The 88-year-old was admitted to the hospital on 14 February with a severe respiratory infection that resulted in double pneumonia.

During the past five weeks, he presented “two very critical episodes” where his “life was in danger”, Dr Sergio Alfieri, one of the doctors treating the Pope, said.

Pope Francis was never intubated and always remained alert and oriented, Dr Alfieri said. The Pope is not completely healed, but no longer has pneumonia and is now in a stable condition, according to his doctors.

“Today we are happy to say that tomorrow he will be at home,” Dr Alfieri told reporters on Saturday.

The Pope will offer a blessing from his window at the Gemelli hospital on Sunday – the first time he will appear in public since he was admitted to hospital – before returning to his residence at the Vatican.

Dr Alfieri said that patients with double pneumonia lose their voice a little and “especially in the elderly, it will take time for your voice to return to normal”.

On Friday, Cardinal Victor Fernandez had said “high-flow oxygen dries everything out” and as a result the Pope “needs to relearn how to speak”, Reuters had reported.

If the trend of improvement continues, doctors said, the Pope would be able to return to work as soon as possible.

The Vatican had said on Friday that the Pope had seen some improvements in his breathing and mobility.

It had confirmed he no longer uses mechanical ventilation for breathing at night, but was instead receiving oxygen via a small tube under his nose. During the day, he is using less high-flow oxygen.

The Pope has only been seen by the public once since he was admitted to hospital, in a photograph released by the Vatican last week, which showed him praying in a hospital chapel.

Earlier this month, an audio recording of Pope Francis speaking in his native Spanish was played in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.

His voice was breathless as he thanked the Catholic faithful for their prayers.

Pope Francis has spent nearly 12 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

He has suffered a number of health issues throughout his life, including having part of one of his lungs removed at age 21, making him more prone to infections.

Reuben, from Southwold, Suffolk, lost his aunt Trudie to cancer last year and decided he wanted to donate his hair to the Little Princess Trust that makes wigs for children with cancer.

He also set himself a fundraising target of £700 – the average cost of making a wig – and on Christmas Day on Southwold beach, Santa Claus chopped his locks.

In total, he raised £4,485 and his parents Leah and Arron Digby, along with his siblings, said they were “so proud of his tireless efforts”.

Reuben’s parents said: “Sadly, Trudie passed away last year. Our grief as a family only growing further when Reuben’s Grandfather passed away on the same day his daughter Trudie was laid to rest.

“Reuben carried on with his fundraising, aiming for £700.”

The young boy was nominated for a Blyth Valley Rotary Rising Star award for his efforts and was invited by Blyth Valley Rotary Club to open the Southwold Christmas Day swim where Santa would cut his hair.

His locks were snipped in front of the crowd before Reuben pressed the large red button to kick off the swim.

The rotary club donated £3,200 toward his fundraiser, which meant the total amount donated could create at least six wigs.

“[We] are so proud of his tireless efforts while navigating his way through grief, a difficult feat for any six-year-old, even being brave enough to speak on BBC Suffolk Radio,” Mr and Mrs Digby said.

“We are utterly bursting with pride at his sheer determination and kind heart.

“We hope Reuben’s story will inspire children and adults alike to do what they can to help their communities, whether it is through fundraising or simply being there for each other.”

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued the notice for multiple failures in several areas, including staffing levels and call wait times.

The emergency service was rated as “requires improvement” after its last inspection in 2022.

The EEAST said it had made “rapid improvements”.

The ambulance service covers Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

When EEAST was last inspected, it was rated as “requires improvement” in four out of the five areas the inspectors considered.

Its only “good” rating within those five was in relation to whether the trust provided services that were “caring”.

The CQC found the trust did not always:

• Have enough staff to keep people safe
• Keep mandatory training up to date
• Manage clinical waste well
• Meet agreed response times
• Ensure staff felt respected and valued

Figures showed the response time for category one calls had deteriorated by almost 20% during the year, and only 21% of ambulances on category four calls were arriving within three hours.

