British lawmakers voted in favor of controversial legislation allowing gay marriage on Tuesday despite fierce opposition from members of Prime Minister David Cameron's own party.

The move puts Britain on track to join the ten countries that allow same-sex couples to marry, but Cameron had the embarrassment of seeing half of his Conservative legislators refusing to back him.

A Chinese official demanding a couple pay a fine for violating the country's one-child policy crushed their 13-month-old boy to death with a car, a local spokesman said Tuesday.

Under China's population controls, instituted more than 30 years ago, couples who have more than one child must pay a "social upbringing" fine, while in some cases mothers have been forced to undergo abortions.

A plump, naughty looking winged baby with a bow and arrow: sounds like the illustration on a Valentine's Day card, right? Wrong: it's a two-thousand-year-old statue on show in New York.

A new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Changing Image of Eros, Ancient Greek God of Love, from Antiquity to Renaissance," demonstrates that love as we know it doesn't just last forever -- it's been around forever too.

Israelis and Palestinians rarely demonize each other in their schoolbooks but each side's texts offer children a one-sided view of their conflict, says a joint study released on Monday.

"Dehumanizing and demonizing characterizations of the other are rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books," according to the study funded by the U.S. State Department and carried out by Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. academics.

Disputes on the controversial issue of legalizing civil marriage did not impede more Lebanese youths from taking this step as a new couple, Shaza Khalil and Tony Dagher, decided to tie the knot but in a civil marriage, a step premiered last month by Kholoud Succariyeh and Nidal Darwish.

Shaza, a Muslim, and Tony, a christian, fell in love 11 years ago and have currently decided to get married outside the religious institutions, exclaiming their wish to do that in Lebanon and not in Cyprus as the habit runs for the Lebanese.

A skeleton found under a car park in the English city of Leicester is that of king Richard III, widely regarded as one of history's most notorious villains, scientists confirmed Monday.

The University of Leicester said that DNA from the 500-year-old skeleton, which has battle wounds and a curved spine, matched a 17th generation descendant of the king's sister, Canadian-born carpenter Michael Ibsen.

A U.S.-funded study released Monday said both Israeli and Palestinian schoolbooks largely present one-sided narratives of the conflict between the two peoples and tend to ignore the existence of the other side, but rarely resort to demonization.

The research by Israeli, Palestinian and American researchers, billed as setting a new standard for textbook analysis, tackled a particularly fraught issue — longstanding Israeli claims that the Palestinians teach incitement and hatred of Israel in their schools.

A centuries-old tradition of Buddhist cuisine, with strict bars on foods linked to lust or anger, is enjoying a revival in South Korea, one of Asia's most high-stress societies.

"Temple food," as it is generally known, is moving out of the temples and monasteries and into mainstream restaurant culture, attracting a loyal following for its deceptive simplicity and health-giving properties.

A smash-hit Paris exhibition of works by U.S. artist Edward Hopper closed Sunday after attracting more than 780,000 visitors in less than four months.

Demand was so feverish that the Grand Palais stayed open all night on Friday and Saturday.

Built in palatial Beaux Arts style, celebrated in movies, and narrowly saved from the wrecking ball in the 1970s, New York's Grand Central rail station turned 100 Friday.

The iconic building no longer has long-distance trains, but its commuter services and multiple subway lines ensure that Grand Central remains at the heart of the Big Apple's teeming daily commute, even while being one of the world's biggest tourism sites.