Yuri Lyubimov, a director who dominated Russian theater for half a century, has died at 97, after being admitted to hospital last week with heart failure.

Lyubimov founded and headed Moscow's Taganka Theater for 50 years, winning worldwide renown for his hugely visual and inventive shows, and influencing a new generation in post-Soviet Russia.

An American nun credited with curing a boy's eye disease moved a step closer to sainthood Saturday in what church officials said was the first beatification Mass held in the United States.

A beatification Mass for Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, who died in 1927, was led by Cardinal Angelo Amato at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey. Beatification is the third in a four-step process toward sainthood.

The U.S. Methodist church's highest court will decide later this month whether a minister who officiated at his gay son's wedding can keep his pastoral credentials.

The Rev. Frank Schaefer was defrocked following a church trial in southeastern Pennsylvania last year, then re-instated by an appeals panel in June. That decision was appealed to the Judicial Council, the church's highest court.

The renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York purchased a collection of 4,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts found a century ago by a British explorer, averting a plan to auction the antiquities that had drawn criticism from historians.

The Treasure of Harageh collection consists of 37 items such as flasks, vases and jewelry inlaid with lapis lazuli, a rare mineral. Discovered by famed British archaeologist Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, the relics date to roughly 1900 B.C., excavated from a tomb near the city of Fayum. Portions of the excavated antiquities were given in 1914 to donors in St. Louis who helped underwrite the dig.

Two million Muslims ritually stoned the devil Saturday in the last major ritual of this year's hajj in Saudi Arabia, while fellow believers around the world celebrated Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice.

The stoning took place in Mina, about five kilometers (three miles) east of the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca.

Nobel prize season starts Monday with speculation rife that the peace prize could go to U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden, Pakistani girls' education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, or perhaps Pope Francis.

Last year, the physics prize awarded to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert for the Higgs particle was widely predicted, but Nobel pundits and bookmakers tend to focus more on who will get the prestigious peace and literature awards.

Israel was in security lockdown Friday for the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur, which is coinciding with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha for the first time in three decades.

The Israeli army said it had sealed off the occupied West Bank from Thursday night to Saturday night for the solemn holiday.

Tears flowed and prayers filled the air as the annual Muslim hajj by close to two million believers from around the world reached its zenith on a vast plain in western Saudi Arabia Friday.

"I am now a newborn baby and I don't have any sin," Nigerian pilgrim Taofik Odunewu told AFP, standing at the foot of Mount Mercy on the Arafat plain, tears streaming down his face.

Nice-guy Pope Francis looks set to have his mettle tested by his first mutiny in the ranks this weekend at a Catholic meeting on the contentious issue of traditional marriage.

The Church has long refused to relax rules for "sinners", but amid a flurry of countries legalizing same-sex marriage and a rise in divorce levels, reform-minded Francis has suggested there may be wiggle-room on doctrine, sparking panic among conservatives.

If the Socialist government gets its way, visitors to France's three most touristic museums — the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and Versailles Palace — may get to visit seven days a week in coming years.

But a powerful labor union could get in the way.