Mexicans received their first chance Friday to see three pre-Hispanic stone carvings that were returned by the Lowe Art museum in Miami after they were apparently removed illegally from Mexico.

Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History says the three stone pieces depict a serpent, a water god and a priest or nobleman.

The Miss World beauty contest, which has attracted fierce opposition by hardline Islamic groups in host country Indonesia, is now facing another challenge -- a rival pageant exclusively for Muslims.

The Muslimah World contest to be held on Wednesday in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, is "Islam's answer to Miss World", the pageant's founder Eka Shanti said Saturday.

A 43-year-old man is to become the first openly gay candidate to stand for office in Turkey, local media said Saturday.

Can Cavusoglu announced he would run for mayor as an independent candidate in Bulancak, a town of 60,000 people on the Black Sea, the Hurriyet Daily News reported.

One of Britain's biggest colleges on Friday dropped a ban on Muslim face veils after thousands of people signed a petition against the rule.

Birmingham Metropolitan College said on Facebook it would change its policy to allow "individuals to wear specific items of personal clothing to reflect their cultural values".

A 12-year-old Indian rollerskating fanatic and a skateboarding goat were among the record-breakers who made it into the 2014 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, released on Thursday.

Schoolboy Rohan Kokane, from the western Indian city of Belgaum, won his place in the famous book as the Lowest Limbo Skater, rollerskating beneath a height of just 25 centimetres (10 inches) over a distance of 10 metres (33 feet).

The killing of Bulgarian dissident Georgy Markov with a poison-tipped umbrella on a London bridge in 1978 was like an episode from the pages of a Cold War spy novel.

But this was not fiction. And now, 35 years later, Bulgarian investigators are closing the book on their probe, even though Markov's cousin says he knows who the killer was -- and where he lives.

Cobwebs cover its furniture and its rooms are long deserted, but a crumbling house in northern Myanmar is at the centre of a conservation battle by locals who say it was once home to George Orwell.

The remote trading post of Katha on the banks of the Irrawaddy -- and the house lived in by Orwell in the 1920s -- were immortalized in the acclaimed British author's first novel, "Burmese Days".

Women will be allowed to become bishops in Anglican churches in Wales following a vote on Thursday, a decision that puts pressure on the Church of England which has rejected such a move.

Campaigners called the move long overdue, arguing the exclusion of women from the top roles made the church less relevant in the modern world.

Russia on Thursday said it was carrying out raids as part of a probe into the alleged embezzlement of $1.5 million of state funding allocated for refitting Saint Petersburg's celebrated Hermitage museum.

The interior ministry said its investigators were probing the embezzlement of 50 million rubles ($1.5 million, 1.1 million euros) from the federal budget intended for reconstruction work at the museum renowned for its priceless collection of Western art.

French police are investigating an apparent scam involving fake tickets for the Louvre museum in Paris after top-quality counterfeits were found in the hands of Chinese tourists, museum and judicial officials said Wednesday.

The probe was launched after agents found false tickets being used on several occasions last month by Chinese tourists and tour guides, a source at the Louvre -- one of the world's largest and most-visited museums -- told Agence France Presse.