Two iconic Andy Warhol paintings of Elvis Presley and Marlon Brando sold for more than $151 million at auction in New York on Wednesday, shattering pre-sale estimates by several million dollars.

Pop-art legend Warhol's "Triple Elvis" -- a 1963 silkscreen depicting three images of the King of Rock and Roll posing as a gunslinging cowboy -- sold for $81.9 million at the Christie's sale.

South Korea went into "hush" mode Thursday, as nearly 650,000 students sat the annual college entrance exam that will play a large part in defining their adult lives in the ultra-competitive society.

Preparation for the crucial exam starts from primary school, and so does the relentless pressure that has been blamed for everything from early burnout to teenage depression and suicide.

Pictures of human genitalia have been removed from a new edition of a standard biology school textbook in Turkey, sparking fresh criticism that the Islamic rooted-government is seeking to promote conservative values, a report said Wednesday.

Diagrams showing the inner workings of the penis and vagina have instead been replaced by pictures of fluffy ducklings, cute polar bears and a human mother with her newborn baby, the Hurriyet daily said in its Internet edition.

A Patek Philippe gold watch billed as the most expensive -- and most complicated -- in the world fetched a record $21.3 million on Tuesday when it went under the hammer in Switzerland.

The sale of the "Henry Graves Supercomplication", a handcrafted timepiece named after its original owner, a New York banker who ordered it in 1925, weighs more than half a kilo and comprises 900 separate parts.

It's no secret baseball legend Joe DiMaggio loved Marilyn Monroe. The famed New York Yankee cried at her funeral and for 20 years had flowers placed at her crypt several times a week.

The public displays were unusual for the famously stoic and private DiMaggio. Now, his heartbreak over the breakup of one of the most sensational marriages in American history will get a rare public airing when "Marilyn Monroe's Lost Archives" goes up for bid at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills next month.

One of contemporary artist Jasper Johns' well-known pieces depicting an American flag sold at auction Tuesday for a record 36 million dollars, Sothebys announced.

The 30 by 45 cm (12 by 18 inch) piece "Flag" was painted in 1983 by Georgia-born Johns, who is now 84. It by far topped predictions that it might sell for about 20 million.

An Egyptian court sentenced three Germans and six Egyptians to five years jail on Tuesday for stealing fragments of a pharaonic artifact from Cairo's Great Pyramid, a judicial source said.

A court in Giza, south of the capital, sentenced in absentia three Germans -- who had claimed they were researchers -- for stealing pieces of an ancient scroll bearing the name of the Pharaoh Khufu as well as rock samples, the source said.

Unsure whether they could find halal food in Japan, a group of Muslim school teachers from Malaysia went so far as to prepare their own breakfast before departing.

By the end of the first day, they were more at ease. School principal Rahanim Adb Rahim and her group from Kuala Lumpur enjoyed a traditional Japanese lunch of seafood tempura with rice before joining the crowds at Senso-ji, a popular temple in Tokyo.

Sean Michaels has won one of Canada's most prestigious literary awards for his novel about a musical instrument.

Michaels won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his book "Us Conductors" on Monday. The debut novelist's book is about the Russian-born inventor of the theremin, which is an ethereal musical instrument that is played without physical contact.

A brooch commissioned by a French empress, or perhaps an iconic watch considered the most complicated ever made entirely by hand?

The list of spectacular pieces on sale at Christie's and Sotheby's traditional autumn jewel and watch auctions in Geneva this week is long, with nearly $200 million expected to change hands.