PARIS — Mohamed Amra, a French fugitive known as “The Fly,” who was freed by gunmen in a brazen attack against a prison van in May, was arrested in Romania on Saturday, the French interior minister said.

French police had launched a massive manhunt for the fugitive, whose escape resulted in the deaths of two prison guards and was seized upon by right-wing politicians as evidence that France had lost its grip on drug crime.

Three officers were wounded in the attack, which was caught on CCTV and shocked France because of its extraordinary violence.

France had tasked more than 300 investigators with finding Amra and had requested an Interpol red notice, hoping for foreign assistance.

“I congratulate all forces which made Mohamed Amra’s arrest in Romania today possible. A warm thank you to Romania for its decisive cooperation,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X.

Amra is a 30-year-old from northern France, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. Police sources said he was involved in drug trafficking and accused of being a major drugs gangland figure.

Amra has a long history of convictions for violent crimes that started when he was 15. He was also suspected of ordering hits while in prison.

At the time of his escape, Amra was facing two fresh charges, one for attempted murder and another for participation in a gangland killing in the southern city of Marseille on the French Riviera, a hub for drug trafficking and gang violence.

But despite the government labelling him “public enemy number one,” and the deployment of massive means, Amra was not captured as quickly as the authorities had hoped.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said he had been convicted of burglary by a court in Evreux on May 10 and was being held at the Val de Reuil prison until his escape on May 14.

He had also been indicted by prosecutors in Marseille for a kidnapping that led to a death, it said.

On Saturday, the government reacted with relief that the chase was over.

“After a manhunt lasting several months, Amra has been arrested, finally!” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on X.

President Emmanuel Macron hailed Amra’s capture as “a formidable success.”

Some information in this report is from Agence France-Presse.
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ROME — The Vatican carried on with its Holy Year celebrations without the pope Saturday, as Pope Francis battled pneumonia and a complex respiratory infection that doctors say remains touch-and-go and will keep him hospitalized for at least another week.

Francis slept well overnight, Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said in a brief early update Saturday.

But doctors have warned that the main threat facing the 88-year-old Francis would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia. As of Friday, there was no evidence of any sepsis, and Francis was responding to the various drugs he is taking, the pope’s medical team said in their first in-depth update on the pope’s condition.

“He is not out of danger,” said his personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone. “So, like all fragile patients, I say they are always on the golden scale: In other words, it takes very little to become unbalanced.”

Francis, who has chronic lung disease, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened.

Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs. They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when he needs it.

Carbone, who along with Francis’ personal nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, organized care for him at the Vatican, acknowledged he had insisted on staying at the Vatican to work even after he was sick “because of institutional and private commitments.” He was cared for by a cardiologist and infectious specialist in addition to his personal medical team before being hospitalized.

Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the head of medicine and surgery at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, said the biggest threat facing Francis was that some of the germs that are currently located in his respiratory system pass into the bloodstream, causing sepsis. Sepsis can lead to organ failure and death.

“Sepsis, with his respiratory problems and his age, would be really difficult to get out of,” Alfieri told a press conference Friday at Gemelli. “The English say, ‘knock on wood,’ we say ‘touch iron.’ Everyone touch what they want,” he said as he tapped the microphone.

“But this is the real risk in these cases: that these germs pass to the bloodstream.”

“He knows he’s in danger,” Alfieri said. “And he told us to relay that.”

Deacons, meanwhile, were gathering at the Vatican for their special Jubilee weekend. Francis got sick at the start of the Vatican’s Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration of Catholicism. This weekend, Francis was supposed to have celebrated deacons, a ministry in the church that precedes ordination to the priesthood.

In his place, the Holy Year organizer will celebrate Sunday’s Mass, the Vatican said. And for the second weekend in a row, Francis was expected to skip his traditional Sunday noon blessing, which he could have delivered from Gemelli if he were up to it.

“Look, even though he’s not [physically] here, we know he’s here,” said Luis Arnaldo Lopez Quirindongo, a deacon from Ponce, Puerto Rico who was at the Vatican on Saturday for the Jubilee celebration. “He’s recovering, but he’s in our hearts and is accompanying us because our prayers and his go together.”

Beyond that, doctors have said that Francis’ recovery will take time and that, regardless, he will have to live with his chronic respiratory problems back at the Vatican.

“He has to get over this infection, and we all hope he gets over it,” said Alfieri. “But the fact is, all doors are open.”
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Preparations are underway for a face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said Saturday, marking a dramatic shift away from Western isolation of Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

Speaking to Russian state media, Sergei Ryabkov said a possible Putin-Trump summit could involve broad talks on global issues, not just the war in Ukraine.

