While not revealing his choice for the 267th occupant of the Chair of Saint Peter, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, said that whoever is chosen as the next pope must be conversant in social media as well as the gospel to lead today's global Catholic Church.
Carlo Rambaldi, a special effects master and three-time Oscar winner known as the father of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial," died Friday in southern Italy after a long illness, Italian news media reported. He was 86.
German Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass labeled Israel a threat to "already fragile world peace" in a poem published Wednesday that drew sharp rebukes at home and from Israel.
German Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass labeled Israel a threat to "already fragile world peace" in a poem published Wednesday that drew sharp rebukes at home and from Israel.
Eighteen Church of England bishops have signed an open letter published Sunday criticizing planned welfare reforms, in a rare intervention by the religious establishment in politics.
The leader of Italy's largest union is threatening a general strike against an austerity package that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government hastily pushed through to balance the budget by 2013 and avoid financial collapse.
Italy's culture ministry on Friday defended Premier Silvio Berlusconi for giving ancient marble statues in his office replacement body parts, to the horror of art restorers.
Italian police have arrested a Frenchman suspected of links to a network recruiting fighters for Afghanistan, a French official said Sunday.
"Silvio Berlusconi has done it again. During an event on Sunday, he advised that young women should look for a rich man to marry. Of course, as is so often the case with Berlusconi, the offensiveness didn't stop there," writes Tracy Clark-Flory on Salon.com.
