Like many modern museums, the newest U.S. tourist attraction includes some awesome exhibits -- roaring dinosaurs and a life-sized ship.

But only at the Creation Museum in Kentucky do the dinosaurs sail on the ship -- Noah's Ark, to be precise.

The Christian creators of the sprawling museum, unveiled on Saturday, hope to draw as many as half a million people each year to their state-of-the-art project, which depicts the Bible's first book, Genesis, as literal truth.

While the $27 million museum near Cincinnati has drawn snickers from media and condemnation from U.S. scientists, those who believe God created the heavens and the Earth in six days about 6,000 years ago say their views are finally being represented.

"What we've done here is to give people an opportunity to hear information that is not readily available ... to challenge them that really you can believe the Bible's history," said Ken Ham, president of the group Answers in Genesis that founded the museum.

Here exhibits show the Grand Canyon took just days to form during Noah's flood, dinosaurs coexisted with humans and had a place on Noah's Ark, and Cain married his sister to people the earth, among other Biblical wonders.

Scientists, secularists and moderate Christians have pledged to protest the museum's public opening on Monday. An airplane trailing a "Thou Shalt Not Lie" banner buzzed overhead during the museum's opening news conference.

Opponents argue that children who see the exhibits will be confused when they learn in school that the universe is 14 billion years old rather than 6,000.

"Teachers don't deserve a student coming into class saying 'Gee Mrs. Brown, I went to this fancy museum and it said you're teaching me a lie,"' Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, told reporters before the museum opened.

A Gallup poll last year showed almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

Three of 10 Republican presidential candidates said in a recent debate that they did not believe in evolution.

If one person believes in an illusion its called insanity, if a large group believes in an illusion its called religion. I find it hard to believe that in this modern well educated era there are  many who still believe ,against all logical scientific data ,that the earth is only 6000 yrs old and evolution is a lie. This article really scares me. LS

Records were shattered on Tuesday at Sotheby's $255 million auction of contemporary and postwar art, the biggest in history, which was led by a $73 million Rothko and a $53 million Bacon.

Both works obliterated the old mark for any postwar work at auction of $27.1 million set last November and far exceeded their pre-sale estimates, ushering in a new world of higher prices for contemporary art.

"We're obviously thrilled with the results," said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's worldwide head of contemporary art who also served as auctioneer.

The record results "showed how aggressive and strong the contemporary art market is," Meyer said, adding that like last week's Impressionist and modern art sales, the auction was marked by "lots of international bidding."

Records were set for 15 artists in all, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose untitled work from 1981 fetched $14.6 million including commission, about twice its estimate and nearly three times the artist's old record. The work was being sold by the Israel Museum.

The sale, with 88 percent of its 74 offerings finding buyers, took in $254,874,000, or just under its high pre-sale estimate.

Roughly half of that came from the top two lots: Rothko's 1950 Abstract Expressionist "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," and Bacon's "Study from Pope Innocent X," which sold for $72.84 million and $52.68 million respectively.

Both Sotheby's and rival Christie's had set unprecedented, and seemingly aggressive, prices in excess of $30 million for its top postwar works this season, but those turned out to be conservative on Tuesday.

The astounding prices surprised even Sotheby's officials. "We didn't expect them to sell as well as they did," Meyer said of the Rothko and Bacon paintings.

But the spike in prices for top works "means that there clearly exists a huge interest in this field, and in the icons of contemporary art," senior international specialist for contemporary art Anthony Grant told Reuters.

"When we can identify those icons, the sky can be the limit," Grant said.

Among the evening's few casualties were two works by Jackson Pollock, neither of which approached its estimates and which the auction house ended up owning. "We perhaps moved ahead of the market," said Grant, "and it illustrates the difference between the icons and 'just good' works."

The Rothko was sold by philanthropist David Rockefeller, who attended the sale.

Other artists setting new records included Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Prince, Tom Wesselmann, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis and Dan Flavin.

The spring sales wrap up on Wednesday with Christie's contemporary and post-war sale led by a $35 million Warhol from the late pop artist's Death and Disaster series.

Outraged Indian leaders in Brazil said on Monday they were offended by Pope Benedict's "arrogant and disrespectful" comments that the Roman Catholic Church had purified them and a revival of their religions would be a backward step.

In a speech to Latin American and Caribbean bishops at the end of a visit to Brazil, the Pope said the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

They had welcomed the arrival of European priests at the time of the conquest as they were "silently longing" for Christianity, he said.

Millions of tribal Indians are believed to have died as a result of European colonization backed by the Church since Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, through slaughter, disease or enslavement.

