Pope Francis makes first public appearance since leaving hospital
Grzegorz Galazka/Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Pope Francis on Sunday made his first public appearance since being discharged from hospital two weeks ago.
Francis, 88, entered St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in a wheelchair to briefly greet crowds that were gathered to mark the Jubilee of the Sick and the World of Healthcare. The pope was wearing oxygen nasal cannulas.
“Happy Sunday to everyone,” Francis said to those attending the mass, as quoted by the Italian ANSA news agency. “Happy Sunday to everyone,” he repeated. “Thank you very much.”
In a statement, the Vatican press office said Francis “joined the Jubilee pilgrimage.” It added, “Before greeting the pilgrims and faithful in the square, to whom he addressed his thanks, he received the sacrament of reconciliation in St. Peter’s Basilica, gathered in prayer and passed through the Holy Door.”
The Vatican press office also released the Pope’s Angelus message. “Dearest ones, as during my hospitalization, even now in my convalescence I feel the ‘finger of God’ and experience his caring caress,” the pope’s message read.
“Let us continue to pray for peace: in the tormented Ukraine, hit by attacks that cause many civilian victims, including many children,” it continued.
“And the same thing happens in Gaza, where people are reduced to living in unimaginable conditions, without a roof, without food, without clean water. Let the weapons fall silent and dialogue resume; let all the hostages be freed and the population be helped.”
“Let us pray for peace throughout the Middle East; in Sudan and South Sudan; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; in Myanmar, also severely tested by the earthquake; and in Haiti, where violence is raging, which a few days ago killed two nuns,” Francis’ message read.
The pope was discharged from hospital on March 23 after being treated for double pneumonia.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian and Phoebe Natanson contributed to this report.
(RAFAH GOVERNORATE, Gaza) — Israel announced Saturday that its military has completed the establishment of a new security corridor in the Gaza Strip, effectively taking full control over the southern city of Rafah — which Israel had ordered evacuated — and cutting it off from the rest of the Palestinian territory.
“The IDF has now completed the takeover of the Morag axis that crosses Gaza between Rafah and Khan Yunis and makes the entire area between the Philadelphi axis and Morag part of the Israeli security zone,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “IDF activity will soon expand strongly to additional locations throughout most of Gaza and you will have to evacuate the fighting zones.”
Over 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18. In total, nearly 51,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation orders for large swaths of war-torn Gaza, including parts of Khan Yunis and almost all of Rafah.
The IDF has been expanding its operations in Gaza since it ended the ceasefire in March, earlier this month saying it will capture extensive territories. On April 2, Katz said they will “seize large areas that will be annexed to the security zones of the State of Israel.”
Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation orders for large swaths of war-torn Gaza, including parts of Khan Yunis and almost all of Rafah.
This came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the establishment of the so-called Morag Corridor, describing it as “a second Philadelphi Corridor” that would further divide Gaza and increase pressure on Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages.
The so-called Philadelphi Corridor refers to a narrow strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt that has been under Israeli control since May 2024.
The IDF said Israeli troops were operating in some areas between Rafah and Khan Yunis where they had never operated previously and that the strategy behind establishing the new security corridor was to separate Hamas fighters in Rafah from Khan Yunis, spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said at a press briefing last week.
The IDF said on Saturday that it had “eliminated dozens of terrorists, dismantled underground tunnel routes and Hamas terror infrastructure, and completed the encirclement of Rafah,” in the last week and a half.
In an address to Palestinians in Gaza following the completion of the Morag axis, Katz said the IDF is already continuing to expand its territory in Gaza.
“This is the last moment to remove Hamas and release all the hostages and bring about an end to the war – IDF activity will soon expand vigorously to additional locations throughout most of Gaza,” he said.
“In northern Gaza, residents are also evacuating in Beit Hanoun and other neighborhoods and the area is being taken, expanding the security zone and in the Netzarim Corridor. IDF activity will soon expand strongly to additional locations throughout most of Gaza and you will have to evacuate the fighting zones,” Katz said.
Last week, the IDF said at a press briefing that the only thing that can halt the IDF’s advance in Gaza is the release of hostages.
Katz reiterated support for U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to forcibly expel Palestinians in Gaza and said they are working toward making it possible for Palestinians in Gaza to “voluntarily move to various countries around the world.”
In February, Trump departed from decades of U.S. foreign policy, announcing that the U.S. would “clean out” the Gaza Strip and rebuild it, saying Palestinians living there should leave — a statement that the United Nations and allies, including France and Germany, have called a violation of international law and said it amounts to ethnic cleansing.
Trump at one point threatened to withdraw aid to Egypt and Jordan if they didn’t agree to take in Palestinians, though less than 24 hours later, he said, “I don’t have to threaten that, I don’t think. I think we’re above that.”
Egypt and Jordan have both firmly opposed taking in forcibly displaced Palestinians.
