The Milanese opera house La Scala took another step in its artistic and managerial transition on Tuesday by confirming that Riccardo Chailly will be its new musical director, replacing Daniel Barenboim.

Chailly, 60, currently conductor of the Gewandhaus Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig, will be La Scala's principal conductor from 2015 before becoming musical director in 2017.

After Mormon church leaders lifted the ban on blacks in the priesthood in 1978, church leaders offered little official explanation for the reasons behind the ban, saying only they received a revelation it was time for the change.

In the three decades since, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have struggled to understand the roots of the old ban and grappled with how best to respond to questions about the touchy historical topic.

Goran Bregovic, one of the most famous musicians in the Balkans, said Monday he would create a foundation to help talented Bosnian Roma get music education.

"I cannot solve all (Roma) problems, but we are setting up a foundation that will help talented Roma who want to enrol in music schools," Bregovic told reporters.

Turkish police have launched an investigation after the theft of stolen paintings and artefacts worth an estimated $30 million, local media reported on Monday.

Police are hunting for about 40 paintings stolen from a state museum in Ankara after recovering another 30 major artworks in a raid in Istanbul last week.

Egypt said Sunday it has recovered a statue of pharaoh Tutankhamun's sister looted from the southern Mallawi museum during riots by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

The 32 centimeter (12.6 inches) limestone statue of Ankhesamon, sister of the famous boy king and daughter of pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled around 1,500 BC, was stolen on August 14.

The almost seven-decade life of Russian revolution leader Vladimir Lenin's statue in Kiev ended in spectacular fashion, with a half backwards somersault and dive head-first into the ground.

As hundreds of thousands protested against the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and its rejection of a pact with the European Union, some 30 people in masks surrounded the statue in central Kiev.

A Paris auction of sacred objects from the Hopi and San Carlos Apache Native American tribes will go ahead Monday despite objections from the United States and activists, auctioneers EVE said.

The U.S. embassy had asked Paris to suspend the sale of the ceremonial masks and head-dresses after the failure Friday of a legal challenge by advocacy group Survival International on behalf of Arizona's Hopi tribe.

An Andy Warhol portrait of Farrah Fawcett currently held by actor Ryan O'Neal is worth an estimated $12 million, an appraiser told a jury Friday.

New York art appraiser Lee Drexler testified in a lawsuit by the University of Texas at Austin against the actor in which the school is seeking to gain possession of the Fawcett portrait for its art museum.

The U.S. State Department on Friday fended off criticism for commissioning a $1 million sculpture for its London embassy, saying it was "a good use of our limited resources."

The piece by Irish-born artist Sean Scully was purchased as part of the department's Art in Embassies program and will be reportedly installed at the new mission due to open in 2017.

The late Tito, former Yugoslavia's communist strongman, has been largely ignored in Slovenia since its independence but historians insist that, good or bad, he should be remembered: and a new exhibit does just that.

Josip Broz -- nicknamed "Tito" -- ruled over the former Yugoslavia from 1945 until his death in 1980, having been named president for life.