Greek police have recovered thousands of ancient coins after smashing a large antiquity smuggling ring, media said on Saturday.

Police raided homes in 13 prefectures, mainly in northern Greece, and made 35 arrests. Thousands of ancient coins were found as well as metal detectors, the in.gr news website said.

The 12th century preserved heart of the patron saint of Dublin was stolen from a cathedral in the center of the Irish capital, police said on Saturday.

The heart of Saint Laurence O'Toole was taken from Christ Church Cathedral between Friday evening and 12.30pm (12:30 GMT) on Saturday, police said.

New York City has opened the first senior citizens center in the United States dedicated exclusively to homosexuals under an initiative sponsored by the mayor's office.

"We considered it the first full-time, full-service senior center for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) seniors in the U.S.," said Christopher Miller, a spokesman for the city's Department of Aging.

Lack of funding in crisis-hit Greece has stymied archaeological research and leads experts to rebury valuable discoveries to better protect them, a Greek daily reported on Friday.

"Mother Earth is the best protector of our antiquities," Michalis Tiverios, a professor of archaeology at Thessaloniki's Aristotelio University, told Ta Nea daily on the sidelines of an annual archaeological congress in the city.

New York City's Police Department is facing mounting criticism of its secret surveillance of Muslims across the Northeast, with civil liberties groups demanding an investigation and New Jersey's governor accusing the NYPD of arrogantly acting as if "their jurisdiction is the world."

The intelligence-gathering was detailed recently in a series of stories by The Associated Press, which reported that police monitored mosques and Muslims around the metropolitan area and kept tabs on Muslim student groups at universities in upstate New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The department also sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip with college students.

Three of Christopher Hitchens' most contentious books are coming back into print, and debuting in digital form.

Twelve, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, announced Thursday that books on three of Hitchens' favorite enemies — Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Mother Theresa — will be reissued on paper and as e-books on April 10. Hitchens, the author and polemicist who died in December after an 18-month battle with cancer, would have turned 63 on April 13.

In the heat of a U.S. presidential election year, with Americans immune to the polarized and bitter nature of political discourse, it takes a lot to shock them, especially in Washington.

But one ad at a DC Metro station -- which starts off criticizing Obama's health care reforms and ends up telling the president to "go to hell" -- goes beyond the pale, says Jim Moran, a Democratic congressman from Virginia.

Anglican church officials in New Zealand said Friday an iconic cathedral in downtown Christchurch must be demolished because earthquakes damaged it beyond repair.

Christ Church Cathedral is the city's best-known building, but its climbable spire collapsed in the February 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people and destroyed many other downtown buildings.

China's stifling lockdown of this Tibetan town has not only been about patrolling its sleepy streets, but also policing the minds of a community at the center of self-immolation protests against Chinese rule.

Soldiers with helmets, rifles, sticks and shields march in rows along this monastery town's main road against a backdrop of snow-speckled mountains, while police stare at passing cars, scanning license plates and faces of passengers for unwelcome visitors. In school dormitory rooms in the county, there are random checks for books that go against the ruling Communist Party establishment — and the constant questions about political leanings.

Malaysia's High Court on Thursday dismissed a bid by activists to challenge a police ban on a gay arts festival, in a rare legal case involving gay rights in the Muslim-majority nation.

Organizers of the "Sexual Independence" festival had hoped to overturn a ban imposed last November on the event, which would have featured musical performances, talks on sexuality issues and a poster exhibition.