U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson has hosted a reception to celebrate the “A Thread of Hope” exhibit featuring 68 works of art by Lebanese artists at the U.S. Embassy.

Johnson expressed gratitude to the more than 70 artists who generously have partnered with the U.S. Embassy since 2022 on Art Loan Projects. Minister of Culture Ghassan Salameh attended the event Tuesday, as well as Director General of Antiquities Sarkis Khoury. Numerous artists, galleries, and art world patrons were also present.

Turkey has begun a new phase in sweeping restorations of the nearly 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, focusing on preserving the monument's historic domes from the threat of earthquakes.

Officials say the project will include reinforcing Hagia Sophia's main dome and half domes, replacing the worn lead coverings and upgrading the steel framework while worship continues uninterrupted in the mosque.

Passover is a major Jewish holiday, celebrated over seven or eight days each year, commemorating the exodus of ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt, as recounted in the Bible. It is considered the most widely observed of any Jewish holiday, symbolizing freedom and the birth of a Jewish nation.

This year, the celebrations again occur amid anxieties and divisions among many Jews related to the unresolved Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and the specter of widespread antisemitism.

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir prompted strong condemnation from Arab nations and Palestinian militants Hamas on Wednesday with his latest visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City.

The firebrand politician was visiting the site, which is sacred to Jews and Muslims, in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem after returning to the government last month following the resumption of the war against Hamas in Gaza.

As stone-throwing Israeli settlers and armed soldiers approached his home, Hamdan Ballal could only think about his wife and three young kids inside.

“I told myself if they will attack me, if they kill me, I will protect my family,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday following a night in military detention.

Finland is named the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday.

Other Nordic countries are also once again at the top of the happiness rankings in the annual report published by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford. Besides Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden remain the top four and in the same order.

An unprecedented exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris explores the presence and influence of Black artists in the city from the 1950s to 2000, offering a vibrant immersion in France's cosmopolitan capital and a history of anti-colonial, civil rights struggles.

The "Black Paris" exhibition features the works of about 150 major artists of African descent, many of whom have never or rarely been displayed in France before. Running from March 19 to June 30, it's one of the final shows before the museum closes for a five-year renovation later this year.

King Charles III is scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis during a state visit next month to the Vatican, suggesting the Holy See is optimistic the pontiff will be back at work by then, barring any setbacks in his recovery from double pneumonia.

The tentative audience was among details of the British monarch's visit to the Vatican and Italy released on Tuesday by Buckingham Palace. State visits are always planned in close consultation with the Vatican's secretariat of state.

How's Pope Francis doing? Can you give him my get-well wishes? Can I speak with him directly?

The nuns who operate the Vatican's switchboard are fielding a growing number of calls with questions like that as the pope remains hospitalized in Rome.

Dozens of clerics and others from Syria's minority Druze community crossed into the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights Friday for the first time in decades.

The nearly 100 Syrian Druze crossed the heavily-fortified border area in three buses, escorted by members of the Israeli military. They are expected to visit a religious shrine on the Israeli side of the border.