Pangolins have two claims to fame: first, that they are the world’s only scaly mammal, and second, they are one of the most trafficked animals globally.

Beyond that, most people know very little about them. But the new Netflix documentary “Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey,” hopes to change that.

The 90-minute film follows the story of a three-month-old ground pangolin, Kulu, who is rescued from the illegal wildlife trade, and the slow, intensive process to return him to the wild in South Africa.

“Kulu’s got an incredible personality, he’s very much his own pangolin,” says director Pippa Elrich, best known for the Oscar-winning documentary “My Octopus Teacher.”

“He’s incredibly stubborn, determined to go where he wants to go, not that keen to have this strange two-legged creature following him around everywhere he goes,” she adds.

The two-legged creature in question is Gareth Thomas, a conservation volunteer who took part in the sting operation that rescued Kulu.

Rehabilitating rescued pangolins is an “incredibly intensive process,” says Elrich: they rarely eat in captivity so they require daily walks, sometimes up to six hours a day, to feed on ants and termites. These daily walks aren’t just for feeding: they are also getting the pangolin ready for the sights, sounds, and smells of its new habitat, and helping it overcome the trauma of captivity.

“The rehabilitation team asked (Gareth) if he would take Kulu into the wild and set him free. And I don’t know if he realized that that was going to be the next 18 months of his life,” says Elrich.

The film follows the duo into the wild savanna of Lapalala Wilderness Reserve, a four-hour drive from Johannesburg, immersing the viewer in the world of pangolins.

“They’ve got a magical quality; they are a mammal but they’re covered in scales,” says Elrich. “You just don’t want pangolins to be seen only as the world’s most trafficked mammal. You want them to be seen as these joyful, unique, special little creatures.”

A ‘deep bond’

The ground pangolin, also known as Temminck’s pangolin or the Cape pangolin, is one of eight species found globally, and the most widely distributed of the four species in Africa, with a territory ranging from South Africa to Sudan.

When Kulu arrived at the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital, staff called him Gijima, which means “to run” in Zulu, as the severely underweight yet feisty pangolin was constantly trying to run away during his feeding walks. It was during the six-month stint in the savanna that Thomas nicknamed the pangolin Kulu, a variant of the word for “easy” in Zulu, to try to soothe him.

Thomas grew up spending summers in the wilderness in South Africa and Zimbabwe, where he was born; but after school, he became “detached” from nature, instead spending most of his time in the city. “I had a bit of a yearning to be out there again,” he recalls. So in 2019, after picking up wildlife photography, he started volunteering with the African Pangolin Working Group and the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital.

Thomas’ self-shot footage of the pangolins was pivotal to the film, says Elrich: Pangolins are incredibly sensitive creatures, so Elrich says the production team had limited shooting days and relied heavily on Thomas for videos of the rehabilitation process and close-ups of Kulu.

“I realized, he has a very deep bond with these animals, and he understands them,” says Elrich. “He understands how to get this very intimate footage, which almost makes you feel like you’re seeing the world through the eyes of a pangolin.”

While viewers will likely observe thematic similarities between “My Octopus Teacher” and “Kulu’s Journey” — both explore human-wildlife relationships and our emotional connection with nature— Elrich says the drastically different ecosystems changed her approach to the film.

“One of the things that was so compelling about (My Octopus Teacher) is that you’re going underwater, and that immediately takes you into this other universe,” she explains. “Being in the terrestrial world, even if you don’t know the bush, it is way more relatable.”

Trafficking terror

The biggest threat to the pangolins is poaching for the $20-billion illegal wildlife trade, where their scales, meat and body parts are sold for traditional medicine, and their skins used for leather products.

According to NGO Traffic, pangolins are largely trafficked to China and the US. With three of the four Asian species critically endangered, and difficulty breeding pangolins in captivity, poaching has increased in Africa: between 2017 and 2019, more than half of illegal pangolin seizures in Asia were from African pangolin species, accounting for 244,600 kilograms of scales and 10,971 individual animals.

Ray Jansen, the co-founder of the African Pangolin Working Group, who features in the documentary, has witnessed the scale of this threat firsthand: the zoologist-turned-sting operative helped rescue 301 live pangolins, including Kulu, between 2016 and 2024, leading to the arrest of nearly 700 wildlife traffickers.

