World
Anxious Prayers as Pope Francis Lingers in Critical Condition
Vatican City is an anxious place. Clergy keep their phones by their pillows. Reporters, crammed in the Holy See press office, open emails with trepidation. Faithful have begun to gather expectantly in St. Peter’s Square.
All await terse bulletins from the Vatican on the condition of Pope Francis, who remains critical after being taken to a hospital 11 days ago with bronchitis that developed into pneumonia in both lungs. On Monday afternoon, hours before the Vatican reported a “slight improvement,” the phones of Vatican officials buzzed with texts falsely reporting Francis’ death.
Francis, who now has the beginnings of kidney failure and infections, may yet recover. On Tuesday night, the Vatican said Francis was in “critical but stable” condition. In its nightly medical bulletin, the Vatican said he underwent a follow-up CT scan in the afternoon to check the lung infection, and that he had resumed his “work activities” in the morning.
For veterans of papal transitions, the daily health bulletins, the influx of global media, the rampant speculation and the special prayer services have a familiar and ominous feel.
“These are delicate moments,” said Duban Corredor, a 27-year-old seminarian from Colombia, who came to St. Peter’s Square on Monday night to pray the rosary for Francis, who he noted had always concluded his conversations and remarks with an appeal to “pray for me.”
The seminarian said he had assisted Francis during a Christmas Eve prayer service and saw him deeply tired, but also at peace. “I don’t think it will be long — I think he’s preparing for a moment of tranquillity, knowing that this is the end of his life.”
On a damp Monday evening, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s second-in-command, who is a fixture in the increasing speculation about who might replace Francis, led cardinals, bishops and a few thousand faithful in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in a rosary prayer for the pope’s health.
Under an intermittent drizzle, the cardinal knelt before a portrait of the Madonna and child and addressed the crowd, made up largely of priests, nuns and pilgrims.
“For 2,000 years the Christian people have prayed for the pope when he was in danger or sick,” said Cardinal Parolin, adding that now the time had come to pray for Francis “in this moment of illness and trial.”
Francis is the 266th pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church, and for much of the church’s history, especially when the papacy acted as a monarchy directly and indirectly governing large swaths of land, the death of a pope could transform the fortunes of powerful aristocrats, change the direction of a powerful state, or even determine where the church had its headquarters.
“The upheaval that follows the death of the pope today is incomparably different from what might have happened” centuries ago, said Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a church historian. He said that in some cases a pope’s death would be kept a secret, for fear that a papal entourage, or at times even the population of Rome, might ransack the Apostolic Palace. “A papal death provoked all sorts of problems.”
In the modern era, long after the pope lost his temporal powers, transitions have run more smoothly. Now a change at the top, while having great consequence for the priorities, vision and ideological complexion of the church, is unlikely to have much geopolitical impact. Still, the last days of a pope attract pilgrims, and news media, from all over the world to Rome, and they focus the faithful’s attention on their spiritual leader.
Cardinals said the rosary before the passing of Pope John XXIII in 1963. It was during a similar prayer session in St. Peter’s Square in 2005 that Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, then the under secretary of state for the Vatican, announced the death of Pope John Paul II after his final days of agony.
The once vigorous Polish pope had long suffered from Parkinson’s disease: He had lost his ability to speak clearly and often appeared hunched and ailing. His failing health had been a subject of morbid attention for years.
“It was so weird,” said Father Paul Alger, a 42-year-old priest from Augusta, Ga., who studied theology in Rome and recalled those years as a perennial papal death watch.
Francis, who initially speculated that he would have a short pontificate, has instead led the church for a dozen eventful and busy years. For the first years, he crisscrossed the globe, met with world leaders and played an active role in championing the issues he cared most about, especially on behalf of migrants and the marginalized.
But a bad knee and sciatica began to physically slow Francis down more recently. He began to depend on a cane and a walker and then a wheelchair.
Francis had colon surgery in 2021 and was operated on again two years later for a hernia that developed because of that surgery. Throughout, he kept up a demanding schedule, but his breathing became belabored, as he struggled with respiratory infections and now an explosion of pneumonia and infections that has put him in critical condition.
