The centuries-old enigma of the location of the landscape behind the Mona Lisa may have been solved. Italian researchers say a hidden clue identifies the exact location of the background to the world’s most famous artwork.

If you look very closely at the most mysterious Da Vinci painting, you would see a bridge above the left shoulder of Mona Lisa. Italian art historian Carla Glori claims that it is that the three-arched bridge hints at a hillside village called Bobbio in Northern Italy, The Daily Telegraph reports.

This idea was prompted by another recent discovery made by Italian art historian Silvano Vinceti. He says the hidden numbers 7 and 2 are painted beneath the bridge. Glori alleges these numbers where deliberately painted in by the Great Renaissance master so that the background could be identified.

She claims the numbers in fact refer to year 1472, when the Bobbio bridge known as Ponte Gobbo or Ponte Vecchio collapsed after a flood of the Trebbia River.

“Leonardo added in the number 72 beneath the bridge to record the devastating flood of the River Trebbia and to allow it to be identified,” The Daily Telegraph quotes Carla Glori as saying.

The Mona Lisa is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506 in Florence and still remains one of the most mysterious artwork of all times. Until recently most art historians agreed that the landscape in the painting was the fruit of the artist’s imagination.

In just five years, China surpassed the US as leading a trading partner in the world. With 124 countries considering China their largest trading partner and only 76 having that relationship with the US, the Asian country’s influence is on the rise.

In 2006, the US was the larger trading partner for 127 countries, while China dominated among 70. In 2011, the numbers reversed, with China dominating trade among 124 countries and the US being the top trade partner for only 76, the Associated Press reported. Some US allies even consider China their top trading partner, including Australia and South Korea.

The AP findings demonstrate China’s rapid ascent as a trade partner. As a result of its international relationships, the world’s most populous country is becoming more politically influential – and its rise won’t be ending anytime soon. China’s world output is forecasted to grow up to 8 percent a year over the next decade – a rate that surpasses all Western levels.

Trade with China was on average 12.4 percent of GDP for other countries – a rate that is higher than trade with the US has been in the past 30 years. Trade with China was only 3 percent of a country’s GDP in 2002, which demonstrates the surge that occurred in the last decade.

With rising trade influence, China is likely to also generate jobs, raise living standards and gain political power.

“The United States is a tiger with no power. Nobody can deny that China is the one now rising,” said Shin Cheol-soo, a South Korean businessman at the ENA Industry Co.

A British website offered young women ‘sponsorship’ from strangers in exchange for private encounters. Allegedly a pretty student could cover up to US$24,000 a year of tuition fees depending on ‘the level of intimacy’ she was willing to demonstrate.

The dubious business was exposed by The Independent newspaper, which sent an undercover journalist to pose as a potential scholar for a meeting with a site staffer, but cut it short when he requested a “practical assessment” at a nearby flat.

The website SponsorAScholar.co.uk apparently operates in a grey zone of British law, which allows clients and sex workers to be brought together, as long as any intermediary can plausibly deny involvement in sex for money deals, the newspaper said.

It this particular case the website offered women between 17 and 24 funding for their university study from wealthy businessmen seeking “discreet adventures”. The tuition money would be received in exchange for two-hour sessions with men in hotel rooms or private flats up to four times per term. The site claims to have undertaken such arrangements for 1,400 students.

According to the conversation the reporter secretly filmed while meeting the “assessor”, the women are supposed to complete a questionnaire to describe what they are comfortable doing with the strangers. He explained that “the more you’re prepared to do, the more interest you’re going to get, [and] obviously the more sponsorship amount you’re going to get for that.”

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Children of Desert Hot Springs need a safe, clean and fun place to play and enjoy their families. Volunteers are needed to build this wonderful space for our children. We need your involvement on January 12th from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

The location to build the playground is the Desert Hot Springs Health & Wellness Center 11750 Cholla Drive, Desert Hot Springs.

Volunteers to build the playground can register by calling the Boys and Girls Club 760-836-1160 or email cgrier@bgcafcv.org.

Sponsored by: City of Desert Hot Springs, Boys and Girls Club, Humana Foundation and KaBoom

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Everyone loves a winner.  Everyone loves to laugh.   Well, if that’s the case, then everyone had better scoot over to the Palm Springs Woman’s Club at 314 S. Cahuilla Road on the corner of Baristo and Cahuilla.   Why?  Because the Dezart Performs acting company, now in its fourth season, is presenting an hilarious and highly entertaining program of three One-Act plays called “The Mating Games”.  