Prior to 2017, Jansen says arrests in South Africa were met with meager fines, rather than jail time. But in recent years, conservationists like Jansen began providing expert witness testimony in court, resulting in sentences of up to 10 years.

“It sent out a huge warning message to these traffickers about pangolins,” Jansen says, adding that while he’s observed a decrease in “opportunistic” poaching in the country, “sophisticated” organized crime networks continue to traffic for the international trade.

Pangolins rescued from the wildlife trade are incredibly difficult to treat and rehabilitate, says Dr. Karin Lourens, the co-founder and head veterinarian of the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital, the first hospital in South Africa to treat pangolins (all pangolins are kept off-site in an undisclosed location).

“Because they haven’t eaten, they don’t have enough protein,” says Lourens, adding that this then causes a build-up of fluid in their lungs. “Then, their pancreas stops working, so they can’t digest food either.”

“It was a steep learning curve in the beginning,” says Lourens, adding she had no medical guidelines for the first ground pangolins in the hospital, but over the years, the survival rate has soared from 40% to 80%.

The film crew also worked with Lapalala Wilderness, the 48,000-hectare reserve where Kulu was ultimately released, to secure filming permits and coordinate with the on-site anti-poaching unit to ensure safety for the pangolins and those transporting them.

While poachers are an unavoidable topic when talking about pangolins, Elrich made the deliberate choice to highlight the emotional side of the little-known creatures. “You’ve got to be careful about anthropomorphism, and I’m sure that’s the criticism that we’re going to get,” Elrich says.

Lourens said she would have preferred for the documentary to focus on Africa’s pangolin trade, something she says is “sorely needed.” She also expressed concern about Kulu’s overexposure to people during filming. Elrich says Thomas was “incredibly strict” about when the additional videographers could film; “I think I only did two shoots with Kulu, most of the time it was just Gareth and him,” she adds.

Initially, Jansen too wanted the film to focus on the wildlife trade, a subject close to his heart — but after viewing the documentary, he changed his mind. “It’s a much, much better angle to focus on,” he says. “I’m hoping that it spreads a huge awareness, and the world can fall in love with these incredible creatures.”

A new threat — and a new hope

While poaching remains a major threat for pangolins globally, Jansen says electric fences in game reserves are now “responsible for the large majority of Temminck’s pangolin deaths” in South Africa, illustrated in one terrifying scene when Kulu nearly runs straight into one, saved at the last minute by Thomas.

Together with Thomas and Lapalala Wilderness Reserve, Jansen is working on a large-scale electric fence study and exploring new designs that could save wildlife.

And a new “pangolarium,” operated by the African Pangolin Working Group at Lapalala Wilderness, opened earlier this year — a kind of halfway house for pangolins between hospital and release, and a networking hub for conservationists. While it can house multiple pangolins, each one will still need its own dedicated walker for its daily mealtime.

Despite global conservation efforts, pangolin numbers are in decline, with all eight species considered vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered by the IUCN.

“Pangolins really are a symbol of the fragility that we see in one another and in nature all around us,” says Elrich.

She hopes audiences will connect with Kulu’s story, and be moved to protect them and their environment: “There is just nothing else like a pangolin.”

William Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway may have been happier than previously thought, according to new research.

It has been long believed that the playwright left his wife behind when he moved to London, but new findings from the University of Bristol suggest that the couple were living together in London for some period of time between 1600 and 1610.

Shakespeare married Hathaway in 1582 and the couple shared three children. Experts have long thought that Shakespeare then moved to London from his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, leaving his family behind.

Now, a long forgotten letter may turn that theory on its head, according to Matthew Steggle, a professor of English at Bristol University.

The fragments of the letter, addressed to “good Mrs Shakspaire,” (the name’s spelling at the time) were found sewn into the binding of a 1,000-page theological book in the city of Hereford, about 50 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon.

Although the letter’s writer hasn’t been identified, they refer to a fatherless apprentice called John Butts.

Steggle found just one person by Butts’ name who fit the criteria and lived in London at that time.

The letter writer accuses the husband of “Mrs Shakspaire” of withholding money from Butts and asks her for the funds. In what may be a reply from Hathaway herself, the recipient stands by her husband and refuses to settle the claim.

