Much myth surrounds the notorious fraternities and secret societies of Ivy league universities, such as Yale's Skull and Bones, but what are the facts behind the fiction?

George H. W. Bush is perhaps the most famous alumni of The Order of Skull and Bones, Yale's oldest and most determinedly secretive society. Founded in 1832 following a dispute among Yale's debating societies, it has long been a source of speculation and intrigue due to its history of nurturing the elites of the day.

Skull and Bones aroused competition on campus, leading to the founding of Scroll and Key (1841), and later Wolf's Head (1883).

Rumours of the society include suggested ties from organisations ranging from the CIA to the Illuminati. The 2000 film, The Skulls, was largely inspired by such speculations, but it seems more likely that the society's secretiveness stems from the fact that there is in fact very little to tell.

Delta Kappa Epsilon, or DKE, is a highly successful social fraternity founded at Yale in 1844 which established chapters at a number of other Ivy league universities, including Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania....

A prominent Italian historian has claimed that the Roman Empire collapsed because a "contagion of homosexuality and effeminacy" made it easy pickings for barbarian hordes, sparking a furious row.

Roberto De Mattei, 63, the deputy head of the country's National Research Council, claimed that the empire was fatally weakened after conquering Carthage, which he described as "a paradise for homosexuals".

The remarks prompted angry calls for his resignation, with critics saying his comments were homophobic, offensive and unbecoming of his position.

The fall of the Roman Empire was a result of "the effeminacy of a few in Carthage, a paradise for homosexuals, who infected the many.

"The abhorrent presence of a few gays infected a good part of the (Roman) people," Prof Mattei told Radio Maria, a Catholic radio station....

Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, has been known for her controversial remarks in the past.

Miss Mussolini, a right-wing politician and former actress and model, resigned from the Italian political party National Alliance in 2003 following a visit of the party leader to Israel where he denounced fascism as "the absolute evil" and apologised for Italy's role during the Second World War.

She did, however, defend the right of Israel to exist and declared that the world "should beg forgiveness of Israel".

In March 2005, Miss Mussolini was banned by a local court from regional elections held the following month for presenting fraudulent signatures. She went on hunger strike to protest the decision and blamed her former party, the right-wing National Alliance, for engineering the forgery scandal.

She sparked outrage in 2006 when she responded to claims by the transgender Italian M.P. candidate Vladimir Luxuria that she was a 'fascist' with the line: Meglio fascista che frocio ("It is better to be a fascist than a faggot")....

The Republican Party’s presidential-nominating process has always been run by elites. Oh, the voters have their brief moments of triumph, hoisting up an unelectable right-winger (i.e., Pat Buchanan) or an uncontrollable moderate (John McCain, the circa-2000 version). But the establishment always wins. Meeting in their K Street offices and communicating through organs like George Will’s column and National Review, the main financers and organizers settle upon a useful frontman, a reliable vessel for the party’s agenda who — and this is the crucial part — is blessed with the requisite political talent. Democrats have been known to mess that last part up and nominate a dweeb, but Republicans have generally understood that an agenda tilted toward the desires of the powerful requires a skilled frontman who can pitch Middle America. Favorite character types include jocks, movie stars, folksy Texans and war heroes.

The hidden hand of the G.O.P. establishment is once again at work. Dissatisfied with a presidential field consisting of boring retreads (Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee) and Tea Party-endorsed outsiders (Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin), various elites have been trying to coalesce around a candidate of their own.

Now here is where the story gets strange. The candidates they are recruiting make Michael Dukakis look like John F. Kennedy. They are qualified enough to serve as president, but wildly unqualified to run for president. One way to put this is that most powerful people in the G.O.P. have suddenly gone idealistic. Another way to put it is that they’ve lost their minds....

What, then, explains the Republican establishment’s outburst of idealism/madness? For one thing, the legacy of Ronald Reagan caused conservatives to commit to a hyperidealized conception of the presidency. Democrats dismissed his popularity as a function of Hollywood charisma. Republicans bitterly contested this, and still do. “Far from the stereotype of the passive actor being fed his lines by myriad scriptwriters and directors, Reagan was an avid reader of conservative periodicals like Human Events and National Review, as well as of leading theoreticians of the post-World War II conservative movement,” the former Reagan staff member Jeffrey Bell argued in February. An editor of a 2001 book, “Reagan, in His Own Hand,” said that the Gipper possessed “a formidable intellect, as a reader, a thinker, a strategist.” Their takeaway: Televised charisma alone doesn’t win elections. Ideas — conservative ideas — win elections....

