Pope presides over Good Friday procession in Rome

Pope presides over Good Friday procession in Rome

ROME

Pope Francis, presiding at the traditional Good Friday Colosseum procession, decried what he called the ‘’complicit silence” about the killing of Christians.

The evening, torch-lit ceremony at the ancient arena recalls the suffering and death of Jesus by crucifixion.

After listening silently, often with head bowed and eyes tightly shut, to reflections read aloud about Jesus’ suffering, Francis pressed what lately has been an urgent concern of his papacy — the present-day martyrdom of Christians in parts of the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere.

‘’We see, even today, our brothers persecuted, beheaded and crucified for their faith in you, in front of our eyes or often with our complicit silence,” he said as he prayed.

‘Black box’ shows co-pilot sped up German plane

PARIS

Information retrieved from the “black box” data recorder of a doomed German jet shows its co-pilot repeatedly accelerated the plane before it slammed into the French Alps, investigators said Friday.

France’s air-accident investigation agency, BEA, provided the disturbing new details a day after a gendarme found the blackened data recorder buried in debris scattered along a mountainside ravine.

Based on an initial reading of the recorder, the revelation strengthened investigators’ early suspicions that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz meant to destroy the Germanwings A320.

French and German investigators are still trying to figure out why. All 150 people aboard Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf were killed in the March 24 crash, which has been a reminder of the trust that passengers place in pilots.

Man freed after 30 years on death row

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

A man who spent nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row walked free Friday, two days after prosecutors acknowledged that the only evidence they had against him couldn’t prove he committed the crime.

Ray Hinton was 29 when he was arrested for two 1985 killings. Freed at age 58, with gray hair and a beard, he was embraced by his sobbing sisters, who said “Thank you, Jesus,” as they wrapped their arms around him outside the Jefferson County Jail.

Hinton had won a new trial last year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that his trial counsel was inadequate. Prosecutors on Wednesday moved to drop the case after new ballistics tests contradicted those done three decades ago. Experts couldn’t match crime-scene bullets to a gun found in Hinton’s home.

Sailor missing at sea in good health hours after rescue

PORTSMOUTH, Va.

Adrift on the ocean, the mast of his 35-foot sailboat torn away, Louis Jordan says he was able to survive more than two months at sea by catching rainwater in a bucket, scooping up fish that were attracted to the laundry he hung over the side, and fervently praying to God for help.

Early Friday, just hours after he was found by a passing German freighter, the bearded 37-year-old man walked out of a Norfolk hospital showing no obvious ill effects.

Associated Press