The letter also refers to a “Shakspaire” couple who lived in a place called Trinity Lane. Out of the four couples living in London with the surname, Steggle believes only the playwright and his wife could have afforded to live in the relatively prosperous area.

Steggle said the discovery opens the path to more revelations about the playwright’s life.

“We know so little about exactly where Shakespeare lives in London, so it’s another sort of data point for that,” he said. “It’s another kind of anchor on where he might have been living, how he might have been, and how he might have been living in his London career.”

As for challenging views about Shakespeare’s relationship with his wife, Steggle credits a shift in attitudes towards women and greater academic work in this area.

“There’s this narrative, like the film ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ where he’s got this wife who’s this kind of distant encumbrance in Stratford, and (Shakespeare is) having all these romantic love affairs in London separately,” he said, referring to the Oscar-winning 1998 movie.

The letter is a “game-changer” that suggests Hathaway was not absent from her husband’s London life, but present and engaged in his financial and social networks, argues Steggle.

“The reason it’s gone unnoticed for so long is that it’s not in London… where there’s been a lot of quite intensive searching for Shakespeare,” Steggle said of the letter’s discovery.

Looking outside the city – and in the binding of books printed by the Bard’s old friend – could point the way “towards the possibility of more discoveries.”

Imposing a deadline on a negotiation for a deal you desperately want is a risky tactic if your only move is to walk away.

President Donald Trump has threatened just this, and emphasized on Wednesday it is proving easier to make a deal with Russia than Ukraine. Yet that seems a perilous misreading of his own predicament. It is easier for Trump to pressure Kyiv, yes, because they are dependent on US aid and intelligence for their mere survival. But that does not mean Russia is more amenable to a deal. In fact, they are palpably dragging their feet.

This is where the gulf between a life in business deals and one steeped in geopolitical negotiation yawns desperately. Now, Trump is not in the world of real estate – he is not trying to get Putin to buy something. Trump is pushing hard and fast for the Kremlin to agree to terms to end the war that Putin has clearly divined will improve, not worsen, over time.

Trump applied pressure to Putin briefly on Thursday, posting “Vladimir: STOP!”, after Russian missiles targeted Kyiv, killing at least 12 people. But even the scolding used a friendly lexicon, and seemed as upset at the timing of the Russian attack as its casualties.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly rebuffed the US and Ukraine’s now 44-day old offer of a 30-day, unconditional ceasefire. Instead, the Kremlin unilaterally declared a truce for Easter that lasted 30 hours and that Ukraine claimed they violated about 5,000 times. Both sides have accused the other of breaching an energy and infrastructure truce for March and April

This dabbling with ceasefires has left a huge question mark over whether diplomatic agreements will be honoured, or can deliver. Ukraine’s allies point to the Easter truce – unilateral, brief, sudden – as proof the Kremlin think ceasefires are for re-equipping, and negotiation is what happens when you are biding time so you can later pursue your military goals.

The larger problem with Trump’s proposed deal is it is not publicly known what he expects Moscow to cede. A lasting pause in the fighting does seem, on the evidence of the past month, to be a stretch. A wider US-Russia détente may be desired by the White House. But without an enduring settlement for Ukraine, this would result in a long-term fissure in the Transatlantic alliance and even NATO. That would likely spook many establishment Republicans, countless Americans, damage the dollar, and US economic and geopolitical standing. These are real costs that would outweigh the gain of a likely brief make-up with the Kremlin.

Trump’s second problem is it is also unclear – in public so far – what he expects President Zelensky to cede. He told Zelensky in his post on Wednesday to “GET IT DONE”, but it is unclear what the IT is.

Trump was specific he was not demanding Kyiv recognise Russia-annexed Crimea as part of Russia, as has been reported (Ukraine’s constitution prohibits such an act, as it also demands Ukraine move to become part of NATO – an ambition Trump may also ask it to abandon.)

The proposed Trump deal, it seems, may ask Ukraine to accept a freezing of the frontlines, and perhaps American recognition of Crimea as Russian. But both concessions are of limited utility.

Crimea is a peninsula, linked to Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine yet separated from Russia bar a precarious bridge. European and Ukrainian sanctions would continue to isolate Crimea after any peace deal, and both Europe and Kyiv have made it clear they won’t accept its recognition as part of Russia – the altering of land borders by force. With this, Trump is offering Putin a frail fig leaf of respectability. But that is not, in of itself, surely enough?