The faithful and clerics in attendance on Monday preferred to focus on Francis’ life rather than what seemed the end of it. Bishop Manuel Nin, the apostolic exarch to the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church, called it “unhealthy” to fixate on something that was ultimately “in God’s hands.”
But some clerics worried this latest downturn could be Francis’ last.
“They say he had a good night, he is resting, but at the same time it is clear his prognosis is not good,” said Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus, Ohio, who also attended the rosary in St. Peter’s Square. “It’s the beginning of the end.”
Bishop Fernandes, who said he follows “the news about the pope in multiple languages every day,” speculated that even if Francis were to get better, it would be harder for him to be around people, something Francis “always loved,” he said.
“That itself would kill him,” the bishop added.
A solemnity pervaded St. Peter’s Square, rain slicked the cobbled stones and the faithful chanted invocations to the Virgin Mary. A pair of swooping gulls cawed. In the surrounding palaces, private speculation about who might replace Francis began, ideological camps taking shape. But the event provided a public forum for the church’s leaders, of all political persuasions, to rally around the pope in his time of need.
Among the cardinals beside Cardinal Parolin on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday evening were prelates who often appeared on short lists to replace Francis, including Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines. But there were also cardinals with whom Francis has clashed for a decade, including the American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the de facto leader of the opposition to the pope’s agenda.
“When someone is dying, all that is said and done,” Father Alger said, comparing the church to a family that rallies around a dying father no matter the divisions at home. “He is the Holy Father and he is in trouble. Death has a way of making clear what matters.”
NEW YORK (AP) — YouTube will offer creators a way to rejoin the streaming platform if they were banned for violating COVID-19 and election misinformation policies that are no longer in effect, its parent company Alphabet said Tuesday.
In a letter submitted in response to subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee, attorneys for Alphabet said the decision to bring back banned accounts reflected the company’s commitment to free speech. It said the company values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes their reach and important role in civic discourse.
“No matter the political atmosphere, YouTube will continue to enable free expression on its platform, particularly as it relates to issues subject to political debate,” the letter read.
The move is the latest in a cascade of content moderation rollbacks from tech companies, who cracked down on false information during the pandemic and after the 2020 election but have since faced pressure from President Donald Trump and other conservatives who argue they unlawfully stifled right-wing voices in the process.
It comes as tech CEOs, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, have sought a closer relationship with the Republican president, including through high-dollar donations to his campaign and attending events in Washington.
YouTube in 2023 phased out its policy to remove content that falsely claims the 2020 election, or other past U.S. presidential elections, were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or glitches.”
The platform in 2024 also retired its standalone COVID-19 content restrictions, allowing various treatments for the disease to be discussed. COVID-19 misinformation now falls under YouTube’s broader medical misinformation policy.
Among the creators who have been banned from YouTube under the now-expired policies are prominent conservative influencers, including Dan Bongino, who now serves as deputy director of the FBI. For people who make money on social media, access to monetization on YouTube can be significant, earning them large sums through ad revenue.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and other congressional Republicans have pressured tech companies to reverse content moderation policies created under former President Joe Biden and accused Biden’s administration of unfairly wielding its power over the companies to chill lawful online speech.
In Tuesday’s letter, Alphabet’s lawyers said senior Biden administration officials “conducted repeated and sustained outreach” to coerce the company to remove pandemic-related YouTube videos that did not violate company policies.
“It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content, and the Company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds,” the letter said.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also accused the Biden administration of pressuring employees to inappropriately censor content during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elon Musk, the owner of the social platform X, has accused the FBI of illegally coercing Twitter before his tenure to suppress a story about Hunter Biden.
The Supreme Court last year sided with former President Joe Biden’s administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.
Asked for more information about the reinstatement process, a spokesperson for YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Once a member of al Qaeda and the Islamic State and now leading Syria’s fragile transition since toppling the Bashar Assad regime, Ahmed al-Sharaa is ready to take to the global center stage at the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday and make his case for a new path forward for his war-torn nation.
