Fireworks illuminated the skies across Asia and millions of families gathered together Friday to usher in the Year of the Horse, kicking off a week of celebrations that included a performance by Braveheart actress Sophie Marceau on China's annual televised gala.
Residents from China's small towns and villages to its sprawling megacities rang in the Lunar New Year, the country's most important holiday, by indulging in feasts of dumplings and rice cakes and exchanging hongbao, red envelopes stuffed with "lucky money".

Citizens of Venezuela's socialist revolution have grown accustomed to long lines for everything from bread to buying a car.
But 26-year-old Daniela Rodriguez hopes this line will be her last.

Venerable art auctioneer Sotheby's bowed to pressure from activist shareholders Wednesday, announcing a $300 million special dividend, a restructuring of operations and possible property sales.
Three months after its management and strategy came under assault by hedge fund Third Point's founder Dan Loeb and other activists, Sotheby's said it will also spend $150 million on a share buyback program beginning this year.

One of Europe's oldest Yiddish theaters, the State Jewish Theater of Bucharest, has been forced to close down after its roof was damaged by the snowstorms sweeping Romania.
"This is a disaster. About 30 percent of the theater roof has been destroyed. The stage is covered with water from the melting snow as well as the underground deposits where we keep the sets," the director of the theater, actress Maia Morgenstern told Agence France Presse.

China has become the world's biggest consumer of red wine, outdrinking the wine-loving French for the first time in 2013, according to a study published this week.
China, including Hong Kong, drank more than 155 million cases of red wine in 2013, according to the study by Vinexpo, which runs wine and spirits trade shows, and the British International Wine and Spirit Research thinktank.

A German Catholic leader was forced to apologize Wednesday over comments that sparked indignation among the country's Muslim community and proponents of a multicultural society.
Cologne Archbishop Joachim Meisner, 80, had praised the high birth rate of many Catholics, telling followers: "I always say, one of your families to me makes up for three Muslim families".

Germany will boost funding for efforts to return Nazi-looted art to their rightful owners and may invite Jewish representatives to join a mediation body, the government said Wednesday.
Funding for provenance research of art suspected to have been stolen will be doubled, the new minister of state for culture, Monika Gruetters, was quoted as saying in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily.

A 300-year-old "priceless" Stradivarius violin was stolen from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster during an armed robbery after a performance at a local Lutheran college, police said Tuesday.
The rare violin was on loan to concertmaster Frank Almond. The robber used a stun gun on Almond and took the instrument from him shortly before 10:30 p.m. Monday in a parking lot in the rear of Wisconsin Lutheran College, where Almond had just preformed, Police Chief Edward Flynn said.

From tablecloths to duvet covers, iPhone cases to wallpaper and startling calf-skin wall hangings, the ancient Japanese resist-dying technique of shibori has gone mainstream. Vera Wang, Ralph Lauren, Eileen Fisher, Levi's and innumerable fiber artists are breathing new life into the craft.
"The stillness and beauty of it really centers me," said Oriana DiNella, who recently launched her own Web-based shibori line, including linen tableware, pillows and throws — and large leather wall hangings — all made to order and hand-dyed in organic indigo.

The Japanese government announced Tuesday it is revising official teaching manuals to emphasize Japan's territorial rights to islands that are also claimed by China and South Korea.
The Education Ministry said the decision was made to reflect the government's official view on the territorial claims. The revision is seen as part of education reform by conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to instill patriotism and nationalism.