So what of deal that freezes the frontlines? This may also not be in Moscow’s interests. Putin’s recent bid to drag out the diplomatic process suggests the Kremlin thinks its best battlefield days may lie ahead of it. The oil price may continue to drop, and Moscow may feel manpower crunches ahead. Yet these problems are minor compared to Kyiv’s recruitment issues and the likely dent in its funding when Biden-era cash runs out next year.

The Kremlin’s other vague red lines, voiced by various officials, will be as disruptive to a longer peace. They don’t want European troops acting as a peacekeeping or reassurance force on Ukrainian soil – an idea quite advanced in its planning, that echoes the early version of a peace plan proffered by US envoy Keith Kellogg when he was a private citizen. They are against continued foreign aid to – and intelligence sharing with – Ukraine. Russia wants sanctions lifted up front, ideally. None of this is compatible with wider security concerns on the continent, and will force the Europeans, and Ukraine, to go it alone. That too does not bring a peace deal.

The overriding problem is Putin thinks time is on his side and Trump has repeatedly said the clock is ticking. These two contrasting positions will not yield a lasting deal. The Kremlin has perhaps wisely ascertained it can, over months, hive off tiny concessions from the White House, and slowly build a geopolitical picture that is more in its favour. Consider the first 90 days of Trump’s presidency and how far the world has already changed in Moscow’s favour.

At each crunch point, Moscow also sees Trump turn on Zelensky. The Kremlin see little or no consequences for it breaching the energy – or its own unilateral – ceasefire. It sees a vividly impatient US president, whose team are often loose with the facts, and whose key envoy, Steve Witkoff, struggled to name the regions of Ukraine under occupation in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. All are also only partially under Russian occupation.

The longer Moscow talks, the better the deal seems to get. The longer it fights, the better the battlefield will likely also get. There is every incentive for the Kremlin to keep diplomacy alive, even to sign on to an early, chaotic deal it may later renege on. But there is no reason to believe it wants talks that actually resolve the war, or fighting to stop either.

A US cardinal accused of mismanaging clerical sexual abuse has been listed as playing an official role in the ceremonies to close Pope Francis’ coffin and for his burial.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired Archbishop of Los Angeles, is among a group of nine cardinals and a small number of priests and bishops set to take part in the rites which will include the pope’s burial at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Mahony, 89, retired as archbishop in 2011. He was relieved of all his official duties in the archdiocese in 2013 – although these duties were not specified.

However, the American cardinal is listed as participating in the forthcoming ceremonies as a “cardinal priest,” a position within the College of Cardinals. The college includes “cardinal deacons,” “cardinal priests” and “cardinal bishops.”

Mahony holds a senior position among the cardinal priests as he is one of the longest-serving — those who have served longer than him are in their nineties. Other cardinals taking part in the ceremonies include Giovanni Battista Re, who is the dean of the College of Cardinals; Pietro Parolin, who is the most senior cardinal bishop under the age of 80 and is the Holy See Secretary of State; and Dominique Mamberti, the “protodeacon” who will tell the world when a new pope has been chosen.

A spokesman for the Holy See said Mahony was involved because he was the most senior cardinal priest available to take part in the ceremonies, with others unable to participate.

This is not the first time Mahony’s involvement at a time of papal transition has caused controversy. In the run up to the 2013 conclave which elected Francis, a petition in Los Angeles was signed urging him not to take part. This time, due to his age, the cardinal does not have the right to vote – only those under the age of 80 are eligible to do so.

Mahony, who led the Los Angeles archdiocese from 1985 to 2011, has repeatedly apologized for his handling of clerical sexual abuse. In 2013 internal church records revealed that in the 1980s, he and his vicar for clergy failed to remove priests accused of abuse and cooperate with law enforcement.

The cardinal’s successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, said in 2013 that Mahony “will no longer have any administrative or public duties” in Los Angeles although the archdiocese later clarified that he remained a “priest in good standing.”

Mahony hit back at Gomez’s ban saying to him that “not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices, or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors.” He said he had repeatedly acknowledged that he made “mistakes, especially in the mid-1980s” over abuse but that he had handed over an Archdiocese that was “second to none in protecting children and youth.”

