The Vatican on Wednesday announced a busy and lengthy foreign travel schedule for Pope Leo XIV in the first half of 2026, confirming the pontiff will visit Monaco, Spain and four African nations — Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.

The announcement sets the stage for one of the busiest papal travel schedules in years, since Leo will also be undertaking a grand tour of Italy starting in May that will take him up and down the peninsula in a half-dozen one-day visits.

The Louvre Museum's director resigned Tuesday after months of pressure following the October theft of the French crown jewels, as the world's most visited museum faced widening scrutiny over security failures, labor unrest and a suspected ticket fraud scheme.

Laurence des Cars quit after a punishing year for the former royal palace — the high-profile jewels heist from the Apollo Gallery, a mid-February burst pipe near the "Mona Lisa," water leaks damaging priceless books, staff walkouts and a wildcat strike over overcrowding and understaffing.

Rob Jetten has become the youngest and first openly gay prime minister of the Netherlands.

Before Jetten, 38, took the oath of office on Monday to lead a minority three-party ruling coalition, Christian Democrat Ruud Lubbers held the record as the youngest premier when he took office in 1982 at age 43. Lubbers went on to become one of the country's longest-serving leaders.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered under heavy Israeli restrictions at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the first Friday prayers of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, including some who were allowed to enter from the occupied West Bank.

The Ramadan prayers at Al-Aqsa took place for the first time since a shaky ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect in October. It was the first opportunity many had to leave the West Bank and pray at the site in Jerusalem's Old City since Ramadan last year.

Barcelona's towering Sagrada Familia basilica reached its maximum height on Friday, though the magnum opus of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí remains years away from completion.

A crane placed the upper arm of a cross atop the Tower of Jesus Christ, the church's soaring central piece, which now stands 172.5 meters (566 feet) above the city, the church said.

Palestinians in Gaza are preparing to welcome the Muslim holy month of Ramadan under a fragile ceasefire deal, but many say the challenges of their daily lives and the losses of the Israel-Hamas war are dampening the typically festive spirit.

"There is no joy after we lost our family and loved ones," said Gaza City resident Fedaa Ayyad. "Even if we try to cope with the situation, we can't truly feel it in our hearts. … I am one of those who cannot feel the atmosphere of Ramadan."

Long known for its olives and seaside charm, the southern Greek city of Kalamata has found itself in the spotlight thanks to a towering mural that reimagines legendary soprano Maria Callas as an allegory for the city itself.

The massive artwork on the side of a prominent building in the city center has been named 2025's "Best Mural of the World" by Street Art Cities, a global platform celebrating street art.

Samba and literature rarely share the same stage, but at this year's Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, two samba schools used their parades to tell the stories of Black Brazilian female authors. It's an unusual recognition of writers who have been historically marginalized due to their race and gender.

On Saturday, 79-year-old Conceição Evaristo, a writer from Minas Gerais known for her powerful works centering on Black women's experiences, sat majestically atop a float designed by samba school Imperio Serrano at Rio's famed Sambodrome. Two days later, the samba school Unidos da Tijuca dedicated its parade to the late Carolina Maria de Jesus, a favela-based diarist who died nearly five decades ago, and also featured Evaristo.

For the Louvre, the world's most visited museum, it is "statistically inevitable" that fraud would come up at some point, the museum's No. 2 said in the wake of a decade-long, 10 million euro ($11.8 million) suspected ticket-fraud scheme revealed last week.

Kim Pham, the Louvre's general administrator, told The Associated Press that the museum's unique scale makes it particularly vulnerable. However, pressed to name other institutions with similar problems, he declined to single out peers.

Veteran U.S. civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson, one of the nation's most influential Black voices, died peacefully Tuesday morning at the age of 84, his family said.