Sanae Takaichi made history by becoming Japan's first female prime minister in October. She must now decide whether she'll break another barrier: the taboo barring women from the sumo ring.

The winner of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament that ends Sunday will be presented with the Prime Minister's Cup. Some of her male predecessors, including former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, have entered the ring to hand over the cup.

The Olympic flame began its journey Wednesday to the Milan Cortina Winter Games — missing a little of its usual magic.

Bad weather lashing western Greece forced organizers to move the torch-lighting ceremony indoors, from Olympia's ancient stadium and temples to a nearby museum.

As Pope Leo XIV prepares to embark on his first trip abroad with a visit to Turkey to mark a key event that shaped the foundations of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, there has been a surge of renewed optimism over the possible reopening of a Greek Orthodox religious seminary that has been closed since 1971.

The Halki Theological School has become a symbol of Orthodox heritage and a focal point in the push for religious freedoms in Turkey.

Lebanon is a country where crosses rise from mountaintops, rooftops and street corners, and Christian symbols are woven into everyday life. The upcoming visit of Pope Leo XIV highlights the depth of Christianity's roots in this small Mediterranean nation, dating to the earliest days of the faith.

From Mount Lebanon's peaks to the coastal plain, ancient sites sit beside modern life, reflecting a landscape shaped by centuries of Christian presence. Lebanon's mosaic of 18 sects — including 12 Christian ones — makes it one of the region's most diverse societies, with a Maronite Christian traditionally serving as president.

Pope Leo XIV embarks on his debut overseas trip Thursday, travelling to Turkey and Lebanon to promote Christian unity and urge peace efforts amid heightened tensions in the Middle East.

Iran has requested foreign assistance in extinguishing a large fire that has ravaged UNESCO World Heritage-listed forests in the north of the country for several days, local media reported on Saturday.

Swiss authorities were searching Friday for two robbers who overpowered a security guard at an ancient Rome-themed museum in Lausanne, smashed a display case and made off with dozens of gold coins that had been displayed inside.

City police said the suspects had purchased tickets and waited until other visitors had left shortly before closing time on Thursday, before assaulting and restraining the guard, and then breaking the display case.

A remarkably well-preserved Roman sarcophagus has been unearthed in Hungary's capital, offering a rare window into the life of the young woman inside and the world she inhabited around 1,700 years ago.

Archaeologists with the Budapest History Museum discovered the limestone coffin during a large-scale excavation in Óbuda, a northern district of the city that once formed part of Aquincum, a bustling Roman settlement on the Danube frontier.

National Book Awards judges honored authors worldwide on Wednesday night, from Lebanese novelist Rabih Alameddine's "The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)" to Chicago-born poet Patricia Smith's "The Intentions of Thunder."

Alameddine's narrative of intense family bonds within the chaos of modern Lebanon received the fiction prize, while Smith, who has received numerous previous awards for her lyricism and intensity, won for poetry. The nonfiction prize was given to the Canadian Iranian novelist-journalist Omar El Akkad for his fierce indictment of the contemporary West, "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This."

ENTRY WOUND unfolds as Ryan Eid’s exploration of a fragile space where presence and erasure coexist, and where identity forms as a means of survival rather than an expression of freedom.

Emerging from rural, marginalized and militarized contexts, his subjects stand before the viewer with hardened gestures and quiet defiance, their bodies shaped by accumulated pressures and inherited histories.