Long revered by the Maya people as sacred and today a magnet for tourists, local indigenous communities fear the water-filled sinkholes of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula are under threat from industrial pig farms.

Known as cenotes, the thousands of cavities are part of a vast labyrinth of caves connected to a giant aquifer under the lush jungle of a region known as the "Riviera Maya."

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 4, the 216th day of 2021. There are 149 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History

Israel's first gold-medal Olympic gymnast Artem Dolgopyat returned from Tokyo on Tuesday to a hero's welcome and controversy over his inability to marry in his adopted country.

Dolgopyat, 24, was born to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, meaning he is not considered Jewish in Israel, where marriage is performed only by religious authorities who require couples to be of the same faith. 

Shares of Tencent and other major Chinese gaming companies plummeted Tuesday after a state-run media article described online games as "spiritual opium", prompting the tech giant to consider a playing ban on children under 12 altogether.

Residents of the Austrian capital have queued for more than 130 years to sample the Italian ice cream of the Molin-Pradel family, one of Vienna's oldest gelato dynasties.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday denounced the painting of swastikas on a synagogue near Tel Aviv, calling it a "grave act of hatred".

Op-ed by British Ambassador to Lebanon Ian Collard

“The main hope of a nation”, said the Dutch scholar Erasmus, “lies in the proper education of its youth”. For Lebanon, this has never felt more true. The country’s best times have been founded on a strong investment in its education sector – creating Lebanese thinkers, entrepreneurs, and professionals who were able not just to shape their nation positively but whose ambitions spread into the region and indeed beyond. Sadly, one of the greatest risks to Lebanon now, as it deals with one of the most challenging periods in its history, is what is happening to the education of its children.

The United States will return to Iraq some 17,000 archaeological treasures dating back 4,000 years and looted in recent decades, an "unprecedented" restitution, the culture minister in Baghdad said Wednesday.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi was set to take back the artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia on his aircraft, when he returns Thursday from Washington where he met US President Joe Biden.

The British Museum will restore eight ancient glass artefacts damaged in last year's Beirut port explosion, the London cultural institution announced on Tuesday.

The glass vessels were shattered after 2,750 tones of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut's port caused a blast that devastated the city on August 4, 2020.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hit out an EU court ruling allowing employers in some cases to ban staff from wearing headscarves at work.

Erdogan, a devout Muslim leading an Islamic-rooted party, presents himself as an advocate of Muslims worldwide, frequently defending the faith against Islamophobia.