The Vatican on Tuesday sought to tamp down an uproar that erupted after Pope Francis praised Russia's imperialist past during a video conference with Russian Catholic youths, insisting that he never intended to encourage modern-day Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said Francis merely wanted to praise the positive aspects of Russia's spiritual and cultural history when he praised Russia's imperial rulers Peter and Catherine the Great, encouraged young people to remember that past and praised their way of "being Russian."

The mother of Spain's suspended football chief Luis Rubiales, who is under fire for planting an unsolicited kiss on the lips of player Jenni Hermoso, went on hunger strike Monday in support of her son.

Angeles Bejar began her protest inside the Divina Pastora church in the southern seaside town of Motril, saying she would continue until Hermoso "tells the truth" about what happened, a family member told reporters outside of the church.

Prosecutors at Spain's top criminal court said Monday they had opened a preliminary investigation into Luis Rubiales' forcible kiss on the lips of a star of World Cup player Jenni Hermoso on grounds it could constitute a crime of "sexual assault."

"Prosecutors from the National Court have opened a preliminary investigation to look into the facts, which could constitute an offence of sexual assault," a court statement said, indicating it would offer Hermoso a chance to file suit to that end.

Journalist Talal Salman, who founded one of Lebanon's largest Arabic-language independent newspapers, died Friday after a long illness, the state-run National News Agency said. He was 85.

An Arab nationalist whose role model was late Egyptian President Gamal Abdul-Nasser, Salman devoted much of his writing to the Palestinian cause and calls for Arab unity.

When Billie Jean King won the U.S. Open in 1972, she didn't make the usual remarks about hoping to win again. Instead, she threatened to not play at all the next year — and added that no other women would, either.

That's because she earned $10,000 for her championship, $15,000 less than what Ilie Năstase won for his.

The Danish government on Friday said it will propose a law that would make it illegal to desecrate any holy book in Denmark, where a recent string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists has sparked angry demonstrations in Muslim countries.

Denmark has been viewed as a country that facilitates insult and denigration of the cultures, religions, and traditions of other countries, the government said.

It's a common term these days, deployed to describe the bond that victims of kidnappings or hostage situations sometimes develop with their captors: "Stockholm syndrome." And it got its name 50 years ago this week, during a failed bank robbery in Sweden's capital.

The Stockholm syndrome — initially dubbed "Norrmalmstorg syndrome," after the square where the bank heist took place — has since been used in connection with hostage-takings around the world, including the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in the 1970s.

Rights activists have condemned a hardline Christian group's assault on a bar hosting a drag show in a Beirut nightlife district as the result of escalating anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

On Wednesday evening, more than a dozen people from the "Soldiers of God" group converged on the drag show venue in the capital's Mar Mikhail district, witnesses told AFP, requesting anonymity due to security concerns.

Members of the hardline Christian group Soldiers of God overnight attacked a pub in Beirut’s bustling Mar Mikhail area over the “presence of homosexuals” in it.

Videos posted online showed the pub’s ransacked terrace and people locking themselves inside as a Soldier of God militant shouted threats and warnings.

A new study on inclusion in film shows just how much of a rarity "Barbie" is. For every woman as a speaking character in the most popular films of 2022, there were more than two men, according to report by University of Southern California's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

The USC report, published Thursday, found that 34.6% of speaking parts were female in the top 100 box-office hits of last year. The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has been annually tracking that and many other metrics since 2007.