“The question is about starting to move toward normalizing relations between our countries, finding ways to resolve the most acute and potentially very, very dangerous situations, of which there are many, Ukraine among them,” he said.

But he said that efforts to organize such a meeting are at an early stage, and that making it happen will require “the most intensive preparatory work.”

Ryabkov said that U.S. and Russian envoys could meet “within the next two weeks” to pave the way for further talks between senior officials.

Russian and U.S. representatives on Tuesday agreed to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, according to the two countries’ top diplomats, at a high-level meeting in Saudi Arabia that marked an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under Trump.

After the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the AP that the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow; to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks; and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.

He stressed, however, that the talks — which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials — marked the beginning of a conversation, and that more work needs to be done. Lavrov, for his part, hailed the meeting as “very useful.”

No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more-numerous Russian troops, three years after Moscow launched an all-out invasion of its smaller neighbor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would not accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn’t take part, and he postponed his own trip to Saudi Arabia scheduled for last Wednesday. European allies also have expressed concerns they are being sidelined.
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WASHINGTON — This week, thousands of conservative politicians, activists and influencers convened outside Washington for the Conservative Political Action Conference, the premier annual gathering of the American right.

The four-day event, hosted by the American Conservative Union since 1974, features U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, among other high-profile speakers from around the world.

Dubbed the “Woodstock for conservatives,” CPAC was once the go-to event for conservative Republicans and presidential hopefuls, with its presidential straw poll serving as a barometer of grassroots support. However, Trump’s political rise in recent years has transformed it into a platform for populism.

Driven by the rise of populist movements globally, the conference has ventured overseas in the past decade. It launched its first international conference in Japan in 2017, expanded to Australia, Brazil and South Korea in 2019, then added Hungary, Mexico and Israel in 2022. Argentina joined the fold last year following the election of populist President Javier Milei.

The international conferences, CPAC says, serve to “unite conservatives from all over the world, strengthen the movement, and challenge globalism.” They are also used for public outreach, recruitment and mobilization, according to a recent paper on CPAC by Grant A. Silverman, a research assistant at George Washington University in Washington.

CPAC’s growing international outreach mirrors a recent surge in far-right populism worldwide. Last year’s foreign speakers included Presidents Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Javier Milei of Argentina, as well as Prime Minister Victor Orbán of Hungary.

Here’s a look at some of the foreign speakers for this year’s CPAC and what they’re saying:

Javier Milei, Argentine president

Milei, wielding a chain saw, electrified the CPAC crowd Thursday when he shared the stage with billionaire Elon Musk and presented Musk, Trump’s cost-cutting czar, with his signature campaign prop.

“This is the chain saw of bureaucracy,” Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, shouted, waving the tool.

As head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk, who made his first CPAC appearance, is spearheading the Trump administration’s massive governmentwide cost-cutting efforts.

This marks Milei’s third CPAC appearance. The self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” campaigned in 2023 on shrinking Argentina’s government, often brandishing a chain saw at rallies.

At last year’s Washington conference, he vowed to eliminate unnecessary government agencies, declaring, “We will not surrender until we make Argentina great again!”

Speaking at CPAC Argentina in December, Milei declared that the “new winds of freedom are sweeping through the world” and called on allies to fight against “lefties.”

“We must stand together, establishing channels of cooperation throughout the world,” he told the crowd.

Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil

Brazil’s former right-wing president is a CPAC regular. After Bolsonaro lost a reelection bid in 2022, his supporters stormed federal government buildings in an alleged attempt to seize power. Banned from seeking office until 2030, Bolsonaro faces charges of plotting a coup.

His son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, organizes CPAC Brazil. At last year’s conference in Balneario Camboriu, the elder Bolsonaro joined Milei and other right-wing politicians from Latin America to hail conservatism’s global rise and expressed hope for Trump’s return to office.

For his part, Milei used the platform to denounce socialism, saying it restricts liberties and breeds corruption.

Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia

Robert Fico makes his CPAC debut this year. Though he leads a left-wing populist party, he has drawn controversy for his attacks on journalists, immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.

In October, he called journalists “bloody bastards” and threatened new media restrictions. An opponent of same-sex marriage, he has called adoption by gay couples a “perversion.”

During the Ukraine conflict, Fico has opposed European sanctions on Moscow and echoed Moscow’s messaging, drawing comparisons to Hungary’s pro-Kremlin prime minister.

In May, he survived an assassination attempt by a gunman opposed to his stance against military assistance to Ukraine.

