A letter sent by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1964 declining the Nobel Prize for Literature came too late to avert one of the biggest debacles in its history, Swedish media reported Saturday.

Sartre's letter arrived nearly a month after he had been picked as the top choice by the Nobel Committee, the daily Svenska Dagbladet reported, based on archival material made available at the end of a customary 50-year period of secrecy.

Turkey's Islamic-rooted government has authorized the building of the first church in the country in nearly a century, officials said Saturday.

The church is for the tiny Syriac community in Turkey and will be built in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic churches.

California began issuing driver's licenses Friday to people who are in the country illegally, becoming the 10th state in the nation to do so.

Thanks to a 2013 law approved by Governor Jerry Brown, anyone who can show they are California residents -- such as through bills or rental agreements -- can now apply for a license, regardless of immigration status.

Turkey's Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu on Friday faced a barrage of criticism on social media after suggesting that women should prioritize the "career" of motherhood before anything else. 

"Women of the world have the career of motherhood that no one else can experience," Turkish media quoted Muezzinoglu as saying on Thursday at a hospital where he welcomed the first baby born in Istanbul on New Year's Day.

For decades, historians of literature have mulled the untimely death that met Constance, the wife of the exuberant, scandalous writer Oscar Wilde.

An early pioneer for women's rights and a published author, Constance had two children with Wilde but fled London with them in 1895 to escape a backlash after her husband was jailed for homosexual acts.

Since the night police stormed into a Cairo bathhouse and dragged out a group of near-naked men, Hassan Sherif fears a widening police crackdown on homosexuals in Egypt.

The 32-year-old gay man, who lives with his boyfriend in a Cairo apartment, feels they could be among the next targets of police action that activists say has intensified under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

There's a revolution happening in South Africa's winelands where a handful of young impassioned friends are turning their backs on the very practices that have made the country's wine industry such a success.

Not for them the standard locales that make up the wine tours of the region: Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Constantia -- big farms with big production of big, fruity wines, all on Cape Town's doorstep.

Foodies, take note: After flooding the global market with its vodka, apples and berries, Poland has gone gourmet and is trying its hand at making black caviar.

Dressed from head to toe in sterile clothing, a worker leans over a sieve containing roe from Russian and Siberian sturgeon. She uses tweezers to remove any leftover bits from the ovary sack -- anything to ensure the quality of the caviar.

Cuban authorities detained or kept at home several dissidents Tuesday, including a performance artist who organized an open-mic session for Cubans to speak out about their future.

The fate of the artist -- 46-year-old Tania Bruguera, 46, who trained in Cuba and the United States, and splits her time between the two countries and France -- was not immediately known.

Better known for war and bloodshed, the lush hills of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are also home to a surprising, successful craft that has survived decades of violence: cheesemaking.

Though not part of the traditional diet, the cheese -- a mild-tasting hard variety with a yellowish-brown rind -- has managed to win favor across the nation.