At the eastern edge of the rural Bekaa Valley, where the rocky hillsides are stippled with cherry trees, a generations-old kinship with Brazil has imbued two Lebanese villages with a Latino spirit.

Lusi and Sultan Yaacoub are home to more than one thousand Brazilian nationals, many of whom speak Portuguese as fluently as they do Arabic.

Thirteen-year-old Ali Rajab is on his feet an average of 12 hours a day, cleaning, filling perfume bottles and helping sell mobile phones at the shop in Beirut where he works.

Still, he prefers it to his previous, more physically demanding jobs, which included even longer hours pushing a vegetable and fruit cart and making supermarket home deliveries.

What was supposed to be a surprise Kanye West show in New York City quickly turned to chaos as thousands of fans descended on the venue.

More than 4,000 people swarmed Webster Hall, which only holds 1,500, early Monday morning for the pop-up show. They climbed on top of cars, dumpsters and scaffolding and hung out of windows hoping to get a better view.

A visit by Greece's foreign minister to Albania was met with a protest Monday by the Cham community, which was expelled from northwestern Greece during World War II after Athens claimed they had collaborated with the country's German occupiers.

A few hundred supporters of the Party for Justice, Integration and Unity skirmished with police as they tried to block the entrance of the Foreign Ministry in the capital, Tirana, as Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias was to arrive.

Flying shrapnel triggered by explosions at an ammunition depot on the edge of Sri Lanka's capital destroyed a hospital and hundreds of homes, sending thousands scrambling for cover, authorities said Monday.

At least one soldier burnt to death in the worst ammunition depot fire in Sri Lanka's history and nearly 50 people were treated for injuries or smoke inhalation, Colombo medical chief Palitha Mahipala said.

The U.S. Navy's top admiral says the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman has begun launching airstrikes against the Islamic State group from the Mediterranean Sea.

That opens a new direction of attack against the militants in Iraq and Syria.

Ricky Martin, the world-renowned singer and UNICEF goodwill ambassador, said that the word "refugee" had lost its value but that the international community should "open its heart."

U.S., European and Arab diplomats are meeting in Paris for a French-led effort to revive the Mideast peace process, despite skepticism from Israel.

France persuaded U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and foreign ministers and officials from nearly 30 other countries and international organizations to join Friday's meeting to try to prevent an escalation of Mideast violence.

Previewing a rancorous fall campaign, Hillary Clinton assailed Donald Trump on Thursday as a potential president who would lead America toward war and economic crisis. She portrayed her own foreign policy as optimistic, inclusive and diplomatic, born from long experience in public life.

There was nothing diplomatic in her remarks, a clear indication of how she'll take Trump on. Electing him, she said, would be "a historic mistake."

Leaving the European Union would be an act of "economic self-harm," British Prime Minister David Cameron said during a televised grilling that saw him challenged on the emotive topic of immigration and accused of scaremongering about the impact of quitting the 28-nation bloc.

Three weeks before British voters decide whether to stay in the EU, Cameron on Thursday was pressed on the repercussions for immigration, security and the economy as he fielded questions from a journalist and audience members during a lively Sky News program.