Latest news with #marble
Daily Mail
29-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Inside the lavish world of multi-million-dollar superyachts... and why the ultra-rich's secret island sanctuary could soon be in peril
Decked out with more marble than an Italian palace, enough staff for a CEO to call it their home office, and price tags that would make anyone who isn't a multibillionaire choke on their caviar, the superyacht lifestyle of the elite seems to be a world away. But even in the luxurious fantasy land of the ultrarich, it's not all smooth sailing.
CBS News
23-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Skeletal remains found on New Jersey beaches decades ago identified as captain of doomed 19th-century ship
Skeletal remains found on New Jersey beaches decades ago have been identified as those of a 19th-century schooner captain, thanks to the investigative efforts of college students. The ship, the Oriental, sank in 1844. The schooner was transporting 60 tons of marble from Connecticut to Philadelphia to be used in the construction of Girard College, which still operates today. The ship likely sprung a leak, according to a news release announcing the identification of the remains, and sank off the coast of Brigantine Shoal. All five crew members aboard the ship died. The skeletal remains, including a skull, were found on a number of South Jersey beaches between 1995 and 2013. The set of remains became known as "Scattered Man John Doe." Police efforts to identify the bones failed. In 2023, the New Jersey State Police partnered with Ramapo College's Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center. A sample from the bones was uploaded to genetic genealogy company Intermountain Forensics, which submitted it to DNA matching sites in February 2024. Meanwhile, students at Ramapo used the profile for research. They found ancestry matches dating back to the 1600s, including genetic relatives from Connecticut. For the next year, students continued to find ties to Connecticut, and eventually they started looking at shipwrecks off the coast of New Jersey. They came upon two articles about the sinking of the Oriental. One article named the crew members aboard at the time of the sinking and another detailed the wreck itself. "The storm was so tremendous that no help could be given from the shore," said the article, which was published in the Boston Daily Bee in December 1844 and described an account from a Connecticut publication. According to the article, one crew member was "decently buried" after his "corpse was thrown on the shore." No other bodies were discovered immediately after the sinking. A clipping from the Boston Daily Bee. Ramapo College of New Jersey The circumstantial evidence and genetic ancestry led the students to believe "Scattered Man John Doe" might be the captain of the ship, Henry Goodsell. Goodsell was 29 at the time of his death, and left a wife and three children, according to the Boston Daily Bee. The New Jersey State Police collected a family reference sample from one of his great-grandchildren in March 2025. In April 2025, the NJSP confirmed that "Scattered Man John Doe" was Goodsell. This has become one of the oldest cold case identifications using investigative genetic genealogy, Ramapo said. "Identifying human remains is one of the most solemn and challenging responsibilities law enforcement is charged with," said Chief of County Detectives Patrick Snyder at the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office. "Law enforcement works hard knowing that behind every case is a promise: that no one will be forgotten, and that we will pursue the truth until families have the answers they deserve." The Ramapo College IGG Center has consulted on 92 cases, Ramapo said. Two months ago, the program was credited with helping identify the remains of a woman who disappeared in 2014. In November 2024, student research led to an arrest in a decades-old cold case.
Al Jazeera
11-05-2025
- Al Jazeera
Resistance and extractivism: Inside Carrara, Italy's home of white marble
Carrara, Italy - At dawn, the jagged peaks of the Apuan Alps can be seen rising steeply above the Tyrrhenian Sea, their sharp silhouettes mirrored in the still water below. Shaped over millennia by wind and rain - and in recent centuries by mining - these mountains have a deeply scarred appearance. For more than 2,000 years, marble has been extracted from these hills. But today, the damage this has caused is more visible than ever. Aquifers polluted by industrial products used for the mining process, a near-constant procession of heavy trucks pumping fumes into the air and a high number of workplace accidents in the quarries - the last fatal accident happened on April 28 - are the daily reality of a territory in flux, a place where natural beauty and industrial transformation collide. Carrara, a small town nestled at the foot of the Apuan Alps in northwestern Tuscany, is one of the world's most important white marble extraction districts, with more than 100 quarries on its doorstep. Marble has been quarried in this area since Roman times, when it became the stone of the empire. Used for decoration, construction and sculpture, it was a symbol of prestige and high status. Later, it was used by the Catholic Church in much the same way - to adorn important palaces and cathedrals and to create religious sculptures. During the Renaissance, Carrara marble gained fame through sculptures by artists like Michelangelo, Donatello, Bernini and others.
CBS News
09-05-2025
- CBS News
Man in critical condition after slab of marble falls on him in Van Nuys
A 34-year-old man was critically injured after he became trapped under a slab of marble in Van Nuys on Friday morning. The Los Angeles Fire Department said they received a call around 9:19 a.m. about a potential technical rescue at 16009 W. Arminta Street. A man was critically injured after he became trapped under a large slab of marble in Van Nuys. KCAL News When they arrived, the man had already been freed by bystanders and was unresponsive. First responders began performing life-saving measures and transported the man to a trauma center in critical condition. It is unclear how the man became trapped under the slab.
