Pope Francis – A Difficult Moment
Behind the scenes with the Associated Press covering the illness and hospital stay of Pope Francis
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News
Glamorous Roman digs for Italy’s Foreign Press Association
Almost every working day in Rome, I scamper up a wide, red-carpeted staircase, past a stuffed rhinoceros’ head and a marble statue of a topless dancer with a pet dragon, through an ornate doorway with the coat-of-arms of the Grazioli family and into the world of the Italy’s Foreign Press Association, a bizarre mix of
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The Big Strawberry
Police in Italy arrested “The Big Strawberry” (Fragolona) on Friday, that’s the code name for Rosalia Messina Denaro, older sister of the Sicilian mafia’s top boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, captured in January after 30 years on the run. She is being held in preventive custody and investigated for mafia association. According to police, the
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Pope’s Trip to Africa – Notebook
Before the journalists climb up the back stairs of the papal plane at the start of an international papal trip, the Vatican takes away our passports, hands us the press passes we will need in the country we are visiting, the Pope’s speeches for the first day and copies of the telegrams sent to the
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Pope Francis heads to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan
Dear Blog Readers, This isn’t a proper blog post, just a series of notes as I prepare to cover Pope Francis’s trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan this week. I hope to be able to do a much more interesting and informed post when I get back. This is
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Pope Francis Apologizes
EDMONTON NOTEBOOK Dear Blog Readers, I am writing from Edmonton, Canada where I came to cover the Pope’s apology to the Indigenous people for the devastating acts of the Church against children in residential schools. From the 1850s to 1970s over 150,000 Indigenous children of the First Nations, Métis, Inuit and other groups were taken
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G20 Rome Madness
Take 20 leaders of the nations with the world’s biggest economies, bring them to a beautiful, chaotic city with cobblestone streets and ancient ruins, add in delegations with a sprinkling of foreign and finance ministers, spouses, and a few children. Toss in a Queen and a Prince and some heads of UN organizations, throw in
The Blog is Back
Dear Blog Readers, After a hiatus of over a year, I am back, more or less. The last post I wrote was on March 3rd, 2020, shortly before Italy went into a national lockdown on March 9th. It is strange to look back at those photos in the last post, Rome in the Time of