The American University of Beirut was ranked 1st in the MENA region in sustainability and tied with Princeton University at the 140th place globally in the QS World University Rankings (WUR): Sustainability 2023, the university said in a statement Tuesday.

In its first edition, the QS Sustainability Rankings were announced by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) university ranking agency. The rankings looked at 700 of the world’s top universities that were deemed eligible and compared them against environmental and social sustainability metrics, to see which universities are doing the most to tackle major environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges. "The American University of Beirut was the only university in Lebanon to be ranked and number one in the MENA Region," the statement said.

The mascots for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics have been revealed — a Phrygian cap.

The soft red cap, also known as a liberty cap, is an updated version of a conical hat worn in antiquity in places such as Persia, the Balkans, Thrace, Dacia and Phrygia, a place in modern day Turkey where the name originates. It later became a symbol of the pursuit of liberty in the French Revolution — and is still worn by the figure of Marianne, the national personification of France since that time.

Norwegian police said two people tried in vain Friday to glue themselves to Edvard Munch's 1893 masterpiece "The Scream" at an Oslo museum and no harm was reported to the painting of a waif-like figure appearing to scream.

Police said they were alerted by the National Museum of Norway and had three people under their "control." A third person filmed the pair that tried to affix to the painting, Norwegian news agency NTB said.

Three years ago, Fadel Abbas marched with tens of thousands of fellow Iraqis chanting for the "fall of the regime" in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, meaning "liberation" in Arabic.

Over a million sports fans will go to Qatar for the World Cup in November and December, a spectacle that typically turns host countries into a nonstop party. But this year may be different.

The tiny, conservative Muslim nation may show little tolerance for the booze-fueled hooliganism that has unfolded at tournaments past.

Israeli archeologists have found an ancient comb dating back some 3,700 years ago and bearing what is likely the oldest known full sentence in Canaanite alphabetical script, according to an article published Wednesday.

The inscription encourages people to comb their hair and beards to rid themselves of lice. The sentence contains 17 letters that read: "May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard."

At first, Saskia Niño de Rivera was excited about going to Qatar for a World Cup that would mark a significant professional event for her partner, a sports agent for Mexico soccer players. She even contemplated privately proposing there during a game, and posting photos once they left the country.

But as the lesbian couple learned more about laws on same-sex relations in the conservative Gulf country, the plans no longer sounded like a good idea. Instead, Niño de Rivera proposed at an Amsterdam stadium this summer and opted to skip the World Cup altogether.

Former Qatari international and World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman has called homosexuality a "damage in the mind" in an interview to be aired on German TV on Tuesday, sparking condemnation by Berlin.

Britain and France have raised the case of a dissident hunger striker with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, a day after the jailed activist started refusing water.

Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British-Egyptian, stopped drinking water on Sunday to coincide with the opening of the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

Pope Francis said Sunday he was praying for "suffering peoples of the Middle East", at the end of a Bahrain visit promoting dialogue with Islam.

In a final address before boarding a flight to Rome, he also urged congregants to pray "for Ukraine, which is suffering so much," and for an end to the war.