FORT SUMTER NATIONAL MONUMENT, S.C. — If the period leading to the outbreak of the Civil War was a confusing patch in American history, the threat of a government shutdown threw the spirited preparations for a commemoration of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter 150 years later into almost as much chaos.

“It’s been complete confusion,” said Gary Alexander, one of the 90 National Park Service employees working on the commemoration.

Because the budget impasse threatened to close Fort Sumter, about 70 Union Army re-enactors who had been scheduled to take up positions at the garrison in Charleston harbor on Friday were obliged to encamp elsewhere. And hundreds of Confederate re-enactors scheduled to camp at Fort Moultrie, another federal Park Service site across the harbor, instead slept by their pickups in a nearby parking lot rather than risk eviction from Moultrie by the Park Service in case there was a shutdown.

“We’re like the poster child for the effects of a government shutdown,” said Mark Silas Tackitt, who flew here from Seattle, where he is a public defender, to play the role of the Union commander who surrendered Fort Sumter after Confederate shelling in April 1861. “One hundred fifty years ago, people here were thinking, what is the federal government going to do? And today there’s quite a parallel.”...

LOS ANGELES — This was once a place for the famous, or at least those who wanted to be. There were ballroom dances and Champagne toasts, a welcoming place for the star-struck ladies who lunch.

But those glory days were a long time ago.

Now, the glamour of the Woman’s Club of Hollywood has been replaced by squabbles and lawsuits. The membership has dwindled and some members say the club has been subject to a hostile takeover by a couple of women who, under the guise of reviving the club, actually are hoping to turn the valuable property into condominiums.

The club’s story touches on many of the keystones of this city — money, celebrity, history and, of course, real estate. On one side is a group of women who have been involved with the club for years who say that they are victims of a predatory scheme. On the other are two women who say that they alone are trying to revive the club and turn it into a nonprofit. The two sides have battled in court for months, but the State Superior Court may soon force the organization to hold an election to decide who should run the club....

Relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing have asked their lawyers to request a meeting with Libyan defector Moussa Koussa.

He is thought to have been a senior figure in the Libyan intelligence service when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in 1988.

Last week the former Libyan foreign minister arrived in the UK.

Mr Koussa said he was "no longer willing" to work for Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.

Scottish police investigating the Lockerbie bombing have since interviewed Mr Koussa....

An archaeological discovery by the University of Reading is set to shed new light on the history of farming.

Dr Gabor Thomas and his team have found a 7th Century iron plough coulter during excavations at Lyminge, Kent.

Unlike the small fields associated with earlier light ploughs they cultivated the land in long narrow strips making the large open fields which would become a standard feature of the medieval countryside.

Previously it was believed heavy ploughs were introduced to Anglo-Saxon England in the late 10th Century or 11th Century, on the basis of representations in manuscripts of this period.

However, the Lyminge coulter can be firmly dated to the 7th Century....

A large gap in pre-history could signal that Britain underwent an economic downturn over 2,500 years ago.

In history lessons, the three ages of pre-history - Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age - seem to flow together without a gap.

But there is a 300-year period in British history between around 800 BC and 500 BC where experts still struggle to explain what happened, where bronze is in decline and iron was not widely used.

The difficult thing for historians and archaeologists alike, is that no-one knows for sure what caused this decline.

There are a number of archaeological sites around Britain where large amounts of bronze, specifically axeheads, have been recovered, such as the one at Langton Matravers, Dorset. This is important because of the way historians believe bronze was used in ancient society....

Archaeologists are excavating early medieval remains from a cemetery before they are washed away by the sea.

It is known the site at St Bride's Bay in Pembrokeshire contains graves that date back to the 9th and 10th Centuries.

The graves are close to the edge of low cliffs, and Dyfed Archaeological Trust is keen to analyse their contents before they disappear.

Thursday is the last day of excavation work before the site is refilled....