The clerical sexual abuse scandal has led to historically high payouts by the Los Angeles archdiocese. In 2007, it paid $660 million in a financial settlement to 508 victims and last year a further $880 million to 1,353 survivors in cases going back decades. Mahony was also accused of mishandling the case of an abuser priest when he was Bishop of Stockton.

For many years, Mahony was a prominent figure in the US church hierarchy and considered a strong voice for immigrants, workers’ rights and the importance of Hispanic Catholics for the US church.

During his pontificate, Francis ordered a number of important reforms to deal with the scourge of clerical sexual abuse, but experts say it will be up to his successor to implement them.

“Cardinal Mahony is our Archbishop Emeritus. He retired in 2011 as Archbishop of Angeles and has continued his ministry in our Archdiocese as a retired archbishop,” the archdiocese said. “He has always been in good standing.”

It continued, “We are blessed to have Cardinal Mahony represent our Archdiocese in Rome for the funeral of our Holy Father and the election of our new Pope.”

The Israeli military acknowledged on Thursday that it was responsible for killing a United Nations aid worker in a strike on a UN guesthouse in Gaza last month, backtracking on its previous denials in the face of mounting public evidence of Israeli responsibility.

The Israeli military said its preliminary investigation into the incident “indicates that the fatality was caused by tank fire from IDF troops operating in the area.”

The strike killed Marin Marinov, a 51-year-old from Bulgaria who worked to deliver life-saving aid to the population of Gaza, the UN said. Six others were injured in the deadly attack that occurred one day after Israel renewed its bombardment of Gaza, ending a two-month ceasefire.

“The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “The IDF regrets this serious incident and continues to conduct thorough review processes to draw operational lessons and evaluate additional measures to prevent such events in the future. We express our deep sorrow for the loss and send our condolences to the family.”

The Israeli military initially denied any role in the strike on the UN guesthouse and Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused the United Nations of “baseless slander” for saying Israeli tank fire was the source of the attack.

This marks the second time in the last month that the Israeli military has made false statements about an attack on aid workers, only to backtrack in the face of irrefutable evidence contradicting the Israeli military’s official account. Last week, the Israeli military acknowledged “mistakes” that led its forces to attack multiple ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle, killing 15 rescue and aid workers – but only after video of the incident emerged, disproving the IDF’s initial account.

Evidence of Israeli responsibility for the strike on the UN guesthouse on March 19 emerged almost immediately.

Trevor Bell, a former US Army senior explosive ordnance disposal team member who reviewed the footage, said the fragments were consistent with the M339, an Israeli tank shell. N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director at Armament Research Services (ARES) who also analyzed the footage, said at the time the “remnants appear to be from an Israeli 120 mm tank projectile, most likely the M339 multi-purpose model.”

A subsequent report by the Washington Post earlier this month found that two Israeli tank shells very likely killed the UN worker and wounded five others in that strike. The Post report also identified an Israeli tank position just over two miles from the guesthouse in satellite imagery captured the day before the strike.

The United Nations said it had repeatedly informed the Israeli military about the guest house’s location, including as recently as the night before the strike.

The Israeli military said its initial findings had been presented to the Israeli military’s chief of staff and to UN representatives and that a full investigation would be completed “in the coming days, pending the receipt of additional required information.”

‘More intense and significant pressure’

On Thursday, the IDF carried out a strike on a police headquarters in Jabalya, completely destroying the building and killing 10 Palestinians, according to Fares Afana, the director of emergency services in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a command and control center for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that “was used to plan and execute terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.”

A separate attack in Gaza City severely damaged two apartment buildings, killing seven Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense organization. Video from the scene shows a child on the roof of a building crying for help, blood streaked across his forehead as he waves a hand covered in dust in the air.

“If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages, we will expand our activity into a more intense and significant operation,” said IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir during a visit to Gaza Thursday.

The Israeli military also issued evacuation orders for two areas in northern Gaza as Israel broadens its bombardment of the besieged territory in what it says is an effort to put increasing pressure on Hamas. The IDF says the evacuation orders were issued after troops faced “terrorist activities and sniper fire.”

Two weeks after the roof of a popular nightclub collapsed and killed more than 200 people in the Dominican Republic, the venue’s owner acknowledged that the ceiling was made of plaster tiles that frequently fell and said the venue never received a structural review from Dominican authorities.

