No surprise: Beijing's pick Lam chosen as Hong Kong's leader

The candidate favored by China's Communist leadership was chosen as Hong Kong's new leader on Sunday, in the first such vote since huge pro-democracy protests erupted over the semiautonomous Chinese city's election system in 2014.

A committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites selected Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's former No. 2 official, as the financial hub's chief executive even though she was far less popular than her main rival. Lam received 67 percent of the votes cast by the 1,194-member committee.

In world first, Iceland to require firms to prove equal pay

Iceland will be the first country in the world to make employers prove they offer equal pay regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality or nationality, the Nordic nation's government said Wednesday — International Women's Day.

The government said it will introduce legislation to parliament this month, requiring all employers with more than 25 staff to obtain certification to prove they give equal pay for work of equal value.

Rare comic books with Superman, Batman debuts go to auction

By day, Jon Berk is a mild-mannered civil attorney in Connecticut.

But by night (well, really during most of his spare time for the past 45 years) he is known by some as a comic book-collecting super hero.

Berk's collection of more than 18,000 books and 300 pieces of comic-book art goes on display March 11 at the Metropolis Gallery in New York City. He will then sell it off during an online auction at ComicConnect.com that begins May 15.

"The time is just right to move them along and let someone else experience them," said Berk, 66.

Azerbaijan's leader names his wife as 1st vice president

Azerbaijan's president on Tuesday appointed his wife as the first vice president of the ex-Soviet nation — the person next in line in the nation's power hierarchy.

Ilham Aliyev, 55 named his wife Mehriban, 52, to the position created after a constitutional referendum in September. Mehriban, who married her husband when she was 19, graduated from a medical university. She has served previously as a lawmaker and headed a charity.

New Silk Road? 1st China-London freight train arrives

The first direct freight train service from China to Britain arrived in London Wednesday, another leg in Beijing's plans for closer trade ties with Europe along a modern-day Silk Road.

The 18-day trip saw dozens of containers packed mainly with clothes and household goods transported from the city of Yiwu in eastern China to a freight terminal in Barking in east London, via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and western Europe.

Hamburg's spectacular Elbphilharmonie opens for 1st concert

Hamburg's spectacular new Elbphilharmonie concert hall finally hosted its first concert on Wednesday night, several years behind schedule and far over the original budget.

President Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the guests at the maiden concert that was conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock.

The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester is playing music from the renaissance to the present, including works by Beethoven and Wagner and a new piece by German composer Wolfgang Rihm.

Norway starts tuning out analog radio in favor of digital

Norway began shutting down analog radio technology Wednesday as the Scandinavian country becomes the first in the world to phase out the FM signal for national and some regional broadcasting.

The FM signal was switched off in the Arctic Nordland district in favor of Digital Audio Broadcasting, or DAB.

Journalist Clare Hollingworth, who broke news of WW II, dies

As German tanks encircled the Polish town of Katowice, rookie British newspaper reporter Clare Hollingworth picked up the phone and dialed the British Embassy. An official there didn't believe what she told him, so she dangled the phone out the window so he could hear the ominous rumbling for himself.

"Listen!" she implored. "Can't you hear it?"

Hollingworth was 27, and just a week into her job with the Daily Telegraph of London. She had the scoop of a lifetime: World War II had just begun.

Junko Tabei, 1st woman to climb Everest, dies at 77

The first woman to climb Mount Everest didn't stop there.

Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei, who died Thursday at 77, devoted her adult life to scaling peaks, climbing the tallest mountains in more than 70 countries.

Her philosophy was to live life to the fullest. "I want to climb even more mountains," she said in a 1991 interview with The Associated Press, 16 years after conquering Everest. "To think, 'It was great,' and then die."

Frenchwoman who got world's 1st face transplant dies at 49

Isabelle Dinoire, a Frenchwoman who received the world's first partial face transplant, has died more than a decade after a complex and daring operation that set the stage for dozens of similar transplants worldwide. She was 49.

Her life with a new face was a miracle to many, but was also marred by infections, kidney trouble and hypertension linked to her treatment. In announcing her death Tuesday, the Amiens University Hospital in northern France said Dinoire's experience "illustrates perfectly the high stakes of face transplants."