The CQC has now issued a warning notice under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 for “failing to meet requirements relating to staff training, staffing levels, investigation of controlled drug incidents, call wait times, the culture of the service and acting on information from staff to develop and improve the service”.

The CQC said its powers when a warning notice is issued included imposing conditions on the trust, or suspending or cancelling its registration.

Failure to comply with the steps required by the CQC could constitute a criminal offence.

The chief executive of the EEAST, Neill Moloney, said: “Our patients expect and deserve good quality care from us. I am sorry that the trust has not always met this expectation.

“Following the CQC warning notice, we have made rapid improvements in the areas they identified, and we are determined to continue to improve our service to patients.”

He said the steps already taken included redesigning mandatory training requirements to be more effective, and strengthening control drug handling processes.

The trust said it would continue working to improve the culture of the service.

East of England Ambulance Service bought the e-bike for its Cycle Response Unit (CRU) in Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk.

The service said it would allow its team of four paramedics to respond “faster and more efficiently”.

It claimed response times would “improve significantly” as a result.

Ambulance e-bikes are equipped with a full range of life-saving medical equipment but in a compact form.

Andy Long, a Norfolk-based CRU paramedic, said: “The e-bike is a real game-changer.

“The extra power makes it easier to carry our equipment and navigate the hilly landscape much more effectively.”

The e-bike was bought through funds raised by the Wells-next-the-Sea community and the East of England Ambulance Service Charity.

Kate Lott, head of the charity, added: “In situations where every moment counts, this e-bike could be the difference in getting our lifesavers to the hard-to-reach location in time.”

“Doctors were shocked,” she says. “We were told that his illness was one in a million. Other parents were learning to change diapers but I was learning how to change chemotherapy ports and IVs.”

Kim’s son Zack was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme. It is a brain tumour that is very rare in children and is usually seen in adults over 45.

Zack had chemotherapy treatments but doctors said there was no hope of him ever recovering. He died at just six years old.

Years later, social media and community chatter made Kim start to think that her son was not an isolated case. Perhaps he was part of a bigger picture growing in their community surrounding Coldwater Creek.

In this part of the US, cancer fears have prompted locals to accuse officials of not doing enough to support those who may have been exposed to radiation due to the development of the atomic bomb in the 1940s.

A compensation programme that was designed to pay out to some Americans who contracted diseases after exposure to radiation expired last year – before it could be extended to the St Louis area.

This Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (Reca) provided one-time payouts to people who may have developed cancer or other diseases while living in areas where activities such as atomic weapons testing took place. It paid out $2.6bn (£2bn) to more than 41,000 claimants before coming to an end in 2024.

Benefits were paid to such neighbours, frequently called “downwinders”, in Arizona, Utah and Nevada, but not New Mexico, where the world’s first test of a nuclear weapon took place in 1945. Research published in 2020 by the National Cancer Institute suggested that hundreds of cancers in the area would not have occurred without radiation exposure.

St Louis, meanwhile, was where uranium was refined and used to help create the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. After World War Two ended, the chemical was dumped near the creek and left uncovered, allowing waste to seep into the area.

Decades later, federal investigators acknowledged an increased cancer risk for some people who played in the creek as children, but added in their report: “The predicted increases in the number of cancer cases from exposures are small, and no method exists to link a particular cancer with this exposure.”

The clean-up of the creek is still ongoing and is not expected to finish until 2038.

A new bill has been put forward in the House, and Josh Hawley, a US senator representing Missouri, says he has raised the issue with President Donald Trump.

When Kim flicks through her school yearbook, she can identify those who have become sick and those who have since passed away. The numbers are startling.

“My husband didn’t grow up in this area, and he said to me, ‘Kim, this is not normal. It seems like we’re always talking about one of your friends passing away or going to a funeral’,” she says.

Just streets away from the creek, Karen Nickel grew up spending her days near the water picking berries, or in the nearby park playing baseball. Her brother would often try and catch fish in Coldwater Creek.

“I always tell people that we had just the fairytale childhood that you would expect in what you consider suburban America,” says Karen. “Big backyards, big families, children playing out together until the street lights came on at night.”

But years later, her carefree childhood now looks very different.

