Ireland: Pope Francis issued a sweeping apology today for the "crimes" of the Catholic Church in Ireland, saying church officials regularly didn't respond with compassion to the many abuses children and women suffered over the years and vowing to work for justice. Francis was interrupted by applause as he read the apology out loud at the start of Mass in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Hundreds of kilometres away, sombre protesters marched through the Irish town of Tuam and recited the names of a 796 babies and young children who died at a Catholic-run orphanage there, most during the 1950s. Francis told the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out for Mass that he met victims of all sorts of abuses: sexual, labour and religious ones. They included people who were wrenched from their unwed biological mothers as children and forcibly put up for adoption. Responding to a plea from the adoptees, the Pope said it wasn't a sin to look for the children taken from them so long ago. For decades, church officials told the women just the opposite.
United States: Playwright Neil Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled hits such as The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park and his Brighton Beach trilogy dominated Broadway for decades, has died. He was 91. Simon died of complications from pneumonia at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, said Bill Evans, a longtime friend. In the second half of the 20th century, Simon was the American theater's most successful and prolific playwright, often chronicling middle class issues and fears. His list of credits is staggering. Matthew Broderick, who in 1983 made his Broadway debut in Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs and his movie debut in Simon's Max Dugan Returns, said: "I owe him a career. The theater has lost a brilliantly funny, unthinkably wonderful writer. And even after all this time, I feel I have lost a mentor, a father figure, a deep influence in my life and work." Simon was the recipient of four Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Centre honours (1995), four Writers Guild of America Awards and an American Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement honour. Simon was married five times, twice to the same woman.
Britain: The husband of a British-Iranian charity worker who has been held in Iran for more than two years says his wife hasn't been granted an extension to her temporary release from prison. Richard Ratcliffe had hoped the three-day leave would lead to permanent freedom for his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. But he said Iranian authorities told her she had to return to prison. The Free Nazanin campaign released images Thursday showing Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugging her 4-year-old daughter, Gabriella, during her release. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her daughter in April 2016. Iranian authorities accuse her of plotting against the Government. Her family has denied the allegation and insists she was in Iran to visit family. She had worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.
