![Italian official calls tourists "vandals" after viral incidents: "No respect for our cultural heritage"](https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/08/19/1b489d2e-161e-4ac7-aec3-6acd6434697d/thumbnail/1200x630/98b3b0b8828f34a3cb24db18f5f4e5ab/0819-satmo-europeantravelwoes-livesay-2220729-640x360.jpg?v=0b4ae642db52799a178d90d83603a9dc)
Italian official calls tourists "vandals" after viral incidents: "No respect for our cultural heritage"
CBSN
In Rome, a tourist scaled the baroque masterpiece that is the Trevi Fountain to fill up her water bottle just months after a British man carved his and his girlfriends' initials into the Colosseum, an ancient amphitheater that has stood for millenia.
In Venice, a British tourist ignored warnings from onlookers before jumping from five stories high and belly-flopping into one of the city's UNESCO-protected canals.
In Paris, two drunk Americans were found sleeping atop the iconic Eiffel Tower. Just days later, a man climbed to the peak of the tower and jumped off, deploying a parachute.
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Beijing — China on Friday lashed out at what it called U.S. "coercion" after Panama declined to renew a key infrastructure agreement with Beijing following Washington's threat to take back the Panama Canal. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a briefing that China "firmly opposes the U.S. smearing and undermining the Belt and Road cooperation through means of pressure and coercion."
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London — The Herculaneum scrolls have remained one of the many tantalizing mysteries of the ancient world for almost 2,000 years. Burnt to a crisp by lava from Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the reams of rolled-up papyrus were discovered in a mansion in Herculaneum — an ancient Roman town near Pompeii — in the mid-18th century. Both towns were decimated by the Vesuvius eruption, and most of the scrolls were so badly charred they were impossible to open.
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London — Tourists continued to flee the Greek island of Santorini on Wednesday — a fourth consecutive day of exodus sparked by a series of earthquakes that have rattled the incredibly popular European vacation destination. Around 7,000 people have left the island, which sits southeast of Greece's mainland, since the quakes began last week, according to the AFP news agency.