“Fifteen people from the street I grew up on have died from rare cancers,” she says. “We have neighbourhoods here where every house has been affected by some cancer or some illness. We have streets where you can’t just find a house where a family has not been affected by this.”

When Karen’s sister was just 11 years old, doctors discovered that her ovaries were covered in cysts. The same had happened to their neighbour when she was just nine. Karen’s six-year-old granddaughter was born with a mass on her right ovary.

Karen helped found Just Moms STL, a group that is dedicated to protecting the community from future exposures that could be linked to cancers – and which advocates for a clean-up of the area.

“We get messages every day from people that are suffering from illnesses and are questioning whether this is from exposure,” she says. “These are very aggressive illnesses that the community is getting, from cancers all the way to autoimmune diseases.”

Teresa Rumfelt grew up just a street away from Karen and lived in her family home from 1979 until 2010. She remembers every one of her animals passing away from cancer and her neighbours getting ill from rare diseases.

Years later, her sister Via Von Banks was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neurone disease. Some medical studies have suggested there could be a link between radiation and ALS, but this is not definitive – and more research needs to be done to firm it up.

That does not reassure people like Teresa who are concerned that more needs to be done to understand how locals are being affected.

“ALS took my sister at 50,” Teresa says. “I think it was the worst disease ever of mankind. When she was diagnosed in 2019, she’d just got her career going and her children were growing. She stayed positive through all of it.”

Like Hawley, Just STL Moms and other community members want the government’s compensation act to be expanded to include people within the St Louis area, despite the programme being in limbo after expiring.

Expanding it to the Coldwater Creek community would mean that locals could be offered compensation if they could prove they were harmed as a result of the Manhattan Project, during which the atomic bomb was developed with the help of uranium-processing in St Louis. It would also allow screenings and further study into illnesses other than cancer.

In a statement to the BBC, the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it took concerns very seriously and had actively worked with federal, state and local partners – as well as community members – to understand their health concerns, and to ensure community members were not exposed to the Manhattan Project-era waste.

The BBC has also contacted the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is leading the clean-up – but has not received a response to a request for comment.

“My sister would have loved to be part of the fight. She’d be the first to picket,” says Teresa of her efforts to get greater support from the government.

The trend in people around Coldwater Creek getting unwell has not gone unnoticed among healthcare professionals.

Dr Gautum Agarwal, a cancer surgeon at Mercy Hospital in St Louis, says he has not noticed a “statistical thing”, but notes that he has seen husbands and wives and their neighbours presenting cancers.

Now, he ensures that his patients are asked where they live and how close they are to Coldwater Creek.

“I tell them that there’s a potential that there’s a link. And if your neighbours or family live near there, we should get them screened more often. And maybe you should get your kids screened earlier.”

He hopes that over time more knowledge will be gained about the issue, and for a study into multi-cancer early detection tests to be introduced that could help catch any potential cancers, and help reassure people in the area.

Other experts take a different view of the risks. “There is a narrative that many people are sick from cancers, specifically from exposures while living next to Coldwater Creek for the last few decades”, says Roger Lewis, a professor in the environmental and occupations health department of St Louis University.

“But the data and studies don’t indicate that. They show that there is some risk but it’s small. It doesn’t mean that it’s not significant in some ways, but it’s very limited.”

Prof Lewis acknowledges the fear in the community, saying locals will feel safer if the government is clearer about its efforts to eliminate any hazards.

For many people near Coldwater Creek, conversation with authorities is not easing the angst that comes with living in an area known for the dumping of nuclear waste.

“It’s almost a given in our community that at some point we all expect to have some sort of cancer or illness,” says Kim Visintine. “There’s almost this apathy within our group that, well, it’s just a matter of time.”

Maria Margarita Rojas has been charged with providing an abortion and practising medicine without a licence, according to the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Authorities accused Ms Rojas, 48, of operating multiple clinics in Houston where she allegedly performed illegal abortions in her clinic, violating the state’s restrictive abortion laws.

Ms Rojas faces second-degree felony charges, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $10,000 (£7,700) if convicted.

