With a bloody civil war over and a cautious peace at hand, a group of hardline Buddhist monks is rallying Sri Lankans against what they say is a pernicious threat: Muslims.

In just over a year, the saffron-swathed monks of Bodu Bala Sena — or Buddhist Power Force — have amassed a huge following, drawing thousands of fist-pumping followers who rail against the country's Muslim minority.

Two antique American gold coins sold for more than $7.8 million when they went under the hammer in Florida, auction organizers confirmed Friday.

The first gold coin ever made for the United States -- a "Brasher Doubloon" struck in 1787 by a neighbor of George Washington -- fetched $4,582,500, Heritage Auctions said.

Two remarkably life-like Greek bronze statues have gone on show in the same Calabria region in southern Italy where they were found by an amateur diver 42 years ago.

The impoverished region -- notoriously the bastion of the 'Ndrangheta mafia -- is hoping that the rare sculptures of two warriors, one younger and one older, will restore its image and help boost tourist numbers. Preparations to display them were painstaking and long-delayed.

The United States government said Friday it would give full federal backing to more than 1,000 same-sex marriages in Utah which the socially conservative state has refused to recognize.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said gay and lesbian couples who married in Utah after a judge struck down a state law banning same-sex marriage would be eligible for federal benefits enjoyed by other couples.

Almost one in 10 babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim, according to new analysis of census figures published Friday, illustrating the growth of the minority community.

Some 317,952 children aged under five, or 9.1 percent, were registered as being Muslim in the 2011 census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show.

Israel unveiled Friday a memorial in Tel Aviv to remember the gay and lesbian victims of Nazi persecution, in a ceremony attended by Germany's ambassador.

Members of Tel Aviv's gay community turned out to see the stone monument, modeled on the pink triangle Nazis made homosexuals wear in concentration camps during World War II, which features inscriptions in German, Hebrew and English.

When her mind is clear, Gong Qifeng can recall how she begged for mercy. Several people pinned her head, arms, knees and ankles to a hospital bed before driving a syringe of labor-inducing drugs into her stomach.

She was seven months pregnant with what would have been her second boy. The drugs caused her to have a stillborn baby after 35 hours of excruciating pain. She was forced to have the abortion by officials in China's southern province of Hunan in the name of complying with national limits on family size.

Two Czechs have breathed new life into telephone booths made obsolete in the cell phone age, converting them into mini libraries with the first installed at a Prague hospital on Thursday.

On the shelves of the red booth, patients of the IKEM hospital will find a plethora of genres, including works by U.S. crime writer John Grisham, Czech and Russian titles and biographer Andrew Morton's "Diana: Her True Story".

France's Socialist government on Thursday claimed a last-gasp victory in its battle to prevent a controversial stand-up comic from launching a nationwide tour with a show widely condemned as anti-Semitic.

Less than two hours before the comic, Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, was due to take the stage in the western city of Nantes, France's highest administrative court, the Council of State, overturned a local judge's ruling that the show should be allowed to go ahead.

Millions of barefoot devotees packed the Philippine capital's streets Thursday for one of the world's biggest Catholic parades, honoring an ancient statue of Jesus Christ they believe has miraculous powers.

Chanting "Viva, Viva Senor Nazareno! (Long Live Mister Nazarene)", frenzied pilgrims climbed over one another in the suffocating heat to touch the Black Nazarene during the ebony-hued wooden statue's slow procession.