O, Pharaohs: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Thursday...

O, Pharaohs: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Thursday unveiled 16 priceless Pharaonic statues discovered by accident in 1989 under the Luxor temple in what was the capital of Pharaonic Egypt. Mubarak inaugurated a special section at the Luxor Museum for the statues, which had never been displayed to the public.

* Literary Find: A rare Stephen Crane manuscript depicting life on Death Row at a New York prison has turned up in a newspaperman’s scrapbook in the American Heritage Center archives of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Graduate student John Brower uncovered the “The Devil’s Acre,” the short story describing Death Row at the New York State Prison at Ossining, a.k.a. Sing Sing, which was published by The New York Sun in 1896. “I looked at it and saw the Stephen Crane in the upper corner, but at first I was a little skeptical,” Brower said. Research verified Crane’s handwriting.

* No Respect: Spray-painting vandals and the federal government’s tightening purse strings are blighting the final resting place of Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant and his wife in New York. Graffiti, stains and scars mar the 150-foot tomb of the 18th President. “It’s such an embarrassment. People get off their tour buses, and this becomes their image of New York,” says Georgette Nelms, a supervisor for the National Park Service. “At the Washington Monument, this would not be allowed to happen.”

* Bad Connection: In Norfolk, Va., an electronics buff who illegally taped a cellular phone conversation of L. Douglas Wilder that contributed to a feud between the Virginia governor and Sen. Charles Robb has been sentenced to three years’ probation. Robert W. Dunnington, 44, also was fined $500 Wednesday and must spend at least 30 days in a community rehabilitation center. Dunnington, a restaurateur, pleaded guilty Oct. 8 to interrupting and disclosing electronic communications.