In the news
■ Pope Francis, recovering from abdominal surgery in a Rome hospital, skipped his customary weekly public blessing but walked a few steps, followed Mass on TV, and ate lunch in his 10th-floor hospital apartment with doctors, nurses, other medical staff and members of his security detail, the Vatican said.
■ Francois Astorg, mayor of Annecy, France, said the children represent “the poetry of life,” as the French Alps town hosted an event in a park to show solidarity and support for the victims of a playground stabbing attack.
■ Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU of Indiana, said in a lawsuit challenging a new Indiana law barring teachers from providing instruction on “human sexuality” to students from pre-K through the third grade “is written so broadly that it would be next to impossible for teachers to determine what they can and cannot say to students.”
■ Gabriel DeWitt Wilson, 33, a shopping cart collector who killed a manager and wounded two workers at a Long Island, N.Y., grocery store in 2021, was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.
■ David Zubik, bishop of the diocese of Pittsburgh, said independent sponsors of the Pride Mass at Duquesne University promoted it with a flyer “that confused some and enraged others,” leading to its cancellation.
■ Titania Davenport, the mother of slain rapper Takeoff, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against 810 Billiards & Bowling in Houston, where her son was gunned down, saying the business did not provide sufficient security or screening procedures for an event, NBC News reported.
■ Anthony Rauda, 46, was sentenced to 119 years to life in prison in the 2018 shooting death of a scientist camping in a California state park with his two children, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said in a statement.
■ Florentijn Hofman, a Dutch artist and creator of two giant ducks that briefly floated in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor, said he hoped the return of his pop-art icons would bring some joy to the city before the inflatables were deflated during an exhibition.
■ James Sashe, the father of Amari Quarles, 15, called his son a hero after the teen drowned while rescuing his 13-year-old brother, Elijah, in the Sacramento River, saying, “He died to save somebody else’s life, and he lost his in turn,” KXTV reported.