Life

Livia Borghese and Sana Noor Haq, CNN A stately villa in the heart of Rome, which houses the world’s only ceiling mural by the Italian painter Caravaggio, will be auctioned at a starting price of 471 million euros ($547 million) in January, a court in Rome has confirmed. While most of the infrastructure was demolished

By Scottie Andrew, CNN For Summer and Kaleigh Kailani, the most wonderful time of the year is already here — haunted house season. The sisters and horror buffs are hosts for Sharp Productions, a YouTube channel with more than half a million subscribers that sees the pair brave the scariest Halloween attractions around their native

Harmeet Kaur, CNN A private collector has returned a Mayan artifact to Guatemala after it was initially slated for auction in 2019. The stone fragment depicts a bird headdress belonging to an ancient ruler of Piedras Negras, the capital of a Mayan kingdom that flourished between 4th century BC and 9th century AD and is

Ben Wedeman, CNN and Jacqui Palumbo, CNN Rome may be the eternal city, but its ancient artifacts are under unrelenting assault by the ravages of time, pollution, acid rain and the sweat and breath of millions of tourists. The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum, for one, has the grime of 18 centuries

Leah Dolan, CNN Kim Kardashian West’s shapewear and lingerie brand, Skims, has unveiled a capsule collection in collaboration with Italian fashion house Fendi. Launching November 9, the collection focuses on form-fitting garments like hosiery, underwear and sportswear, with each piece covered in a sprawling Skims x Fendi monogram print. The collaboration also includes one bonded

Oscar Holland, CNN and Selina Wang, CNN | Emiko Jozuka, CNN and Junko Ogura, CNN As royal weddings go, the marriage between Japan’s now-former Princess Mako and her college sweetheart, Kei Komuro, was remarkably low-key. Amid public skepticism about the union, which saw the emperor’s niece relinquish her title to wed a commoner, the pair

By Lauren M. Johnson, CNN A cyclist lived to tell his tale after a bear attacked him while riding alone in Cantwell, Alaska. Alaska Wildlife Troopers said in a news release they were notified of the incident last Tuesday. The victim said he was riding his bike when he spotted a large brown bear about

Aimee Dawson In his latest optical illusion, the street artist JR has ripped open the top of one of the Great Pyramids of Giza in Cairo, Egypt. The work is part of a trail of large-scale sculptures and installations by 10 contemporary artists. The exhibition “Forever is Now” (until November 7), billed as the first

By Lilit Marcus, CNN Clover Moore, the lord mayor of Sydney, has presented an ambitious plan that imagines the city’s legendary harbor as a swimming pool. “Swimming in the harbor is no pipe dream. Cities around the world are turning to their natural harbor assets rather than building more infrastructure,” Moore wrote in her pitch,

By Jeevan Ravindran and Jacqui Palumbo, CNN A selection of 11 Pablo Picasso works have been auctioned for a collective total of more than $110 million, after being on display for years in a Las Vegas restaurant. Part of the MGM Resorts Collection, the pieces were a hallmark of the Bellagio Hotel’s Michelin-starred French and

By Maureen O’Hare, CNN It’s a fact every school child knows: Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. It’s a truth that feels ancient and inevitable, an unassailable certainty that draws hundreds of climbers to attempt the summit each year — because, in the words of George Mallory, one of the first mountaineers

By Radina Gigova, CNN Archaeologists say they have discovered hundreds of Mayan artifacts, including ceramic vessels and burial sites, along the route of a train construction project in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Researchers have so far discovered nearly 2,500 pre-Hispanic structures, 80 burial sites and thousands of vessels and fragments along the route of the “Maya Train,” Mexico’s National

Julia Buckley, CNN Italy’s new national airline, ITA Airways, took to the skies last week, but all is not well on the ground of Italian aviation. Former Alitalia flight attendants protested this week against job losses and pay cuts in a particularly Italian way — by taking their clothes off. At the Campidoglio — the

Oscar Holland, CNN It was the late 1980s when South Korean artist Myonghi Kang began work on her painting “Le temps des camélias” (“The Time of Camellias”). Living in Paris’ 19th arrondissement at the time, she would periodically revisit the then-vertical canvas to add strokes of color or floral forms. “I would go back to

Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN Saudi Arabia may be trying to reduce its dependency on oil, but that hasn’t stopped the Arabic kingdom from using its petroleum industry as inspiration for a brand new tourist attraction. The Middle Eastern country has announced plans to convert an oil rig into a 150,000 square meter “extreme park” and resort

By Evan Simko-Bednarski, CNN A vote by a little-known New York City committee on Monday signals the end to a two-decade effort to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from the chambers of the New York City Council. The Public Design Commission, which oversees the city’s collection of public art, voted 8-0 Monday to relocate

By Lilit Marcus, CNN Flight to nowhere. Cruise to nowhere. And now … a bus ride to nowhere. Hong Kong’s residents are among the most travel-starved people in the world. As other cities throughout Asia and the Pacific loosen travel restrictions and emerge from lockdowns, any Hong Konger who wants to leave the city is

Megan C. Hills, CNN Over a century since it was last seen in public, a vibrant Vincent van Gogh painting once seized by the Nazis is heading to auction. The watercolor of a harvest scene, titled “Meules de blé” (“Wheat Stacks”), depicts women working in the fields at Arles, France, and is expected to sell

Francesca Street, CNN The Airbus A380 is designed for long-haul flying, thanks to its hefty size and famously quiet inflight experience. But come November 2021, Singapore Airlines will deploy a superjumbo on a short-haul flight lasting a mere 60 minutes. Travelers heading on certain flights from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia will board what is

Elliott Gotkine, CNN With desert peaks stabbing the sky and a thin blue ribbon of Dead Sea shimmering in the distance, the ghostly figures of around 200 men and women — painted head to toe in white — began appearing from behind an outcrop. Each and every one of them was naked. Which could only

Noah Sheidlower, CNN Jazz artist and composer Terence Blanchard never thought his work would be performed on the Metropolitan Opera Stage. Adapted from Charles M. Blow’s memoir of the same name, Blanchard’s opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” tells of a Black boy growing up in rural Louisiana, where he faces poverty and sexual

Hannah Ryan, CNN The city of Vienna is taking an offbeat approach to the censorship of art and has turned to using the adults-only online platform OnlyFans to put its most “explicit” artworks on full display. The tourism board for the Austrian capital is now presenting art from four of Vienna’s most revered museums on

Hannah Ryan, CNN Cambridge University is due to return a Nigerian artifact looted during a British raid to its country of origin, in a historic first. Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments will receive a Benin bronze cockerel from Cambridge’s Jesus College later this month — in a move the university called the “first