Pope presides over Good Friday amid security, controversy
ROME — Pope Francis presided over solemn Good Friday services amid heightened security at Rome’s Colosseum for the Via Crucis procession and a new communications controversy at home over the existence of hell.
Wearing his white coat to guard against the nighttime chill, Francis listened intently along with some 20,000 faithful as the meditations re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion were read out in the torch-lit Colosseum. At the end, he delivered a meditation of his own, denouncing those who seek power, money and conflict and praying the Catholic Church will always be an “arc of salvation, a source of certainty and truth.”
This year, the prayers were composed by students in keeping with Francis’ dedication of 2018 to addressing the hopes and concerns of young Catholics.
Italian police, carabinieri and soldiers were on alert, with Holy Week coinciding with a spate of arrests of suspected Islamic extremists around Italy and warnings from law enforcement about the return of foreign fighters from Iraq and Syria.
The Good Friday procession, the seminal event in Christianity leading to Christ’s resurrection celebrated on Easter Sunday, also coincided with a new communications controversy in the Vatican over the pope’s reported assertion that hell doesn’t exist.
Deadly clashes in Gaza mark start of Palestinian campaign
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Thousands of Palestinians marched to Gaza’s border with Israel on Friday in the largest such demonstration in recent memory, and 15 were killed by Israeli fire on the first day of what Hamas organizers said will be six weeks of daily protests against a stifling border blockade.
It was the bloodiest day in Gaza since the 2014 cross-border war between Israel and Hamas.
Fourteen of the marchers were killed and more than 750 wounded by Israeli fire in clashes along the border fence, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military said thousands of Palestinians threw stones and rolled burning tires toward troops deployed on the other side of the border fence. It accused militants of trying to carry out attacks under the cover of mass protests, saying that in one incident, Palestinian gunmen fired toward soldiers.
The large turnout of the flag-waving marchers in the dangerous border zone was a testament to Hamas’ organizing skills, but it also signaled desperation among Gaza residents after a decade-old border closure. Life in the coastal strip has deteriorated further in recent months, with rising unemployment, grinding poverty and daily blackouts that last for hours.
Widow of Orlando nightclub gunman is acquitted in the attack
ORLANDO — The widow of the gunman who slaughtered 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was acquitted Friday of helping to plot the attack and lying to the FBI afterward — a rare and stinging defeat for the U.S. government in a terrorism case.
Noor Salman, 31, sobbed upon hearing the jury’s verdict of not guilty of obstruction and providing material support to a terrorist organization, charges that could have brought a life sentence. Her family gasped each time the words “not guilty” were pronounced.
On the other side of the Orlando courtroom, the families of the victims of the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting sat stone-faced and silent.
Within hours, Salman was released from jail after 14 months and got into a waiting car without answering questions.
“Noor is so grateful. Her belief in the process was shown. She wants to get back to her son,” her attorney Linda Moreno said. Family spokeswoman Susan Clary said Salman’s family “always thought that Noor was the first victim” of her husband, Omar Mateen.
2 British IS members say hostage beheadings were a ‘mistake’
KOBANI, Syria — Two British militants believed to have been part of an Islamic State group cell notorious for beheading hostages in Syria were unapologetic in their first interview since their capture, denouncing the U.S. and Britain as “hypocrites” who will not give them a fair trial.
The men, along with two other British jihadis, allegedly made up the IS cell nicknamed “The Beatles” by surviving captives because of their English accents.
The nickname belied the cell’s brutality. In 2014 and 2015, it held more than 20 Western hostages in Syria and tortured many of them. It beheaded seven American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers and a group of Syrian soldiers, boasting of the butchery in videos released to the world.
Speaking to The Associated Press at a Kurdish security center, the two men, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, repeatedly refused to address allegations they were part of the cell — clearly having a future trial in mind. They complained that they could “disappear” after Britain reportedly revoked their citizenship.
They were captured in January in eastern Syria by the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces amid the collapse of IS. Their detention has set off a debate in the U.S. and Europe over how to prosecute their citizens who joined IS — as the Kurds pressure the West to take them back to relieve overcrowding in prisons.
Russia ramps up diplomatic tensions, expels more UK envoys
MOSCOW — The crisis between Russia and the West over the poisoning of a former double agent in Britain heightened Friday as Russia ordered new cuts to the number of British envoys in the country.
Russia also summoned 23 foreign ambassadors to inform them that some of their diplomats would be expelled, a day after ordering 60 U.S. diplomats to leave and demanding that Washington’s consulate in St. Petersburg close on short notice.
The massive expulsion of diplomats on both sides has reached a scale unseen even at the height of the Cold War.
Two dozen countries, along with NATO, ordered out more than 150 Russian diplomats this week in a show of solidarity with Britain over the nerve-agent poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain that London blamed on Russia.
Moscow has vehemently denied involvement in the March 4 nerve agent attack in the English city of Salisbury and announced the expulsion of the same number of diplomats from each nation.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is stable after heart surgery
LOS ANGELES — Arnold Schwarzenegger is recovering in a Los Angeles hospital after undergoing heart surgery.
The 70-year-old former California governor had a scheduled procedure to replace a pulmonic valve on Thursday, according to Schwarzenegger’s spokesman, Daniel Ketchell. He was in stable condition on Friday.
“His first words were actually ‘I’m back,” so he is in good spirits,” Ketchell tweeted.
The operation was necessary to replace a valve that had originally been installed in 1997 for a congenital heart defect. “That 1997 replacement valve was never meant to be permanent, and has outlived its life expectancy,” Ketchell said. Schwarzenegger opted for a less-invasive catheter valve replacement procedure.
An open-heart surgery team was ready during the procedure, but Ketchell said their presence wasn’t unusual in such circumstances.