Pope Francis gave the traditional Easter blessing on Sunday, appearing from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in front of delighted crowds in what marks his highest-profile appearance yet since being discharged from hospital.

The 88-year-old pontiff has not led the main Holy Week and Easter services but has made brief appearances over the Easter weekend, including spending 30 minutes at a prison in Rome on Thursday and a visit to St Peter’s Basilica on Saturday evening.

Francis, who spent 38 days in hospital with double pneumonia where he came close to death, is unable to speak for long periods due to his respiratory difficulties and is undergoing physiotherapy to help regain his voice. The pope also has difficulty raising his arms.

But on Easter Sunday he was able to offer the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the “City [of Rome] and to the World”. Only the pope can offer this blessing which includes the offer of an indulgence, a remission for the effect of sins.

His voice sounded weak but he appeared without the nasal canula he has been wearing to receive oxygen.

Prior to his Easter Sunday appearance, the Pope had a brief private meeting with Vice President JD Vance.

“The meeting, which lasted a few minutes, provided an opportunity to exchange Easter greetings,” said the Vatican in a statement.

Since his discharge from hospital last month the pope has been making surprise appearances and has shown a determination to resume his duties. Doctors have advised him to avoid large crowds during his two months recovery period.

The Vatican also released the text of the Pope’s Easter Sunday message where Francis appealed for an end to conflicts across the world, particularly in Gaza. He lamented the “death and destruction” taking place which had created “a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”

Francis said: “I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!”

The Israeli military says “professional failures” led to the killing of 15 paramedics and first responders in an incident in Gaza in March, according to an investigation released Sunday.

The group – most of whom worked for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) – were shot dead before being buried in a mass grave, sparking international condemnation.

The Israeli probe identified several failures during the incident, as well as breaches of orders and a failure to fully report the incident, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

The IDF said the troops did not engage in “indiscriminate fire” during the incident, but they opened fire on what they believed to be a “tangible threat” amid what the military called “operational misunderstandings.”

As a result of the investigation, the commanding officer of the 14th Brigade received a letter of reprimand, while the deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion involved in the incident was dismissed from his position. The IDF relieved the deputy commander because of his responsibility for the incident and for providing an “incomplete and inaccurate report” about what happened.

“The IDF regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians,” a statement read.

“Existing protocols have been clarified and reinforced – emphasizing the need for heightened caution when operating near rescue forces and medical personnel, even in high-intensity combat zones.”

The troops opened fire on three separate occasions on Sunday, March 23. In the first shooting, Israeli soldiers shot at a vehicle the IDF says was identified as belonging to Hamas. Two Palestinians were killed and one temporarily detained.

An hour later, the troops opened fire once again, this time targeting the convoy of PRCS ambulances and Civil Defense vehicles, killing 15 people, according to the investigation.

Initially, the IDF claimed the vehicles were driving suspiciously without headlights or emergency signals.

But video from the cell phone of one the emergency responders clearly showed that the convoy was driving in a single-file line and the ambulances had their lights on. Despite the release of the video, the IDF investigation still said it was difficult to identify the ambulances.

“Due to poor night visibility, the deputy commander did not initially recognize the vehicles as ambulances,” the IDF said. “Only later, after approaching the vehicles and scanning them, was it discovered that these were indeed rescue teams.”

The IDF said that six of those killed were identified “in a retrospective examination as Hamas terrorists,” raising the question of whether the troops opened fire on ambulances before knowing if there were any militants amongst the vehicles. The military did not identify which of those killed it believed were terrorists or provide any evidence.

About 15 minutes later, the troops opened fire on a Palestinian United Nations vehicle. The investigation concluded this was a result of “operational errors” and was “in breach of regulations.”

“The examination determined that the fire in the first two incidents resulted from an operational misunderstanding by the troops, who believed they faced a tangible threat from enemy forces,” the IDF said. In its initial account of the events, the Israeli military said the two Palestinians killed in the first incident were members of Hamas. It’s unclear if Israel is now walking back that claim.

