Greece

Hooded youths attacked the Athens courthouse with firebombs Wednesday and a general strike by labor unions shut down most of the country as nationwide urban unrest entered its fifth night. The worst riots in years, sparked by the fatal shooting by police of a 15-year-old boy Saturday, have left Greece's fragile center-right government fighting for survival. The strike by about 100,000 workers shut down most transportation as well as banks and hospitals.

Using boreholes and seismic imaging to analyze subsurface geological features, British researchers have provided a key confirmation of their claim that Ithaca, the home of the legendary Greek warrior Odysseus, was located on a present-day peninsula of the island of Cephalonia. The jutting piece of land, the scientists say, was a small island separate from Cephalonia until rubble from landslides and earthquakes over the centuries filled the channel between them.

GREECE Greek authorities ordered Marion True, former antiquities curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, to post about $19,000 bail, two sources familiar with the case confirmed. True's appearance Wednesday before a Greek magistrate and prosecutors, first reported by the New York Times, was the latest step toward a criminal trial on charges that the former curator conspired to buy an ancient golden funerary wreath that Greek authorities say was illegally excavated.

Greek authorities blamed domestic militant groups for the rocket-propelled grenade that hit the U.S. Embassy in Athens. Police are examining the authenticity of two calls from the group Revolutionary Struggle, which has carried out six bombings since 2003. The group has criticized the U.S. in the past, citing treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hundreds of heirlooms once owned by the former Greek royal family sold Wednesday for $14 million, Christie's auction house said, despite appeals from the government in Athens to halt the sale. The most expensive item on the first day of a two-day auction was a pair of massive silver Victorian pilgrim flasks, which sold for $1.1 million, the London-based auction house said in a statement. The sale continues today.

The path between the Greek and Turkish sides of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, was barricaded by plastic and metal screens, and prospects for reconciliation were uncertain. The Greek Cypriot government this week demolished the 12-foot-high concrete wall that stretched across Ledra Street but said the crossing would not be opened unless Turkey removed soldiers from the area.

Russia, Greece and Bulgaria signed a deal to build a 175-mile pipeline to transport Russian oil to a port in northern Greece, a pact that the three governments hailed as helping to secure Western oil supplies. The pipeline from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas will transport crude to the port of Alexandroupolis. The project will improve networks in southeastern Europe that transport oil and gas from the Caspian Sea region to the European Union.

Fourteen years after the J. Paul Getty Museum purchased a 4th century BC Greek funerary wreath for $1.15 million from a Swiss art dealer, 17 months after the Greek government formally demanded its return and eight months after the museum agreed to do so, the delicate gold headpiece is about to go home.

Greece displayed two ancient artifacts Thursday that had been returned from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Getty gave back a 4th century BC gold funerary wreath believed to come from Macedonia and a 6th century marble statue of a woman as part of its deal with Greece to return four objects from its collection that investigations concluded had been smuggled and sold illegally.

A cruise ship evacuated after it hit a reef in the Aegean Sea sank Friday, and navy divers searched the wreck for a missing Frenchman and his daughter. The 469-foot Greek-flagged Sea Diamond struck rocks Thursday in a sea-filled crater formed by a huge volcanic eruption 3,500 years ago off the island of Santorini. Nearly 1,600 people were retrieved from the listing ship in a three-hour rescue operation.