Taxi drivers in Brazil's biggest city have been banned from wearing shorts -- or trying to engage their fares in banter about football.

The rules that took effect in Sao Paulo on Monday aim to whip the city's cabbies into shape. In addition to outlawing shorts and flipflops, the rules slap fines of about $9 for drivers who show up unshaved or with untidy hair.

The first black leader of South Africa's main opposition party vowed Tuesday to root out racist members, saying the country was "being torn apart" by renewed racial tension 22 years after apartheid.

Mmusi Maimane last year took over leadership of the Democratic Alliance (DA), which has long been seen as a "white" party, and will face his first major test at municipal elections due between May and August.

Three faces from afar -- a man in a headdress and a veiled girl and woman -- greet patrons at a Yemeni restaurant in the U.S. city of Hamtramck, gazing into the distance from a mural outside the eatery.

The colorful painting is just another piece of the ever-changing backdrop in this industrial Michigan town, which made history in November when it became the first in America to elect a Muslim majority to its city council.

Muslim women who fail to learn English to a high enough standard could face deportation from Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron announced Monday.

He also suggested that poor English skills can leave people "more susceptible" to the messages of groups like Islamic State (IS).

Pope Francis made his first visit on Sunday to a synagogue as pontiff, citing an "unbreakable" bond between Jews and Christians as hundreds of armed security personnel were deployed for the Rome visit.

Francis is the third pope to visit the Great Synagogue in Italy's capital after John-Paul II in 1986 and Benedict XVI in 2010.

Experts revealed Sunday new findings at two of Egypt's famed pyramids, boosting efforts to unravel whether the ancient world's iconic monuments contain secret chambers.

For the past three months a team of researchers from Egypt, France, Canada and Japan have been scanning four pyramids with thermal cameras to see if they contain unknown structures or cavities.

Police in Pakistan have arrested an imam for inciting violence after a 15-year-old boy who was reported to have been mistakenly accused of blasphemy cut off his own hand.

The cleric, Shabbir Ahmed, last Monday told worshipers at a village mosque that those who love the Prophet Mohammad always say their prayers, before asking who among the crowd had stopped praying, according to local police chief Nausher Ahmed.

A video game allowing players to kill Australian Aboriginals has been removed from mobile stores after more than 50,000 people signed an online petition against the "racist" app.

The app, "Survival Island 3 -- Australia Story", tells users that they have to find ways to stay alive in "one of the most dangerous places in the world", including having to "fight with aboriginals -- you invaded their home!".

Long a symbol of Polish-German reconciliation, Poland's western city of Wroclaw will become a European culture capital this year highlighting its history at the crossroads of political upheaval in central Europe.

Formerly known as Breslau and part of Germany before the end of World War II, Wroclaw will share the limelight with fellow capital of culture San Sebastian on Spain's northern Basque coast.

A town in Germany has banned male asylum seekers from public swimming pools after complaints from women that they were being harassed by migrants, AFP learned Friday.

A spokesman for the local government of Bornheim said the ban on male asylum seekers above the age of 18 came after six people filed complaints "over the sexually offensive behavior of some migrant men at the pool."