“The third incident involved a breach of orders during a combat setting,” the IDF said.

The bodies were then removed and buried in a mass grave along with the ambulances and other vehicles. The IDF defended the field commanders’ decision to remove the bodies but acknowledged “the decision to crush the vehicles was wrong.”

“There was no attempt to conceal the event, which was discussed with international organizations and the UN, including coordination for the removal of bodies,” the IDF said.

The PRCS declined to comment on the investigation.

In the wake of the attack, the organization said the incident “can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law, which the occupation continues to violate before the eyes of the entire world.”

A 14-year-old girl was killed by a lioness outside the Kenyan capital Nairobi when she was snatched at a ranch bordering the southern edge of a national park, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said Sunday.

The lioness then entered a house and attacked the girl, who was inside with a second teenager. “There is no evidence of provocation from the victims,” Udoto said.

The second teenager immediately raised the alarm, prompting KWS rangers and emergency teams to respond to the incident. Upon arrival, the team traced bloodstains leading to the Mbagathi River, where the girl’s body was recovered with injuries on her lower back.

Authorities have set a trap and deployed teams to search for the lioness. They are also trying to reinforce security measures, including electric fencing and AI-powered early warning systems to notify communities of nearby animal movements, Udoto said.

Separate animal attack

In a different incident on Friday, an elephant attacked a 54-year-old man while he was grazing livestock at a forest in Kenya’s Nyeri County. The man sustained chest injuries, fractured ribs and internal trauma, and was declared dead upon arriving at a hospital, KWS said.

The agency added that both attacks underscore a need for “continued investment in human-wildlife conflict mitigation – through strategic interventions, early warning systems, and strengthened collaboration with affected communities.”

KWS teams are still investigating the attacks, but preliminary findings suggest both are “linked to broader ecological pressures and human encroachment on wildlife habitats,” Udoto said.

KWS suspects the lioness was disoriented or diverted from her normal hunting behavior due to a scarcity of prey in her natural range and increasing human activity around the park, Udoto added.

The elephant, meanwhile, attacked the victim after he entered the forest to graze livestock. “It was the human activity that encroached upon the animal’s range, creating conditions for conflict,” Udoto said.

“KWS conveys its heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and continues to work closely with local law enforcement and communities to enhance the safety of people living near protected wildlife areas,” the agency said.

Lion and elephant attacks are considered relatively rare, but they can happen in isolated areas, near national parks and game reserves.

Lion attacks account for less than 2% of all reported incidents involving humans and wildlife, Udoto said. Elephant-related incidents are more common and tend to happen during dry seasons, when the animals migrate in search of water and food and encounter farmland or settlements, Udoto added.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has proposed a prisoner exchange with Venezuela, offering to repatriate hundreds of Venezuelans who were deported from the United States in exchange for “political prisoners.”

In a post on X, Bukele offered to exchange 252 Venezuelans currently detained in El Salvador’s mega prison for “an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners” he says Venezuela holds, including family members of opposition leaders.

“Unlike our detainees, many of whom have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some have even been arrested multiple times before being deported, your political prisoners have committed no crime,” Bukele said in the post, which was directed at Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. “The only reason they are imprisoned is because they opposed you and your electoral fraud.”

The US and El Salvador say most of the deportees locked up in El Salvador’s Cecot prison are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and some are members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang. But officials have provided scant evidence to show the inmates have ties to those criminal groups.

Venezuela’s leader has described the deportation of the mostly Venezuelan migrants as a “kidnapping,” and denied they are criminals while backing calls for their return.

The Salvadoran leader named some of the “political prisoners” incarcerated in Venezuela, including Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of exiled opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González.

González, who fled the country after claiming to have defeated Maduro in July’s presidential election, said his son-in-law was detained in Venezuela’s capital in early January, just days before Maduro was inaugurated.

He also mentions Corina Parisca de Machado, the mother of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who he says is facing political pressure.

Bukele also proposed swapping four political leaders seeking asylum in the Argentine Embassy in Venezuela. The group has been sheltering at the facility for more than a year, accused of terrorist activities and treason for working with Machado, who says they did nothing wrong.

