An iconic Gaza bookstore destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last year has reopened, lifting the spirits of its ecstatic owner and a large crowd of well-wishers celebrating the moment.

The five-story building that housed Samir Mansour's bookstore on its ground floor was reduced to rubble during the 11-day war between Israel and the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers in May. The 100,000 books at the shop became piles of torn papers mired in ash and dust.

Red clothing and underwear are displayed in Saudi shopfronts, but the increasingly popular Valentine's Day promotions are missing one thing: the festival's name.

From his small music shop on Beirut's Hamra Street, Michel Eid witnessed the rise and fall of Lebanon through the changing fortunes of this famed boulevard for more than 60 years.

Hamra Street represented everything that was glamorous about Beirut in the 1960s and 1970s, with Lebanon's top movie houses and theaters, cafes frequented by intellectuals and artists, and ritzy shops. It saw a revival the past decade, with international chain stores and vibrant bars and restaurants.

A Russian gallery says one of its security guards has vandalized an avant-garde painting on loan from the country's top art repository by drawing eyes on the picture's deliberately featureless faces. It said the damage can be repaired.

The Yeltsin Center in Ekaterinburg said the vandalism of the painting "Three Figures" by Anna Leporskaya occurred Dec. 7. It said the suspected culprit worked for a private company providing security at the gallery.

An annual report from the United Nations labor agency Friday highlighted the work conditions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China's western Xinjiang region, noting signs of "coercive measures" that deprive workers of free choice in selecting jobs and calling on Beijing to provide more information about how it's respecting their rights.

The report from an International Labor Organization committee of experts tasked with helping countries uphold their own international commitments emphasized the labor rights aspect of China's policies in Xinjiang. Advocacy groups and Western governments, among others, have voiced human rights concerns over the treatment of the region's Muslims.

A court in a southern Indian state told students on Thursday not to wear any religious clothing until it delivers a verdict on petitions seeking to overturn a ban on hijabs, headscarves used by Muslim women.

The court in Karnataka state is considering petitions filed by students challenging a ban on hijabs that some schools have implemented in recent weeks.

They said he should play football. They said figure skating was for girls. They said winter sports made no sense in temperate Guadalajara.

But none of those naysayers deterred Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo, the rare Latin American athlete at the Winter Games, who has now become an even more rare Beijing Olympics success story – however relative – from that part of the globe.

Lebanon's Ministry of Culture handed over to Iraq on Sunday 337 ancient artifacts that had been on display in a Lebanese museum for years.

The items, which included clay tablets, were returned by Minister of Culture Mohammed Murtada to Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon during a ceremony held at the National Museum of Beirut.

Beijing was awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics, largely under the assumption that the Games would improve civil liberties in the country.

There is no such talk now. The 2022 Winter Olympics open Friday under heavy security and warnings from officials that athletes or others could face legal action if they speak out on human rights or other touchy issues.

At Hammam Bakri in Damascus' Old City, Syrian men wrapped in towels from the waist down lie down on a scalding marble floor. Masseurs vigorously scrub their skin with a soap-soaked loofah and wash them down with hot water.

Around a hexagonal fountain outside — traditionally found in old Damascene houses — patrons sip an infusion of herbs and dried flowers known as zhourat. The soothing smell fills the air around the domed roof.