall.

WASHINGTON — The weather is warm at this year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, yet U.S.-Russian relations are still in the deep freeze. Back in 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave Russia’s top diplomat a red button labeled “reset” to
symbolize how U.S. relations had thawed — even though it was mistranslated into Russian.

Protesters in cities around the world targeted major Olympic sponsors Wednesday, just ahead of the Winter Games in Sochi, urging them to speak out against Russia’s law restricting gay-rights activities. Two more sponsors of the U.S. Olympic team condemned the law, but leading global sponsors did not join them.

CAIRO — Al-Qaida’s central leadership broke with one of its most powerful branch commanders in an apparent attempt to stem the deadly infighting that has erupted in Syria among the militant Islamic factions trying to bring down President Bashar Assad.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza’s tiny movie industry may struggle with amateur actors and power outages, but at least it has a winning formula of which the producers never seem to tire: the heroics, from a Palestinian perspective, of those fighting Israeli occupation.

Bearsforphans, an organization that has been in the works since April 2013, will hold its long-awaited first meeting at 5:31 p.m. on Feb. 11. Gummy bears may be involved.

President Ken Starr and Tom Farr of Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs met the pope with about 60 scholars and journalists participating in a two-day conference on Christianity and freedom in Rome last month.

South Africa’s first black president spent nearly a third of his life as a prisoner of apartheid, yet he sought to win over its defeated guardians in a relatively peaceful transition of power that inspired the world.

As head of state, the former boxer, lawyer and inmate lunched with the prosecutor who argued successfully for his incarceration.

Nelson Mandela, who became one of the world’s most beloved statesmen and a colossus of the 20th century when he emerged from 27 years in prison to negotiate an end to white minority rule in South Africa, has died. He was 95.

South African President Jacob Zuma made the announcement at a news conference late Thursday, saying “we’ve lost our greatest son.”

Thousands of typhoon survivors swarmed the airport here on Tuesday seeking a flight out, but only a few hundred made it, leaving behind a shattered, rain-lashed city short of food and water and littered with countless bodies.

Four days after Typhoon Haiyan struck the eastern Philippines, assistance is only just beginning to arrive. Authorities estimated the storm killed 10,000 or more across a vast swath of the country, and displaced around 660,000 others.

There’s a definite something about that time of year for last harvests. When the greens are all gold, save the winter grass at pasture. And heartier vegetables, namely of the squash variety, grace the kitchen in pies and casseroles. The time of year signifies a bounty unique to its own. It’s not at all like the first harvest in mid- to late June — plump and sweet and bright.

Mulenga Chella said it was God’s plan for him to go prison.

In 2006, Chella, a master of divinity student at George W. Truett Theological Seminary, was imprisoned in Tanzania, directly north of his home country in Zambia. He spent two years in prison and was released in October 2008.

The discussion Thursday at the World Food Prize symposium about hunger and poverty in developing nations turned largely from the controversies of global warming and genetically modified crops and focused on governments and their role in solving social ills.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and philanthropist Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, discussed how they and the foundations they’ve created work in African nations and elsewhere to improve lives.

The discovery of a 1.8-million-year-old skull of a human ancestor buried under a medieval Georgian village provides a vivid picture of early evolution and indicates our family tree may have fewer branches than some believe, scientists say.

The fossil is the most complete pre-human skull uncovered. With other partial remains previously found at the rural site, it gives researchers the earliest evidence of human ancestors moving out of Africa and spreading north to the rest of the world, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

The United States on Wednesday cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to its Mideast ally Egypt, responding to the military ouster last summer of the nation’s first democratically elected president and the crackdown on protesters that has sunk the country into violent turmoil.

While the State Department did not provide a dollar amount of what was being withheld, most of it is linked to military aid. In all, the U.S. provides $1.5 billion in aid each year to Egypt.

When Orange County, Calif., freshman Ansley Bridges walked into an Ethiopian classroom at the age of 13 and saw students without school supplies, she knew she had to do something.

This experience six years ago was the spark that created an Ethiopian tutoring service that would transform lives.

For Richmond senior Jolene Damoiseaux, a thesis was more than an Honors College requirement. Damoiseaux turned her thesis into Mothers On the Move, a program that provides pregnant women on the Nyakach plateau in Kenya with transportation to the Sigoti Health Centre.

Damoiseaux’s interest in medical research began her sophomore year in a research and design class taught by Dr. Lisa Baker, clinical faculty member in the Honors program, Damoiseaux said.