Mateusz Morawiecki, former Polish prime minister

After speaking at CPAC Hungary last year, Morawiecki makes his first U.S. appearance this year. He served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023 and is now a leading figure in the opposition Law and Justice Party.

Despite his party’s strong support for Ukraine, Morawiecki maintains close ties with Hungary’s Orban and Spain’s Santiago Abascal, leader of the conservative Vox political party. Abascal is an invited speaker at CPAC.

Immigration is a unifying issue for Europe’s right-wing populists. At last year’s Hungary conference, Morawiecki called Orban his friend and credited his tough response to Europe’s 2015 migration crisis with preventing “chaos” in Europe.

Liz Truss, former British prime minister

The former Conservative Party leader and prime minister made her second CPAC appearance in a row Wednesday. Calling Britain a “failed state” ruled by a socialist government, she called for a Trump-style MAGA movement to save it.

“We want a Trump revolution in Britain,” she said to applause, praising Trump’s second presidency as “the golden age of America.”

Blaming Britain’s decline on unelected bureaucrats, she urged the dismantlement of the “deep state,” a favorite theme among conference attendees.

“We want Elon and his nerd army of muskrats examining the British deep state,” Truss said.

Truss served just 49 days as prime minister and lost her Parliament seat last year. 
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Uncertainty looms over U.S.-Ukraine relations as Ukraine enters the fourth year of war with Russia. Recent shifts in Washington’s rhetoric have raised fears that Ukraine could be pressured into an unfavorable peace deal — or be left to confront Russia without U.S. support. While most Ukrainians are now in favor of peace talks, many insist any settlement be on Ukraine’s terms. Myroslava Gongadze has the story from Warsaw, Poland, with reporting from Anna Chernikova in Kyiv, Ukraine.
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berlin — Police arrested a man suspected in a stabbing Friday at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial that left a Spanish tourist seriously injured, police said.

There was no immediate indication of a motive for the attack, which came two days before Germans vote in a national election.

Police spokesman Florian Nath said at a news conference that the attack happened at 6 p.m., “probably with a knife. Maybe with something else.” Nearly three hours later, a male suspect “with blood on his hands” approached officers who had surrounded the memorial grounds, he said.

Police arrested the man, handcuffing him and holding him on the ground. Nath said police seized a weapon and would interrogate the suspect as the investigation continued.

The victim was identified as a 30-year-old Spanish man, who was taken to a hospital.

The attack took place at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs near the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin, which honors the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust under the direction of Nazi Germany.
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Pope Francis’ medical team said Friday that his medical condition was not life-threatening, but that the pontiff was not out of danger.

“If the question is, ‘Is he out of danger?’ the answer is, ‘No,’ ” Sergio Alfieri, the head of the team of doctors at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital taking care of the pope, said. “But if you then ask us if, at this moment, his life is in danger, the answer is [also], ‘No.'”

The doctors said Francis was in good spirits and had maintained his sense of humor. Alfieri said when he greeted the pope Friday in the pope’s hospital suite as “Holy Father,” the pope returned the greeting with “Holy Son.”

Francis, the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics, was admitted to the hospital last week after a case of bronchitis worsened. At the hospital, he was diagnosed with double pneumonia and a complex bacterial, viral and fungal infection, and doctors placed Francis on a strengthened drug therapy.

Francis also has been receiving supplements of oxygen when needed, his doctors said Friday. Alfieri said Francis was not on a ventilator.

Alfieri said there was a possibility that germs from Francis’ respiratory tract could enter his bloodstream, causing sepsis, but there was currently no evidence that it had happened. Sepsis is a complication of an infection that can lead to organ failure and death.

The 88-year-old pontiff has been able to get out of bed and do some work, according to his doctors. They said Francis would remain in the hospital “at least” through next week.

With his hospitalization, there has been speculation about Francis stepping down from his duties as head of the Roman Catholic Church, a post he has held since 2013. His immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was the first pope in 600 years to resign.

In a recent memoir, Francis addressed the possibility of his own resignation if he became incapacitated. He said such a move would be a “distant possibility,” justified only if he were facing “a serious physical impediment.”

However, in 2022, Francis confirmed he wrote a resignation letter not long after becoming pope. He said it was written in case medical issues prevented him from executing his papal duties.

The Catholic faithful around the world have been encouraged to pray for Francis’ rapid recovery. On Friday in the Philippines, a hourlong prayer was held for Francis at the Manila Cathedral. Francis celebrated Mass in a Manila park in 2015, drawing a record-breaking crowd of 6 million, according to official estimates.

