Leading world architects showed off features of their own homes this week at an international design fair in Milan -- with eye-catching objects including indoor trees, red walls and a stair-bookcase.

Among the big names in attendance were US architect Daniel Libeskind, Italy's Massimiliano Fuksas and Japan's Shigeru Ban -- winner of this year's prestigious Pritzker Prize, known as the "Nobel prize of architecture".

Chinese Christians have asked the government to halt what they claim is an orchestrated campaign to demolish churches, a US-based religious rights group said.

The China Aid Association said worshippers in the eastern province of Zhejiang had urged local authorities to stop dismantling crosses and churches on the grounds that they violate building codes.

Our fascination with mummies never gets old. Now the British Museum is using the latest technology to unwrap their ancient mysteries.

Scientists at the museum have used CT scans and sophisticated imaging software to go beneath the bandages, revealing skin, bones, preserved internal organs — and in one case a brain-scooping rod left inside a skull by embalmers.

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a rare sarcophagus featuring a slender face and a scarab ring inscribed with the name of an Egyptian pharaoh, Israel's Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.

The mystery man whose skeleton was found inside the sarcophagus was most likely a local Canaanite official in the service of ancient Egypt, Israeli archaeologists believe, shining a light on a period when pharaohs governed the region.

The mangled remains of a powerful Corvette — barely recognizable to its former owner — were pulled from the depths of a sinkhole at a Kentucky museum Wednesday, completing weeks of painstaking work to retrieve eight classic cars that were gobbled up by the gaping hole.

The 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette was buried in dirt and rocks, deep beneath the surface of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. The mood was somber as the crumpled car, which boasted 700 horsepower thanks to performance enhancements, was pulled to the surface.

Saudi Arabia is considering ending its controversial ban on sports in girls' state schools, after its consultative council recommended the ban be lifted over vociferous opposition from traditionalists.

Following a heated debate on Tuesday, the Shura Council recommended that the longstanding ban, already relaxed in private schools in May last year, be ended altogether, state media reported.

A landmark exhibition opens in New York next week exploring the ancient kingdoms of Southeast Asia and introducing to the outside world the first treasures from Myanmar seen abroad.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art spent five years preparing the exhibition of Hindu-Buddhist sculptures from a region and ancient culture little known in the United States.

The J. Paul Getty Museum has agreed to return to Greece a Byzantine New Testament manuscript illegally taken from a monastery on Mount Athos over 50 years ago, it said Monday.

The documented was acquired in 1983 as part of a "large, well-documented collection," but recent research indicated that it had been stolen from the Holy Monastery of Dionysiou, said the Los Angeles-based museum.

Four steel plates rise out of Qatar's desert sands like behemoths, symbolizing, according to U.S. artist Richard Serra who created the sculpture, the connection between the wealthy Gulf state's two regions.

The sculpture, East-West/West-East, was unveiled on Tuesday in a desert area around 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the capital Doha, by the sister of Qatar's emir, who has been named by Britain's ArtReview as the most influential figure in the art world.

Thousands of Muscovites and several top international architects have launched an unprecedented campaign to save an elegant steel tower that has loomed over Moscow's skyline since 1922.

The Russian communications ministry says it will dismantle and relocate the Shukhov tower, a masterpiece of design often compared to the Eiffel Tower in Paris.