Hungary said Wednesday it will contribute 120,000 euros ($160,000) towards the upkeep of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, following criticism that it was stalling on funds.

In May, Piotr Cywinski, the head of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation which maintains the memorial site -- told the French newspaper Le Monde that Hungary was reluctant to help pay for the preservation of the former camp.

A cold, dry spell that lasted hundreds of years may have driven the collapse of Eastern Mediterranean civilizations in the 13th century BC, researchers in France said Wednesday.

In the Late Bronze Age, powerful kingdoms spanned lands that are now Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian territories, but they collapsed suddenly around 1200 BC.

Neo-Gothic and solidly 19th century, the church of Sainte-Gemmes-d'Andigne in western France stands as a testament to a long-gone village way of life.

The limestone church with its four-bay nave and high stained glass windows towers above the village, now home to just a fraction of the people it was built to serve in 1865 when an earlier one on the same site was deemed too small.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye Thursday urged Japan to "face history" to mend ties with neighbors, on the same day that top Tokyo officials visited a war shrine seen as a symbol of its imperial past.

Park, in a speech marking the anniversary of Korea's independence from the 1910-45 Japanese occupation, warned that controversies over Japan's colonial rule were "darkening the future of bilateral relations".

The more siblings you have, the less likely you are to get divorced when you grow up, suggests a study presented Tuesday at a major convention of American sociologists.

Doug Downey of Ohio State University said that, in terms of divorce, having no siblings or just one or two doesn't make much of a practical difference.

Somewhat fewer U.S. college students are having frequent sex, compared to their Generation X predecessors, but those who do are more likely to be getting it on with a casual date or pal.

That's according to a study into so-called "hook-up culture" presented Tuesday by two researchers at the University of Portland in Oregon at a national convention of sociologists in New York.

Graffiti painted on a gas station wall in Hollywood by British street artist Banksy will be put up for sale at auction in Beverly Hills, Julien's auction house said Tuesday.

Titled "Flower Girl," the stencil in black aerosol paint represents a young girl with a basket standing before an immense plant whose flower has been replaced by a surveillance camera with a rat tail -- a recurrent motif in Banksy's art.

Switzerland, which prides itself on its humanitarian principles, is facing a barrage of criticism over its treatment of asylum seekers, including charges of segregation and inhumane living conditions.

The controversy first broke last week when federal migration authorities said the small northern town of Bremgarten, with 6,500 residents, had been permitted to deny residents of a new asylum center access to certain public spaces.

David Baldacci has decided to enter the fantasy world.

The best-selling thriller writer has a deal with Scholastic Inc. for a young adult novel, "The Finisher." Scholastic, a top U.S. children's publisher, announced Monday that the book is scheduled to come out in March.

As a teenager radicalized by China's Cultural Revolution, Zhang Hongbing denounced his mother to the authorities. Two months later a firing squad shot her dead.

Now after more than 40 years of mounting guilt, Zhang has ruffled the silence that cloaks China's decade of turmoil with a public confession.