The Penn Museum is unwrapping the mystery of mummy conservation, giving the public an unusual close-up of researchers' efforts to preserve relics from ancient Egypt.

Human and animal mummies, as well as an intricately inscribed coffin, are among the items undergoing treatment and repair at the Philadelphia institution's newly installed Artifact Lab.

For conservative Muslim-majority Bangladesh, it is a forgotten and often shocking part of history: a time when aristocrats would openly flaunt male teenage singers whom they took as lovers.

Homosexuality remains illegal in Bangladesh, but the practice of rich Muslim landlords in rural areas publicly living with adolescent "Ghetu" males each monsoon season was widely accepted 150 years ago.

World War II veterans and delegates from former foes gathered Saturday in the Egyptian town of El-Alamein to mark 70 years since the decisive battle that sealed the Allied victory in North Africa.

Many on wheelchairs or using walking sticks, the veterans -- most now in their 90s -- wandered the cemeteries where their comrades were buried, handkerchiefs in hand as emotions welled.

Human rights groups in Greece are accusing the government of subjecting asylum seekers to a "degrading and illegal" application process that aims to discourage them from formally requesting state protection.

Fourteen local rights groups said Friday that refugees from war zones, including Syria, and other repressive regimes are effectively unable to file for asylum because Greece's main processing center in Athens accepts as few as 20 applications each week. They issued a 50-page report criticizing the process that they are sending to the European Union.

Jake Finkbonner was so close to death after flesh-eating bacteria infected him through a cut on his lip that his parents had last rites performed and were discussing donating the 5-year-old's tiny organs.

Jake's 2006 cure from the infection was deemed medically inexplicable by the Vatican, the "miracle" needed to propel a 17th century Native American, Kateri Tekakwitha, on to sainthood. Kateri will be canonized on Sunday along with six other people, the first Native American to receive the honor.

Dorothy's blue and white dress and her sparkling ruby slippers have traveled from Oz to London's Victoria and Albert museum, where more than 130 of cinema's iconic costumes star in a new exhibition.

The show, which opens to the public Saturday, examines the role of costume design in a century of cinema storytelling, from Charlie Chaplin to the recent remake of "Anna Karenina", with a journey through hits from Hollywood's Golden Age.

Rays of sunlight seep through a stained glass window at the tomb on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River of the tribeswoman who on Sunday will become the first American Indian saint.

They form a golden halo above Kateri Tekakwitha's image in the glass, and light her marble burial place where, on Mohawk land, a statue and portrait of her likeness also stand.

Fifty years ago India tasted bitter defeat at the hands of China in a brief border war, and the memory still spooks New Delhi's leaders as they try to compete with their powerful Asian neighbor.

In 1962, badly-equipped Indian troops were humiliated in the four-week battle over the Himalayan frontier, with Chinese forces pouring through the mountains and advancing as far as the plains of Assam.

The day after Moammar Gadhafi died, Chinese artist Yan Pei-Ming set to work painting a wall-sized oil of his corpse -- the first in an unlikely trio of artworks inspired by the Libyan strongman's grisly demise.

"He died such a dramatic, cruel death," the artist, who lives and works in France, told Agence France Presse. "He became a victim of his own victims".

A Chinese city hopes to cash in on the success of its most famous resident, Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan, by investing millions in a tourist zone dedicated to the writer, Chinese media said Thursday.

Gaomi, a city in eastern China's Shandong province, will invest $107 million in projects to honor Mo Yan, who has set most of his gritty stories of Chinese peasant life in the area, the Beijing News reported.