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China Universities Vow Ideology Clampdown on Staff, Students

Three top Chinese universities have vowed to tighten "ideological" control over students and teachers, as a wider clampdown on free expression in the country intensifies.

The comments came from the Communist Party committees of Peking University, Shanghai’s Fudan University, and Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, which each wrote a statement in the Communist Party theoretical journal Qiushi.

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Renowned Rock Art in Utah is Younger than Believed

Life-sized figures sketched into red rock cliffs in Canyonlands National Park were drawn 1,000 years more recently than what had long been believed, a team of Utah State University scientists discovered about the world-renowned rock art.

The team used modern luminescence dating techniques to analyze when the art went up in what is known as the "Great Gallery" in southeastern Utah's Horseshoe Canyon. The researchers believe the figures were created 1,000 to 2,000 years ago instead of the previously thought 2,000 to 4,000 years ago.

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Report: China Announces National 'Martyrs' Day'

Chinese lawmakers have approved a national day to commemorate people who died in wars resisting foreign invaders, state media reported, at a time when Beijing remains at loggerheads with Tokyo over territory and history.

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Jamaican Ends Legal Challenge to Anti-Sodomy Law

A young Jamaican gay rights activist who brought an unprecedented legal challenge to the Caribbean island's anti-sodomy law has withdrawn the claim after growing fearful about violent backlashes, advocacy groups and colleagues said Friday.

Last year, Javed Jaghai made headlines after initiating a constitutional court challenge to Jamaica's 1864 law that bans sex between men. He argued that the anti-sodomy law fuels homophobia and violates a charter of human rights adopted in 2011 that guarantees people the right to privacy.

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Review: 'Bad Feminist' Essays are Sharp, Funny

"Bad Feminist: Essays" (Harper Perennial), by Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay may call herself a bad feminist — she cops to loving pink and dancing to misogynist music — but she is a badass writer.

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Poland on Edge 75 Years after Hitler and Stalin Carved it Up

Poland marks the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II Monday with one eye on Russia, which invaded it during the war and is now throwing its weight around in neighboring Ukraine.

From the very first German shells fired at a Polish fort in Gdansk in the early hours of September 1, 1939, to the final days in 1945, Poland suffered some of the worst horrors of the war, chief among them the extermination of most of its Jewish population by the Nazis.

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Colombia Court Allows Lesbian Adoption

Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a lesbian woman could adopt her long-time partner's daughter, though the ruling does not apply to gay adoption in all circumstances.

Ana Leiderman appealed to the court to let her partner, Veronica Botero, adopt her biological daughter after the Colombian Family Well-being Institute rejected Botero's adoption application.

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Museum to Display 6,500-Year-Old Human Skeleton

The public will soon get to see an ancient human skeleton recently rediscovered in a Philadelphia museum's storage room.

Visitors can look at the 6,500-year-old remains beginning Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Museum.

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U.N. Calls for Laws to Enshrine Pacific Women's Rights

The United Nations on Friday called on Pacific leaders to enact laws that protect women as a first step in tackling the endemic levels of domestic violence in the region.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of U.N. Women, said governments played a key role in changing the regulatory and cultural environments that has seen the Pacific record some of the highest rates of violence against women globally.

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Japan Publishers Lash out at New Amazon Rules

A group of Japanese publishers have lashed out at Amazon's new book sale rules, after U.S. and European authors accused the online retailer of using strong-arm negotiating tactics.

Several Tokyo-based publishers said Amazon recently unveiled a four-point system that rates them based on the size of the commission they pay for selling books on the U.S. company's vast website, among other criteria.

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