"A few steps take you from one culture to another," said Vedia Izzet, a Turkish Cypriot, speaking of her daily trips between the Cypriot capital's Turkish-controlled north and Greek Cypriot south.

"It's like walking through a film between two parallel space-time dimensions, as if the film were punctured," she said of the divide in a country that assumes the European Union's rotating presidency on Sunday.

Britain's famous parliament clock tower is to be renamed Elizabeth Tower in honor of the queen's diamond jubilee, officials announced on Tuesday.

The change comes after dozens of lawmakers signed up to a campaign to change the name of the tower -- officially named the Clock Tower but commonly known as Big Ben -- in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's 60th year on the throne.

Michael Curtiz's best director Oscar award for the Hollywood classic "Casablanca" could fetch up to $3 million when it goes under the hammer next week, organizers said.

"Casablanca" is one of the most popular and beloved movies worldwide," said Nate Sanders, owner of Nate D. Sanders Auctions. "It's only one of a handful of films from the Golden Age of Hollywood that everyone has seen and is immediately recognizable."

In a country where music was silenced in the name of Allah for five years, the beat is back and even rock shares the airwaves with the romantic strains of traditional Afghan songs.

The Islamist Taliban, who banned all music as sinful while they were in power between 1996 and 2001, are now waging an insurgency against the Western-backed government -- but they can't stop the music.

With furrowed brows and fervent nods, the French and native American musicians were introducing a new form of jazz to New Orleans centered on a colonial trade language used by their ancestors.

There were no furs or beads on the table. Instead, the musicians were exchanging traditions to create a unique sound that hops from jazz standards to blues, to reggae to mellow, cymbal-heavy lounge music.

Archaeologists in Greece's second-largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was the city's main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago.

The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for Thessaloniki's new subway system, which is due to be completed in four years. The road in the northern port city will be raised to be put on permanent display when the metro opens in 2016.

Past a walkway cutting through roses and delphiniums, visitors see a small bridge arching over some water lilies.

Not in France, but in the Bronx, at an extraordinary five-month exhibit recreating Monet's gardens at Giverny in this down-at-heel New York borough.

A stubby Napoleon Bonaparte waves his characteristic bicorne hat in an impassioned signal to hundreds of troops, launching a rerun of France's failed invasion of Russia two centuries ago.

"Vive la France, vive la Pologne," cries the French emperor on horseback to the enthusiastic cheers of hundreds of troops decked out in 19th-century military garb.

Iraq has cut cooperation with the United States on archaeological exploration because Washington has not returned Iraq's Jewish archives, Tourism and Archaeology Minister Liwaa Smaisim has told Agence France Presse.

The fate of the archives, which were removed from Iraq following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, is a long-running point of contention between Washington and Baghdad, which has for years sought their return.

The rock was the star as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art pulled the covers off artist Michael Heizer's latest creation — a 340-ton boulder positioned to appear as though it's floating in midair.

About a thousand people showed up under sunny skies in Los Angeles as the gigantic work titled "Levitated Mass" was unveiled Sunday on LACMA's backyard, where it is intended to remain forever.