Three's a crowd? Not in Brazil, where three women have defied deeply conservative trends in Congress and wider traditional mores by celebrating a polyamorous civil union.

The happy trio, who reportedly have shared a bed for years and say they want to raise a child, took an oath of love in early October in the presence of Rio de Janeiro notary public Fernanda de Freitas Leitao.

It's fall. Leaves in Central Park are golden and so are profits in the art world, as Christie's and Sotheby's prepare to auction off $2 billion worth of works in New York.

From November 4 to 12, the two auction houses go head to head in selling hundreds of pieces of modern, impressionist, post-war and contemporary art, six months after the spring season smashed a string of records and netted more than $2.6 billion.

Frenchman Vincent Vallee was crowned the world champion chocolate maker in Paris on Friday, beating top chocolatiers from around the globe in a three-day final.

"It's the first time a French chef has won the competition," said organizers Cacao Barry, who have held the tournament finals in the French capital since 2005.

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam, was awarded the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize on Thursday.

The 31-year-old blogger, who was arrested in 2012, is an outspoken advocate of free speech whose vicious public flogging in January, when he was subjected to a first round of 50 lashes, triggered an international backlash.

It is the world's largest producer of milk and also the largest consumer. And for good reason. Because in India, milk is not just the morning glass you drink before you sprint out of the house. Its uses go far beyond the dietary and nutritional.

By the end of 2014, India was producing 140 million metric tons of milk per year — roughly 50 percent more than the United States, the second-biggest producer.

Cyclist Jack Yabut is on a perilous and likely futile crusade to help the Philippine capital beat "Carmageddon", but even if his campaign fails -- he will have saved time on his own commute.

Traffic in the megacity of 12 million people has reached crisis levels this year, as record car sales have added to long-term problems of decrepit railways, a stunted road network and a law-of-the-jungle driving culture.

Radical Islamist gunmen have threatened to use force against university students in Yemen's southern city of Aden if they do not observe segregation of the sexes on campus, witnesses said.

Students said armed militants distributed leaflets containing the threats and signed by the Islamic State group in at least three departments of the university of Aden.

Turkey's appeal court has overturned a 10-month suspended jail sentence for blasphemy against world-renowned pianist Fazil Say over Twitter posts deemed offensive to Islam.

The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that his comments on social media should be regarded as "freedom of thought and expression and thus should not be punished," the Hurriyet newspaper reported on Monday.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will set up collection points to receive Lego block donations, he said Monday, after he set off a social media storm by accusing the Danish company of refusing a bulk order on political grounds.

The children's toy became embroiled in controversy when Ai said its manufacturer had refused to supply him directly as it "cannot approve the use of Legos for political works".

A group of Egyptian and foreign experts launched Sunday a new bid to unravel the "secrets" of the pyramids, including a search for hidden chambers inside four famed pharaonic monuments.

Architects and scientists from Egypt, France, Canada and Japan will use modern infra-red technology and advanced detectors to map two pyramids at Giza and the two Dahshur pyramids, south of Cairo.