Pope Francis took part in religious celebrations on Saturday at sites tied to two saints cherished in Poland — late pope St. John Paul II and St. Faustina, a mystic who had been a source of comfort to him.

Francis, who devoted the day to the theme of mercy, arrived early at the imposing Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Lagiewniki, a district of Krakow.

An elderly Afghan cleric has been arrested after he married a six-year-old girl, officials said Friday, in the latest case highlighting the scourge of child marriages in the war-battered country.

The U.S. Navy will name a ship after gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978, a naval official said Friday.

Nicknamed "the gay Martin Luther King, Jr" for his work to end discrimination against gay people, Milk was killed one year after winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which made him the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in America.

A defining portrait of England's queen Elizabeth I has been bought for the nation, auctioneers said Friday, after thousands of donations to a fundraising campaign to keep the painting in Britain.

Italy's long-awaited, much-disputed law allowing gay civil unions took effect Friday after it was published in an official journal, as couples start applying for legal recognition of their same-sex relationships.

A Palestinian plan to sue Britain over a 1917 declaration backing a Jewish homeland in Palestine could help rally supporters, but has little chance of success, legal analysts say.

Pope Francis on Friday walked alone through the notorious wrought-iron "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate at Auschwitz-Birkenau, beginning a historic visit to the former Nazi death camp.

His head bowed, the pope prayed in silent contemplation before meeting Holocaust survivors -- some of whom he tenderly kissed -- in front of the death wall where the Nazis summarily executed thousands of people by firing squad.

High school finals are always a terrifying prospect for Egyptian students. After cheat sheets were leaked this year, the exams turned into a nightmare for Mariam Khaled.

She had gone home to sleep after finishing an exam. When she woke up, she discovered she would have to resit it.

It feels as if time has stood still at Lello, a Gothic Revival style bookstore in the historic center of Porto, whose heady "olde worlde" ambiance inspired some of the scenes for Harry Potter.

It was in Portugal's second city that Potter author J. K. Rowling let her imagination off the leash during two years spent teaching English in the northern town, spending her free time writing early drafts of the seven-volume global blockbuster that made her a literary household name.

Hamada Bayloun is not particularly religious, but across his entire upper back spreads a large tattoo of the most revered saint in Shiite Islam, Imam Ali.

He is one of a growing number of Shiite Muslims in Lebanon who have inked themselves with Shiite religious and political symbols as a show of pride in their community since neighboring Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, fanning hatreds between Shiites, Sunnis and other faiths across the region.