Also included in Bukele’s proposed agreement are journalist Roland Carreño, lawyer and activist Rocío San Miguel, and nearly 50 detained citizens from other countries, including the US.

Bukele’s proposal comes amid heightened scrutiny about the Salvadoran’s willingness to accept hundreds of migrants who the Trump administration claims are gang members or violent criminals.

One of the region’s most popular leaders, Bukele has called himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and the “philosopher king” as he suspends certain civil liberties to go after his country’s gangs.

That has earned him the ire of international human rights organizations, which allege large-scale abuses in his crackdown on crime. But it has also earned him popularity inside El Salvador; Bukele, 43, won reelection last year by a landslide.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Ukraine says it was struck by a new barrage of deadly Russian air attacks as an Easter ceasefire ended and as the clock ticks for Kyiv to respond to a United States peace proposal this week.

At least three people were killed and several wounded in Russian attacks in the southern Kherson region, said the head of its regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin.

Blasts also rocked the nearby southern port city of Mykolaiv early Monday, according to its mayor, with air alerts issued for several eastern regions.

“Explosions were heard,” Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said on Telegram. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties or the extent of the damage.

Meanwhile, at least four people were wounded in the eastern Donetsk region, according to the head of its regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin.

The attacks came hours after the expiration of an Easter ceasefire called by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which both sides accused each other of violating.

The surprise truce came after the US on Thursday submitted its latest proposal in its so far fruitless efforts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

Crimea in southern Ukraine has been under Russian occupation since it was illegally annexed, and any move to recognize Moscow’s control of the peninsula would reverse around a decade of US policy.

The US proposal – which has also been submitted to Moscow – would also put a ceasefire in place along the front lines of the conflict, the source said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Friday that the US was ready to “move on” from efforts to bring peace to Ukraine within days if there were no tangible signs of progress.

US President Donald Trump has offered more optimism, saying in a Truth Social post on Sunday that “hopefully” Russia and Ukraine “would make a deal this week.” He didn’t specify what type of deal might be agreed.

Trump has declined to say whether he is prepared to walk away completely from the talks or whether the US would support Ukraine militarily if talks fall through.

The Trump administration is simultaneously planning another meeting between US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russians to get Moscow on board with the framework, the source said.

There has been no comment so far from Kyiv or Moscow on the US proposal. US, Ukrainian and European officials are set to meet in London this week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed willingness to agree to a peace deal with Moscow but said last month that his government would not recognize any occupied territories as Russian, calling that a “red line.”

Pope Francis, a voice for the poor who overcame fierce resistance to reshape the Catholic Church, has died at 88, the Vatican has announced.

The pope’s death was announced on Monday morning by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo.

“Dear brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” a statement from the camerlengo said.

“At 7:35 this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His whole life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.”

Farrell continued, “He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalized.”

“With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the Triune God,” the statement concluded.

The announcement would have come as a shock to many, coming less than a day after the pope made a high-profile appearance in public.

While he did not appear as engaged as usual on Sunday, he still managed to address a huge crowd of worshippers.

Francis gave the traditional Easter blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, in what marked his highest-profile appearance yet since being discharged from hospital.

Just before that, he held a brief meeting with US Vice President JD Vance.

The pope’s tireless advocacy for migrants saw him sharply criticize US President Donald Trump’s immigration deportation policies in the months before his death.

Francis, whose pontificate was a counterweight to the rise of nationalist populism, often found himself under fire from powerful conservative Catholic forces in the US.

Death comes after long hospital stay

The death of Francis, who became the first Latin American pontiff in 2013 and was one of the oldest popes in the church’s history, came weeks after he was discharged from a Rome hospital having battled a life-threatening case of pneumonia in both lungs.

His medical team said his condition had stabilized, allowing for him to continue his convalescence at his Casa Santa Marta residence back at the Vatican.

Two weeks after leaving hospital, he delighted the faithful by making a surprise appearance at St. Peter’s Square.

