A massive cruise ship lost control as it docked in Venice on Sunday, crashing into the wharf and hitting a tourist boat after suffering an engine failure.

Pope Francis on Sunday asked the Roma people for "forgiveness" for discrimination committed by the Roman Catholic Church against them after meeting with members of the community in Romania.

Pope Francis on the  second day of a visit to Romania celebrated diversity at a mass Saturday attended by tens of thousands of people in a predominantly ethnic-Hungarian part of the Transylvania region seen as the highlight of his trip.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday renamed the country's airports to commemorate tsars and space pioneers as well as writer Anton Chekhov and operatic tenor Dmitri Hvorostovsky after an online poll that stirred up controversy.

Lebanon's Telecommunications Ministry has ordered the blocking of the popular dating application Grindr, used mainly by gay men and trans men, saying it facilitates meetings between bisexuals or people of the same sex.

Amnesty International called the decision "a deeply regressive step, and a blow" to the LGBT community in Lebanon.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to take up a case about abortions based on sex, race or potential disability of the fetus, after the high court sidestepped the issue.

Netflix on Tuesday became the first major studio to say it would reconsider its investment in Georgia should a controversial abortion law in the U.S. state, known as the Hollywood of the South, go into effect.

The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the explosive issue of abortion on Tuesday, upholding part of an Indiana law that requires the remains of aborted fetuses to be cremated or buried but sidestepping a separate case on the legality of the procedure.

A woman jailed in Iran for one year for removing her hijab in public to protest against the country's Islamic dress code has been released early, her lawyer said Tuesday.

Hunched over a thick book, George Zaarour uses a magnifying glass to decipher Aramaic script -- the biblical language of Jesus that is starting to disappear from everyday use in his village.