Visitors coming to Philadelphia to see the pope this September will also be able to view treasured art from the Vatican.

"Vatican Splendors" opens Sept. 19 at the Franklin Institute. It will include artwork by Michelangelo, embroidered silk vestments, religious relics and bone fragments of Saints Peter and Paul, and a touchable cast of Pope John Paul II's hand.

A replica of the Hermione, the French ship that transported General Lafayette to America in 1780 to rally U.S. rebels battling for independence, arrives Friday in the Virginia town where British forces eventually surrendered.

The three-masted tall ship is expected to dock at roughly 8:00 am (1200 GMT) in Yorktown for its first official stop in the United States.

A first edition of "The Hobbit" accompanied by a handwritten note in Elvish by British author J.R.R. Tolkien was sold by Sotheby's at auction on Thursday for £137,000 (187,000 euros, $211,000).

The book was a gift from the author and is dedicated to Miss Katherine ("Kitty") Kilbride, one of his first students at Leeds University in the 1920s.

Paris, Milan, New York and London may reign in world fashion, but Asian and South American cities are ones to watch, according to an exhibition at one of the world's best design schools.

Dubbed "Around the world in 80 Items" by Style.com, the museum at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology is charting a new generation of fashion-forward cities eying global prominence.

For believers, the Bosnian town of Medjugorje is as sacred as Lourdes or Fatima, a place where the Virgin Mary appeared to children that decades on has become a huge pilgrimage site.

And ahead of Pope Francis' visit to the capital Sarajevo on Saturday, the Catholics who flock to this small town hope the Vatican may finally recognize its controversial shrine, as it does the "official" ones in France and Portugal.

Group of Seven leaders will gather from Sunday in a quintessentially German venue handpicked by Chancellor Angela Merkel, a luxury hotel with a fairytale setting and a tumultuous past.

Elmau Castle, nestled in the Bavarian Alps, is a five-star resort that will be transformed into a fortress for the two-day meeting of the club of rich nations.

The diary of a detective hunting Jack the Ripper and a poison-filled syringe intended for use by the notorious Kray twins are among items at a new crime exhibition in London.

"The Crime Museum Uncovered" show at the Museum of London comprises more than 600 exhibits, including champagne belonging to the Great Train robbers, objects handled by acid-bath murderer John Haigh and various tools used by a post-war Russian spy ring.

Members of Afghanistan's Taliban are in Norway for informal talks with representatives of Afghan society, the Norwegian government said Thursday, in a new sign of a nascent dialogue.

According to Afghan and Norwegian media, the talks were expected to focus on women's rights in Afghanistan.

Two Moroccan men who kissed in public were arrested by authorities in the conservative Muslim kingdom and a Spanish feminist was expelled after a pro-gay protest, officials said on Thursday.

On Tuesday authorities arrested two French members of the controversial feminist campaign Femen after they protested topless in front of a Rabat landmark against Morocco's treatment of gays.

A native American student has won the right to wear an eagle feather at his U.S. school graduation, after a last-minute deal was reached to curtail court action, officials said Wednesday.

Christian Titman had repeatedly asked his school in California to let him display the feather, presented by his father as a mark of his academic achievements, at his graduation Thursday.