Pope has ‘sudden worsening’ of respiratory condition: Vatican
Candles and messages of healing for Pope Francis are laid at the statue of John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital where the Pope is hospitalized with pneumonia, in Rome on February 26, 2025. (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images)
(LONDON and ROME) — Pope Francis suffered a “sudden worsening of his respiratory condition,” after an “isolated attack of bronchospasm” which caused vomiting with inhalation, the Vatican said on Friday.
A bronchospasm is a coughing attack.
The pope underwent broncho aspiration and was put on non-invasive mechanical ventilation, with a good response in terms of gas exchange, the Vatican said.
The pontiff, who has been hospitalized in Rome since Feb. 14, remained alert and oriented while receiving treatment, the Vatican said.
His prognosis remains “uncertain,” the Vatican said.
Earlier Friday, the Vatican press office said the pope had a peaceful evening of rest in hospital and is continuing his recovery in the hospital.
“As in recent days, the night passed peacefully and the Pope is now resting,” the Vatican said.
Officials said that Pope Francis’ condition continued to improve on Thursday, with the pontiff alternating between high-flow oxygen therapy and a ventimask, according to the Vatican.
“Given the complexity of his clinical condition, further days of clinical stability are needed to clarify the prognosis,” the Vatican said.
“For the second time, there is no mention of a critical condition,” Vatican sources told ABC News. “So we can say that we have come out of the most critical phase and we are back to what was previously described as a complex picture.”
On Thursday, the pope dedicated the morning to respiratory physiotherapy and rest. In the afternoon, he gathered in prayer in the chapel of the private apartment on the 10th floor, receiving the Eucharist. The pope then dedicated himself to work activities, according to the Vatican.
“The bulletin again speaks of an improvement, a slight one, but an improvement, but the fact that the prognosis is reserved means that the doctors still have concerns,” Vatican sources told ABC News.
The pontiff, who has led the Catholic Church since 2013, was diagnosed with pneumonia last week, according to the Vatican.
(MANDALAY CITY, MYANMAR) — At least 2,719 people have been confirmed dead in the aftermath of Friday’s massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar, a government official told local media on Tuesday.
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said during a televised broadcast that another 4,521 people were injured, according to The Associated Press and Reuters.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Israel’s humanitarian aid obligations in Gaza and its ban on UNRWA, the United Nations agency that provides civil and medical services to Palestinian refugees, are under examination in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a week of hearings began on Monday.
Forty countries and four international organizations are set to participate in the oral proceedings, the court has said.
The weeklong hearing comes after the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) voted to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ concerning “the obligations of Israel in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organizations and third States.” The United States, Israel’s close international ally, was one of 12 countries to vote against the request.
The court will evaluate the legality of Israel’s decision to ban UNRWA, the U.N.’s Relief and Works’ Agency, the dedicated U.N. body to support Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. It will then issue an advisory opinion, which has been requested by the UNGA, and which will be legally nonbinding. The ICJ’s ruling will not be legally binding, however, but could add to mounting pressure on Israel to reopen the Gaza crossings for aid deliveries.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted to ban UNRWA from operating in Gaza and the West Bank in October 2024. Israel’s government has long accused UNRWA of turning a blind eye to employees who support or belong to Hamas, the militant organization that led a terror attack on Israel in October 2023. UNRWA denies those claims. The ban came into effect at the end of January 2025. UNRWA is the main distributor of aid within Gaza.
Israel has long maintained that humanitarian aid has been looted by Hamas. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says the ban on aid into Gaza is designed to pressure Hamas to release 59 hostages, including one American who is presumed to be alive.
UNRWA Commissioner General Phillipe Lazzarini issued a statement saying he “welcome[d]” the ICJ hearing and that the agency worked in Palestinian territories to “address overwhelming needs.”
Those needs have become more acute since Israel blocked the flow of all goods into Gaza on March 2, international aid organizations said. The World Food Programme said on April 24 that its warehouses had run out of flour in Gaza, and warned the “situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point.”
