Pickled sharks, a diamond skull, polka dots and butterflies are all on display in a new exhibition devoted to bad-boy British artist Damien Hirst.

The Tate Modern show is Hirst's first major UK retrospective. It ranges from spot paintings and drug cabinets to works like "A Thousand Years" — a rotting cow's head abuzz with flies.

Rights activists say a Palestinian university lecturer has been detained on accusations that her Facebook page insulted President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hadeel Hneiti of the al-Haq rights group said Monday that Palestinian security forces arrested Ismat Abdul-Khaleq after they found writing on her Facebook page accusing Abbas of being a traitor and demanding he resign.

New research suggests that long-term use of any type of hormones to ease menopause symptoms can raise a woman's risk of breast cancer.

It is already known that taking pills that combine estrogen and progestins — the most common type of hormone therapy — can increase breast cancer risk. But women who no longer have a uterus can take estrogen alone, which was thought to be safe and possibly even slightly beneficial in terms of cancer risk.

Hungarian President Pal Schmitt resigned Monday because of a plagiarism scandal regarding a doctoral dissertation he had written 20 years ago.

Schmitt, who was elected to his largely ceremonial office in 2010 for a five-year term, said in a speech to parliament's plenary session that he is stepping down because the controversy is dividing Hungary.

AC Milan and Italy striker Antonio Cassano moved a step closer to playing again following minor heart surgery when a 10-man commission approved his return on Monday.

Milan says a panel of experts gathered by the Italian Sports Medicine Federation judged Cassano's condition to be "favorable."

Booms from rocket launchers and automatic gunfire crackled around Mali's fabled town of Timbuktu, known as an ancient seat of Islamic learning, for its 700-year-old mud mosque and, more recently, as host of the musical Festival in the Desert that attracted Bono in January.

On Sunday, nomadic Tuaregs who descended from the people who first created Timbuktu in the 11th century and seized it from invaders in 1434, attacked the city in their fight to create a homeland for the Sahara's blue-turbanned nomads. Their assault deepens a political crisis sparked March 21 when mutinous soldiers seized power in the capital. The Tuaregs have rebelled before, but never have they succeeded in taking Timbuktu or the major northern centers of Kidal and Gao, which fell Friday and Saturday as demoralized government troops retreated.

Victory is the only option for Barcelona as the reigning champions welcome AC Milan to the Camp Nou in the most finely balanced of the Champions League quarterfinals this week.

With Real Madrid and Bayern Munich all but through to the semifinals and Chelsea also in a great position to progress after a first-leg away win, most attention will be on Tuesday's return match between two continental heavyweights.

The potential impact from an earthquake off Japan’s southern coast is very likely, Japan experts say, and estimates show that much of the country's Pacific shore could be inundated by a tsunami more than 34 meters (112 feet) high, the Agence Presse said Monday.

A government-commissioned panel of experts says a tsunami unleashed by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake in the Nankai trough, which runs east of Japan's main island of Honshu to the southern island of Kyushu, could top 34 meters. An earlier forecast in 2003 put the potential maximum height of such a tsunami at less than 20 meters (66 feet).

Oil prices rose slightly above $103 a barrel in Asia amid signs that China's economic growth remains strong, the Agence Presse said Monday.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 22 cents to $103.24 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 24 cents to settle at $103.02 per barrel in New York on Friday.

Aung San Suu Kyi claimed victory Monday in Myanmar's historic by-election, saying she hoped it would mark the beginning of a new era for the long-repressed country.

Suu Kyi spoke to thousands of cheering supporters who gathered outside her opposition party headquarters a day after her party claimed she had won a parliamentary seat in the closely watched vote.