The first Art Basel fair to be hosted by Hong Kong boasts a prestigious array of international art, highlighting the city's new role as a global arts hub amid an explosion of personal wealth in mainland China.

The four-day annual show is the world's premier art fair and has until now only been held in Switzerland and the United States.

Shamed U.S. financier Bernie Madoff, serving a 150-year prison sentence, is back in the spotlight as the star of an exhibit in a U.S. museum dedicated to gangsters and serial killers.

A baseball bat engraved with the former mogul's name, a letter in which he seeks forgiveness from his son Andrew and even keys to his old New York office are on display at Washington's National Museum of Crime & Punishment.

A 1997 first edition of "Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone" annotated by J.K. Rowling sold for £150,000 ($227,000, 176,000 euros) at a London auction Tuesday, a new record for a printed book by the writer.

Two bidders battled it out for the work before the hammer finally came down, triggering a round of applause at the Sotheby's auction house.

While 20 years ago Eritreans danced to celebrate their newly gained independence, on May 24 this year few have much to smile about other than fond memories of happier times.

"There is so much to be proud about as a nation," said Emmanuel Tesfai, a former fighter who battled during the 30-year war to win his country's freedom from Ethiopia.

Bernard Waber, the author of such children's favorites as "The House on East 88th Street" and "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile," has died.

Waber died May 16 at his Long Island home after a long illness, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced Monday. He was 91.

The debate in Britain over legalizing gay marriage took a surreal turn on Tuesday after a senior politician said it could result in a lesbian queen giving birth to an heir by artificial insemination.

Norman Tebbit, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party who sits in the House of the Lords, also joked that it could see him marry his own son to escape inheritance tax.

The Chapman brothers presented their latest epic installation featuring thousands of little figures in violent conflict Tuesday at the sidelines of Art Basel in Hong Kong, but dismissed the renowned fair as a "shop".

"The Sum of all Evil" by Jake and Dinos Chapman builds on previous works "Hell" (1999), and "Fucking Hell" (2008), which showcased innumerous miniature Nazis soldiers in various states of diabolical torment.

The Vatican on Tuesday denied that Pope Francis had performed an exorcism after an Italian religious television channel said footage of the pontiff blessing a boy in a wheelchair showed he had.

"The Holy Father did not intend to perform any exorcism," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement, after the claims by TV 2000, which is owned by the Italian bishops' conference.

Opera houses the world over are scrambling to pay tribute to Richard Wagner, the controversial German composer often referred to as Hitler's favorite, who would have turned 200 this year.

More has purportedly already been written about Wagner than any other artist and composer in history, but publishers are churning out countless new biographies, critical studies and books.

A Jordanian military tribunal acquitted five university students of incitement charges on Sunday leveled over accusations they had engaged in "devil worship" and desecrated the Koran, a court official said.

"The court declared the students innocent and ordered them freed for lack of evidence," the official told Agence France Presse, without elaborating.