 Dezart Performs’ Play Reading Series is an annual event held every spring in Palm Springs and receives playwright entries from all over the country.  This year the organization received 121 submissions.  The three One-Acts in this year’s festival are: “Feeding Time at the Human House”, written by David Wiener and directed by Lenny Ripps.  “The Blind Date”, written by Tanis Galik and directed by Don Cilluffo, and “Mourning Glory” written by Rich Orloff and directed by Dezart’s artistic director, Michael Shaw.

    The festival selections on stage this year come from the ballots and scores judged by the audience members in April of 2012.  All play scores were recorded and calculated, and the plays with the highest scores were declared the Audience Favorites – the plays now onstage at The Palm Springs Woman’s Club.  “The Mating Games”, cleverly and comically address the eternal vagaries of life concerning the topic of love, dating, and the longing for companionship.

     In “Feeding Time”, set in a zoo in a large city, the zoo’s two Orangutans, Fran (a delightful Sherry Lubov Ripps), and her mate Bernie (a burly and huggable Paul Buxton), share Orangutan opinions and philosophy about the humans that stare back at them in their enclosure.  If you have ever been to a zoo and stared into the Monkey and Gorilla enclosures, then you are well aware of their proclivities when it comes to their personal hygiene… if you get my drift.  It’s a hoot of a One Act.

     “The Blind Date” can be a youthful horror story revisited, depending on one’s own experience, or at best, a cautionary tale about dating for seniors in the here and now.  Ron Young as Stanley, a sixty-year old bachelor, has a blind date arranged by friends with Alice, played by Kitty Garascia.  It isn’t easy for seniors, who once more find themselves trying to cope with the thrill or pain of testing the dating waters, especially when they’re well past their primes.  

  Do you remember the old, shaggy-dog story of the salesman who’s car breaks down on a lonely road at night and is in desperate need of a jack-handle in order to change the blown tire?  If you do, then this hilarious One-Act is for you.

     In “Mourning Glory”, the final selection of the evening, it seems that sex rears its head at the most unlikely of times.  Hey, it’s a primal human emotion, and it’s hard to control one’s feelings.  Well, that’s the rationale, at least for widower Milt (an ever-so-proper appearing Hal O’Connell) and his dead business partner’s wife Aggie, a new widow (deliciously played by Valorie Armstrong).

     Armstrong’s droll, at times, double entendre’s finally push Milt over the edge of propriety, and both share their marriage secrets about their spouses of forty-seven years.

O’Connell is the perfect foil for Armstrong’s exquisite comedy timing and delivery.  Everything, it seems is on-track for a little late night heavy breathing, until Aggie’s niece Beverly (Dolly Dupree), appears from another room to console her favorite Aunt following the funeral services. Armstrong and O’Connell’s onstage chemistry is spot-on and the controlled mayhem of the moment is beautifully choreographed and executed by director Shaw.

     Dezart Performs’ 4^th Annual Play Festival production “The Mating Games”, performs Friday, December 7 & 8 at 7:30 pm and on Sunday, December 9, at 2:30 pm.  Don’t Miss It!   Tickets may be obtained by calling 760-322-0179, or go online to www.dezartperforms.com.     

The story of a 13-year-old Jewish girl who died in a Nazi concentration camp after spending two years in hiding in the attic of her father’s office, Anne Frank, will be adapted for the silver screen, exposing new archive materials.

The new film will be based not only on the girl’s famous diary, but will also unveil extensive historical documentation provided by her family. The drama aims to tell Frank’s whole story, both before and after her time in hiding, the Hollywood Reporter informed.

German screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer, who penned the Oscar-nominated period drama “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days”, has worked on the Anne Frank script. He reportedly used new archive material on the arrest and trial of the leader of the non-violent anti-Nazi resistance movement “The White Rose” to add detail to the historic biopic.

The author of one of the most famous diaries in history, Frank was one of over a million Jewish children who lost their lives in the Holocaust. Her unique diary, an outstanding collection of secret thoughts and feelings, her love crush with a boy, Peter van Daan, among them, has been translated into 55 languages.

The teenage girl proved herself a fully-fledged thinker and never lost hope of being free one day. Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus in 1945, shortly before the Bergen-Belsen camp was liberated by the British troops.

The story of Anne Frank has been previously adapted for big screen a number of times; one of them, The Diary of Anne Frank, won three Oscars in 1959.

A director and cast for the new adaptation have not been set yet. Shooting is planned for next year.