Pope Leo XIV is kicking off a three-nation tour of Latin America on Friday with a visit to Uruguay, the region's least Catholic and most secular country, three weeks after undergoing lung cancer surgery that had put the entire trip into question.

Leo is due to arrive in Montevideo after a 13½-hour flight from Rome. He has a packed three-day itinerary in Uruguay including a visit to a neighborhood plagued by gang violence, a Mass in Paysandú, around 375 kilometers (230 miles) from the capital, and another Mass in the city of Florida, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from Montevideo.

From Michigan to the Middle East, Arabs are celebrating Abdul El-Sayed's election win and delighting in his introduction of Arabic terms like "habibi" and "inshallah" to the American political lexicon.

After being the target of Islamophobic rhetoric on the campaign trail, the rising political star who will be the first Muslim American U.S. senator has mocked his critics on the right while championing the Palestinian cause and leaning into his faith and Egyptian heritage.

Dozens of visitors have begun flocking to a new museum opened by Iraq's Jewish community, the first of its kind, amid ongoing efforts by the minority to preserve its heritage.

Collins Dictionary has named "mogging" — a slang word meaning to outshine someone or something — as its word of the year.

Dictionary experts said Tuesday that the word, most often used by young people "in a playful and ironic way when someone is upstaged," has entered mainstream language and saw a 210% increase in usage in 2026.

Russia's most renowned independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, on Friday announced its closure after more than three decades of operation, blaming relentless official pressure.

"They have killed us," it said in an editorial statement, announcing that it will shut its office on Nov. 9 after publishing its final issue. "The Russian authorities and the Russian security services have forced our editorial team to cease operations."

Pope Leo XIV has become the first pope to vote in a U.S. general election.

The Vatican confirmed Friday that the Chicago-born pontiff had submitted a mail-in ballot in Chicago ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, citing his long-standing belief in civic participation.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s broad assertions about Arab contributions to humanity's scientific and literary discoveries at a Republican campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, have drawn criticism just days before midterm elections.

"There's 500 million Arabs in the world and yet they don't produce science," Kennedy said on the campaign trail Monday. "They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."

In southern Lebanon, visual artist Lina Jouni turns shrapnel from Israeli military munitions into sculptures, keychains and decorative objects.

Since 2024, she has collected fragments from the rubble of destroyed homes in Roumin.

Scientists doubling as art detectives have traced Vincent van Gogh's " The Starry Night " to a celestial scene that suggests a new date for one of the world's most famous paintings.

Their findings indicate that rather than being a product of van Gogh's imagination, "The Starry Night" may have been inspired by what he saw as he gazed heavenward from his French asylum 137 years ago.

Pope Leo XIV will miss a planned trip to Assisi next week after doctors advised against the helicopter journey to the Italian town as he recovers from lung cancer surgery, the Vatican said Friday.

The pope had been due to attend a gathering on Tuesday marking the 40th anniversary of St. John Paul II's World Day of Prayer for Peace.