Defenders of women's rights in Morocco are inching closer to a long-awaited goal as the kingdom's parliament works to amend a law that allows a rapist to escape prison by marrying his victim.

Morocco was shocked in March 2012 by the suicide of Amina Filali, 16, who was forced to marry the man who had raped her. He remained a free man under Article 475 of the kingdom's penal code.

The nuns of "Le Creche," the only orphanage in Bethlehem, have raised generations of children in this biblical town.

But only four aging nuns remain, down from a dozen 30 years ago, and the Roman Catholic church is struggling to replace them. In the meantime, they have hired a professional staff to do jobs once solely performed by nuns.

Stacked up in Liu Yi's studio dozens of China's most sensitive subjects stare out from thick black-and-white oil paintings, from victims of Tiananmen Square to Tibetans who have set themselves on fire.

Liu, 50, is a rare example of a member of China's Han ethnic majority taking up the Tibetan cause -- a project that has finally brought the authorities to his door.

Nautical sailor tops and Madonna's conical bra are coming to London next year in an exhibition of the work of fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier.

"The Fashion World Of Jean Paul Gaultier" will open at the Barbican Centre in April 2014.

An oblong crystal found in the wreck of a 16th-century English warship is a sunstone, a near-mythical navigational aid said to have been used by Viking mariners, researchers said on Wednesday.

The stone is made of Iceland spar, a transparent, naturally-occurring calcite crystal that polarizes light and can get a bearing on the Sun, they said.

A private collector has paid a world record Aus$495,000 (U.S.$508,000) for one of Australia's first coins, known as the "Holey Dollar", auctioneers said Wednesday.

Only 300 of the coins survive and Belinda Downie, managing director of Melbourne dealer Coinworks, said the one that sold this week was the finest example.

Chinese couples are flocking to divorce to evade a new tax on home sales after the government cracked down on property speculation, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported Wednesday.

China's central government last Friday issued rules to rein in house prices, including a nationwide capital gains tax of 20 percent on profits owners make from selling residential property.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History has an addition to its famous gem collection: It is a butterfly brooch made of 2,300 gems.

The "Royal Butterfly Brooch" was created in 2009 by Taiwanese jewelry artist Cindy Chao. She is donating the piece to the museum, making it the first Taiwanese-designed item in the National Gem Collection. It goes on display Wednesday.

Nearby the big city rumbles, but one feels almost transported to a quiet forest village when standing amid a colony of Finnish wooden houses in Warsaw's government district.

The homes, erected as temporary housing in the destroyed capital just after World War II, have dwindled over the years from 90 to about 25. Now the surviving structures have become a point of contention between their inhabitants and a city government keen on tearing them down to make way for new developments.

Hip-hop artists including rappers Nas and Somalia-born K'naan will take center stage in an unexpected place next year: as part of next season at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

The center announced Tuesday that its 2013-2014 season would include the week long festival "One Mic: Hip-Hop Culture Worldwide." It will also feature an international theater festival featuring works from at least 10 different nations and new American works in theater, opera and music.