A relative of late German art collector Cornelius Gurlitt lodged a claim Friday for his inheritance, a Nazi-era art hoard which he has bequested to a Swiss museum, a spokesman said.

The surprise move came just days before the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern is expected to reveal whether it accepts the inheritance of the spectacular trove of more than 1,000 pieces amassed during the Nazi era.

A 100-year-old watercolor of Munich's old city hall is expected to fetch at least 50,000 euros ($60,000) at auction this weekend, not so much for its artistic value as for the signature in the bottom left corner: A. Hitler.

Nuremberg's Weidler auction house says the painting is one some 2,000 painted by Adolf Hitler and is thought to be from about 1914, when he was struggling to make a living as an artist, almost two decades before rising to power as the Nazi dictator.

Sotheby's announced Thursday that CEO William Ruprecht is to step down, a week after lackluster contemporary art sales and a year after a bruising battle with billionaire activist Daniel Loeb.

Ruprecht, 58, will stand aside by mutual agreement with the board of directors but will stay as chairman, president and CEO until his successor is in place to ensure a smooth transition, it said.

Researchers said Thursday that people likely moved to the Tibetan highlands 3,600 years ago, in an indication of when humans first settled at high altitudes.

Humans were able to permanently settle as high as 3,400 meters (11,000 feet) on the Tibetan plateau -- which is known as "the roof of the world" -- by growing altitude-resistant crops and raising livestock, according to a study published in the U.S. journal Science.

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.