An old saying about papal elections goes as follows: “He who enters the conclave as pope, leaves it as a cardinal.” In other words, any candidate seen as the frontrunner before the voting begins should be treated with caution, and no cardinal should go into the Sistine Chapel assuming they will get the votes.

At the 2013 conclave, one of the favorites was Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan. The Italian bishops were so confident that he would be chosen that after the white smoke emerged from the Vatican chimney, a senior Italian church official sent a message to reporters expressing joy over Scola’s election. The problem was that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio had already been named pope.

This conclave is going to be crucial for deciding the future direction of the Roman Catholic Church, and the field of candidates is wide open thanks to Pope Francis’ reforms.

During his pontificate, Francis overhauled the composition of the body that will elect his successor, making it more representative of the worldwide church.

He threw out the old, unwritten rulebook that bishops of certain dioceses (several of them in Italy) would automatically be made cardinals and instead gave red hats to bishops in parts of the world that had never had them before, such as Tonga, Haiti and Papua New Guinea. Several of them are “outsiders” to the Roman system, so it makes it harder to predict how they will vote.

Nevertheless, only a few cardinals have the requisite skills, experience and personality suitable to taking on the role of leading the Roman Catholic Church.

Electors will need to consider the priorities of the church and the profile of the next candidate. They will also need to consider whether the next pope should continue the reforms started by Francis or take a different direction.

They will be looking for someone able to lead a global church and offer credible moral leadership on the world stage. Some see the church’s future as lying in Asia, which has led to speculation the next pope could be from Southeast Asia.

Age is also a factor, with the last two conclaves opting for older popes to ensure shorter pontificates.

Papal candidates are known as “papabile” or translated from the Italian, “pope-able.” The vast majority of the papabile were appointed by Pope Francis, although two were chosen by Benedict XVI. Here are some of the contenders.

As the world rushed to pay tribute to Pope Francis following his death, the response has been comparatively muted in China – an officially atheist state with millions of Catholics whose government has had a difficult and complex relationship with the Vatican.

In the passing of Pope Francis, Beijing loses a well-respected global leader who had pushed the Vatican closer to China’s Communist Party leadership than any of his predecessors.

Nonetheless, Chinese state-controlled media’s coverage on his death has been terse, and more than 20 hours after the Vatican’s announcement of his passing neither Beijing nor China’s own state-sanctioned Catholic Church had issued an official statement.

While condolences from the government are ultimately expected – likely via a foreign ministry spokesperson per precedent – China’s minimalist response underscores the sensitivity of ties between the atheist ruling Communist Party and the Holy See.

The Vatican has not maintained formal diplomatic relations with China since 1951, when the newly established communist regime broke ties and expelled the papal nuncio, the Holy See’s envoy.

Instead, the Vatican remains one of a dwindling number of countries – and the only one in Europe – that recognizes the sovereignty of Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy Beijing claims its own.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te offered “sincerest condolences on behalf of the people of Taiwan” over the Pope’s death soon after the Vatican’s announcement, while the island’s foreign ministry said Taipei would send an envoy to the pontiff’s funeral.

That diplomatic allegiance to Taiwan has remained a sore point for Beijing as it feuded with the Vatican for decades over who gets to appoint Catholic bishops in China. Pope Francis had attempted to address the issue with a landmark – although controversial – deal with the Chinese government as he pushed for better ties.

In China, the ruling Communist Party keeps a tight grip on religion, fearing challenges to its authority, and allows worship only at state-controlled churches.

For decades, China’s state-sanctioned Catholic churches had been run by bishops appointed by Beijing, until the two sides reached an agreement under Pope Francis in 2018. Details of the controversial accord have never been made public and many within China’s underground congregations who have remained loyal to Rome and long faced persecution fear being abandoned.

The deal, which is part of Pope Francis’s vision to expand the Catholic Church’s following across the world, aimed to help the Vatican gain access to potentially millions of converts across China. It was renewed in 2020 and 2022, and in October last year, both sides agreed to extend it for another four years.

But critics have questioned why the church, historically a defender of human rights and Christian values, would willingly join forces with the Chinese government, which under leader Xi Jinping has further curtailed religious freedom. Much of that criticism of the deal has come from within the Catholic Church itself.

The Vatican insists the deal is already paying off and hopes to open a permanent office in China. That has left Catholics in Taiwan wondering what will happen to them should the Vatican ever switch recognition.

Catholicism is one of five state-recognized faiths in China, where religious practice is strictly controlled by the Communist Party, which asserts its supremacy over all aspects of life.

By official count, there are about 6 million Catholics in China, but the number may be higher when counting those who practice at underground churches to avoid Beijing’s watchful eye.

Francis had repeatedly expressed his wish to make a trip to China – a country no pope has ever visited. Chinese Catholics will remember him as the first pope to have ever been authorized to fly over Chinese airspace.

On his way to South Korea in 2014, Pope Frances sent a radio message to Xi when flying over China: “Upon entering Chinese airspace, I extend my best wishes to your excellency and your fellow citizens, and I invoke divine blessings of peace and wellbeing upon the nation.”

In 2023, during his visit to neighboring Mongolia, Francis made a rare move to send a “warm greeting to the noble Chinese people.”

“To the entire people I wish the best, go forward, always progress. And to the Chinese Catholics, I ask you to be good Christians and good citizens,” he said at the end of his Sunday Mass in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar.

A 14-year-old girl was killed by a lioness outside the Kenyan capital Nairobi when she was snatched at a ranch bordering the southern edge of a national park, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said Sunday.

The lioness then entered a house and attacked the girl, who was inside with a second teenager. “There is no evidence of provocation from the victims,” Udoto said.

