Women in Afghanistan can continue to study in universities, including at post-graduate levels, but classrooms will be gender-segregated and Islamic dress is compulsory, the Taliban government's new higher education minister said Sunday.

The announcement came as a Taliban official said Qatar's foreign minister arrived in the Afghan capital of Kabul — the highest level visitor since the Taliban announced their interim Cabinet. There was no immediate confirmation of the visit by Qatari officials.

Pope Francis cracked jokes Monday and took an ambling walk to greet well-wishers as he opened his first full day in Slovakia in good health and spirits ahead of a solemn encounter with the country's Jewish community.

Francis arrived at the presidential palace, and later at the capital's St. Martin cathedral, looking rested and energized on the second day of his four-day pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia, which marks his first international outing since undergoing intestinal surgery in July.

Susana Dueñas could hardly believe the news: Mexico's Supreme Court had decided that abortion could not be considered a crime. The 38-year-old woman from central Mexico had spent six and a half years in prison on just that charge.

The court ruled unanimously Tuesday that parts of a law in the northern border state of Coahuila criminalizing abortion were unconstitutional. The decision immediately compels judges across the nation to consider cases with that ruling in mind. And there are thousands of open cases in Mexico against women accused of illegal abortions.

Two decades after its destruction in the Sept. 11 attacks, the work to rebuild the World Trade Center complex remains incomplete.

Two planned skyscrapers, a performing arts center and a church are still unfinished at the site, which plays host Saturday to the annual ceremony honoring nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks.

Hands clasped, children line church pews as nuns lead morning prayer in Hungary. 

British writer Susanna Clarke won the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction on Wednesday for her mind-tweaking fantasy novel "Piranesi" — a book that chronic illness made her fear she would never get to write.

Clarke, 61, was awarded the 30,000 pound ($41,000) prize for her second novel, which was published 16 years after her first, "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," became a global best-seller.

Some of the world's largest broadcasters including American network NBC are being asked by human rights groups to cancel plans to cover next year's Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Winter Games are scheduled to open on Feb. 4.

The request comes in an open letter from rights groups representing minorities in China, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong residents and others.

Chinese prosecutors have dropped a case against a former Alibaba manager accused by a female colleague of sexual assault, weeks after the case caused a backlash against the e-commerce firm over how it handles sexual misconduct allegations.

Police detained the former manager, whose last name is Wang, in August after a female Alibaba employee accused him of sexual assault while they were on a business trip to the northern Chinese city of Jinan.

A towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, will be taken down on Wednesday as a symbol of racial injustice, more than 130 years after it was erected in tribute to the South's Civil War leader.

While many other Confederate symbols across the South have been removed without public announcements beforehand to avoid unruly crowds, Gov. Ralph Northam's office is expecting a multitude and plans to livestream the event on social media.

Universities in Kabul were almost empty on the first day of the Afghan school year, as professors and students wrestled with the Taliban's restrictive new rules for the classroom.

The Taliban have promised a softer rule than during their first stint in power from 1996-2001, when women's freedoms in Afghanistan were sharply curtailed and they were banned from higher education.