The international chemical weapons watchdog has demanded more information from Syria about the reported recent destruction of two chlorine cylinders that had been linked to a 2018 deadly attack on the Syrian town of Douma -- a demand echoed Wednesday by several members of the U.N. Security Council.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Syria's government sent a note to its secretariat July 9 reporting that the two cylinders were destroyed by a June 8 airstrike on a Syrian military facility which housed a former chemical weapons production facility.

The future ownership of an Israeli spyware company whose product has been used to hack into the cellphones of journalists, human rights workers and possibly even heads of state is up in the air.

Major investors in a private equity firm that has majority ownership of NSO Group, the maker of the Pegasus spyware, are in discussions about what action to take. The Oregon state employee pension fund is one of the largest investors, if not the largest, having committed $233 million to Novalpina Capital, the private equity firm, in 2017.

The hijackers who captured a vessel off the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman left the ship Wednesday, the British navy reported, as radio traffic appeared to reveal a crew member onboard saying Iranian gunmen had stormed the asphalt tanker.

The incident — described by the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations the night before as a "potential hijack" — revived fears of an escalation in Mideast waters and ended with as much mystery as it began.

A week after the death of his eldest son, Moayed al-Alami sat on the sofa on his ground floor patio, protectively hugging and kissing two of his remaining children.

The artist meticulously cuts small pieces of yellow and red glass, then lays them in a pattern to recreate the stained-glass windows that were the trademark of Beirut's Sursock Museum, shattered in last year's port explosion.

Conservators, hunched over with magnifying glasses, fill lines of paint loss caused by the explosion with their brushes and weave together tears thread by thread under microscope. Other workers delicately piece back together broken shards of ceramics.

The French presidency said an international conference on Lebanon has gathered over $357 million in aid required to meet the country's humanitarian needs, one year after the massive explosion at Beirut's port.

Wednesday's virtual conference, co-hosted by France and the United Nations, was meant to show support for the Lebanese people, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

Israel fired artillery shells into southern Lebanon on Wednesday after two rockets landed in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Shmona near Lebanon's border.

"Three rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory," the Israeli army said in a statement, adding that one had fallen short of the border.

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 4, the 216th day of 2021. There are 149 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History

Banks, businesses and government offices were shuttered Wednesday as Lebanon marks one year since the horrific explosion at the port of Beirut.

After the massive explosion at Beirut's port a year ago, only a small part of Ibrahim Hoteit's younger brother was identified: his scalp. Hoteit buried his brother -- a large man, a firefighter, a martial arts champion -- in a container the size of a shoebox.

Since then, Hoteit has sold his business, a perfume and accessories shop. He sleeps only a few hours a night. Black circles ring his eyes.