The number of divorces in Italy surged by more than half last year after the enactment of legislation making it easier and quicker to end failed marriages.

For more than 30 years, sharia courts enforcing Islamic law have been operating quietly across Britain. But two official inquiries have put them in the spotlight amid accusations that they discriminate against women.

Rock star Sting on Saturday reopened the Bataclan, the Paris concert hall where jihadists massacred 90 people, with a hugely symbolic and emotional show to mark the first anniversary of France's bloodiest terror attack.

People have long used ribbons, flowers, colors or badges to symbolize political causes, from the carnations of Portugal's 1974 revolution to the orange ribbons of Ukraine's 2004 revolution to the gel wristbands now worn to promote almost any charity.  

Enter the lowly safety pin. 

Members of Eagles of Death Metal, the U.S. group who were playing when jihadists attacked Paris' Bataclan concert hall last year, were turned away from the venue's reopening show Saturday over controversial remarks by their lead singer.

A London auction of music legend David Bowie's art collection has ended with sales totalling almost £33 million ($41.5 million), after exhibits of the works drew record crowds, Sotheby's said Saturday.

Pope Francis on Friday asked an audience of homeless people to forgive those Christians who "look the other way."

A performance by Israel's national theater company in an emblematic Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank has drawn praise from the right-wing government and sharp criticism from its detractors.

As fans around the world were on Friday coming to terms with the death of Leonard Cohen, Israel was treating the Canadian Jewish poet and singer as one of its own.

Worshipers in the capital of ultra-Catholic Poland finally celebrated the consecration of the city's highest church on Friday -- after a mere 225 years of waiting.