Pope Leo XIV to lead inaugural mass Sunday, thousands expected to gather
Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images
(VATICAN CITY) — Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff for the Roman Catholic Church, will lead his inaugural mass on Sunday, according to the Vatican.
The mass, called the Holy Mass for the Beginning of the Pontificate, will begin in Vatican City on Sunday at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET), the Vatican Press Office said.
Before the start of the mass, Leo will wave to the tens of thousands of people expected to be in the crowds, according to officials.
The mass, which will be held in St. Peter’s Basilica, will begin by the tomb of St. Peter, according to Vatican officials.
During the mass, the Petrine Pallium and Fisherman’s Ring will also be presented to Leo, the press office said.
The Pallium — a narrow Y-shaped band woven in white and decorated with two black pendants, six black crosses and three pins representing Christ’s crucifixion — signifies the pontiff carrying on his shoulders the responsibility of shepherding the church.
The Fisherman’s Ring, a gold signet ring, symbolizes the new pope’s role as the successor of St. Peter, a fisherman who is considered to be the first leader of the church, according to the Vatican Press Office. The ring signifies the beginning and the end of a pope’s authority, with Francis’ ring ceremonially broken after his death. Catholics who meet the pope traditionally kiss the ring to demonstrate both their respect for the pontiff and their devotion to the church.
Leo will then deliver a homily, followed by a prayer, called the Regina Caeli, according to the Vatican. The event is expected to be approximately over two hours, officials said.
After the Regina Caeli, Leo is expected to greet delegations and guests, the Vatican said.
Among the guests expected in attendance are Vice President JD Vance, wife Usha Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Leo, formally Cardinal Robert Prevost, was elected the 267th pontiff on May 8. The Chicago native is the successor of Pope Francis, who died on April 21.
Leo started to emerge as a front-runner for the papacy in the days before the start of the conclave, according to the Rev. James Martin, a papal contributor to ABC News.
The new pontiff was the only U.S. cardinal on a short list of potential candidates for pope, also known as “papabiles,” compiled in the aftermath of Francis’ death by The Associated Press.
ABC News’ Phoebe Natanson and Christopher Watson contributed to this report.
(PARIS, FRANCE) — Kim Kardashian made a defiant walk into Paris’ Palace of Justice in May, to face the criminals who held the reality star at gunpoint and robbed in 2016. The trial’s shocking outcome would only prompt more questions.
Ten suspects, dubbed the “Grandpa Robbers” by French media because most of them were in their 60s and 70s, stood trial in Paris for the notorious 2016 jewel heist that terrorized the reality star.
Despite finding eight of the 10 suspects guilty of crimes related to the 2016 heist, the French court allowed all defendants to walk free, with some receiving suspended sentences or credit for time already served. The judge cited the defendants’ ages and health concerns as reasons for leniency. Two were acquitted.
The crime occurred during Paris Fashion Week in October 2016, when Kardashian was staying at the exclusive “No Name Hotel,” reportedly known for hosting celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Madonna. That night, while Kardashian’s security detail accompanied her sister Kourtney to a nightclub, the robbers struck.
In an interview with ABC News, Yunice Abbas, one of the convicted robbers, said he didn’t even know who Kardashian was at the time.
“I was always told ‘wife of an American rapper,'” Abbas said.
The robbers, wearing fake police jackets, first confronted the hotel’s night concierge, Abderrahmane Ouatiki. They forced him at gunpoint to lead them to Kardashian’s suite.
“When you feel the cold steel of a gun on the back of your neck, you have to be calm,” Ouatiki told ABC News. “You have to be wise in such situations.”
The thieves escaped with more than $6 million worth of jewelry, including Kardashian’s upgraded 18.8-carat wedding ring from then-husband Kanye West. In their hasty bicycle getaway, Abbas admitted to falling and spilling some of the stolen jewels on the street.
Following the verdict, Kardashian, who has become an advocate for criminal justice reform, released a statement.
“While I’ll never forget what happened, I believe in the power of growth and accountability and pray for healing for all. I remain committed to advocating for justice, and promoting a fair legal system.”
The outcome of the trial surprised even the defendants. When asked if he expected the lenient sentence, Abbas responded with a simple “No” as he left the courthouse a free man.
The unexpected verdict left some questioning the French justice system.
“I respect Kim Kardashian, but I call foul. Justice was not served,” legal commentator Nancy Grace told ABC News. “They should be in jail for what they did.”
After more than two months without aid entering Gaza, raising the risk of famine for millions of people, some aid trucks have begun entering the territory in the past few days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced some aid would resume entering the Gaza Strip Sunday, May 18. The Israeli government is working with the U.S. to set up aid distribution points. However, the plan faces criticism from established aid organizations. The Israeli-American system for distributing aid in Gaza is set to begin on Monday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Some local content creators in Gaza, who gained a following with their food and recipe videos, continued posting from food kitchens amid the shortage of aid — a way to keep hope alive and find joy as war rages on, they say.
“For me, this is passion, to cook delicious things in these difficult times, and I really started feeling like a useful person in this crisis and war,” Hamada Sho told ABC News. Sho is a popular content creator on social media who makes videos from Gaza, cooking and serving food to his community in Khan Yunis.
He began working with social media before the war, previously working in marketing and development with restaurants in Gaza. After deciding to help people during the ongoing war by cooking, he started to post videos showing his cooking process in March 2024, sharing them on social media for people beyond Gaza to see what life there is like.
One of the videos before the blockade, posted online in February, shows Sho making a dessert with fresh fruit and cream over a base of Twinkies and then delivering the treats to children gathered on the beach as he is greeted with loud cheers.
After Israel implemented a total aid blockade on Gaza on March 2, ingredients entering Gaza also halted. Because of the lack of supplies entering the Strip, the supplies that are inside have skyrocketed in price.
