Khaled Bahlawan hammers nails into a traditional wooden boat he built by hand, toiling under the scorching sun on Syria's Mediterranean coast to preserve a disappearing ancient skill.

"We are the last family that makes wooden ships and boats in Syria," said the 39-year-old on the shores of Arwad island, near the city of Tartus.

The Mona Lisa may maintain her famously enigmatic smile because she benefits from one of Paris' best-kept secrets: An underground cooling system that's helped the Louvre cope with the sweltering heat that has broken temperature records across Europe.

The little-known "urban cold" network snakes unsuspecting beneath Parisians' feet at a depth of up to 30 meters (98 feet), pumping out icy water through 89 kilometers (55 miles) of labyrinthine pipes, which is used to chill the air in over 700 sites. The system, which uses electricity generated by renewable sources, is the largest in Europe — and chugs on around the clock with a deafening noise totally inaudible above ground.

The Vatican confirmed Monday that Pope Francis will travel next month to Kazakhstan, where he could meet with Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has justified Moscow's war in Ukraine.

Francis, 85, will attend an interfaith conference in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, from Sept. 13-15, the Vatican said.

Nichelle Nichols, who broke barriers for Black women in Hollywood as communications officer Lt. Uhura on the original "Star Trek" television series, has died at the age of 89.

Her son Kyle Johnson said Nichols died Saturday in Silver City, New Mexico.

Pope Francis said Saturday he needed to slow down, telling reporters after a six-day Canada trip he could no longer maintain his hectic international travel schedule -- while acknowledging he could also retire.

The Portuguese judiciary has opened investigations into suspected sexual assaults within the Catholic Church, following testimony by alleged victims gathered by an independent commission, the public prosecutor said.

Small, ancient sculptures that have been gathering dust in an Albuquerque storage box are returning home to Mexico, where they are intertwined with the identity of Indigenous communities.

The Albuquerque Museum Foundation celebrated the repatriation of the dozen sculptures in a ceremony Wednesday. The local Consulate of Mexico accepted Olmec greenstone sculptures, a figure from the city of Zacatecas, bowls that were buried with tombs and other clay figurines that date back thousands of years.

Amnesty International announced Wednesday that it is "shameful" that "women MPs in the Lebanese parliament, especially those who criticize the authorities, are being harassed by their male counterparts and by the Speaker himself simply because they are women in a parliament dominated by men."

Darren Aronofsky's "The Whale," the Marilyn Monroe drama "Blonde," Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths" and Luca Guadagnino's "Bones and All," with Timothée Chalamet, will all have their world premieres in competition at the Venice International Film Festival this fall.

María Eva Noble says she is carrying out the legacy of her namesake as she labors in a soup kitchen in a working class neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

She was named after iconic Argentine former first lady María Eva Duarte de Perón, better known as Eva Perón, or Evita, who died 70 years ago Tuesday. The soup kitchen where Noble does volunteer duty in the Flores district gives daily lunches to about 200 people and is run by an organization that also carries the name of the late leader.