Under the Texas Human Life Protection Act – a 2021 law that bans abortion in most cases – state authorities can also fine Ms Rojas at least $100,000 “per violation”.

In a news release on Monday announcing the arrest, Attorney General Paxton said that “Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable”.

“I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted,” Paxton said.

He added that Texas law holds abortion providers, not patients, “criminally responsible” for unlawful procedures.

In Texas, physicians are barred from performing an abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks into a pregnancy – before many realise they are pregnant. There are exceptions if the life or health of the pregnant patient is at risk, but not in cases of rape or incest.

The state’s supreme court unanimously rejected a challenge last year from 20 women who said they were denied medically necessary abortions under Texas law.

Paxton’s office said Ms Rojas, who they allege is known as “Dr Maria”, operated multiple clinics in north-west Houston.

She employed “unlicensed individuals” and performed “illegal abortion procedures”, according to the allegations.

Authorities said they have filed a temporary restraining order to shut down the clinics.

Holly Shearman, a midwife who runs a birth centre where Ms Rojas worked part-time, told the Texas Tribune that she was “shocked” by news of the arrest.

According to the Texas-based news website, Ms Shearman said Ms Rojas was a devout Catholic who provided prenatal care to a primarily Spanish-speaking, low-income community.

“I don’t believe it for one second,” she said of the allegations.

Ms Rojas’ arrest is believed to be one of the first criminal prosecutions under the Texas abortion ban. The state attorney general’s office said she was taken into custody in Waller County, and it is unclear if she has a lawyer yet.

Last year, Paxton’s office filed a lawsuit against a New York-based abortion provider for allegedly posting abortion pills to a Texan. That same doctor was indicted earlier this year in the state on a charge of criminal abortion.

New York has shield laws, which aim to protect providers who provide abortion to patients in other states. New York Gov Kathy Hochul has said the state has no plans to allow for Dr Margaret Daley Carpenter’s extradition to Texas.

She called the case “outrageous” and said Republicans were trying to stymie access to abortion across the US.

Here’s a glimpse of what we’ll be covering: 

Weather:Finally, we’ll wrap up with a weather forecast for the whole world.

Local News:We’ll start with the happenings in your town.

National News:We’ll then turn our attention to the major events unfolding across your country

International News:We’ll also provide updates on key international developments

Business News:We’ll have a segment dedicated to the latest business news and economic trends

Sports News:We’ll also be covering the latest sports news.

The photo shows the pontiff sitting in a wheelchair in front of an altar at a chapel in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been recovering from pneumonia.

Earlier on Sunday, in his written Angelus message, the Pope said he faces a “period of trial” as he thanked well-wishers for their prayers and prayed for peace in “countries wounded by war”.

It marked the fifth Sunday in a row that the Pope was not present in person for his weekly blessing. The Vatican said earlier this week an X-ray had confirmed “improvements” in his condition, but he still needs hospital treatment.

“The Holy Father still requires hospital medical therapy, motor and respiratory physiotherapy,” it said in a statement on Saturday, adding that they are “showing further, gradual improvements”.

Pope Francis, 88, has not been seen in public since his admission to hospital on 14 February, and until Sunday, no photographs had been released.

“I join with so many brothers and sisters who are sick: fragile, at this time, like me,” the Pope said in his latest statement, earlier in the day.

“Let us continue to pray for peace, especially in the countries wounded by war: tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

Since his arrival in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, the Pope has been treated for double pneumonia and other infections.

He has also suffered several respiratory crises, which has raised concerns about his survival.

Earlier on this month, an audio recording of Pope Francis speaking in his native Spanish was played in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.

His voice was breathless as he thanked the Catholic faithful for their prayers.

Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the first Pope from the Americas.

He contracted pleurisy as a young man and had a partial lung removal, which has left him particularly vulnerable to pneumonia.

As a result of his long load to recovery, there has been speculation that Pope Francis could choose to follow his predecessor Benedict XVI and resign the papacy.

But friends and biographers close to the Pope have insisted that he has no plans to step down. And, despite his fragile health, the pontiff has continued his work from hospital.

