Pope Francis pressed his campaign Friday to urge Italians to have children, calling for long-term policies to help families and warning that the country's demographic crisis was threatening the future.

"The number of births is the first indicator of the hope of a people," Francis told an annual gathering of pro-family groups. "Without children and young people, a country loses its desire for the future."

Torchbearers carried the Olympic flame through the streets of France's southern port city of Marseille on Thursday, a day after it arrived on a majestic three-mast ship for a welcoming ceremony.

The torch begins its 11-week journey across the country with about 10,000 bearers passing through more than 450 towns until the Games' opening ceremony in Paris on July 26.

The Vatican crosses a key milestone Thursday in the runup to its 2025 Jubilee with the promulgation of the official decree establishing the Holy Year. It's a once-every-quarter-century event that is expected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to Rome and has already brought months of headaches to Romans.

Pope Francis will preside over a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica for the formal reading of the papal bull, or official edict, that lays out the spiritual theme of hope for the year. The event also kicks off the final seven-month dash of preparations and public works projects to be completed by Dec. 24, when Francis opens the basilica's Holy Door and formally inaugurates the Jubilee.

The Olympic torch will finally enter France when it reaches the southern seaport of Marseille on Wednesday. And it's already been quite a journey.

After being lit by the sun's rays on April 16 in Ancient Olympia, the torch was carried around Greece before leaving Athens aboard a three-mast ship named Belem, headed for Marseille.

By Graham Liddell, Hope College

Words fail as 2,000-pound bombs shred lives and limbs.

If a woman wins Mexico's presidency on June 2, would she rule with gender in mind?

The question has been raised by academics, humans rights organizations and activists ahead of the voting that will likely elect Mexico's first female president for the term 2024-2030.

Venice has always been a place of contrasts, of breathtaking beauty and devastating fragility, where history, religion, art and nature have collided over the centuries to produce an otherworldly gem of a city. But even for a place that prides itself on its culture of unusual encounters, Pope Francis' visit Sunday stood out.

Francis traveled to the lagoon city to visit the Holy See's pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art show and meet with the people who created it. But because the Vatican decided to mount its exhibit in Venice's women's prison, and invited inmates to collaborate with the artists, the whole project assumed a far more complex meaning, touching on Francis' belief in the power of art to uplift and unite, and of the need to give hope and solidarity to society's most marginalized.

Human rights groups and diplomats criticized a law that was quietly passed by the Iraqi parliament over the weekend that would impose heavy prison sentences on gay and transgender people.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that the law passed Saturday "threatens those most at risk in Iraqi society" and "can be used to hamper free-speech and expression." He warned that the legislation could drive away foreign investment.

A selection of South African artworks produced during the country's apartheid era which ended up in foreign art collections is on display in Johannesburg to mark 30 years since the country's transition to democracy in 1994.

Most of the artworks were taken out of the country by foreign tourists and diplomats who had viewed them at the Australian Embassy in the capital, Pretoria. The embassy had opened its doors to Black artists from the townships to be recognized and have their artworks on full display to the public.

Muslim groups in Australia on Friday criticized the disparity in the police response to two stabbing attacks in Sydney this month, saying it had created a perception of a double standard and further alienated the country's minority Muslim community.

The Australian National Imams Council said an attack at a Bondi Junction shopping center was "quickly deemed a mental health issue" while the stabbing of a Christian bishop at a Sydney church two days later was "classified as a terrorist act almost immediately."