Europe must do more to better integrate its Muslim communities, and not "simply respond with a hammer," U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday in the wake of last week's terror attacks in France.

"Our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations -- they feel themselves to be Americans," Obama told a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron. 

Sotheby's on Friday won its legal battle with a man who claimed the auction house negligently led him to undersell a painting acquired by an expert who later declared it to be a Caravaggio.

Lancelot William Thwaytes sold the painting, known as "The Cardsharps", to the partner of renowned collector Denis Mahon at a London auction in 2006 for £42,000 ($63,700, 55,000 euros) after Sotheby's billed it as being the work of a "follower" of the Italian Renaissance master.

Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has started offering opinions and advice on queries from fans in an online agony uncle column, kicking things off by revealing his fears over hate speech and his own failing eyesight.

The publicity-shy writer started the project Thursday at "Murakami-san no tokoro" or "Mr. Murakami's place" where he hoped for easy-going, fun exchanges with readers.

In the spirit of Charlie Hebdo, Palestinian cartoonist Ramzy Taweel is making his feelings about the French satirical weekly crystal clear -- his latest illustration equates the publication to toilet paper.

Palestinian political cartoonists, including Taweel, rushed to eulogies the staff of Charlie Hebdo killed by Islamic extremists in an attack on their offices in Paris last week, publishing images defending free speech, condemning violence and expressing solidarity with France.

When Suh Hyun-Woong showed his mother his first tattoo, she burst into tears.

"She couldn't understand why I would want to do that to myself," Suh laughed. "But now she's pretty much accepted it."

Director Peter Jackson said Wednesday he's putting his energy into helping launch a museum to commemorate World War I after finishing his "Hobbit" movie trilogy.

If he has any plans for future blockbusters, he's not saying.

Campaigning in the Greek elections took an unexpected turn on Wednesday when one deputy took aim at a school text book describing the removal of the famed Elgin Marbles from Athens in the 19th century.

The ancient Greek sculptures, also known as the Parthenon Marbles, were taken from Greece by British diplomat Lord Elgin in 1803.

A Budapest court has ordered a U.S.-based internet service provider (ISP) to remove an article after ruling it denied the events of the Holocaust, a crime in Hungary, the news agency MTI reported Wednesday.

Prosecutors said the article, published in July 2013 on the Hungarian-language news portal Kuruc.info, called into question the deaths of Jews at Nazi Germany's notorious wartime death camp Auschwitz. 

A group of Muslim girls in Malaysia were threatened with arrest Wednesday after a video emerged showing them hugging members of K-pop boy band B1A4, local media reported.

The incident has prompted a public outcry in the Muslim majority country, with Islamic conservatives denouncing both the popular Korean K-pop genre and the girls.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday launched a highly symbolic Orthodox New Year visit to Kosovo, the former Serbian province that unilaterally seceded in 2008 despite Belgrade's fierce opposition.

In Gracanica, a Serb enclave at the outskirts of Pristina, Vucic called for a peaceful coexistence with the ethnic Albanian majority that makes up 90 percent of the nearly two million Kosovo population.