The Sultan of Brunei on Tuesday announced the phased introduction of tough Islamic punishments including death by stoning for crimes such as adultery, in the monarchy's latest step towards conservatism.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah -- one of the world's wealthiest men -- said in a speech that a new Sharia Penal Code which has been in the works for years had been gazetted Tuesday and would "come into force six months hereafter and in phases."

Iran's Culture Minister Ali Janati said Monday his department will review a ban imposed on certain books which censors have barred from publication, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Those books subjected to censorship or denied permission to be published in the past will be reviewed again and new decisions will be made," IRNA quoted Janati as saying.

New Jersey's first-ever same-sex marriages were celebrated Monday with cheers and laughter as a flurry of excited, beaming couples married minutes after midnight.

Republican Governor Chris Christie, who had appealed against the judicial decision to allow the weddings, later that morning dropped his fight to get it overturned.

Pope Francis has met with a German bishop whose 31 million-euro ($42 million) building renovation has scandalized Germany.

The Vatican gave no details about Monday's meeting with Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, bishop of Limburg.

We all know to back up our files and photos, but what about our castles and churches?

A nonprofit named CyArk has created digital copies of more than 100 of the world's best-known monuments, mapping Roman ruins, ancient statues, and even an entire island. Now it plans 400 more, with the goal of preserving the world's most important sites against war, wear, and the impact of climate change.

An online Islamic sex shop selling condoms, massage oils and perfumes has been launched in Turkey, becoming the first of its kind in the predominantly Muslim country.

The "Halal Sex Shop" website presents its products as being "entirely safe," and in compliance with Islamic norms.

Americans are growing more comfortable with online dating, and many are finding a spouse or partner in cyberspace, a survey showed Monday.

The Pew Research Center found 11 percent of Internet users -- or some nine percent of all American adults -- said they have personally used an online dating site.

His 2001 painting "The Last Supper" has just sold for $23 million, but growing up in a working class family during China's Cultural Revolution, Zeng Fanzhi could never have anticipated the path his life would take.

"The notion of the artist didn't exist," he said of his art school days in the central Hubei province.

Writer Khaled Hosseini called for more tolerance for the plight of refugees, as the author of the bestselling "The Kite Runner" spoke to Agence France Presse about his latest book "And The Mountains Echoed".

"There is a kind of fortress mentality in the West," said the Afghan-born American novelist, whose new novel has a complex plot spanning from Kabul to Paris, a Greek island to California.

A political genius, a great reformer, a patron of the arts -- but ancient Rome's first emperor Augustus was also a family man, as highlighted in a new exhibition that opened in Rome this week.

The show marks 2,000 years since the death of the founder of the Roman Empire and the man most associated with the "Pax Romana", a period of immense architectural and artistic achievement.