Pope Francis’ condition shows ‘slight improvement’: Vatican
Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Image
(ROME and LONDON) — Pope Francis’ “critical clinical condition” has shown a “slight improvement,” the Vatican said on Monday, as the 88-year-old pontiff remains hospitalized following a pneumonia diagnosis.
“In view of the complexity of the clinical picture, the doctors are still cautious about the prognosis,” the Vatican press office said in a statement.
The office said there were “no episodes of asthmatic respiratory crisis” on Monday, and some laboratory tests “have improved.”
“Oxygen therapy continues, albeit with slightly reduced flows and oxygen percentage,” the office said.
Francis was “resting” on Monday morning after spending his 10th night in the hospital, the Vatican press office said earlier in the day. He resumed some work activities Monday afternoon, the office said.
The pope has been eating normally, is awake and is continuing his medical therapies, Vatican sources told ABC News. He’s also in good humor and isn’t suffering from pain, the sources said.
“Pope Francis thanks all the people of God who have gathered in these days to pray for his health,” the Vatican said.
Francis has been hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital since Feb. 14 following a bout with bronchitis.
The pontiff, who has led the Catholic Church since 2013, underwent another round of clinical tests on Sunday morning, Vatican sources told ABC News.
Officials said Sunday he remained in critical condition.
The pontiff was diagnosed with pneumonia on Tuesday, according to the Vatican.
A rosary will be said in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Monday, led by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. That rosary is seen as a way for the church to express its “closeness to the Pope and the sick,” said the director of the Vatican press office, Matteo Bruni.
President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron wished the pope well during remarks from the White House on Monday.
“We wish him well, we want him to get well,” Trump said when asked about the leaders’ message to the pope. “It’s a very serious situation, but we do want him to get well, if it’s possible.”
“We do think about the pope and we wish him recovery and a prompt recovery,” Macron added.
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(LONDON) — The U.S. is communicating with rebel groups inside Syria amid the search for missing American journalist Austin Tice, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Tuesday, as the prisons of former President Bashar Assad empty and more evidence of alleged atrocities emerges.
Miller told journalists at a Tuesday briefing, “We do continue to believe that he is alive and we continue to make clear in all of our conversations, either with entities on the ground in Syria or with entities that may be in communication with those on the ground in Syria, that we have no higher priority than the safe return of Austin Tice to his family.”
The U.S. has expressed its desire to find Tice to the lead Syrian rebel group now guiding the transition of power in Damascus, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa — Miller said.
“It is a message that we have sent to HTS,” Miller told reporters. The group has its roots in Al-Qaeda and is a designated terrorist organization in the U.S. and the European Union. Jolani himself is still the subject of a $10 million U.S. bounty.
“We have sent very clearly the message that as they move through Syria liberating prisons, that our top priority is the return of Austin Tice,” Miller continued. “We want anyone who is operating on the ground in Syria to be on the lookout for him and if so — if they do find him, to help return him to us safely and as soon as possible.”
Tice went missing while reporting in Syria in 2012. The journalist is believed to have been kidnapped at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus. His whereabouts and the identity of his abductors is unknown, though U.S. officials have previously said they believe Tice was being held by Syrian government forces.
The collapse of the Assad regime raised hopes that Tice would be found. “We believe he’s alive,” President Joe Biden said on Sunday. “We think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet.”
On Monday, the State Department increased its reward for information on Tice to $10 million. The State Department also offered relocation for anyone that helps information that helps find and recover Tice.
Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, also traveled to the Middle East to hold talks with regional officials to “get him home as soon as possible,” Miller said on Monday.
Debra and Marc Tice — Austin’s parents — released a statement urging “anyone who can do so to please assist Austin so he can safely return home to our family” following the collapse of the Assad government.
“We are watching the events unfold in Syria and seeing families reunited with their loved ones after years of separation,” said a statement released via the Press Freedom Center at the National Press Club.
“We know this is possible for our family, too,” they added. “Austin Tice is alive, in Syria, and it’s time for him to come home. We are eagerly anticipating seeing Austin walk free.”
Tice is one of the 157,000 people disappeared into the bowels of Assad’s totalitarian state between 2011 and 2024, per an estimate by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Rebel fighters surging south from Idlib and north from Daraa emptied government prisons as they advanced on Damascus at the close of an 11-day surprise offensive.
There, the infamous Saydnaya prison — once described as the “Human Slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International — became a rallying point for the hopeful family and friends of the missing.
Rebel fighters and Damascenes rushed through the facility, freeing groups of men, women and children from cells.
The Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, said that rumors of hidden underground cells proved unfounded. But rescuers said they found evidence of the regime’s vast torture apparatus as well as the bodies of those who did not live to see its fall.
Among them was famed anti-government activist Mazen Al-Hamada, who had been held in Saydnaya since February 2020.
ABC News’ Dee Carden and Camilla Alcini contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — A woman has been arrested after allegedly poisoning a 1-year-old girl over two months so she could post videos of the child online in order to solicit donations from the public, police said.
The Queensland Police in Australia said that the Morningside Child Protection and Investigation Unit (CPIU) has charged a woman with torture following “extensive investigations into allegations of an infant being poisoned,” according to a statement released on Thursday.
“It will be alleged between August 6 to October 15, 2024, a 34-year-old Sunshine Coast woman administered several unauthorised prescription and pharmacy medicines to a one-year-old girl, who was known to her, without medical approval,” authorities said. “It will be further alleged the woman, disregarding medical advice, went to lengths to obtain unauthorised medicines, including old medicines for a different person available in their home.”
