Montreal Gazette - Two pieces stolen from museum; Persian sandstone and Roman Empire marble head lifted from MMFA

A thief snatched two archaeological pieces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts last October during opening hours, steps from security guards. The theft is only the second heist in the MMFA's 152-year history and the incident is testing the facility's policy of not encasing many of its items, as well as the decades-long bond of trust it has with visitors - now numbering 500,000 a year.

Cecily Hilsdale, a professor of art history at McGill University, said the Persian object's theft is "huge" news in the art world.