AFP News Agency

🇻🇦 Pope Leo XIV led a torch-lit procession at the Colosseum in Rome, as he prepares for his first Easter as pontiff in the shadow of war in the Middle East. ➡️ u.afp.com/Sbb4

🇺🇸 Poppies offer hope in fire-scarred Los Angeles When wild fires raged around Los Angeles last year, Rene Amy's home was razed to a pile of toxic ash. But his plot now shimmers with the California poppies he has sown throughout the wrecked town of Altadena as a symbol of hope.

The Israeli military said Saturday it had begun striking "Hezbollah infrastructure" in Beirut after it destroyed a bridge in eastern Lebanon to prevent the Iran-backed group's reinforcements from crossing. ➡️ u.afp.com/SbLv

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka is struggling to prevent a repeat of its spectacular economic collapse four years ago, as the prolonged Middle East war compounds the fallout from a deadly cyclone in November. ➡️ u.afp.com/SbLF

🚀 The Artemis 2 astronauts have passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon as they sped toward a planned lunar flyby, with NASA releasing initial images of Earth taken from inside the Orion spacecraft. ➡️ u.afp.com/SbLy

🍂 Hong Kong's 'hero trees' lose their glory as climate warms The bright red flowers of Hong Kong's kapok trees should have been shed during winter but now persist into spring -- a sign, conservationists say, that nature is falling out of sync as the climate warms.

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 Iranian and American forces raced each other Saturday to recover a crew member from the first US fighter jet to go down inside Iran since the start of the war. ➡️ u.afp.com/SbLV

🇱🇧 Beirut rescuers risk their lives to save pets abandoned in conflict The small rescue team from NGO Animals Lebanon heads into Beirut's southern suburbs, struck almost daily by Israeli aircraft, looking for trapped animals.

🇳🇬 Woman coach uses football to support Nigerian youth Hida Ghaddar teaches more than football at her Breakthrough Soccer Academy in the Nigerian city of Kano, which is currently gripped by a drug epidemic. Ghaddar combines sports with discipline to help youths avoid drugs.

🇳🇱 Couple marry in 'sustainable' wedding in Netherlands railway station Lara Peters and her husband Mathijs Dordregter have chosen a "sustainable" wedding, with one of the busiest railway stations in The Netherlands as the venue.

Poppies offer hope in fire-scarred Los Angeles A man whose home was destroyed by the wildfires that ravaged Southern California last year has sown millions of orange poppies in the town of Altadena u.afp.com/SbLn

Grim reality of life behind bars As Belgium struggles with chronic prison overcrowding, a charity in Brussels gives educational tours of a recently abandoned jail u.afp.com/SbLs

Sri Lanka struggles to prevent economic collapse as the Middle East war compounds the fallout from a deadly disaster in November u.afp.com/SbLd

BREAKING Artemis astronauts are halfway to the moon, NASA says

El Salvador prepares the largest salt carpet in Central America during Holy Week celebrations in the capital

BREAKING At least one dead, 47 injured after an "incident" at a stadium in Peru ahead of a football derby, minister says

As American forces race against time to locate an aviator reportedly shot down Friday, ex-airmen tell AFP what it takes to hide, survive and extract someone behind enemy lines u.afp.com/SbLA

Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic will miss the remainder of the NBA regular season with a left hamstring strain u.afp.com/SbLM

The show stars sexy human-like fruit and real humans can't get enough of it: AI-generated "Fruit Love Island" is all the rage on TikTok u.afp.com/SbLg

US President Donald Trump has asked lawmakers for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027 -- a 40 percent boost that would be the biggest to the Pentagon's spending since World War II u.afp.com/SbLY