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  • Pope Leo carries cross for all 14 stations during Good Friday procession, first pontiff to do so in decades

    Pope Leo XIV carried a wooden cross for all of the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on his first Good Friday as pontiff, marking the first time in decades that a pope carried the cross to every station.

    “I think it will be an important sign because of what the pope represents, a spiritual leader in the world today, and for this voice, that everyone wants to hear, that says Christ still suffers,” Leo told reporters this week outside of the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo. “I carry all of this suffering in my prayer.”

    Inside the Colosseum, Leo lifted the cross and began the rite flanked by two torchbearers, who accompanied him throughout the hourlong procession from inside the Colosseum, through the crowd outside and up steep stairs to the Palantine Hill where he gave the final blessing.

    At the first station, marking the moment Jesus was condemned to death, the meditation prepared especially for Leo’s first Good Friday underlined that those with authority will have to answer to God for how they exercise their power.

    “The power to judge; the power to start or end a war; the power to instill violence or peace; the power to fuel the desire for revenge, or for reconciliation,” read the meditation written by Rev. Francesco Patton, who was custodian of the Holy Land 2016-25, charged, among other things, with looking after sacred sites.

    Some 30,000 faithful gathered outside the pagan monument, following the stations as they were recited over loudspeakers.

  • British royals attend Easter service without Andrew

    The British royal family attended the traditional Easter service at Windsor on Sunday. It was their first appearance together since the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in February.

    King Charles III and his wife Camilla arrived at St. George’s Chapel within the grounds of Windsor Castle.

    They were joined by Prince William, his wife, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, and their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. The family did not attend the service for the past two years because Catherine, commonly known as Princess Kate, was undergoing cancer treatment. They waived at well-wishers outside the chapel on Sunday.

    Andrew, the king’s brother and former prince, his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, were absent after attending last year.

    The princesses received agreement from the king to make alternative plans amid the fallout of Andrew’s association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, CBS News partner BBC reported.

    The king stripped Andrew of his royal title, and he remains under investigation after his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The former prince has denied any wrongdoing in his connections with Epstein.

    Charles, 77, is set to make a state visit to the U.S. later this month. He is expected to address a joint meeting of Congress on April 28.

    It will be Charles’ first state visit to the U.S. as king, though he visited the U.S. 19 times before being crowned, when he was the Prince of Wales.

  • Missing American who reportedly fell off boat in the Bahamas identified as Michigan woman

    Police say they’re searching for an American woman who disappeared Saturday in the Bahamas. The woman’s husband told authorities that his wife went missing after falling from their boat and being swept out to sea.

    The missing woman was identified Monday as Lynette Hooker from Michigan, according to Hope Town Volunteer Fire and Rescue. Her husband, Brian Hooker, reported that he and his wife, who are both U.S. nationals, left Hope Town for Elbow Cay on the Bahamian island of Abaco at around 7:30 p.m. local time on Saturday, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force. They had set sail aboard an 8-foot hard-bottom dinghy, police said.

    The search and rescue efforts have turned into a search and recovery operation, the Royal Bahamas Police Force said Wednesday.

    Brian Hooker told police that his wife fell overboard with the keys to the boat, causing its engine to turn off. He said that strong currents carried her out to sea, and he lost sight of her, according to police. Brian Hooker paddled the dinghy to shore, arriving hours later at the Marsh Harbor Boat Yard at 4 a.m. Sunday morning.

    “She apparently bounced out of the boat,” Hope Town Volunteer Fire and Rescue chief Troy Pritchard told CBS News on Monday.

    Lynette Hooker was wearing a black bathing suit at the time, officials said.

    Karli Aylesworth, Lynette Hooker’s daughter, said she has “been privy to very little information” about her mother’s case and called for “an intensive review of the facts and circumstances” surrounding it.

    “My sole concern is to find out what happened to my mother and make sure a full and complete investigation is performed into her disappearance,” Aylesworth told CBS News.

    “There have been prior issues brought to my attention, which may be important for any thorough investigation,” she said. “If this truly was an accident, I can understand and live with it. However, there needs to be an intensive review of the facts and circumstances of this tragic incident before that can be determined.”

    Aylesworth told CBS News that Brian and Lynette Hooker had split up and gotten back together in recent years. Brian Hooker declined to answer questions about the investigation when approached by CBS News on Tuesday but has since addressed his wife’s disappearance in a social media statement.