“#Gaza: children are starving,” Lazzarini posted on X over the weekend. “The Government of Israel continues to block the entry of food + other basics. A manmade & politically motivated starvation. Nearly two months of siege. Calls to bring in supplies are going unheeded.”
Israel has submitted a written defense to the court, but it declined to send a legal representative to The Hague court proceedings. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said that Israel would not be attending the court in person, describing the proceedings as a “circus.”
“The goal is to deprive Israel of its most basic right to defend itself,” he said at a press conference that coincided with the start of the ICJ hearings. “It is not Israel that should be on trial. It is the U.N. and UNRWA. The U.N. has become a rotten, anti-Israel, and antisemitic body.”
Ammar Hijazi, the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands, accused Israel of breaching international law on the first day of the oral hearings on Monday.
“Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives,” he said.
This week’s hearings mark the latest legal pressure placed on Israel since the war in Gaza began after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. Last July the ICJ issued an advisory opinion ruling Israel’s occupation of the West Bank to be illegal under international law, and a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide is still ongoing. Israel has rejected the ruling and the allegation of genocide.
Over 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage into Gaza in the Hamas-led assault on Israel of Oct. 7. More than 52,000 people have been killed in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s retaliatory military campaign response, with more than 2,000 killed since the latest ceasefire broke down on March 18, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
(AUSTRALIA) — The discovery of a massive crater formed by the impact of a meteorite more than three billion years ago is changing the way scientists view the history of Earth and the planet’s stages of evolution.
Researchers in Australia found the crater in Western Australia’s Pilbara region and believe it’s the oldest impact crater in the world, at about 3.5 billion years old. That surpasses the previous record-holding impact crater by more than 1.25 billion years, according to a paper published in Nature Communications on Thursday.
A distinctive rock formation helped the research team locate the Pilbara crater. “Exceptionally preserved” shatter cones – that is, cone-shaped fractures found in rocks that have been subjected to extreme pressure from a shock wave – were located near the impact site, a 62-mile-wide area now called North Pole Dome, the scientists said.
The shatter cones offer “unequivocal evidence” of a very high-speed impact about 3.47 billion years ago, the researchers said. The meteorite likely struck Earth at more than 22,370 miles per hour, according to the paper.
The “major planetary event” would have resulted in a crater more than 60 miles wide, the researchers said.
In addition, the Pilbara crater sheds new light on how meteorites shaped the Earth’s early environment, said Chris Kirkland, a geologist at Curtin University in Australia and co-lead author of the study, in a statement.
The meteorite strike may have even contributed to the formation of cratons, which are large, stable landmasses that became the foundation of continents, Kirkland said.
The impact could have kicked up rock deep beneath the earth that eventually spread globally as the meteorite strike sent debris flying. The age of the impact is “statistically indistinguishable” from old rock beds in South Africa, according to the study.
“[T]he tremendous amount of energy from this impact could have played a role in shaping early Earth’s crust by pushing one part of the Earth’s crust under another, or by forcing magma to rise from deep within the Earth’s mantle toward the surface,” Kirkland said.
Previous research indicates that large impacts were common in the early solar system, said Tim Johnson, a geologist at Curtin University and a co-author of the paper, in a statement. The moon itself, with more than a million craters exceeding one kilometer (.62 miles) in diameter, is evidence of “intense bombardment,” according to the paper.
Impact craters also create friendly environments for microbial life, such as hot water pools, Kirkland said. The East Pilbara Terrain, which is part of the Pilbara Craton, contains an approximately 125-mile-diameter landmass containing mostly Paleoarchaean cratonic crust, estimated to be about 3.48 billion years old, according to the paper.
The second-oldest impact crater, estimated to have been created about 2.2 billion years ago, is also located in Western Australia, southwest of Pilbara, in Yarrabubba.
The discovery of the Pilbara crater challenges previous assumptions about the planet’s ancient history and provides a “crucial piece of the puzzle of Earth’s impact,” Johnson said.
The findings also suggest there could be other ancient craters on Earth waiting to be discovered, according to Johnson.
“Until now, the absence of any truly ancient craters means they are largely ignored by geologists,” he said.
