A perennial debate over the birthplace of the cherry blossom has taken a fresh turn as a Chinese industry group claims the Asian giant is the tree's true home, rather than Japan or claimant South Korea.

Cherry blossoms have long been associated with Japan, where viewing the short-lived blooms is an enduringly popular pastime to herald the arrival of spring.

Russia has sacked the head of a Siberian theater after its radical staging of a Richard Wagner opera angered the powerful Russian Orthodox Church and prompted street protests.

Culture minister Vladimir Medinsky on Sunday fired the head of Novosibirsk State Opera and Ballet Theater over a controversial staging of Wagner's Tannhaeuser that senior clerics said desecrated the image of Christ.

It's high season in Petra, an ancient city hewn from rose-colored rock and Jordan's biggest tourist draw. Yet nearby hotels stand virtually empty these days and only a trickle of tourists make their way through a landmark canyon to the Treasury building where scenes of one of the "Indiana Jones" movies were filmed.

Petra's slump is part of a sharp decline in tourism as Jordan's economy pays a price for regional turbulence and its high-profile role in the U.S.-led battle against Islamic State militants next door.

More than seven decades after a daring bombing run by the "Doolittle Tokyo Raiders" rallied their own nation while stunning another, the World War II heroes are still adding to their legacy.

The group will receive the Congressional Gold Medal on April 15 in Washington then present it on April 18 — the 73rd anniversary of the raid — to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The gold medal will go on display at the museum near Dayton, Ohio, joining an exhibit depicting the launch from an aircraft carrier of the Raiders' daring 1942 attack on Japan.

What makes a good son or daughter? At China's first museum dedicated to the topic of "filial piety", the answer seems to be: almost superhuman levels of devotion and sacrifice.

Respect for family elders has been a cornerstone of Chinese culture for millennia, but many believe it is being eroded by the country's rapid economic growth.

Fragments of pottery used by Egyptians to make beer and dating back 5,000 years have been discovered on a building site in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said on Sunday.

Excavation director Diego Barkan said 17 pits were found that had been used to store produce in the Early Bronze Age, from 3500 to 3000 BC.

Romanian investigators have seized 101 paintings, including three signed Pablo Picasso, as part of a corruption probe targeting former finance minister Darius Valcov, prosecutors said Friday.

The Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) said there was evidence to suggest that Valcov had indirectly acquired the artworks with money obtained through suspect deals.

The stone tomb covering the grave of Richard III was unveiled Friday, the last act in the reburial of the 15th-century king found beneath a car park.

The 2.3-tonne slab of Swaledale fossil stone went on public display the day after he was reinterred in Leicester Cathedral, central England, in the presence of royalty.

Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, which played a pivotal role in Swedish history by creating the now-illustrious Nobel prizes, has gone on display for the first time in Stockholm.

Until now, only a handful of people had laid eyes on the original 1895 document that has been stashed away in a safe at the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm.

Stage left is Josefina, a rough-talking working girl; stage right, Sofia, a swankily dressed bourgeois who has fallen on hard times.

The two characters in Venezuelan playwright Virginia Urdaneta's new play come together doing something that real people in her homeland spend long hours doing, across the country, every day: waiting in line to buy scarce products from barren supermarket shelves.