Australia paid tribute on Monday to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during World War II, by making him the country's first honorary citizen.

"The lives of those he rescued are Mr Wallenberg's greatest memorial and Australia is honored to have survivors he rescued living in Australia today," Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a statement.

A translation of Biblical psalms that was the first book ever printed in what became the United States goes on auction this November, with an expected price tag of $15-30 million, Sotheby's said Friday in New York.

The book is one of the best of the 11 surviving copies of "The Bay Psalm Book," which Puritan settlers from England printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1640 -- before the United States even existed.

Some 70 ceremonial masks originating from Arizona's Hopi tribe were sold for more than 900,000 euros ($1.2 million) on Friday after a legal challenge failed to prevent an auction decried by opponents as "sacrilege".

The sale of the brightly coloured "Kachina" visages and headdresses by the Neret-Minet auction house took place only hours after a court rejected a request for an injunction from representatives of the Native American tribe, who say the objects are sacred and should be returned to them.

A priest in the pope's native Argentina who endorsed the gay marriage law approved here in 2010 has been expelled from the church, his local archbishop's office said Friday.

The offensive against the legislation was led by Jorge Bergoglio, then the archbishop of Buenos Aires and now Pope Francis.

North Dakota moved closer Friday to having the strictest abortion laws in the U.S., with its House of Representatives approving a measure that would outlaw the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed premise that at that point a fetus can feel pain.

The conservative rural state is aiming to challenge the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. Abortion remains one of the most sensitive issues in the U.S., and conservative lawmakers have been trying for years to restrict access to the procedure by various means in several states.

Habib Jaleel Said, an 11-year-old Lebanese boy, launched his first book, “The Icy Kidnapper,” in a book signing event that took place in April at the Safadi Cultural Center in Tripoli.

Habib said he was inspired by the Harry Potter fantasy novel series and Percy Jackson series that he used to read at the age of nine. He plans to launch similar stories and has therefore created his own imaginary hero Masaio Dingo whom he pictures as a “courageous and honest man.”

The Nobel Prize won by Francis Crick in 1962 for his discovery of DNA was sold Thursday at auction for more than $2 million.

Heritage Auctions identified the buyer as Jack Wang, CEO of Biomobie, a regenerative medicine technology company located in Silicon Valley and Shanghai. The price surpassed the pre-sale estimate of $500,000.

Some never-before-seen artifacts from the minutes and hours following President John F. Kennedy's assassination are going on display in Washington.

The Newseum, a museum devoted to journalism and the U.S. Constitutional amendment on a free press, is marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination with a yearlong commemoration including two new exhibitions and a new film about Kennedy.

From vintage sardine tins and embroidered napkins to artisanal soaps - Portugal's retro products are winning new fans as a handful of companies introduce their old-school aesthetic to the international market.

"The Americans have McDonald's -- we've got tinned fish", jokes Tiago Cabral Ferreira at the Conserveira de Lisboa shop which has sold sardines, mackerel and other canned fish from the heart of Lisbon's old town for the past 83 years.

Palestinian officials on Thursday joined a ceremony to lay the cornerstone for a new museum of Palestinian culture, history and society in Bir Zeit near Ramallah.

Organizers said the museum would provide Palestinians with "a valuable source of information on Palestine and its history".