Pope Francis, after joking that “the concert still hasn’t begun,” marveled at how the 32 babies he baptized in the Sistene Chapel kept their silence, even while water was poured on their heads and the name of each was read aloud.
Kimia Alizadeh, who became Iran’s only female Olympic medalist when she won a bronze in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, defected to the Netherlands and posted an online letter in which the 21-year-old tae kwon do athlete criticized the mandatory hijab headscarf and accused officials in Iran of sexism and mistreatment.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s president, announced plans for a monument to memorialize nine U.S.-Mexican dual citizens ambushed and slain last year by suspected drug gang assassins near the New Mexico border, saying the first goal is to bring the killers to justice.
Rob Lindbloom, a postal official in Monterey Park, Calif., said sales of a stamp commemorating this month’s start of the Year of the Rat were brisk at the city’s Lunar New Year Festival, with some people flying in from out of state to get the new stamp.
Magdalena Adamowicz told attendees from the stage of a Gdansk, Poland, fundraiser that she feels her husband, Pawel Adamowicz, remains with her a year after the 53-year-old mayor was fatally stabbed while onstage at the same yearly event.
Bill de Blasio, New York City’s mayor, said he is proud to announce a “handshake agreement” between the owner of a 190-year-old Queens pub and the owner’s landlords that keeps open Neir’s Tavern, an institution that has been featured in several movies, including the 1990 film Goodfellas.
George Pell, a Catholic cardinal and convicted sex abuser, has been transferred from a Melbourne, Australia, prison after a drone was illegally flown over the lockup in what authorities suspect was an attempt to photograph Pell as he watered plants and weeded.
Nassly Sales of Jersey City, N.J., said she was shocked to find that the diapers she had ordered from Amazon for her two daughters were apparently used, prompting her to disinfect her nursery and rub down one of the children with alcohol.
Lashunda Roberts-Scales said it was important that she and other Jefferson County, Ala., commissioners backed a resolution preserving what’s left of the Birmingham lockup where, officials say, Martin Luther King Jr. served three days for contempt in his final time behind bars before his assassination about five months later.