    “I am heartbroken over the recent boat accident in unpredictable seas and high winds that caused my beloved Lynette to fall from our small dinghy near Elbow Cay in the Bahamas,” he said. “Despite desperate attempts to reach her, the winds and currents drove us further apart. We continue to search for her and that is my sole focus.”

    He also thanked authorities and volunteers involved in the search effort.

    Police said Brian Hooker told someone his wife was missing once he made it to the boat yard, and that person informed authorities. Officers proceeded to search the surrounding area, with help from members of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and Hope Town fire officials.

  • One of Australia’s most decorated soldiers charged with committing 5 war crime murders in Afghanistan

    Australia’s most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, faces war crime charges on allegations that he killed five unarmed Afghans while serving in Afghanistan from 2009 and 2012, police and media reported on Tuesday.

    Police have not confirmed the name of the 47-year-old former soldier who was arrested Tuesday. But he has been widely reported in the media to be Roberts-Smith, a former Special Air Service Regiment corporal who was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan.

    Police charged him Tuesday with five counts of war crime murder. He will remain in custody overnight and make his first court appearance on Wednesday, a police statement said.

    He will potentially apply for release on bail Wednesday.

    Roberts-Smith is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

    Former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz, 44, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of war crime murder. He is accused of shooting Afghan man Dad Mohammad three times in the head in an Uruzgan province wheat field in May 2012.

    War crime murder carries a potential sentence of life in prison. It’s a federal crime in Australia, defined as the intentional killing in the context of armed conflict of a person who is not taking an active part in hostilities, such as civilians, prisoners of war or wounded soldiers.

    Police arrested Roberts-Smith at Sydney Airport on Tuesday after he arrived on a flight from Brisbane, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said.

    “It will be alleged that the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan. It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed,” Barrett told reporters, referring to the Australian Defense Force.

    “It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinate members of the ADF in the presence of and acting on the orders of the accused,” Barrett added.

  • Vance calls Iran ceasefire a “fragile truce,” says some inside Iran “lying” about deal

    Vice President JD Vance, who is on a trip to Hungary, called the U.S.-Iran ceasefire a “fragile truce” on Wednesday.

    He said the Iranian foreign minister responded favorably to the agreement, but that others in the country are “lying.”

    “This is why I say this is a fragile truce,” Vance said in Budapest. “You have people who clearly want to come to the negotiating table and work with us to find a good deal and then you have people who are lying about even the fragile truths that we’ve already struck.”

    Vance said President Trump has shown “we still have clear military, diplomatic and, maybe most importantly, we have extraordinary economic leverage.”

    But he said the president “has told us not to use those tools.”

    “He’s told us to come to negotiating table,” Vance said. “But if the Iranians don’t do the exact same thing, they’re going to find out that the president of the United States is not one to mess around. He’s impatient. He’s impatient to make progress.”

    Vance said Tuesday, before an agreement was announced, that the U.S. has largely accomplished its military objectives in Iran, but noted, “There are still some things that we’d like to do — for example, on Iranian ability to manufacture weapons. That we’d like to do a little more work on militarily.”

    “But fundamentally, the military objectives of the United States have been completed,” he said.

    Vance was in Hungary when the ceasefire agreement was announced and said he was there “to help” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s reelection bid.

    Speaking to thousands of Hungarians five days before Hungary’s Sunday parliamentary elections, the vice president weighed in on the foreign election in the Russia-allied Hungary, telling the crowd, “we have got to get Viktor Orbán reelected as prime minister of Hungary, don’t we?”

    Vance rang Mr. Trump as he began his Tuesday speech and, after a couple tries, got the president on the phone. “I love Hungary and I love that Viktor,” Mr. Trump told the crowd through the speakerphone.

    Vance said he visited Orbán because the two countries are fighting for the “defense of Western civilization,” even though Orbán is considered by many Western political experts to be an “illiberal democrat” or an “electoral autocrat.” Despite the controversy, Mr. Trump has long lauded Orbán, and Vance did on Tuesday as well.

    The Hungarian prime minister is seeking his fifth consecutive term in office. Freedom House, a democracy-oriented, U.S.-based nonprofit, designates Hungary as only “partly free,” citing issues with less-than-free-and-fair elections and a stifling of independent institutions.

    “Will you stand against the bureaucrats in Brussels?” Vance concluded. “Will you stand for sovereignty and democracy? Will you stand for Western civilization? Will you stand for freedom, for truth and for the God of our fathers? Then my friends, go to the polls in the weekend, stand with Viktor Orbán because he stands for you and he stands for all these things.”