“This marks the first participation in high-level meetings of a Syrian president at the United Nations General Assembly since 1967, so this is a very big deal,” Natasha Hall, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Fox News Digital.
“On such a historic occasion, what he will try to emphasize and underline is that this is a new day for Syria. They have overthrown the brutal dictatorship of the Assad regime. He will talk about the progress that’s been made and what more progress needs to happen in terms of recognition and the lifting of U.N. sanctions to help Syria move forward,” Hall added.
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Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Photo/Andres Kudacki)
A high-ranking Syrian government official confirmed to Fox News Digital that al-Sharaa will use the opportunity at the U.N. to present Syria’s vision for stability, reconstruction, and reconciliation.
“The most important issues he will raise include the need to lift all forms of unilateral sanctions that continue to hinder Syria’s recovery, the importance of combating terrorism in all its forms, the return of displaced Syrians and refugees, and the advancement of a genuinely inclusive political process rooted in the will of the Syrian people,” the Syrian official said.
Al-Sharaa, who led the Islamist rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to victory over Assad, ditched his military fatigues for a Western-style suit and has been on a charm offensive, hosting European and Western diplomats and politicians in hopes of bringing Syria out from its international pariah status.
The new Syrian leader received an unprecedented endorsement from President Donald Trump when the two met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in May.
Trump called al-Sharaa a “young, attractive, tough guy,” announcing that the U.S. would lift sanctions in place since the Assad era and even discussed normalizing relations.
People welcome the leader of Syria’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that headed a lightning rebel offensive snatching Damascus from government control, Ahmed al-Sharaa (C), before his address at the capital’s landmark Umayyad Mosque on December 8, 2024. Al-Sharaa gave a speech as the crowd chanted “Allahu akbar (God is greatest),” in a video shared by the rebels on their Telegram channel showed. (Aref Tammawi/AFP via Getty Images)
Hall noted that al-Sharaa might be looking to secure a security pact between Israel and Syria along the UNGA sidelines, emphasizing that he seeks a Syria that is at peace with its neighbors and doesn’t want to position Syria to be a threat to any outside forces, particularly Israel.
He will also be looking to secure much-needed reconstruction aid to rebuild a country ravaged by 13 years of civil war. The cost for reconstruction is estimated to be between $250 and $400 billion, and 16.7 million people, or 75% of the population, are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, according to the U.N.
Since seizing Damascus, he has publicly said all the right things. He promised an inclusive government that would represent all religious and ethnic factions in Syria, uphold women’s rights and protect minority rights.
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Al-Sharaa also fulfilled promises to target ISIS and other terrorist groups operating in Syria. One month after taking power, Syrian security forces seized a shipment of heavy ammunition destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon, once a key ally of the Assad regime and Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
While optimism for a new Syria remains high, some caution it’s still too soon to judge al-Sharaa as a Western ally given his terrorist past.
“Al-Sharaa is not a democrat. He ruled Idlib without power-sharing. So far, in terms of control of vital government functions like security, foreign affairs, intelligence and justice, he has put loyalists in place,” former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford told Fox News Digital.
Ford, who was the last U.S. ambassador in Damascus in 2011, said the crucial question is whether, over time, individual political and civil liberties will be respected and that people maintain, as they have now, the freedom to organize and protest.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio shakes hands with Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Bing Guan/Pool Photo via AP)
“Al-Sharaa’s heavy hand ruling Idlib prior to Assad’s fall has been lighter in Damascus, Aleppo and elsewhere. But so far, there is more political freedom to speak and protest in Syria than in many other countries in the region, such as Egypt, Algeria and some Gulf states,” Ford added.
Ambassador Barbara Leaf, who served as assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, visited Damascus and met with Shara in December, becoming the highest-ranking official to meet with Syrian leadership since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Leaf, a distinguished diplomatic fellow with the Middle East Institute, told Fox News Digital about her initial contact with Shara right after HTS overthrew Assad. Her mission was to get eyes on him, to assess him and to send a clear signal on U.S. expectations if he was going to lead a new Syria.
