The Dutch marked their king's birthday Wednesday with an official celebration in the northeastern city of Zwolle and festivals and unofficial garage sales around the nation.

Numbers of revelers were expected to be lower than in previous years because of wintery temperatures and showers forecast to sweep over the country of 17 million.

Romania's culture minister has tendered his resignation amid a bitter dispute at the country's main opera house involving internationally renowned ballerina Alina Cojocaru.

Vlad Alexandrescu announced that he would be stepping down in a posting on his Facebook page Wednesday, after he failed to solve a conflict at the Bucharest National Opera that has seen three shows canceled so far.

China, Russia and India are among 11 countries targeted by the Obama administration for leaving American producers of music, movies and other copyrighted material open to rampant piracy.

The U.S. is placing the 11 countries on a "priority watch list" that subjects them to extra scrutiny and could lead to sanctions if the U.S. brings cases to the World Trade Organization.

Tiptoeing through pigeon droppings in a building where Benito Mussolini once barked out orders, the mayor sighs wearily as he recounts his long battle to get agreement on what do with the crumbling structure.

Happiness is not an app you can download on your mobile phone, Pope Francis told thousands of teenagers on Sunday at a mass to mark a weekend dedicated to youth.

William Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday leads the global celebrations to mark 400 years since the playwright's death, with enough star-studded plays, concerts and parades to bring the town to a standstill.

Top British actors including Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen will perform some of the bard's most famous scenes at the central English town's Royal Shakespeare Theater.

The artist J. M. W. Turner will appear on the new £20 note, Bank of England governor Mark Carney announced Friday.

The new design will include Joseph Mallord William Turner's self-portrait and his 1838 oil painting "The Fighting Temeraire".

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday called for the repeal of laws in North Carolina and Mississippi which discriminate on the basis of sexual and gender orientation.

Visiting Britain as that country warned its citizens about U.S. anti-gay and anti-transgender laws, Obama insisted British visitors would be greeted in the two states with "extraordinary hospitality."

Design classic and symbol of the "dolce vita", the Vespa turns 70 this weekend and Italy's most celebrated scooter is buzzing along nicely after tripling sales in the last decade.

It was on a Vespa that Gregory Peck pursued Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday", the 1953 film that helped make the marque synonymous internationally with the Roman capital.

When two Polish heritage experts first restored the famed lion statue in Syria's Palmyra in 2005, they never imagined they would see it smashed to pieces only a decade later.

"We did new restoration, new presentation of this lion, the Lion of Al-Lat. And after, I thought, I'm doing this (to last) for over 200 years or 300 years, maybe more," archeologist Bartosz Markowski told Agence France Presse.