Portugal's political future is hanging in the balance after a general election Sunday, with two moderate mainstream parties closely contesting the race and set to wait weeks for a decision on the winner after an unprecedented surge in support for a populist party that finished third.

The center-right Social Democrat-led Democratic Alliance won 79 seats in the 230-seat National Assembly, Portugal's Parliament, after all votes cast in Portugal were counted.

Sweden's national flag was raised at NATO headquarters on Monday, cementing the Nordic country's place as the 32nd member of the alliance two years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine persuaded its reluctant public to seek safety under NATO's security umbrella.

Under a steady rain, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg looked on as two soldiers raised the blue banner emblazoned with a yellow cross among the official circle of national flags at the headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

In the heart of Istanbul, on top of the towering minarets that dot the city's skyline, 68-year-old Kahraman Yildiz toils away at a craft that has illuminated the Muslim holy month of Ramadan for generations.

Yildiz, a master of Mahya, the unique Turkish tradition of stringing religious messages and designs between minarets, is facing the twilight of a practice deeply ingrained in Turkish culture that is also taken for granted.

"Oppenheimer," a solemn three-hour biopic that became an unlikely billion-dollar box-office sensation, was crowned best picture at a 96th Academy Awards that doubled as a coronation for Christopher Nolan.

After passing over arguably Hollywood's foremost big-screen auteur for years, the Oscars made up for lost time by heaping seven awards on Nolan's blockbuster biopic, including best actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and best director for Nolan.

China's national congress was concluding its annual session Monday with the usual show of near-unanimous support for plans designed to carry out ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's vision for the nation.

The weeklong event, replete with meetings carefully scripted to allow no surprises, has highlighted how China's politics have become ever more calibrated to elevate Xi.

Palestinians began fasting for Ramadan on Monday as the Muslim holy month arrived with cease-fire talks at a standstill, hunger worsening across the Gaza Strip and no end in sight to the five-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.

Prayers were held outside amid the rubble of demolished buildings late Sunday. Some people hung fairy lights and decorations in packed tent camps, and a video from a U.N.-school-turned-shelter showed children dancing and spraying foam as a man sang into a loudspeaker.

Muslims around the world are welcoming the arrival of Ramadan, a month of dawn-to-dusk fasting, intense prayer, charity and feasts that begins for many Sunday night.

In Lebanon, Sunnis began fasting Monday after officials in Saudi Arabia saw the crescent moon on Sunday night, while some Lebanese Shiites began fasting Monday and others Tuesday.

A top U.S. Treasury official visiting Beirut this week pressed Lebanese authorities to prevent funds from being funneled to Hamas by way of Lebanon, officials said.

Jesse Baker, deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for Asia and the Middle East in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, met with Lebanese politicians and officials from the financial sector Thursday and Friday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that he will propose that Spain's parliament recognize a Palestinian state.

"I will propose granting Spain's recognition to the Palestinian state," Sánchez said. "I do this out of moral conviction, for a just cause and because it is the only way that the two states, Israel and Palestine, can live together in peace."

U.S. President Joe Biden has said that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "hurting Israel more than helping Israel" in how he is approaching its war against Hamas in Gaza.

The U.S. leader expressed support for Israel's right to pursue Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack, but said of Netanyahu that "he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken." Biden has for months warned that Israel risks losing international support over mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, and the latest remarks in an interview with MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart pointed to the increasingly strained relationship between the two leaders.