Hong Kong will amend its city marriage laws after ruling Monday that a transgender woman may marry her boyfriend. Many are calling it the next step to legalizing same-sex marriage in the Asian city.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency in three north-eastern states of the African country after Islamic extremists took control of a number of villages and towns.

Saudi Arabia has sentenced two men to lashings and prison time for their part in helping a woman convert to Christianity and escape the country.

Pope Francis greeted more than 40,000 people from Italy and other countries who had gathered for a pro-life event at Saint Peter's Square after marching against abortion on Sunday, and praised their efforts to highlight the importance of respect for human life.

A Coptic Christian schoolteacher, who is being held in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor on allegedly false charges of blasphemy and preaching Christianity, will be in custody for another 15 days, prosecutors decided Saturday.

After spending his 33rd birthday inside the "small dark hole" of solitary confinement, U.S. Pastor Saeed Abedini has been returned to the general prison population of Evin Prison in Iran.

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking announced this week that he would not be attending a major academic conference in Jerusalem in June as a way of showing "respect" for the Palestinians' academic boycott of Israel. In response, one rabbi said Hawking was joining the Church of Scotland in "demonizing" Israel.

Prince William and Kate Middleton have poached a housekeeper from Queen Elizabeth.

A man has been swallowed by a hippo, but amazingly survived the ordeal and is now telling his extraordinary tale.

The mass exodus of millions of Christians from one part of the Islamic world to another as the result of persecution by Muslims has reached epidemic proportions, says a Middle East and Islam expert. In fact, Christians may completely disappear from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt, warns the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.