This year is a Catholic Holy Year, with 32 million pilgrims expected to travel to Rome.

The Argentine pontiff has been recovering in hospital from pneumonia, after he was admitted on 14 February.

In today’s message, the 88-year-old referenced Biblical passages and prayed for peace in “countries wounded by war”.

It marked the fifth Sunday in a row the Pope was not present in person for his weekly blessing, although the Vatican said earlier this week an X-ray had confirmed “improvements” in his condition. It has since cautioned he still needs hospital treatment.

“The Holy Father still requires hospital medical therapy, motor and respiratory physiotherapy; these therapies, at present, are showing further, gradual improvements,” it said in a statement on Saturday.

The Pope has not been seen in public since his admission to hospital and no photographs have been released of the religious figurehead.

“I join with so many brothers and sisters who are sick: fragile, at this time, like me,” the Pope said in his statement today.

“Let us continue to pray for peace, especially in the countries wounded by war: tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

Since his arrival in Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the Pope has been treated for double pneumonia and other infections.

He has also suffered several respiratory crises, which has raised concerns about his survival.

Earlier on this month, an audio recording of Pope Francis speaking in his native Spanish was played in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.

His voice was breathless as he thanked the Catholic faithful for their prayers.

Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the first Pope from the Americas.

He contracted pleurisy as a young man and had a partial lung removal, which has left him particularly vulnerable to pneumonia.

As a result of his long load to recovery, there has been speculation that Pope Francis could choose to follow his predecessor Benedict XVI and resign the papacy.

But friends and biographers close to the Pope have insisted he has no plans to step down. And, despite his fragile health, the pontiff has continued his work from hospital.

This year, 2025, is a Catholic Holy Year, with 32 million pilgrims expected to travel to Rome.

Two German newspapers say they have uncovered details of an assessment carried out by spy agency BND in 2020 but never published.

The intelligence service had indications that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been carrying out experiments where viruses are modified to become more transmissible to humans for research, they say.

China repeated its denial saying the cause “should be determined by scientists” – and pointed to a World Health Organization investigation which found the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely”.

There is no consensus on the cause of the Covid pandemic.

The lab leak hypothesis has been hotly contested by scientists, including many who say there is no definitive evidence to back it up.

But the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies – and the BND is the latest to entertain the theory. In January, the US CIA said the coronavirus was “more likely” to have leaked from a lab than to have come from animals.

According to Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung, the BND met in Berlin in 2020 to look into the origin of coronavirus in an operation called Project Saaremaa.

It assessed the lab theory as “likely”, although it did not have definitive proof.

The BND also found indications that several violations of safety regulations had occurred at the lab.

The assessment was commissioned by the office of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor at the time, but was never publicly known of until now.

According to the papers, the findings were shared with the CIA in autumn of last year.

In January this year, the CIA said that a “research-related origin” of the pandemic was more likely than a natural origin “based on the available body of reporting” – although it cautioned it had “low confidence” in this determination.

Both the BND and outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to comment.

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in response: “We believe that tracing the origin of Covid-19 is a scientific issue that should be determined by scientists with a scientific approach.

“The conclusion that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely was reached by the China-WHO joint expert team after on-site visits to relevant labs in Wuhan and in-depth discussions with researchers.

“This authoritative scientific conclusion has been widely recognised by the international community and the scientific community.

“China firmly opposes any form of political manipulation on the issue of Covid-19 origin tracing.”

The WHO investigation in early 2021 saw a team of scientists fly to Wuhan on a mission to look into the source of the pandemic.

After spending 12 days there, which included a visit to the laboratory, the team concluded the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely”.

But many have since questioned their findings, with one prominent group of scientists criticising the WHO report for not taking the lab-leak theory seriously enough – it was dismissed in a few pages of a several-hundred-page report.

Supporters of the natural origin hypothesis – which was backed in the WHO report – say Covid-19 emerged in bats and then jumped to humans, most likely through another animal, or “intermediary host”.

This hypothesis was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic make-up of Covid-19, leading some to doubt the theory.