Espaillat said that this happened regularly throughout all the years that he has operated the venue – even on the very day of the collapse.

More than 300 people were inside Jet Set nightclub in the capital of Santo Domingo when the roof collapsed around 1 a.m. on the morning of April 8 during a performance of merengue artist Rubby Pérez and his orchestra, authorities said.

Espaillat’s own sister was among those trapped under the rubble, he said.

The disaster left at least 232 dead, including Pérez, and more than 180 injured, according to official figures.

Espaillat stated that in the nightclub’s 30 years of operation, the venue was “never” subjected to a structural review by authorities during routine safety and health inspections, nor did he discuss the building’s structural integrity with private engineers.

The structure only received checks from firefighters and the departments of Labor and Health, he said.

He said that he did not know the exact weight of the air conditioners located on the roof or if they affected the structure of the building.

Espaillat asserted that he had never received any formal warnings about the risks posed by having a ceiling in disrepair and that he is “the first one who wants to know what happened.”

“Since this happened, I have had no life,” he said, “I am completely devastated.”

Espaillat said he was informed about the collapse by his sister Maribel, who called him while trapped under the rubble.

“She said: ‘Antonio, something incredible has happened… we heard an explosion, and the entire roof has collapsed,’” Espaillat told Telesistema.

Maribel later told local newspaper Diario Libre that her husband, Daniel Vera Pichardo, covered her with his body to protect her from the falling roof. The two survived the incident.

Espaillat, who was in Las Vegas for a business conference, said he flew to Santo Domingo the next day.

“I had no idea and couldn’t believe it was something of this magnitude,” he said.

Espaillat has not commented on the case.

Two days after the tragedy, the Dominican government pledged to form a technical team to forensically investigate what caused such a disaster.

Espaillat has said that he has been in contact with the families of employees who are deceased or injured and intends to accompany them in this process.

“I am here, and I am going to face everything. I am not going anywhere; I will be here, and everything that is within my reach and everything I can do, I will do,” he emphasized.

When questioned about whether this could have been avoided, Espaillat said he felt “powerless.”

“If there had been something that caught my attention or that they (my staff and private contractors) had told me: ‘look, we need to check this, that, or the other,’ I would have gladly done it,” he said.

Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday, is breaking with tradition when it comes to where he will be laid to rest – choosing a light-filled basilica instead of the grottoes of the Vatican.

Popes are usually buried within Vatican City, beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. But Francis will be the first pontiff in more than a century to be buried outside the Vatican, as he requested a “simple” tomb a couple of miles away in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore – also known as St. Mary Major.

Francis’ funeral will take place on Saturday in St. Peter’s Square, before his body is taken to the basilica – on the other side of the river in central Rome – for burial.

“The tomb must be in the earth; simple, without particular decoration and with the only inscription: Franciscus,” the pontiff said in his will, released by the Vatican. He also said the costs of his burial would be covered “by a sum provided by a benefactor.”

While Francis’ tomb will be humble, the basilica above it glitters with sunlight and gold. The ceiling is covered in gilded wood, and light pours in through high-up windows to illuminate intricate mosaics that line the nave. Mourners and visitors have flocked here in the days since Francis’s death, interested to see for themselves a place that he loved.

Perched on top of one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built, Santa Maria Maggiore is one of four papal basilicas. Its bell tower is the tallest in the Italian capital, rising to a height of 246 feet, and its position on the hill makes it the highest point in the city.

The legend goes that the Virgin Mary came to both Pope Liberius and an Italian aristocrat asking for the church to be constructed in her honor in a place that would be miraculously revealed. Rome’s Esquiline Hill was identified as the spot after snow fell on its summit in August of 358, at the height of summer. In contemporary times, a celebration marking the “Miracle of the Snow” takes place at the basilica on August 5 every year.

The church as it stands today was commissioned by Pope Sixtus III in the year 431. The mosaics date from that time, and the interior also boasts Classical columns plundered from other buildings, although it’s encased in a Neoclassical facade built in the 1700s.

The church has long held a special significance for Pope Francis, who used to visit on Sunday mornings to honor the Virgin Mary.