The second teenager immediately raised the alarm, prompting KWS rangers and emergency teams to respond to the incident. Upon arrival, the team traced bloodstains leading to the Mbagathi River, where the girl’s body was recovered with injuries on her lower back.

Authorities have set a trap and deployed teams to search for the lioness. They are also trying to reinforce security measures, including electric fencing and AI-powered early warning systems to notify communities of nearby animal movements, Udoto said.

Separate animal attack

In a different incident on Friday, an elephant attacked a 54-year-old man while he was grazing livestock at a forest in Kenya’s Nyeri County. The man sustained chest injuries, fractured ribs and internal trauma, and was declared dead upon arriving at a hospital, KWS said.

The agency added that both attacks underscore a need for “continued investment in human-wildlife conflict mitigation – through strategic interventions, early warning systems, and strengthened collaboration with affected communities.”

KWS teams are still investigating the attacks, but preliminary findings suggest both are “linked to broader ecological pressures and human encroachment on wildlife habitats,” Udoto said.

KWS suspects the lioness was disoriented or diverted from her normal hunting behavior due to a scarcity of prey in her natural range and increasing human activity around the park, Udoto added.

The elephant, meanwhile, attacked the victim after he entered the forest to graze livestock. “It was the human activity that encroached upon the animal’s range, creating conditions for conflict,” Udoto said.

“KWS conveys its heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and continues to work closely with local law enforcement and communities to enhance the safety of people living near protected wildlife areas,” the agency said.

Lion and elephant attacks are considered relatively rare, but they can happen in isolated areas, near national parks and game reserves.

Lion attacks account for less than 2% of all reported incidents involving humans and wildlife, Udoto said. Elephant-related incidents are more common and tend to happen during dry seasons, when the animals migrate in search of water and food and encounter farmland or settlements, Udoto added.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has proposed a prisoner exchange with Venezuela, offering to repatriate hundreds of Venezuelans who were deported from the United States in exchange for “political prisoners.”

In a post on X, Bukele offered to exchange 252 Venezuelans currently detained in El Salvador’s mega prison for “an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners” he says Venezuela holds, including family members of opposition leaders.

“Unlike our detainees, many of whom have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some have even been arrested multiple times before being deported, your political prisoners have committed no crime,” Bukele said in the post, which was directed at Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. “The only reason they are imprisoned is because they opposed you and your electoral fraud.”

The US and El Salvador say most of the deportees locked up in El Salvador’s Cecot prison are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and some are members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang. But officials have provided scant evidence to show the inmates have ties to those criminal groups.

Venezuela’s leader has described the deportation of the mostly Venezuelan migrants as a “kidnapping,” and denied they are criminals while backing calls for their return.

The Salvadoran leader named some of the “political prisoners” incarcerated in Venezuela, including Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of exiled opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González.

González, who fled the country after claiming to have defeated Maduro in July’s presidential election, said his son-in-law was detained in Venezuela’s capital in early January, just days before Maduro was inaugurated.

He also mentions Corina Parisca de Machado, the mother of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who he says is facing political pressure.

Bukele also proposed swapping four political leaders seeking asylum in the Argentine Embassy in Venezuela. The group has been sheltering at the facility for more than a year, accused of terrorist activities and treason for working with Machado, who says they did nothing wrong.

Also included in Bukele’s proposed agreement are journalist Roland Carreño, lawyer and activist Rocío San Miguel, and nearly 50 detained citizens from other countries, including the US.

Bukele’s proposal comes amid heightened scrutiny about the Salvadoran’s willingness to accept hundreds of migrants who the Trump administration claims are gang members or violent criminals.

One of the region’s most popular leaders, Bukele has called himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and the “philosopher king” as he suspends certain civil liberties to go after his country’s gangs.

That has earned him the ire of international human rights organizations, which allege large-scale abuses in his crackdown on crime. But it has also earned him popularity inside El Salvador; Bukele, 43, won reelection last year by a landslide.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Ukraine says it was struck by a new barrage of deadly Russian air attacks as an Easter ceasefire ended and as the clock ticks for Kyiv to respond to a United States peace proposal this week.

At least three people were killed and several wounded in Russian attacks in the southern Kherson region, said the head of its regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin.

Blasts also rocked the nearby southern port city of Mykolaiv early Monday, according to its mayor, with air alerts issued for several eastern regions.

“Explosions were heard,” Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said on Telegram. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties or the extent of the damage.

Meanwhile, at least four people were wounded in the eastern Donetsk region, according to the head of its regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin.

The attacks came hours after the expiration of an Easter ceasefire called by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which both sides accused each other of violating.

The surprise truce came after the US on Thursday submitted its latest proposal in its so far fruitless efforts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

Crimea in southern Ukraine has been under Russian occupation since it was illegally annexed, and any move to recognize Moscow’s control of the peninsula would reverse around a decade of US policy.

The US proposal – which has also been submitted to Moscow – would also put a ceasefire in place along the front lines of the conflict, the source said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Friday that the US was ready to “move on” from efforts to bring peace to Ukraine within days if there were no tangible signs of progress.

US President Donald Trump has offered more optimism, saying in a Truth Social post on Sunday that “hopefully” Russia and Ukraine “would make a deal this week.” He didn’t specify what type of deal might be agreed.

Trump has declined to say whether he is prepared to walk away completely from the talks or whether the US would support Ukraine militarily if talks fall through.

The Trump administration is simultaneously planning another meeting between US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russians to get Moscow on board with the framework, the source said.

There has been no comment so far from Kyiv or Moscow on the US proposal. US, Ukrainian and European officials are set to meet in London this week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed willingness to agree to a peace deal with Moscow but said last month that his government would not recognize any occupied territories as Russian, calling that a “red line.”