International News
Pope Francis: Pilgrims Gather As Lying In State Begins
Pope Francis’s coffin began its transfer to St Peter’s Basilica Wednesday for three days of lying in state, with thousands of well-wishers gathering to pay their respects to the leader of the world’s Catholics before he is laid to rest.
Crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square from early morning to catch a glimpse of the Argentine pope, who died on Monday aged 88, and to begin queuing for the public viewing which begins at 11:00 am (0900 GMT).
Francis died in the Casa Santa Marta, the modest residence where he lived during his 12-year papacy. His body was moved from the chapel there to St Peter’s on Wednesday morning.
Accompanied by a procession including red-robed cardinals, his simple wood coffin will enter through the central door of the basilica before being placed before the Altar of the Confession.
Anna Montoya, 33, from Mexico, said she decided to come to bid farewell in person as Francis was like “a family member” to her.
“I had to come… it feels like I knew him,” she told AFP, adding: “He was a good man. He represented what the church needs to be, what Jesus wanted to teach us.”
Saturday’s funeral is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, as well as world leaders including US President Donald Trump, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as Britain’s Prince William.
Afterwards, Francis’s coffin will be transported to his favourite church, Rome’s papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where it will be interred in the ground and marked by a simple inscription: Franciscus.
He will become the first pope in more than 100 years to be laid to rest outside the Vatican.
Sorely missed
Italy is preparing for a major security operation for the funeral, with the weekend already due to be busy because of a public holiday on Friday April 25.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said authorities were expecting between 150 to 170 foreign delegations, and tens of thousands of people.
Barriers have already been installed inside and outside the basilica to control the crowds, security checks have been increased and staff have been distributing bottles of water due to the warm weather.
Pasquale Apolito, 43 a Rome teacher, said he came to the Vatican early on Wednesday hoping to catch a last glimpse of the pontiff before leaving town.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to see the body but I wanted to be here today. I felt something inside me this morning that told me to come,” he said.
“He was a guide for his capacity to listen, to welcome. He will be sorely missed.”
Italy has declared five days of national mourning — longer than the three days observed for Polish pope John Paul II in 2005, but less than the week declared for Francis by his native Argentina.
Cardinals meeting
After the funeral, all eyes will turn to the process to choose Francis’s successor as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Cardinals around the world have already been sent letters from the Holy See, instructing them to return to Rome to select a new pope.
Only those under the age of 80 are eligible to vote for a pope in the conclave, which should begin no less than 15 days and no more than 20 after the death of the pope.
About 60 cardinals of all ages already in Rome met Tuesday to choose the funeral date, in a so-called “general congregation”.
A second meeting is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, led by the camerlengo, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who is charged with running the day-to-day operations of the Holy See before a successor to Francis is chosen.
Francis’s death came less than a month after he was discharged from the hospital, where he spent five weeks battling pneumonia in both lungs.
Despite doctors calling for two months of rest, Francis continued to make appearances in public during his convalescence, where he appeared short of breath and without energy.
On Easter Sunday, the day before his death, he circled St Peter’s Square in his popemobile following mass and his traditional address to greet the crowds, stopping to kiss babies along the way.
The next morning, he died at 7:35 am after having suffered a stroke, a coma and heart failure, according to his death certificate.
Images of Francis from Monday night lying in his open coffin inside the Casa Santa Marta chapel were published by the Vatican Tuesday.
The unassuming pope, who eschewed pomp, was dressed in red papal vestments, with a mitre on his head and a rosary laced between his fingers.
Sister Maria Guadeloupe Hernandez Olivo, from Mexico, said it was “very hard, very sad” to hear news of his death.
“I did not expect it,” she told AFP in St Peter’s Square, adding: “I believe he’s in a better place, no longer suffering, but I do feel this emptiness for our pastor.”
AFP
US President Donald Trump says he is “not a big fan” of Pope Leo XIV, after the global leader of Catholics made a plea for peace amid the war in the Middle East.
The 70-year-old American pope publicly implored leaders on Saturday to end the violence, telling worshippers at St Peter’s Basilica: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”
“I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
He accused the pontiff of “toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon.”
Trump later doubled down on his comments to reporters with a post on Truth Social, saying: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” he said.
The president added that Leo had only been elected “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Trump later posted an AI-generated image seemingly depicting himself as Jesus Christ.
In the image, the president appears dressed in red and white robes as he cures a man with his healing hand. The American flag is shown over his shoulder.
