The Vatican confirmed Monday that Pope Francis will travel next month to Kazakhstan, where he could meet with Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has justified Moscow's war in Ukraine.

Francis, 85, will attend an interfaith conference in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, from Sept. 13-15, the Vatican said.

Nichelle Nichols, who broke barriers for Black women in Hollywood as communications officer Lt. Uhura on the original "Star Trek" television series, has died at the age of 89.

Her son Kyle Johnson said Nichols died Saturday in Silver City, New Mexico.

Pope Francis said Saturday he needed to slow down, telling reporters after a six-day Canada trip he could no longer maintain his hectic international travel schedule -- while acknowledging he could also retire.

The Portuguese judiciary has opened investigations into suspected sexual assaults within the Catholic Church, following testimony by alleged victims gathered by an independent commission, the public prosecutor said.

Small, ancient sculptures that have been gathering dust in an Albuquerque storage box are returning home to Mexico, where they are intertwined with the identity of Indigenous communities.

The Albuquerque Museum Foundation celebrated the repatriation of the dozen sculptures in a ceremony Wednesday. The local Consulate of Mexico accepted Olmec greenstone sculptures, a figure from the city of Zacatecas, bowls that were buried with tombs and other clay figurines that date back thousands of years.

Amnesty International announced Wednesday that it is "shameful" that "women MPs in the Lebanese parliament, especially those who criticize the authorities, are being harassed by their male counterparts and by the Speaker himself simply because they are women in a parliament dominated by men."

Darren Aronofsky's "The Whale," the Marilyn Monroe drama "Blonde," Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths" and Luca Guadagnino's "Bones and All," with Timothée Chalamet, will all have their world premieres in competition at the Venice International Film Festival this fall.

María Eva Noble says she is carrying out the legacy of her namesake as she labors in a soup kitchen in a working class neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

She was named after iconic Argentine former first lady María Eva Duarte de Perón, better known as Eva Perón, or Evita, who died 70 years ago Tuesday. The soup kitchen where Noble does volunteer duty in the Flores district gives daily lunches to about 200 people and is run by an organization that also carries the name of the late leader.

On 29 July 2022, as from 7:00pm, friends of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio will host a vigil at the Jesuit church St. Joseph in Ashrafieh, Beirut. The vigil will be followed by a private screening of the documentary film "Ayouni" (2021) by Yasmin Fedda.

Dall'Oglio was kidnapped by the Islamic State group in Raqqa, Syria, while negotiating the release of hostages from captivity. For 9 years, family and friends of Paolo Dall'Oglio have been waiting for answers about his whereabouts, pressing public authorities in Italy and Syria to release information.

Pope Francis will travel to Quebec City Wednesday, where he will address Canada's political leaders after dedicating the first part of his journey to apologizing for the abuse of Indigenous children at Catholic-run schools.