This week's reopening of embassies and resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba opens a new chapter in the countries' complicated relationship.

But any visitor to the Cuban capital can see that connections between the two nations run long and deep just by taking stock of all the attractions showcasing American culture and history. Despite decades of hostility, some of these sites even seem to celebrate Americans, while others reflect an anti-U.S. point of view.

A 63-year-old Indian woman has been dismembered and beheaded by machete-wielding villagers who accused her of practicing witchcraft, police said Tuesday.

Seven people have been arrested over the death of Moni Orang, a mother of five who was seized from her home in the northeastern state of Assam on Monday after local priests said she was casting spells.

When a massive earthquake struck Nepal in April, Nepal's longest-serving "living goddess" was forced to do the unthinkable -- walk the streets for the first time in her life, she told AFP in a rare interview.

Still following the cloistered lifestyle she entered at the age of two, Dhana Kumari Bajracharya also opened up about her unusually long 30-year reign, suggesting the pain of her unceremonious dethroning in the 1980s was still raw. 

Gesticulating and breaking into spine-tingling arias, a jovial Placido Domingo coached young opera singers vying for their big break while perched on a stool in a rehearsal room at London's Royal Opera House.

Frenchman Julien Behr greeted him with a "Buenos dias!" before practicing an aria with the legendary Spanish tenor for Sunday's final of the Operalia competition, being held in the British capital for the first time.

Remains belonging to victims of Nazi anatomy professor August Hirt have been found at a forensic medicine institute in eastern France, local authorities said in a statement Saturday.

Eighty-six Jews had been sent to the gas chambers in 1943 and their bodies brought to the eastern French city of Strasbourg, then under Nazi occupation and where Hirt was assembling a macabre collection of corpses.

Liu Shoupeng, a 74-year-old retired electrical engineer, is a devout Muslim in China, where he says his practice of Islam has not only been protected, but also respected.

Arranged through local government officials, Liu told The Associated Press on Saturday on the day following the end of the holy month of Ramadan that his country's stability is of paramount importance to his religious belief.

A replica of the Hermione, the 18th-century ship that brought French General Lafayette to America, sailed to Canada Saturday on the last leg of its North American journey before its voyage back to France.

The faithful reproduction of the majestic French frigate fired its cannon 20 times as it arrived in the port of Lunenburg, not far from the city of Halifax, at around 10 am (1300 GMT).

New York's Empire State Building was lit in green late Friday to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

The green light will shine until the famous skyscraper closes to the public at 2:00 am (0600 GMT), when the building traditionally turns out its lights.

The Salzburg Festival, one of the world's most prestigious arts gatherings, will launch on Saturday hoping to prove that a reduced budget and fewer shows do not mean a less exciting program.

After an eight-percent budget cut down to 60 million euros ($65.2 million, £41.8 million), the 95th edition will feature only 188 performances compared with 270 last year.

In the fields of Bulgaria they are everywhere -- hundreds of mounds like huge molehills concealing the gold-filled tombs of ancient kings who left no other trace of their rule.

Known as tumuli, the burial mounds are the only remnants of the Thracian civilization that inhabited the Balkan peninsula from the 2nd millennium BC to the 3rd century AD.