He has made a number of appearances since then, including spending 30 minutes at a prison in Rome on Thursday and a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday evening.

His death will open a debate about the future direction of the Catholic Church, with cardinals from across the globe expected to gather in Rome in the coming days to mourn the pontiff and then elect his successor.

An outsider figure and the first non-European pontiff in nearly 1,300 years, Francis championed the poor, migrants and the environment, but divisions over same-sex relationships and how to tackle abuse scandals within the church persisted throughout his pontificate.

The pope’s tireless advocacy for migrants saw him sharply criticize US President Donald Trump’s immigration deportation policies in the months before his death. Francis, whose pontificate was a counterweight to the rise of nationalist populism, often found himself under fire from powerful conservative Catholic forces in the US.

First Latin American and Jesuit to be elected

Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio to Italian migrants in Buenos Aires in 1936, was the first Latin American and member of the Jesuit order to be elected pope in the church’s 2,000-year history. He was also the first pope to call himself Francis.

The Argentinian pontiff quickly gained a reputation as a modernizer, with an outward-facing approach which saw him speak out boldly on humanitarian crises, such as migration, war and climate change.

He sought to reform the church by tackling elitist mentalities among the clergy, demanding a compassionate approach to divorced and gay Catholics and insisting that the church welcome everyone.

He took a series of measures to clean up financial corruption in the Vatican, and to tackle the scourge of clerical sexual abuse, including laws to hold bishops accountable for coverups. Francis also sought an enlarged role for women working in the Vatican and authorized priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples.

He built bridges with the Muslim world, while seeking to play the role of peacemaker in the face of global conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and the Middle East.

His reforms saw him face unprecedented resistance from ultra-conservatives inside the church, although progressive Catholics felt he should have gone further in allowing the ordination of married men as priests, shifting official teaching on homosexuality and giving a greater space for women in ministry.

Despite taking a series of tough measures, Francis also failed to quell the scandal of child sexual abuse and other forms of abuse that have plagued the Catholic Church – a disgrace that he made his personal responsibility to end, but which continued to damage the institutional church in multiple countries throughout his papacy.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

In the year 2000, over 5,000 barrels of crude oil spilled from a barge into the Marañón River, which runs 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) across Peru, from the snow-capped mountains of the Andes into the mighty Amazon River. A black glaze seeped across its surface, silently causing an ecological disaster – contaminating the river, a key water source for local communities, and killing some of its fauna.

The incident was not the first – nor the last – of the oil spills that have plagued the Marañón River and the people living along its banks. The watercourse, which is a lifeblood of Peru’s tropical rainforests and is home to endangered species like pink dolphins and giant otters, also carves its way through Peru’s oil and gas heartlands.

The Northern Peruvian Oil Pipeline (ONP) runs alongside it. According to the Peruvian agency for investment in energy and mining, Osinergmin, between 1997 and 2022, there were more than 80 oil spills along the pipeline.

While the spill in 2000 was by no means unique, it did spur one woman into action. Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari, of the indigenous Kukama community, who grew up on the banks of the Marañón, set up Asociación de Mujeres Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana (“Hard-working Women’s Association” or “HKK”). The organization, spearheaded by women, has spent the last two decades and more fighting for the river’s protection.

In March last year, their hard work paid off, as Peru’s federal court ruled that the river had legal personhood, granting it the inherent right to remain free flowing and free of environmental contamination. Today, Canaquiri Murayari, now 56 years old, was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work – an annual award given to six grassroots environmental leaders, each working in a different continent.

River spirits

For the Kukama people the Marañón River is sacred, and they believe the spirits of their ancestors reside on the river floor. Canaquiri Murayari says when the oil spills started, the spirit of her dead uncle came to her grandmother one night and warned of the harm the “black gold” would bring.

It started to affect the livelihoods of the Kukama, who depend on the river for transport, agriculture, water and fishing. They have no other water source, says Canaquiri Murayari, and so out of necessity, the community kept eating fish and drinking from the contaminated river.

