Florence's museums authority on Tuesday played down the risk of Michelangelo's 500-year-old David statue falling down because of fractures in its ankles.

"Even if there is an earthquake of 5.0 or 5.5 on the Richter scale, Florence will stay in one piece. And David would be the last to fall," Marco Ferri, a spokesman for the authority, told Agence France Presse.

Sotheby's agreed Monday to appoint hedge fund activist Dan Loeb and two allies to its board, averting a shareholder vote over the direction of the prestigious fine art auctioneer.

A day before a contentious Loeb-pushed vote could have upended company management, Sotheby's bowed to pressure and agreed to appoint Loeb along with restructuring expert Harry Wilson and Olivier Reza, a renowned jeweler and former banker, to the board.

"The Snow Queen" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by Michael Cunningham

Like the Disney megahit "Frozen," Michael Cunningham's new novel is loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Snow Queen."

Mexican actress Kate del Castillo is taking a star turn off-Broadway with a Spanish-language version of the "Vagina Monologues" in the same Westside Theater where Eve Ensler's work was presented in 1999.

Other Spanish-language works have been presented on the circuit, but the show opening Tuesday will be the first to play a full, if short New York season off-Broadway.

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday upheld the right to pray at government meetings, in a divided decision which said the practice did not violate religious freedoms.

Voting along ideological lines, the court's five conservative justices said that "the nation's history and tradition have shown that prayer in this limited context could coexist with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom."

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed new legislation introducing harsh punishments for the justification or denial of Nazi war crimes.

The legislation makes it a criminal offence to deny facts established by the Nuremberg trials regarding the crimes of the Axis powers and to disseminate "false information about Soviet actions" during World War II.

Sitting in a cafe in downtown Beirut, Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa's thoughts keep wandering back to his home and favorite place in the world, the northern city of Aleppo, much of which now lies in ruins, demolished by civil war.

For him, the ancient metropolis is much more than a beautiful city known for its majestic, 13th century citadel, spicy cuisine and maze-like covered bazaar. It is his inspiration, the center of his pain, the place where the seeds of rebellion against an oppressive government were formed.

Sixty years ago, French troops were crushed by Vietnamese fighters in a landmark battle that led to the country's independence, dented Paris's prestige and fueled independence movements in other colonies.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which ended on May 7, 1954 after nearly two months of relentless fighting in a valley where French soldiers were encircled and roundly defeated was also a milestone in the history of liberation movements worldwide.

Celebrities including Virgin group founder Richard Branson have vowed to boycott a hotel chain linked to Brunei's sultan after he introduced a controversial Islamic penal code in his country.

Brunei's all-powerful Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah announced last Wednesday that he would push ahead with the sharia law that will eventually include tough penalties such as death by stoning.

Little by little, the deserts of northern Sudan slowly reveal the secrets they have held for 2,000 years and more.

With wheelbarrows, pulleys and shovels, sweating laborers have unearthed the remains of pyramids, temples and other ancient monuments.