“My takeaway from the meeting was that he came across as somebody who was very well-prepared for the discussion. He had clearly anticipated all of the topics that I raised and he had pretty thoughtful responses with a readiness to engage,” she said.
Syrian security forces walk together along a street, after clashes between Syrian government troops and local Druze fighters resumed in the southern Druze city of Sweida early on Wednesday, collapsing a ceasefire announced just hours earlier that aimed to put an end to days of deadly sectarian bloodshed, in Sweida, Syria, July 16, 2025. (Karam al-Masri/Reuters)
Al-Sharaa made a point several times to say that Syria would no longer be a threat or a staging point for threats against its neighbors, including Israel, and that he would not allow the Iranians, Hezbollah or Palestinian groups, to use Syrian territory to conduct terrorist activities, the ambassador said.
“I came to the sense that he was already making a shift from being a military commander to being a politician, to being a political leader,” Ambassador Leaf noted.
While Ambassador Leaf highlighted his pragmatism, his true intentions as the new leader of Syria remain murky.
The ambassador said that it appears al-Sharaa has traveled a trajectory away from his jihadist terrorist past, but it remains a question how far he is willing to go to effectuate what she believes is an intention to form an Islamist style of governance.
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“Does he want to formulate a kind of Islamist governance, conservative governance and social order that, frankly, Syria has not seen? And would he be willing to use force to get there? That’s an unknown,” the ambassador cautioned.
What’s concerning for Ambassador Leaf and others is that many of the people serving in key roles in the transitional government are close associates of al-Sharaa and others affiliated with HTS and other allied armed rebel groups.
“Al-Sharaa is still engaged in a careful balancing act within his own government between liberal opposition voices, former regime bureaucrats and more Islamist proponents aligned still with HTS’ mission and principles,” Caroline Rose, director of The New Lines Institute, told Fox News Digital.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, once known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is seen in Syria Feb. 7, 2023. Since becoming the country’s president, he has gone back to his given name. (Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images)
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Rose, who traveled to Syria earlier this year, said that Syria’s complex political dynamics have led not only to gridlock, but even incapacity in times of crisis, “such as failure to rein in radical Sunni fighters during violent outbreaks in Latakia and Suwayda, but also policies appeasing more conservative elements of al-Sharaa’s support network, such as the ruling requiring full-body swimwear at Syrian pools and beaches.”
While Syria’s new government has looked to consolidate control over a restive society, Shara’s forces had to manage a fragile society divided along ethnic and religious lines.
Syria has experienced a wave of sectarian violence since the revolution to overthrow Assad. Government security forces retaliated after forces loyal to the Assad regime launched an attack in the coastal city of Latakia, Assad’s hometown. In total, around 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were massacred, according to the U.N. Most of the victims from the Alawites, a minority group in Syria, which the Assad family belonged to, as well as from the Druze community.
It was the worst episode of violence since the overthrow of Assad in December 2024.
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a Civil Defense worker inspects the damage inside Mar Elias church where a suicide bomber detonated himself in Dweil’a on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Sunday, June 22, 2025. (SANA via AP)
Clashes between Bedouin tribes, Druze militias and government forces in Suweida led to hundreds of deaths and drew in Israeli military intervention — to protect Syria’s Druze minority. A ceasefire was eventually agreed to but the spiraling ethnic violence highlights Syria’s rocky transition.
The country’s dwindling Christian community has also felt the brunt of extremist violence. In June, the Islamic State was suspected of carrying out a deadly suicide bombing at a Greek Orthodox church in Syria, which killed 22 worshipers and injured 63 others. Christians have also been attacked and, in some cases, killed, allegedly by forces tied to the al-Sharaa government.
The new authorities will also have to incorporate Kurdish forces operating in Northeast Syria, where the Syrian Democratic Forces have been crucial to the U.S.-led counter-ISIS campaign. Any disruptions in the merging of the SDF into the Syrian state raises the risk of an ISIS resurgence.
For a Palestinian state to be internationally recognised and built, Israel’s current government would need to halt its relentless opposition to Palestinian statehood and Israel’s main ally, the United States, would need to agree on a two-state solution, which it no longer does.
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