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In a city of islands outlined by almost 600 miles of coastline, it should not be such a strange thing, the sight of two men portaging a canoe through the streets. But on Monday morning, when the English artist Simon Starling and a traveling companion, Dante Birch, paddled into the West 79th Street Boat Basin and hoisted their canoe -- a lovely 16-foot striped vessel Mr. Starling had made from African walnut -- on their heads and then began an upland trek to the American Museum of Natural History, Manhattanites stopped to stare as if they had spotted some kind of large, undomesticated animal on the loose. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In its final days, the Bush administration has reached a long-anticipated agreement with China that will ban imports of a wide range of Chinese antiquities into the United States to help stanch the growing illicit traffic in such artifacts. The accord, signed on Wednesday, covers antiquities dating from the Paleolithic period, starting in 75,000 B.C., through the end of the Tang dynasty, in A.D. 907, and all monumental sculpture and wall art at least 250 years old. Yet it is not as broad as the ban China originally proposed in 2004, when it asked the United States to bar imports on a wide range of artifacts from the prehistoric period through the early 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A federal judge in Ohio granted a request late Tuesday from Senator Barack Obama's campaign to extend the voting hours in 21 precincts in Cleveland by an extra 90 minutes because of a lack of paper ballots. But because the order arrived after the polls had already closed, election officials were only able to reopen 10 polling stations, according to the Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner. That resulted in five additional votes being cast, Ms. Brunner said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]