Many Indians today struggle for survival, stripped of their traditional ways of life and excluded from society.

"It's arrogant and disrespectful to consider our cultural heritage secondary to theirs," said Jecinaldo Satere Mawe, chief coordinator of the Amazon Indian group Coiab.

Several Indian groups sent a letter to the Pope last week asking for his support in defending their ancestral lands and culture. They said the Indians had suffered a "process of genocide" since the first European colonizers had arrived.

Priests blessed conquistadors as they waged war on the indigenous peoples, although some later defended them and many today are the most vociferous allies of Indians.

"The state used the Church to do the dirty work in colonizing the Indians but they already asked forgiveness for that ... so is the Pope taking back the Church's word?" said Dionito Jose de Souza a leader of the Makuxi tribe in northern Roraima state.

Pope John Paul spoke in 1992 of mistakes in the evangelization of native peoples of the Americas.

Pope Benedict not only upset many Indians but also Catholic priests who have joined their struggle, said Sandro Tuxa, who heads the movement of northeastern tribes.

"We repudiate the Pope's comments," Tuxa said. "To say the cultural decimation of our people represents a purification is offensive, and frankly, frightening.

"I think (the Pope) has been poorly advised."

Even the Catholic Church's own Indian advocacy group in Brazil, known as Cimi, distanced itself from the Pope.

I think this Pope is an idiot!

LS 

"The Pope doesn't understand the reality of the Indians here, his statement was wrong and indefensible," Cimi advisor Father Paulo Suess told Reuters. "I too was upset."

The 11-year-old boy was led from his school in handcuffs, held overnight in a juvenile detention center, and hauled into court in shackles and an orange prison jumpsuit.

His crime? Missing a court date to testify as the victim of an assault.

The treatment of the boy, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, has reignited a decades-old feud between the tribe and officials from the surrounding county in central Minnesota.

"There's other people out there they could have picked to make an example of," said Kristie Lee Davis-Deyhle, the boy's mother, in her first interview about the case. "Not an 11-year-old."

Tribal leaders are calling for the resignation of the Mille Lacs County attorney, Jan Kolb, who says she was just carrying out policy in the face of a long history of band members ignoring subpoenas.

"I don't know that it should have been done differently," said Kolb, who was first elected in 1993. The uproar, she said, "is a way to make Mille Lacs County look like it's racist."

The Mille Lacs Band, now the largest employer in the county, and some of its neighbors have long had a tense relationship in their shared home around Lake Mille Lacs, Minnesota's second-biggest lake and a choice spot for walleye fishing and other outdoor recreation.

The official policy of the county is that the Mille Lacs Band's reservation no longer exists because of legal decisions dating to the early 20th century. Federal courts have rejected a lawsuit to that effect, but Kolb and the Mille Lacs County Commission maintain their position.

Kolb caused a flap last year by detailing the policy in a memo to county department heads. Soon after, members of the local American Indians Veterans Post 52 and the Ladies Auxiliary were booed by some spectators while riding a float in the Fourth of July parade in the Mille Lacs County town of Isle.

Against that backdrop came the arrest of the 11-year-old band member.

The boy was allegedly the victim of an assault by a 13-year-old classmate. But, Kolb said, the county was having trouble prosecuting the 13-year-old because the younger boy and his mother ignored subpoenas and missed several court dates. Davis-Deyhle said the family never got the subpoenas, and a tribal lawyer said the county is not diligent in making sure subpoenas are served.

When the boy missed a court hearing in early April, Kolb's office requested the judge issue a warrant for his arrest. A tribal officer was dispatched to his school, where he was handcuffed and transported to the detention center. Davis-Deyhle talked to her son on the phone that afternoon.

"He told me he didn't understand what was going on. I could hear the tears, the fear in his voice," Davis-Deyhle said.

The boy spent the night at the juvenile detention center, about 60 miles away in St. Cloud. At the court hearing the next morning, in which the boy was brought into court in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and shackles, prosecutors announced that they wouldn't press charges and that he was free to go.

Kolb is unapologetic about the boy's treatment. She said the entire point of the prosecution was to make him safer against the 13-year-old aggressor.

"This family knew his appearance was needed in court," Kolb said. "Someone needed to step in and say, we'll get him there next time. Some showing of accountability or acknowledgment of the criminal justice system."

Last week, Benjamin asked the state attorney general to intervene and force Kolb to change her practices; lawyers from that office went to Mille Lacs County and are now determining if they have jurisdiction.

The American Civil Liberties Union is also seeking a government investigation, and Brunkow said the family is likely to file a federal civil rights lawsuit.