A rare remnant of the Berlin Wall lies at the end of an overgrown path next to the Spree River but as the 25th anniversary of its fall approaches, the relic is under threat.

Berliners ripped down the despised Wall as fast as they could in the giddy months after November 9, 1989, when the border between East and West was finally thrown open.

From war-ravaged Iraq and Syria to Ebola-hit Nigeria and dozens of other nations, pilgrims are converging on Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj, the world's largest Muslim gathering.

From early October, close to two million believers will congregate to follow the 1,400-year-old tradition of Islam's Prophet Mohammed.

The Mormon Church History museum is closing for one year for a total renovation of the 30-year-old building.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says the Utah museum will close on Oct. 6, following the biannual general conference. It is scheduled to reopen in the fall of 2015 with a new floor plan and exhibits.

Malaysia's transgender population faces systematic repression, harassment and mistreatment, and the government must immediately repeal laws that criminalize their lifestyles, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

The U.S.-based group released a report it says details worsening abuses that transgender people face in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation.

An exhibition by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has transformed the former island prison of Alcatraz into a tribute to the world's political prisoners, some famous and some forgotten.

Called "@ large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz," the installation opens Saturday at the former maximum-security prison in the San Francisco Bay.

A huge grin appears on the face of glass artist Jonathan Michael Davis as he burns hole after hole through spheres of glass, making a popping sound.

Davis, a glassblower by trade, uses a sabre of flame made of liquid oxygen and propane to manipulate glass into elaborate art and sculptures at his studio and playground in rural Chatham County, North Carolina. The temperature from the torch in Davis' studio rises along with the anticipation of a large glass sculpture in the making.

Elvis Presley. Marlon Brando. Andy Warhol. The A-list trifecta of music, film and art is going on the auction block at Christie's in November.

"Triple Elvis (Ferus Type)" and "Four Marlons" rate among Warhol's most famous portraits. The monumental paintings, each nearly 7 feet (2.1 meters) high, have never appeared at auction before and could bring a combined total of $130 million when they go up for bid on Nov. 12.

A sculpture honoring a photograph of a kiss in Times Square that captured New York's celebration as World War II ended has gone up in Normandy for a one-year visit.

Cranes and construction crews in the French city of Caen on Tuesday hoisted and locked together pieces of "Unconditional Surrender," an 8-meter (25-foot) cast-bronze sculpture in color of a sailor and a nurse in a lip-locked embrace.

An ongoing restoration of one of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous works, "Adoration of the Magi," has revealed new details and colors in the painting and in Leonardo's techniques — and confirmed that others helped paint it.

Leonardo began the large-scale work in 1481 but left it unfinished after he was transferred from Florence to Milan.

The Turkish government announced it was lifting a ban on female students wearing the Islamic headscarf at high schools, in a move denounced by opponents as undermining the basis of the country's secular society.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who co-founded the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), has long been accused by opponents of eroding the secular values of the modern Turkish state.