(TATAKOTO, FRENCH POLYNESIA) — A possible “biological treasure chest” of corals located in an underwater lagoon off a remote island in the South Pacific appear to be surviving extreme heat stress caused by climate change, scientists say.
In the pristine waters off a French Polynesian island in the South Pacific, a team of marine biologists believes it has made a “miracle-like” discovery — a type of coral which can survive in abnormally warm water.
The coral lives in a semi-enclosed underwater lagoon, within which the water temperature is significantly higher than the swirling South Pacific Ocean beyond.
The lagoon is situated off the remote island of Tatakoto, and in the warmest month of March, water temperatures can reach a sizzling 95 F (35 C) which is about 7 F to 9 F (4 C or 5 C) higher than the wider ocean, according to France’s National Scientific Research Center (CRNS), which is behind the study.
In extreme heat events, which scientists say have become more frequent around the world because of our planet’s changing climate, abnormally warm water temperatures can “bleach” corals, which are a vital food source and habitat for a vast array of marine organisms.
Bleaching means the coral loses the algae living in its tissues, turning it white. Coral struggles to survive in this state.
The warming of seas and oceans, which scientists say is primarily driven by human-amplified climate change, has contributed to the death of large areas of coral reef right across the globe, putting fragile underwater ecosystems at risk.
For four years, the team of marine biologists led by Dr Laetitia Hédouin — in a joint partnership with the marine research non-profit 1ocean.org — has been studying what they say are thermoresistant “super corals” living and “thriving” inside the abnormally warm lagoon off Tatakoto.
Hédouin told ABC News that she and her colleagues are carrying out further studies on the corals, but she is already confident the corals seem to have developed some type of “biological mechanism” that helps them survive.
Last year, French Polynesia experienced a “super long and super strong” marine heat wave that bleached other coral reefs elsewhere in French Polynesia in less extreme water temperatures, according to Hédouin.
It was “almost like a miracle” that the corals survived in the lagoon, because the sea water there is “way warmer” than the ocean outside, Hédouin said.
The aim of the mission is to study whether the so-called super-resistant corals can live and reproduce in new environments outside of the warm lagoon, and potentially survive extreme heat events that have bleached other corals.
The mission has the backing of UNESCO, the lead U.N. agency on ocean research. UNESCO described the corals found in the lagoon as “remarkable specimens” and said the study in French Polynesia could pave the way for the development of “new strategies to repopulate coral reefs worldwide.”
Hédouin and her team have planted cuttings of the heat-resistant coral from the lagoon in another area of the archipelago to see if they can adapt and thrive in a more typical environment where the sea temperature is lower.
If the corals from Tatakoto can survive being moved — a process known as “assisted migration” — then scientists behind the project hope the island could become “a biological treasure chest” of heat-resistant corals that would help restore damaged reefs elsewhere in the world.
The project is being documented by French underwater photographer and 1ocean.org founder Alexis Rosenfeld, who described the lagoon off Tatakoto as a symbol of hope because it represented what he said is humankind’s ability to “live better” with nature.
Rosenfeld said he and his team were documenting this project and others like it through photos and film to “build awareness” of the need to protect fragile ecosystems in our oceans and seas.
A general view of a Mosque in Mogadishu on March 4, 2025. (Photo by Hassan Ali Elmi/ AFP via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The U.S. embassy in Somalia has warned Americans that they are tracking “credible information” regarding potentially imminent terror attacks “against multiple locations in Somalia including Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport,” officials said.
The U.S. embassy in Somalia’s capital city of Mogadishu said that all movements of embassy personnel have been canceled until further notice in a statement released on Tuesday.
“The U.S. Department of State level four travel advisory (“do not travel”) for Somalia remains in effect due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health issues, kidnapping, and piracy,” U.S. officials said.
“The U.S. Embassy in Somalia reminds U.S. citizens that terrorists continue to plot kidnappings, bombings, and other attacks in Somalia,” the statement continued. “They may conduct attacks with little or no warning, targeting airports and seaports, checkpoints, government buildings, hotels, restaurants, shopping areas, and other areas where large crowds gather and Westerners frequent, as well as government, military, and Western convoys.”
Shortly after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the United States used manned fighter jets to conduct an airstrike against Islamic State targets in Somalia in early February.
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the airstrike, claiming no civilians were harmed in the attack. No details were released about the targets aside from the president labeling the target as a “Senior ISIS Attack Planner.”
Hegseth said the airstrikes were carried out “at President Trump’s direction and in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia.”
The embassy warned that potential methods of attack include, but are not limited to, car bombs, suicide bombers, individual attackers and mortar fire.
“The U.S. government has extremely limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Somalia due to the lack of a permanent consular presence in Somalia,” officials said.
The embassy warned Americans who are still in Somalia to continue to exercise vigilance, review your personal security plans, notify a trusted person of your travel and movement plans and to avoid all large crowds, gatherings and demonstrations.
