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Visiting French president to join King Charles III and PM to see Bayeux Tapestry

French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in London on Wednesday to meet new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and visit the Bayeux Tapestry at its temporary home in the British Museum.

The two leaders and their spouses will join King Charles III and Queen Camilla for a private viewing of the 230-foot (70-meter) tapestry, a 1,000-year-old symbol of Anglo-French relations that depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

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In a scorching Spain, the traditional folding hand fan is having a moment

In crowded subway cars and sun-drenched plazas, an old-fashioned accessory in Spain has been everywhere thanks to the blistering summer heat.

Small enough to fit into a purse, the traditional Spanish folding hand fan, or abanico, snaps open into a semicircle. With little more than a flick of the wrist, it creates a surprisingly strong breeze.

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School starts soon in Lebanon but thousands still shelter in them during war

Eleven-year-old Fatima Khashab helps her mother tidy the small area where their family sleeps, in a row of makeshift living quarters in a school gymnasium.

About 200 families are sheltering in the school in Lebanon's southern coastal city of Tyre. Most are from villages farther south that have been destroyed in the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah or are occupied by Israeli forces, like Fatima's hometown of Mansouri.

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Lebanon archaeological finds showcase rich heritage despite war woes

From a Roman temple to ancient olive presses, Lebanon keeps turning up archaeological treasures even as the latest Israel-Hezbollah war has caused excavations to grind to a halt at precious heritage sites in the country's south.

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Need spiritual guidance? Gurus join chatbot trend as people turn to AI for answers

When Kripa Vaidyanathan's 27-year-old niece died in an Alaska car crash in 2024, her family in Chennai, India, felt shell-shocked. They questioned why this tragedy would befall them when they had such "immense faith in God."

Vaidyanathan, a yoga instructor, helped her grieving sister get face time with a high-profile guru who she hoped would help.

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Butter me up: Paris gets its first boutique devoted to France's favorite fat

The contradiction of the trim Parisian and the butter croissant now has a storefront.

Le Butter Shop, billed as Paris' first boutique devoted entirely to butter, opened last month a short walk from the Eiffel Tower — with 30 varieties from small family producers in Brittany, the Loire Valley and northern France.

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AP reporter spends night locked inside Jerusalem's holiest church with clergy and pilgrims

The enormous doors were pushed shut, the clanking bolts secured from the outside and several clergy, pilgrims and one journalist — me — were locked for the night inside one of Christianity's holiest sites in Jerusalem.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built over the spots where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead.

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Epic La Tomatina food fight draws thousands to small Spanish town

Thousands of revelers descended on Buñol on Wednesday for the annual La Tomatina food fight, where they painted the small Spanish town red with up to 165 tons of overripe tomatoes.

Loaded trucks proceeded through the crowd, with people standing in their cargo beds hurling tomatoes at the revelers. Their white shirts soon turned pink and red while American pop songs blasted from speakers. At one point, police appeared to use pepper spray to disperse an area of the crowd, but a festive vibe quickly resumed.

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AUB hosts first Lebanese Mathematics Day, uniting national mathematical community

The American University of Beirut (AUB) hosted the first Lebanese Mathematics Day, bringing together 341 participants from more than ten universities, high schools, industry, and the international mathematical community for a full day of talks, workshops, poster sessions, and discussion on the AUB campus.

AUB’s Center for Advanced Mathematical Sciences (CAMS), directed by Professor of Physics Jihad Touma, organized the event in collaboration with the university’s Department of Mathematics and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

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The Syrian and Lebanese men who invented ice-cream cones

Read this quickly, before it melts.

Ice cream was a rare and expensive treat for centuries because of the difficulty of storing ice. In the summer of 1790, President George Washington spent $200 on ice cream, the equivalent of $7,259 today, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.

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