The Sagrada Familia basilica features sandcastle-like spires, stone carved to look like lush flora, a kaleidoscopic interior and a trove of treasures, some hiding in plain sight. Even regular worshippers at Barcelona's world-famous landmark find themselves dumbstruck with wonder.
Josep Turull, the Catalan rector of the Sagrada Familia and the priest in charge of its parish activities, recently granted The Associated Press a private tour to show off his favorite gems ahead of Pope Leo XIV's highly anticipated Mass on Wednesday night.
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Afghanistan said Wednesday that Pakistan launched new airstrikes targeting the country, killing at least 13 people and wounding 14 others, in a further sign of rising tensions between the two neighbors after months of fighting that has killed hundreds.
Though the situation along the border was calm hours after the strikes, Kabul has previously responded to Pakistani strikes by targeting Pakistani posts along the frontier.
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As Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs last March and residents fled in panic, one man found his opportunity. Amid the chaos, he slipped out of his imprisonment in a Hezbollah cell and made his way to the green hills overlooking the Lebanese capital.
There, in the posh diplomatic quarter of Baabda, he disappeared inside the gates of the Ukrainian Embassy.
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Christian religious leaders from the southern port city of Tyre called on the international community and Lebanese officials on Tuesday to act quickly to prevent Israel from attacking the Christian district of the city, as airstrikes on nearby neighborhoods killed eight people and wounded dozens of others.
The Israeli military has issued an evacuation warning for the port city, including the Christian quarter, which has been spared so far.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Estonia on Tuesday to attend a summit of Nordic and Baltic leaders, a visit that comes amid friction over Ukrainian drones straying into the region in recent months.
The drones have crashed into the chimney of a power plant in Estonia, hit empty fuel tanks in Latvia and been shot down by Romanian fighter jets stationed in Lithuania. Ukrainian officials apologized, saying the drones had been aimed at military targets inside Russia but were sent off course by Russian electronic interference.
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The Middle East is bracing for war again. Iran fired missiles at Israel late Sunday in the first such bombardment in the two months since a ceasefire. Israel launched airstrikes early Monday targeting central and western Iran in response.
The truce in the Iran war that was reached in April has not spread to Lebanon, where Israel has been battling Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants. Israel says it is defending its northern communities that face Hezbollah drone and rocket fire.
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The tenuous ceasefire in the Middle East has held up, sometimes barely, despite being shaken by repeated flare-ups over the past two months. But it is now coming the closest yet to blowing apart and sending the region back into full-scale war — and the detonator is Lebanon.
Israeli strikes against Hezbollah militants in Beirut over the weekend brought retaliation from their key sponsor, Iran, which launched its first attacks against Israel since the ceasefire was reached April 7. Israel responded with strikes on targets throughout Iran, while Iran's proxies in Yemen and Iraq threatened to widen the war. The U.S. and other mediators rushed to prevent the fighting from spiraling out of control.
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Israel's latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.
Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel then struck Iran, with which Trump has been engaged in weeks of high-stakes negotiations.
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For more than two years, hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza and Lebanon have lived in dread of Avichay Adraee's next social media post.
Israel's Arabic-language military spokesman has been the animated face of its campaigns and the main source of warnings ahead of strikes and major offensives. That has made him one of the most recognizable Israelis in the Arab world and a focus of fury as well as some fascination.
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The Israeli army ordered Tuesday residents of the historic city of Tyre and its suburbs, including the city's Christian neighborhood, to evacuate ahead of expected strikes.
"Urgent warning to the residents of the city of Tyre, including the Christian quarter, and the camps and surrounding neighborhoods," read a message posted on X by the Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee.
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