New regulations in the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip that women must be accompanied by chaperones for driving lessons with male instructors have stirred a debate in the Palestinian enclave.

Local media were filled Monday with reports on the latest move in Gaza, controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas, to fall in line with Muslim tenets that women in public be accompanied by a husband or male family member.

Iran and Saudi Arabia's rivalry has played out in proxy wars across the region, and escalated further after the two severed diplomatic and trade ties last month. Yet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, popular Iranian restaurants are outselling feverish calls for a boycott and stand as a reminder of when ties between the two countries held promise.

In the 1990s, inside steaming kitchens in Riyadh, Iranian chefs taught their counterparts how to season and cook Persian dishes for a Saudi-owned Iranian restaurant called Shayah. The food proved so popular that nearly 20 years later, Shayah is a chain with 13 outlets in the kingdom, 11 of them in Riyadh.

Cinemas in the north Indian city of Aligarh were under mounting pressure Sunday to stop screening a movie set in the metropolis that tackles homophobia, following protests from right wing religious groups.

The movie "Aligarh", which opened nationally last week, is based on a true story about a university professor suspended from his post after a television news crew filmed him having sex with a rickshaw puller.

A painting by Camille Pissarro will return to a Jewish family in France whose art collection was looted by the Nazis in 1941, a lawyer who led the negotiations said.

The University of Oklahoma will give back "La bergere rentrant des moutons" -- or "Shepherdess bringing in sheep" -- to Holocaust survivor Leone Meyer, her New York lawyer Pierre Ciric told Agence France Presse about the restitution agreement signed Monday.

Italy's highest court on Wednesday nullified a regional law in Lombardy dubbed "anti-mosque" by critics, easing regulations on the construction of places of worship in the country's north.

The law, drawn up by the anti-immigrant party Northern League and voted in at the start of 2015, tightened rules regarding all religious buildings, but was widely believed to target the wealthy region's Muslim community.

Availability is tight for a $10 Airbnb rental in Chicago designed to look like a Vincent Van Gogh masterpiece.

Openings for the space the Art Institute of Chicago modeled after Van Gogh's famous painting of his bedroom have sold out quickly.

An Egyptian man is to stand trial for claiming in a television interview that adultery is common among married women in the country's conservative south, the state prosecutor said Wednesday.

Taimour Subki, who runs a Facebook page titled "The Diary of a Crushed Husband," hurriedly backtracked on the claim after the interview on a talk show spread on social media this month.

Timothee clenches his jaw and grips his sweatshirt as the tattooist's needle sinks into his skin. The angel he wants on his shoulder is not going to get there by itself. He is going to have to suffer for his body art.

Like many teenagers, Timothee has not waited till his 18th birthday to get his first tattoos and piecings.

In the West former Soviet supremo Leonid Brezhnev was reviled as the embodiment of a corrupt totalitarian system who sent troops into Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan and crushed dissent at home.

But a new exhibition in Moscow largely glosses over the dark side of Brezhnev's 18-year rule -- emphasizing instead the stability and global clout many Russians associate with his time in power, as the same spin is being put on the leadership of President Vladimir Putin.  

Justin Trudeau will become the first Canadian prime minister to march in Toronto's Pride parade this summer, organizers said.

The July 3 event -- which in previous years has drawn some 100,000 participants and spectators -- is a highlight of one of the world's largest gay pride festivals.