Last year a 600 kilogram (1,300 pound) bull jammed a horn as thick as a man's arm through Bill Hillmann's thigh twice, narrowly missing his femoral artery.

It was his first goring in 10 years of running with the bulls at Spain's famous San Fermin festival, but not the first time he got injured.

Twenty gay and lesbian couples got married in a mass wedding on an Acapulco beach on Friday, one month after Mexico's top court all but legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

With Guerrero state's governor and wife as witnesses, the 15 male and five female couples exchanged vows as the sun set, surrounded by some 200 people in a celebration that included cake and a mariachi band.

French police officers have been given approval to sport beards and tattoos on the job so long as they respect certain conditions, officials said Friday.

Responding to a police officers' union request, officials said French cops may wear beards on duty "as long as they are clean and well-trimmed," and may indulge in the current male fashion of letting stubble grow two or three days between shaves.

A hoard of gems accrued over 40 years by a collector who "loves sparkly things" is being sold in Britain with a retail value of £8 million ($12.4 million, 11.1 million euros), an auction house said Friday.

Rubies, emeralds, tanzanites and sapphires "ethically sourced" from all over the world are among more than 680 gemstones being sold from the largest collection of its kind in Britain, John Pye Auctions said.

We know this much so far about Harper Lee's new book: Atticus Finch is 72 and suffering from rheumatoid arthritis; Scout is a grown woman who has a suitor most anxious to marry her.

And Scout's older brother, Jem, apparently has died.

Gay couples flocked to civil registries in Chile on Thursday to pick a time to celebrate the first same-sex civil unions since their historic approval earlier this year.

Couples were able to sign up for the Civil Union Agreement (AUC) for free, six months after it was approved by Congress in the religiously conservative country.

One man has become a behind-the-scenes force in the international art world after securing the return of art looted by the Nazis to the descendents of its original Jewish owners.

The return of "Seated Woman" by Henri Matisse to the Rosenberg family was his work. 

Two Turkish newspaper commentators went on trial on Thursday for illustrating their columns with a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed published by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Cetinkaya, writers at the secular Cumhuriyet daily, face up to 4 1/2 years in jail on charges of "inciting public hatred" and "insulting religious values" in connection with the cartoon. 

It was a symbol of the Mexico City landscape, zooming, honking and fuming in the mega-capital's infamously dense traffic. But the beloved Volkswagen Beetle is nearly extinct, a victim of anti-pollution campaigns.

A few "vochos," as the curvy car is known in Mexico, can still be spotted occasionally in the city's chaotic streets while so-called "Vochomania" clubs of collectors try to keep it alive.

The speaker of the German parliament on Wednesday said the slaughter of indigenous Namibians a century ago constituted a "genocide" that stemmed from a "race war."

Norbert Lammert, writing in a guest column for news weekly Die Zeit, said the Herero and Nama peoples had been systematically targeted for massacre by German imperial troops.