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.

"Politics is an ugly business," says an official in Chinese author Wang Xiaofang's novel, The Civil Servant's Notebook. "You always need to keep a knife in reserve, even for your own boss."

Delving into the darkness of Chinese bureaucracy, Wang depicts a world of intrigue where those at the top lose sight of their principles in the race for political power.

An unpublished Beethoven manuscript sold for 252,750 euros ($331,000) at auction in Paris, part of a major collection put together over 50 years by the late French-born banker Andre Meyer.

A signed string quartet manuscript by Arnold Schoenberg went for almost as much, 240,750 euros, a record for the Austrian composer who died in 1951, according to Sotheby's auction house.

The organizers of Asia's most prestigious prize for literature said Thursday they were looking for a new sponsor after the Man Group announced it was ending its funding for the prize after six years.

The Man Asian Literary Prize began in 2007 and is given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English.

A glance at history suggests it's easier for a Chinese woman to orbit Earth than to land a spot on the highest rung of Chinese politics.

In June, a 33-year-old air force major marked a major feminist milestone by becoming the first Chinese woman to travel in space. With a once-a-decade leadership transition set to kick off Nov. 8, many now are waiting to see if another ambitious Chinese female, State Councilor Liu Yandong, can win one of the nine spots at the apex of Chinese power.