North Dakota moved closer Friday to having the strictest abortion laws in the U.S., with its House of Representatives approving a measure that would outlaw the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed premise that at that point a fetus can feel pain.

The conservative rural state is aiming to challenge the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. Abortion remains one of the most sensitive issues in the U.S., and conservative lawmakers have been trying for years to restrict access to the procedure by various means in several states.

Habib Jaleel Said, an 11-year-old Lebanese boy, launched his first book, “The Icy Kidnapper,” in a book signing event that took place in April at the Safadi Cultural Center in Tripoli.

Habib said he was inspired by the Harry Potter fantasy novel series and Percy Jackson series that he used to read at the age of nine. He plans to launch similar stories and has therefore created his own imaginary hero Masaio Dingo whom he pictures as a “courageous and honest man.”

The Nobel Prize won by Francis Crick in 1962 for his discovery of DNA was sold Thursday at auction for more than $2 million.

Heritage Auctions identified the buyer as Jack Wang, CEO of Biomobie, a regenerative medicine technology company located in Silicon Valley and Shanghai. The price surpassed the pre-sale estimate of $500,000.

Some never-before-seen artifacts from the minutes and hours following President John F. Kennedy's assassination are going on display in Washington.

The Newseum, a museum devoted to journalism and the U.S. Constitutional amendment on a free press, is marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination with a yearlong commemoration including two new exhibitions and a new film about Kennedy.

From vintage sardine tins and embroidered napkins to artisanal soaps - Portugal's retro products are winning new fans as a handful of companies introduce their old-school aesthetic to the international market.

"The Americans have McDonald's -- we've got tinned fish", jokes Tiago Cabral Ferreira at the Conserveira de Lisboa shop which has sold sardines, mackerel and other canned fish from the heart of Lisbon's old town for the past 83 years.

Palestinian officials on Thursday joined a ceremony to lay the cornerstone for a new museum of Palestinian culture, history and society in Bir Zeit near Ramallah.

Organizers said the museum would provide Palestinians with "a valuable source of information on Palestine and its history".

France is marking the 70th anniversary of the world-loved "The Little Prince" with a host of special editions, including a new biography of its author, native son Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

"Le Petit Prince", a series of parables in which a boy prince recounts his adventures among the stars to a downed pilot on Earth, was first published in New York in 1943, in English and French.

In Iraq's national museum, home to some of the world's most precious artifacts of ancient Mesopotamia, a caption beside a skeleton simply reads in English: "dated to very old time."

And some of the museum's most impressive pieces carry no labels at all — like a giant stone head lying on the ground that may or may not belong on a nearby empty pedestal labeled "Assyrian King Nimrod," the Biblical tormentor of the patriarch Abraham.

Uruguay's legislature voted Wednesday to allow same-sex marriages nationwide, making it only the second Latin American country to do so.

The vote, with 71 of the 92 members of the lower house backing the measure, was welcomed with cries of "freedom, freedom" and "equality" from members of the public who burst into applause.

The wait is nearly over for thousands of readers eager to get their hands on the new novel by celebrated Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.

At least one major bookstore in Tokyo is flinging open its doors at midnight to cater to the demands of the most dedicated fans of the surrealist, craving their latest fix of one of modern literature's most talked-about authors.