VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis kicked off the 2025 Holy Year on Tuesday, inaugurating a celebration of the Catholic Church that is expected to draw some 32 million pilgrims to Rome in a test of the pope’s stamina and the ability of the Eternal City to welcome them.
ROME (AP) - Rome's iconic Trevi Fountain reopened on Sunday ahead of the inauguration of the 2025 Jubilee Holy Year, following the completion of extraordinary maintenance.
NEW YORK (AP) - Billionaire author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott acknowledged another $2 billion in donations in a blog post on Wednesday, bringing the total she's given away since 2019 to $19.2 billion.
PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) - Superheroes like Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Super Mario, Superwoman, Captain America, Bumble Bees and the Flash became a powerful symbol of renewal to children on Friday who are battling grave cancer illnesses in Kosovo.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - Santa Claus is coming to town … on a Jet Ski. Dozens of children with disability gathered on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach on Tuesday to receive presents - and joy - from the white-bearded man himself, a joint effort by the city’s firefighters and nonprofit associations.
The Chronicle's annual list of the biggest charitable donations from individuals or their foundations totaled nearly $6 billion in 2024, with half of that coming from three contributions of $1 billion or more each. Two of those three gifts went to medical schools to provide financial aid. Altogether, four of the top donations on the list, totaling $2.3 billion, went to support financial aid.
PARIS (AP) - The reopening ceremonies for Notre Dame were as much a celebration of people as they were a rejoicing at the cathedral’s resurrection from fire. Outside, the Catholic faithful shivered and prayed in the cold and the rain - and yet were ecstatic and said they wouldn’t rather have been anywhere else.
MILAN (AP) - An 11-year-old girl from Sierra Leone was found floating in the Mediterranean Sea off Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa, believed to be the only survivor of a shipwrecked migrant boat that had departed from the port of Sfax in Tunisia, a humanitarian group said Thursday.