“Now I can’t cook larger quantities. I can barely purchase some from the market with these unbelievable prices.” Sho said. “Whether it was rice, beans or anything, the most important thing is that people have at least one meal a day.”
The Israeli government has said the aid blockade was meant to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, in which Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. There are still 58 hostages held captive by Hamas, 20 of whom are presumed to be alive. The war has taken a large toll on Palestinians, with over 53,000 killed in Gaza since the conflict began, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
The blockade, which began on March 2, started a day after a temporary six-week ceasefire between Hamas and Israel ended on March 1. Israeli forces resumed military operations in Gaza on March 18.
Sho works with local organizations, like Watermelon Relief, a grass-roots initiative in Gaza providing aid to displaced families, to get raw materials, which he uses to cook and provide food to refugee camps and communities in need of food, generally cooking from community kitchens.
Ahmed El-Madhoun, a coordinator for Watermelon Relief, explained that the raw food used in many of the videos posted by Sho was sourced from humanitarian aid entering the strip and traders located in Gaza.
“After Ramadan, things got worse. The border closed tighter, and food became harder and harder to find. Basic things like flour, cooking oil and even clean water,” El-Madhoun said.
Watermelon Relief had to close its kitchen due to the lack of cooking material, he added.
“No vegetables, no meat, nothing in the market. And if it’s available, it’s very expensive,” El-Madhoun told ABC News.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a system used around the world to track food insecurity and malnutrition, released an updated report on May 12, classifying the entire Gaza Strip as Phase 4, indicating that “the entire population is expected to face crisis or worse acute food insecurity.”
Twenty-two percent of Gaza will likely experience a food “catastrophe” according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report.
“Our team members inside Gaza are surviving on the cheapest staples they can find—lentils, fava beans, dry chickpeas—if anything is available at all. A single sack of flour, once a basic item, now sells for up to 1,700 shekels, or nearly $480. These last supplies will not last much longer,” Mercy Corps, a humanitarian aid organization, wrote in a statement regarding the IPC report. “The people of Gaza are enduring one of the most harrowing humanitarian crises in recent history.”
As food continues to be hard to access for many in Gaza, people have begun to rely on kitchens started by organizations that can make large quantities of food and serve it to the community.
“Everyone relies on community kitchens for their food now,” said Mohammed Abu Rijela, another content creator posting videos of cooking food in Gaza.
He was a content creator before the war. After being displaced at the beginning of the war, he decided to help his community by starting community kitchens in Gaza, producing over 10,000 meals a day.
Since the blockade, the number of meals Abu Rijela was able to produce has decreased significantly.
“Instead of making 10,000 meals a day, now I make 3,000. At the same time, people’s demand increased greatly in the kitchen,” he added.
Sho’s and Abu Rijela’s viral food videos were met with backlash on social media, with commenters denying the reality of the food crisis, citing the large amounts of food in the videos as evidence of the contrary. A post Sho made in March 2025, showing him cooking a chicken shawarma, became a focus of the online backlash.
El-Madhoun, with Watermelon Relief, told ABC News that most of the videos featuring meat were likely filmed months ago.
“We have not been able to find any meat for two months,” El-Madhoun said. Some traders were able to keep some meat in their warehouses, but due to the lack of electricity, storing the meat was not possible, he added.
Sho said many of the kitchens have shut down due to the lack of food, adding he has been cooking mostly legumes, peas, beans and rice during this time of low availability. Even these ingredients are sometimes unavailable, he said.
“The prices of very basic goods are skyrocketing. And the children, 1.1 million children, are suffering from that. They don’t have enough food,” a UNICEF spokesperson in Gaza told ABC News.
A UNRWA senior communications officer and spokesperson, speaking in Geneva on May 20, described the slow arrival of aid as: “Not enough. Five trucks, nowhere near. Not enough.” The comment came as humanitarian agencies have received permission from Israel for “around 100” more aid trucks to enter the Strip, five of which were let in on Monday.
In a press release on May 12, the World Health Organization (WHO) called the situation in Gaza “one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time.”
“We do not need to wait for a declaration of famine in Gaza to know that people are already starving, sick, and dying, while food and medicines are minutes away across the border,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
(OAXACA, Mexico) — Hurricane Erick, which rapidly intensified overnight, made landfall Thursday morning on Mexico’s Pacific Coast as a powerful Category 3 storm, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
Erick came ashore in Mexico’s western state of Oaxaca packing sustained winds of 125 mph and heavy rain, accordin to the NHC.
The hurricane was located on Thursday morning about 20 miles east of Punta Maldonado and was moving northwest at about 9 mph, according to the NHC.
Before making landfall, the Erick had spooled up to an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, but was downgraded to a Cat 3 before making landfall, the NHC center reported.
Erick is the first Pacific Category 3 hurricane on record to make landfall over Mexico in June.
A hurricane warning remained in effect Thursday from Acapulco to Puerto Angel.
It remained unclear if villages along Mexico’s populated Pacific Coast had sustained damaged. There have been no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
The major hurricane appeared to hit he coastline between the resort towns of Acapulco and Puerto Escondido in an area near the border of Oaxaca and Guerrero states, according to the NHC.
As it sweeps across the state of Oaxaca, Erick is expected to slam parts of the region with strong winds and heavy rain for most of Thursday before weakening over land by Friday.
Erick will produce heavy rainfall up to 6 to 8 inches across southeastern Guerrero and west-coastal Oaxaca through Friday and likely trigger life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides — especially in areas of steep terrain.
Erick formed as a tropical storm early Tuesday in the Pacific Ocean near southern Mexico and rapidly intensified, reaching hurricane strength by Wednesday, according to the NHC.