He would often visit the basilica before and after foreign trips, as well as after hospital stays, to pray to the most important Marian icon, the Salus Populi Romani, to which he entrusted the protection of his apostolic journeys, in keeping with Jesuit tradition.

Clearly a spot close to his heart, it’s where Francis began his first full day as leader of the Catholic Church in 2013. It is also the first place he visited after leaving the hospital last month, offering flowers to be placed before the icon of the Virgin Mary before returning to his residence in the Vatican.

Francis revealed his plans to be buried there in December 2023, explaining that he felt a “very strong connection” with the basilica. “I want to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore,” Francis said. “Because it is my great devotion.”

A “place is already prepared” for his burial, the pope said in 2023, adding that he had been working on streamlining papal funerals.

“We simplified them quite a bit,” Francis said. “I will premiere the new ritual,” he added with a smile at the time.

Although seven other popes are buried in Santa Maria Maggiore, Francis will be the first not to be interred in St. Peter’s Basilica since Leo XIII, who died in 1903 and was laid to rest in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. The last pope to be buried at Santa Maria Maggiore was Clement IX, back in 1669.

This is not the only time the pope has broken with tradition: Francis also refused to live in the Apostolic Palace, the official papal residence, instead choosing to live in a small apartment in the Vatican guesthouse, Santa Marta.

Throughout his life, he was known for eschewing luxuries. As a cardinal in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was known for taking the subway instead of using a chauffeured car. Later in his career, he would travel to work at the Vatican in an unassuming blue Ford Focus.

The day after his death, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore was far busier than usual, with mourners, worshipers and other visitors coming by the hundreds. The atmosphere was filled with sentiment but not somber, and the afternoon Mass opened with a brass quintet and bright organ music.

“It was just a remarkable experience,” Kerry Bruder, 71, from Ontario, Canada, said after seeing the vast artworks and marble sculptures inside the church. “You know that people for centuries have been going in there… and it just made you feel small, but in a good way.”

Victoria Ferreira, who traveled to Rome from Brazil for Easter, said she had already visited the basilica days before – but it felt different after the pontiff’s death, adding that “it was very emotional.”

“He filled us with love, with empathy, with hope,” she said. “And I think we need to, more than ever, have this in our mind and in our actions – to be like him.”

Moscow has inflicted another round of deadly strikes on Ukraine despite US President Donald Trump’s plea for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “STOP!” attacking its neighbor.

At least eight people were killed in drone strikes across the country, a night after Russia launched its deadliest bombardment of Ukraine since the middle of last year.

A drone attack on the eastern city of Pavlohrad on Friday killed three people, including a 76-year-old woman and a child, and injured 10 others, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak said.

In southern Ukraine, two people were also killed in strikes on Kherson, the region’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said, adding the strikes targeted critical infrastructure and residential buildings. Two more people died in attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, and one person was killed in Kharkiv in the northeast of the country, regional leaders said.

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was the main target of Russia’s massive bombardment on Thursday, which hit several locations across the city, killing 12 people and wounding 87 others. Ukraine’s emergency services said on Friday that it had completed the search for survivors in the rubble of one residential block, hit by what Ukrainian authorities said was a North Korean ballistic missile.

The fresh round of attacks come after President Trump vented his frustration over the lack of progress on a peace deal on Thursday, saying he is “not happy” and urging Putin to “STOP!” the attacks, in a post on his Truth Social platform. Hours later, however, Trump said he believed both Russia and Ukraine want peace.

On Friday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to arrive in Moscow for further talks with Putin on reaching an agreement.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was “ready to reach a deal,” in an interview with CBS News on Thursday, but added that there were still some specific points that needed to be “fine-tuned.”

Earlier this week, Trump launched a new tirade against Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of harming peace negotiations, after Zelensky said it was against his country’s constitution to recognize Russian control of Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Any move to recognize Russia’s control of Crimea would reverse a decade of US policy and could upset the widely held post-World War Two consensus that international borders should not be changed by force.

The spat over Crimea is the latest in a series of very public disagreements between Trump and Zelensky.

Trump has insisted he has been equally as tough on Putin, but got defensive on Thursday when asked by White House reporters what concessions Russia had made in the conflict.

“Stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country. Pretty big concession,” Trump said.

“We’re putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and Russia knows that, and some people that are close to it know or he wouldn’t be talking right now.”