Saturday is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, a day commemorating the authority Jesus gave to the pope. Catholics are set to gather outside Gemelli Hospital to pray for Francis’ health, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Some information for this article came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA — Thousands rallied across Slovakia on Friday to mark the seventh anniversary of the slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee.

The rallies are part of a wave of protests against the pro-Russia policies of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.

People in Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, observed a minute of silence to honor Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova, both age 27. They were shot to death at their home in the town of Velka Maca, east of Bratislava, on Feb. 21, 2018.

The killings prompted major street protests unseen since the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The ensuing political crisis led to the collapse of a coalition government headed by Fico.

Kuciak had been investigating possible government corruption, among other issues, when he was killed.

People applauded the parents of Kuciak and the mother of Kusnirova, who greeted them from the stage.

“I believe that our common fight will be successful,” said Jozef Kuciak, the father of Jan.

Marian Kocner, a businessman who had been accused of masterminding the killings, has been acquitted twice. Prosecutors have said they believe Kocner paid the convicted triggerman to carry it out and appealed.

The current anti-government protests are the biggest demonstrations since the 2018 slayings.

They are fueled by Fico’s recent trip to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare visit to the Kremlin by a European Union leader since Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine began almost three years ago and his recent remarks that Slovakia might leave the 27-nation EU and NATO.

“We’ve had enough of Fico,” people chanted.

The crowds at rallies in 47 towns and cities at home and 16 abroad, according to organizers, demanded Fico’s resignation.

About 10,000 protesters chanted “Resign, resign,” at Freedom Square in Bratislava.

Fico’s views on Russia have sharply differed from the European mainstream. He returned to power last year after his leftist party Smer (Direction) won a parliamentary election in 2023.

He has since ended Slovakia’s military aid for Ukraine, criticized EU sanctions on Russia and vowed to block Ukraine from joining NATO. He declared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an enemy after Ukraine halted on Russian gas supplies to Slovakia and some other European customers.
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BERLIN — German police said Friday they have arrested an 18-year-old Russian man on suspicion of planning a “politically motivated” attack in Berlin, two days before national elections.

The man was detained late Thursday in the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, police and prosecutors said in a statement.

Authorities did not provide further details about the attack plot, but the Tagesspiegel newspaper reported the suspect was Chechen and is believed to have been planning an attack on the Israeli Embassy.

The Israeli Embassy could not be reached for comment outside of business hours, while state prosecutors and the Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to written requests for comment from Reuters.

German newspaper Bild reported Friday that the investigation had been the result of a tip-off from a foreign intelligence agency. It said the suspect had been trying to leave the country via Berlin’s BER airport when he was detained.

Riot police and specialist officers were involved in making the arrest, which came after that tip-off, officials said.

“No further details as to the background and motive can be given for the moment to protect the investigation,” they added.

The man appeared in court Friday and was remanded in custody.

German authorities are on high alert ahead of Sunday’s federal elections.

Some material in this report is from Reuters.
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Pope Francis “had a restful night,” and Thursday morning “got out of bed and had breakfast in an armchair,” the Vatican said in a statement.

Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital last week with bronchitis, which then developed into double pneumonia.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said Thursday that the pope now has focal pneumonia with limited areas of infection in the lungs. Bruni said Francis is breathing on his own, and his heart is stable.

An earlier statement Thursday reported the pope’s clinical condition as “stable,” and his blood tests had shown “a slight improvement, particularly in the inflammatory indices.”

Wednesday evening, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited the pope for 20 minutes in the hospital’s special papal suite.

“We joked as always,” the prime minister said in a statement afterward. “He hasn’t lost his proverbial sense of humor.”

Francis, whose birth name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has been the head of the Roman Catholic Church since 2013, when his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, resigned from the papacy.

In a recent memoir, Francis addressed the possibility of his own resignation if he became incapacitated. He said such a move would be a “distant possibility,” justified only if facing “a serious physical impediment.”

“We are all worried about the pope,” Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, told Agence France-Presse. Zuppi said, however, that the reports about Francis eating and greeting people are good indications that “we are on the right path to a full recovery, which we hope will happen soon.”

Speaking at a Vatican news conference about a Mediterranean youth peace initiative, Cardinal Juan Jose Omella Omella of Barcelona compared the papacy to a train to give reassurances that the work of the papacy will continue, even with Francis’ hospitalization.

“Popes change, we bishops change, priests in parishes change, communities change, but the train continues being on the move,” the cardinal said.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Vice President JD Vance sketched his conservative view of foreign affairs Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, accompanied by foreign politicians who say they support President Donald Trump’s agenda. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
Camera: Anthony LaBruto
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