Members of the community started getting sick too, she says. Studies have shown that communities living near drilling or oil spill sites had high levels of lead in their bloodstream, while higher mercury, arsenic and cadmium levels were detected in the urine of people consuming fish from the river or whose vegetable gardens were close to oil spill sites.

Canaquiri Murayari’s association was motivated to act. It sent letters to authorities, organized marches in the provincial capital Iquitos, and blocked traffic on the river. But to no avail: “The strikes, the mobilizations, the statements, the meetings, the roundtable discussion: none of them have worked … They don’t listen to us,” laments Canaquiri Murayari.

Instead, she started to seek out other methods and in 2014 connected with the Legal Defense Institute (IDL), a Peruvian NGO. Together, they began exploring legal strategies for protecting the Marañón River and became inspired by the burgeoning global rights of nature movement, whereby rivers such as Colombia’s Atrato River, New Zealand’s Whanganui River and Canada’s Magpie River, were granted legal personhood.

In 2021, the HKK, with support from IDL and Earth Law Center, filed a lawsuit seeking recognition of the legal personhood of the Marañón River to protect it from oil spills and other forms of destruction, such as dredging and hydropower projects.

After more than two years of litigation, in March 2024, the federal court ruled in favor of the Kukama, and for the first time in the country’s history, a river was granted legal personhood, giving it the right to exist, to flow free from pollution, and to exercise its essential functions within the ecosystem, among others.

Nature’s rights

He added that the Kukama women are “the protagonists of the legal case” and that their defense of the river has been so strong because “the river is the backbone of their culture.”

However, Canaquiri Murayari says the lawsuit was just the “first step.” The ruling does not immediately prevent oil extraction along the river, but it gives the Kukama the opportunity to challenge ongoing or future activities that infringe on the river’s rights. Together with Earth Law Center and others, she will now work to ensure the government implements the ruling.

This can sometimes be the hardest part. The Atrato River in Colombia, which was granted similar rights in 2016, continues to suffer from pollution from mining activities, with accounts of some of the river’s guardians being too afraid to report an incident, while others cite a “lack of political will.”

But Canaquiri Murayari is confident that with their newfound legal power, they will be able to hold the government and oil companies to account. She also believes it will help to galvanize other indigenous people from around the world to assert their rights.

“This is a door that opens many possibilities for other communities and other rivers and other indigenous leaders,” she says.

As a mother of four, and a grandmother to six, she added: “The work that I’m doing is not only for my community, it’s for the world. Because we need to do something, we need to fight together to leave the world for the next generation.”

The death toll from a boat fire and capsizing in Congo earlier this week rose to 148 with more than 100 people still missing, officials said Friday. About 500 passengers were on board.

The wooden boat capsized Tuesday after catching fire on the Congo River in the country’s northwest, leaving at least 148 people dead and dozens missing, officials said.

The catastrophe began when a fire started as a woman was cooking on board the vessel, Compétent Loyoko, the river commissioner, told The Associated Press. Several passengers, including women and children, died after jumping into the water without being able to swim.

Dozens were saved, with many of the survivors badly burned. The search for the missing included rescue teams supported by the Red Cross and provincial authorities.

The motorized wooden boat caught fire near the town of Mbandaka, Loyoko said. The boat, HB Kongolo, had left the port of Matankumu for the Bolomba territory.

“The death toll among the 500 passengers on board was extremely high,” said Sen. Jean-Paul Boketsu Bofili of Equateur province Friday. “As we speak, more than 150 survivors suffering from third-degree burns are without humanitarian assistance.”

Deadly boat accidents are common in the central African country, where late-night travels and overcrowded vessels are often blamed. Authorities have struggled to enforce maritime regulations.

Congo’s rivers are a major means of transport for its more than 100 million people, especially in remote areas where infrastructure is poor or nonexistent. Hundreds have been killed in boat accidents in recent years as more people abandon the few available roads for wooden vessels packed with passengers and their goods.

“Our magnificent Congo River and the lakes our country abounds in have become huge cemeteries for the Congolese people. This is unacceptable,” said Bofili.