It is an image famous in a thousand postcards: giraffe, rhino and zebra pacing the savannah with city skyscrapers towering in the background.

But flanked by one of the continents fastest growing cities, Kenya's capital Nairobi, east Africa's oldest national park is under threat.

Phil Klay's "Redeployment," a debut collection of searching, satiric and often agonized stories by an Iraq war veteran, has won the National Book Award for fiction.

Klay was chosen Wednesday night over such high-profile finalists as Marilynne Robinson's "Lila" and Emily St. John Mandel's "Station Eleven." His book was the first debut release to win in fiction since Julia Glass' "The Three Junes" in 2002, the first story collection to win since Andrea Barrett's "Ship Fever" in 1996 and the first fiction win for an Iraq veteran.

The Greek government is asking tourists at Athens airport to join the notorious debate over the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece from London.

Faced with a picture of the famed Parthenon and its marble statues on an interactive screen, travelers are asked to reply "yes" or "no" to the question: "Do you support the return of the Parthenon marbles?".

Ramallah dancer Shireen Ziyadeh wants to use pirouettes and plies to change the place where she grew up, training aspiring ballerinas to show that "something beautiful comes from Palestine".

In tights and a white tunic, her hair scraped back in a flawless bun, the 24-year-old Palestinian repeats instructions to a group of tiny dancers in pink tutus and slippers at her ballet school in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

A majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, but that doesn't mean they're so cool with gays and lesbians displaying affection in public, a study published Thursday suggests.

Sociologists at Indiana University asked more than 1,000 people how they might feel about seeing couples hold hands, kissing on the cheek and French kissing in a park.

Richard Johnson can see right through the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van Gogh.

The Cornell University electrical and computer engineering professor is a digital art detective, able to unlock the mysteries of a work's age and authenticity by analyzing its underlying canvas or paper.

U.S. Ambassador David Hale participated on Tuesday in the opening of the renovated Main Tower of the Citadel at the archaeological site of Byblos, a media release said.

The inauguration was attended by Minister of Culture Raymond Arayji, Member of Parliament Simon Abi Ramia, District Commissioner of Jbeil Najwa Sweidan, Mayor of Jbeil Ziad Hawwat, and representatives from the Ministry of Culture and the U.S. Embassy.

Oxford Dictionaries picked "vape" -- the act of smoking an e-cigarette -- as their new word of the year on Tuesday, with the affectionate "bae" and the more pragmatic "contactless" as runners-up.

"Vaping has gone mainstream," with usage doubling in 2014 compared to 2013, editorial director Judy Pearsall said.

Students in Myanmar have threatened to protest nationwide if the government does not amend an education law that prohibits them from engaging in political activities and curbs academic freedom.

After four consecutive days of defying threats of arrest by rallying in the crumbling former capital, Yangon, the students gave the government 60 days to meet their demands, said Phyo Phyo Aung, general secretary of the All Burma Federation of Students Union.

Japan's lower house on Tuesday passed a bill criminalizing "revenge porn", as it seeks a legal remedy to a growing problem of the Internet age.

The bill, which cleared the house unanimously, will be sent to the upper house and likely enacted on Wednesday, in what could be one of the last duties of this parliament before an expected election next month.