Archaeologists unearthed a Sphinx-like statue and the remains of a shrine in an ancient temple in southern Egypt, antiquities authorities said Monday.

The artifacts were found in the temple of Dendera in Qena Province, 280 miles (450 kilometers) south of the capital of Cairo, the Antiquities Ministry said in a statement.

A new Haruki Murakami novel will be published in April and the publisher is saying little about it except that the Japanese manuscript is around 1,200 pages and the plot involves "a story that had long been sealed."

"The City and Its Uncertain Walls" will be released on April 13 in both print and digital formats, Shinchosha Publishing Co. said in a statement on Wednesday. The availability of an English translation is not yet known.

An international archeological mission has uncovered the remnants of what is believed to be a 5,000-year-old restaurant or tavern in the ancient city of Lagash in southern Iraq.

The discovery of the ancient dining hall — complete with a rudimentary refrigeration system, hundreds of roughly made clay bowls and the fossilized remains of an overcooked fish — announced in late January by a University of Pennsylvania-led team, generated some buzz beyond Iraq's borders.

At an upcoming meeting of national soccer federations, FIFA will be urged to compensate migrant workers and families of those who died or were injured on World Cup projects in Qatar.

The issue will be raised by Norwegian soccer officials at the FIFA Congress meeting on March 16 in Rwanda, human rights group Amnesty International said Wednesday. It will be the first post-tournament meeting of more than 200 federations.

Inside a shrine overlooking snow-capped mountains, Hindu priests heaped spoonfuls of puffed rice and ghee into a crackling fire. They closed their eyes and chanted, hoping their prayers would somehow turn back time and save their holy — and sinking — town.

For months, the roughly 20,000 residents in Joshimath, burrowed in the Himalayas and revered by Hindu and Sikh pilgrims, have watched the earth slowly swallow their community. They pleaded for help that never arrived, and in January their desperate plight made it into the international spotlight.

Pope Francis will visit Hungary at the end of April, the Vatican said Monday, in a trip expected to focus on migration to Europe and Russia's war in Ukraine.

The April 28-30 trip to Budapest represents a proper state visit after Francis made a brief, hours-long stopover in 2021 to close out a church conference. That visit was visibly awkward, given that Prime Minister Viktor Orban's hard-line views on migration and Francis' call for countries to welcome those fleeing war, hardship and poverty.

Pope Francis has essentially nationalized all assets and property owned by Vatican departments and affiliated institutions, declaring them to be sovereign patrimony owned by the Holy See and not any individual or office.

The action outlined in a new law published Thursday marks Francis' latest initiative to centralize Vatican assets so they can be managed properly, following years of mismanagement that led to huge losses and, prosecutors allege, criminal wrongdoing.

For nearly two weeks, Mehmet Ismet has lived in the ruins of Antakya's most beloved historic mosque, a landmark in a now-devastated city that was famed for thousands of years as a meeting place of civilizations and revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews.

The 74-year-old took refuge in the Habib Najjar mosque after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed tens of thousands in Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6. He has slept and prayed under the few arches still standing, mourning the future of a city renowned for its past.

Pope Francis canceled one audience and skipped speeches he was set to deliver Thursday because of a bad cold, the Vatican said.

Francis, 86, did meet with young Orthodox priests and monks and members of the Max Planck Society, the German research organization that is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. But because of a "bad cold," Francis merely had printed copies of his remarks handed out and didn't read them aloud, the Vatican said in a note.

A project on Instagram to highlight ordinary women and their imperfections has transformed into a modeling agency that aims to redefine notions of beauty in Italy.

The Imperfetta (Imperfect) modeling agency, started in 2020 by Carlotta Giancane, has a casting book full of models who defy the industry's pre-established standards of beauty. They are of all sizes and ages, spanning the gender spectrum, some with disabilities or medical conditions like alopecia or vitiligo, visible scarring or who have lost limbs.