Further investigations into the case allegedly revealed that the woman “carefully concealed her continued efforts to administer the unauthorised medicines until the matter was detected and reported to police by medical staff from a hospital in Brisbane’s south while the child was admitted.”
When announcing the charges against the unnamed woman, police said that the child was subjected to “immense distress and pain” while the woman filmed and posted videos of the child online.
“It is alleged the content produced exploited the child and was used to entice monetary donations and online followers,” police said.
Medical staff reported harm against the child to detectives on Oct. 15, 2024, which lead to police taking immediate action to protect the child during their investigation.
Testing for unauthorized medicines given to the child returned a positive result on Jan. 7, Australian authorities said.
“Morningside CPIU detectives travelled to an Underwood address to arrest the woman and subsequently charged her with five counts of administering poison with intent to harm, three counts of preparation to commit crimes with dangerous things, and one count each of torture, making child exploitation material and fraud,” police said.
She is expected to appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court tomorrow on Friday. Detective Inspector Paul Dalton said offences of this nature are abhorrent and CPIU detectives are committed to protecting children from harm and holding offenders to account.
“Working in CPIU we are too often faced with the worst offences against children,” he said. “We will do everything in our power to remove that child from harm’s way and hold any offender to account. There is no excuse for harming a child, especially not a one-year-old infant who is reliant on others for care and survival.”
(NEW YORK) — The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us. Hurricanes intensified by a warming planet and drought-fueled wildfires are destroying our communities. Rising seas and flooding are swallowing our homes. And record-breaking heat waves are reshaping our way of life.
The good news is we know how to turn the tide and avoid the worst possible outcomes. However, understanding what needs to be done can be confusing due to a constant stream of climate updates, scientific findings, and critical decisions that are shaping our future.
That’s why the ABC News Climate and Weather Unit is cutting through the noise by curating what you need to know to keep the people and places you care about safe. We are dedicated to providing clarity amid the chaos, giving you the facts and insights necessary to navigate the climate realities of today — and tomorrow.
How NASA could help solve the mystery of the 2024 temperature spike
Last year, 2024, was the warmest year on record for the planet, easily breaking the previous record set just a year earlier.
Scientists say the unfolding El Niño event superimposed on long-term global warming is a primary driver of this huge spike in global surface temperatures since mid-2023. But the magnitude of the increase shocked many experts, leaving them somewhat puzzled about what else could be behind the remarkable temperature.
NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite, PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem), is expected to provide new data to help scientists understand how changing levels of different atmospheric aerosols impact Earth’s energy balance.
Millions of students are missing school because of extreme weather
A new analysis from UNICEF finds that nearly a quarter of a billion children worldwide had their education disrupted by extreme weather events in 2024 — exacerbating what the organization calls an “existing learning crisis.”
The report found that at least 242 million students across 85 countries experienced schooling disruptions last year because of extreme weather like heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and tropical cyclones.
“Children are more vulnerable to the impacts of weather-related crises, including stronger and more frequent heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said. “Last year, severe weather kept one in seven students out of class, threatening their health and safety, and impacting their long-term education.”
Heat waves were the most common weather disruptor for education. UNICEF found that over 118 million students were impacted by extreme heat in April alone, with South Asia seeing some of the most widespread impacts.
The report also found that September had the most frequent weather-related disruptions, with at least 16 countries suspending classes for a time due to extreme weather events like Typhoon Yagi in East Asia.
While the analysis found that almost three-quarters of the students impacted were in low and lower-middle income countries, UNICEF says no region was free from these effects.
“Education is one of the services most frequently disrupted due to climate hazards. Yet it is often overlooked in policy discussions, despite its role in preparing children for climate adaptation,” Russell said. “Children’s futures must be at the forefront of all climate related plans and actions.”
-ABC News climate unit’s Kelly Livingston
Climate funders say they will cover US climate obligations after Paris Agreement withdrawal
On Monday, President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the U.N.-backed international climate treaty. Bloomberg Philanthropies announced Thursday that they, along with a coalition of climate charities, would step up and ensure that the U.S. meets its obligations under the Paris Agreement, including any financial and reporting requirements.
“While government funding remains essential to our mission, contributions like this are vital in enabling the UN Climate Change secretariat to support countries in fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement and a low-emission, resilient, and safer future for everyone,” said Simon Stiell, United Nations climate change executive secretary, in a press statement.
This is the second time Trump has withdrawn the country from the Paris Agreement. During his first term, Trump justified backing out of the treaty by claiming that participating in the agreement would result in the loss of jobs and cost the U.S. trillions of dollars. In reality, in 2023, clean energy jobs grew at more than twice the rate of the overall U.S. labor market and accounted for more than 8.35 million positions, according to a Department of Energy report. In terms of spending, the U.S. has committed several billion dollars to the effort, not trillions.
Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and a U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, said he also plans to continue supporting a coalition of states, cities and businesses that are working to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 61-66% below 2005 levels by 2035.
“More and more Americans have had their lives torn apart by climate-fueled disasters, like the destructive fires raging in California. At the same time, the United States is experiencing the economic benefits of clean energy, as costs have fallen and jobs have grown in both red and blue states. The American people remain determined to continue the fight against the devastating effects of climate change,” Bloomberg said.