Trump and the White House have previously shared AI-generated images, including one that showed the president dressed as the pope.
On Friday, a Vatican official denied reports that a top Pentagon official gave the church’s envoy to the United States a “bitter lecture” over Pope Leo’s criticisms of the Trump administration.
The story in the Free Press — which the Pentagon had already dismissed as “distorted” — reported that Cardinal Christophe Pierre was summoned in January to the Pentagon, where he was given a dressing-down by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby.
The military official reportedly told the cardinal that the United States “has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side.”
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement “the account presented by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth in any way.”
While both parties insist the meeting was cordial, the Holy See and the White House have openly been at odds over the Trump administration’s hardline mass deportation campaign — which the pope called “inhuman” — and the use of military force in the Middle East and Venezuela.
When Trump made genocidal threats against Iran Tuesday — saying “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” — the pontiff slammed the “truly unacceptable” statement and urged parties to “come back to the table” for negotiations.
Earlier this month, Pope Leo hailed the news of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran as a “sign of real hope.”
But peace talks between the United States and Iran, held in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, ended abruptly and without a resolution on Saturday, with US Vice President JD Vance telling reporters after a marathon-session of talks that Washington has delivered its “final and best offer.”
Pep Guardiola has explained the reason for Manchester City’s resurgence as they push for the Premier League title.
The win lifts City to 64 points from 31 games, cutting the deficit to leaders Arsenal—who have 70 points from 32 matches—to just six points, ramping up the title race in the closing stages of the campaign.
Asked why Manchester City have been in such fine form in the final stages of the season, Pep Guardiola joked: “The sun! If it had been shining in November, we’d have been league champions by January… No, I’m joking, of course. In Manchester, the sun doesn’t shine very often.”
Looking ahead to next Sunday’s 32nd-round clash with Arsenal in the Premier League, he added: “That game will feel like a final for both teams, but there is a tactical detail we need to review, so we may make some adjustments.
“Everyone is talking about the Arsenal game, but matches against Brentford, Bournemouth and the other sides are just as important. The season is still long.”
Guardiola added “We’re in better shape, and in training everyone knows exactly what they have to do. We’ve faced three strong opponents, three Champions League teams. We didn’t put in a complete performance for the full 90 minutes, but we were organised enough, didn’t concede many chances, and our attacking threat was always there.”
Pep Guardiola
He added:One of our secrets as a club and a system is that, after one success after another, we have remained humble and have always asked ourselves: what must we do to stay at the top? Winning once or twice is normal, but to remain at the top for nine years—with the exception of last season—reflects the strength of the entire system.”
Their dramatic grand finale fast approaching, Artemis II’s astronauts aimed for a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday to close out humanity’s first voyage to the moon in more than half a century.
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the miles melted away between the four returning astronauts and Earth.
All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that has to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry. On the only other test flight of the spacecraft — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior came back looking as pockmarked as the moon.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 32 — or 32 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since NASA’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.
They didn’t plan on taking manual control except in an emergency. Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, is completely self-flying.
Like so many others, lead flight director Jeff Radigan anticipated feeling some of that “irrational fear that is human nature,” especially during the six minutes of communication blackout preceding the opening of the parachutes. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha awaited the crew’s arrival, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters.
The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 34,965 feet (10,657 meters) per second — or 23,840 mph (38,367 kph) — not a record but still mind-bogglingly fast before slowing to a 19 mph (30 kph) splashdown.
Artemis II’s record flyby and lunar views
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Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn’t land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13’s distance record, making Wiseman and his crew the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when they reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then, in the mission’s most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.
During the record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the lunar far side never seen before by the naked eye and savored a total solar eclipse courtesy of the cosmos thanks to their launch date. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8’s first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our blue marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
“It just makes you want to continue to go back,” Radigan said on the eve of splashdown. “It’s the first of many trips, and we just need to continue on because there’s so much” more to learn about the moon.
Their moonshot drew global attention as well as star power, earning props from President Donald Trump; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; Britain’s King Charles III; Ryan Gosling, star of the latest space flick “Project Hail Mary;” Scarlett Johansson of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner of TV’s original “Star Trek.”
Artemis II was a test flight for future moon missions
Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems. In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, toilet trouble prevented the crew from using it for No. 1 most of the trip, forcing them to resort to old-time bags and funnels.
The astronauts shrugged it all off.
“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”
Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space, and it’s a doozy.”
Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
The Artemis II crew’s allegiance was to those next Artemis crews, Wiseman said.
“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.
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