Perched atop a wooded Berlin hill, an abandoned Cold War listening post where NATO once eavesdropped on their communist foes is a reminder of Germany's tumultuous past.

Today tourists flock to the conspicuous historical relic, known as Teufelsberg, or Devil's Mountain, complete with its three white radar domes resembling giant golf balls.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts broke ground Thursday on a major expansion to be completed in time for the 100th anniversary of the slain president's birthday in 2017.

Vice President Joe Biden oversaw a ceremonial groundbreaking that used the same shovel then-president Lyndon Johnson wielded in 1964 when construction on the cultural venue first began.

The U.S. city of Miami Beach transformed Thursday into a hub of modern and contemporary art as part of the prestigious Art Basel show.

Organizers expect tens of thousands of expert art collectors and curators as well as casual shoppers and tourists to descend on the convention center in Miami Beach.

Part of the Elgin Marbles has left Britain for the first time since they were taken from the Parthenon in 1803, on loan to a Russian museum, the British Museum said on Friday.

The museum has loaned one of the statues -- taken from Greece by British diplomat Lord Elgin and which Athens has repeatedly demanded be returned -- to Russia's State Hermitage Museum.

Allied and German planes hang side by side in a show opening in London on Thursday that charts WW1's role in advancing aviation, and spotlights the work of the staff behind the scenes.

"First World War in the Air" at the Royal Air Force (RAF) museum brings together 14 aircraft including a unique British FE2b night bomber, painstakingly reconstructed over the last 20 years.

We are not asking for the moon, only a star! says the slogan of the initiative.

Field Of Stars is a corporate social responsibility initiative which aims at helping children in need by raising funds and equally distributing them to 26 Lebanese children charities, a press release said.

Mpumelelo Masinga takes a deep drag from his cigarette, his hand trembling with apprehension.

Masinga is preparing to spend three hours at Black and White Tattoo Studio in Johannesburg getting Nelson Mandela's face tattooed on the center of his back.

A DNA study confirming that a skeleton found in 2012 was that of Richard III also found evidence of "false paternity" that raises doubts about the royal claims of centuries of British monarchs, researchers said on Tuesday.

The study said the remains matched the DNA of two descendants of Richard III's sister, Anne of York, meaning researchers are certain "beyond reasonable doubt" that the skeleton is indeed the king's.

An Italian historian's theory that Mona Lisa might be a Chinese slave and Leonardo da Vinci's mother -- making the 15th-century polymath half-Chinese -- sent online commentators into a frenzy Wednesday.

Angelo Paratico, a Hong Kong-based historian and novelist from Italy, told the South China Morning Post: "On the back of Mona Lisa, there is a Chinese landscape and even her face looks Chinese."

Turkish students know Albert Einstein but can't name any Muslim scientists or scholars, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan complained on Tuesday as he called for a new curriculum in schools.

"If you ask them who Einstein is, every young person has something to say about him. If you ask who Ibn Sina is, you see the child has never heard about him," Erdogan told a teachers' forum in the southern city of Antalya.