Thieves broke into the national museum in the Syrian capital and stole several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era, officials said Tuesday.

The National Museum of Damascus was temporarily closed after the heist was discovered early Monday. The museum reopened in January as the country is reeling from the 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year Assad family rule last year.

Beirut returns, as it does each year, both a destination and a sanctuary -- a place where the prayer of calling meets the call of prayer, where beauty is not only sung but becomes itself a song. Voices rise in devotion, and instruments spill melodies like candles casting their glow across the eighteenth edition of the Beirut Chants Festival.

Over the years, Beirut Chants has grown into a welcoming home for distinguished choirs and musicians from around the world, while celebrating the steadfast and radiant presence of Lebanese artists.

The BBC was facing a leadership crisis and mounting political pressure on Monday after its top executive and its head of news both quit over the editing of a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The resignation of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness over accusations of bias was welcomed by Trump, who said the way his speech had been edited was an attempt to "step on the scales of a Presidential Election."

Salman Rushdie was among the honorees Sunday at the Dayton Literary Peace Prize event in Ohio, receiving a lifetime achievement award after publishing his first work of fiction since being stabbed on a New York lecture stage three years ago.

The prizes honor both literary merit and the writers' promotion of peace through their work, with separate awards annually for fiction, nonfiction and lifetime achievement. The Ohio city was the site of negotiations that led to the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, ending a war in the Balkans marked by ethnic cleansing that killed more than 300,000 people, as well as the displacement of 1 million residents.

As guardian of the occupied West Bank's oldest olive tree, Salah Abu Ali prunes its branches and gathers its fruit even as violence plagues the Palestinian territory during this year's harvest.

"This is no ordinary tree. We're talking about history, about civilization, about a symbol," the 52-year-old said proudly, smiling behind his thick beard in the village of Al-Walajah, south of Jerusalem.

As French police race to track where the Louvre's stolen crown jewels have gone, a growing chorus wants a brighter light on where they came from.

The artifacts were French, but the gems were not. Their exotic routes to Paris run through the shadows of empire — an uncomfortable history that France, like other Western nations with treasure-filled museums, has only begun to confront.

It was a rare sight on Athens' skyline, and it didn't last long: The Parthenon was without scaffolding for the first time in years.

Greek residents and visitors in recent weeks enjoyed an unobstructed view of the marble temple crowning the Acropolis during its seemingly endless restoration.

Pope Leo XIV met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time on Thursday, and the two men discussed the urgent need to provide assistance to civilians in Gaza and to pursue a two-state solution to end the conflict in the region.

The meeting, which lasted about an hour and was described as "cordial" in a brief Vatican statement, comes nearly a month after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect in the Gaza Strip.

Mona Ziade, who helped The Associated Press cover major events out of the Middle East during the 1980s and '90s, including the taking of Western hostages during Lebanon's civil war and Arab-Israeli peace talks, has died. She was 65.

Ziade died Tuesday morning at her home in Beirut from complications of lung cancer after undergoing treatment for months, her daughter Tamara Blanche said. Blanche said that her mother had been unconscious in the hours before she passed away.

Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said on Tuesday that his non-resident visa to enter the United States had been rejected, adding that he believes it may be because he recently criticized U.S. President Donald Trump.