Prince Charles has given Pope Francis a picnic basket full of tea and chocolate, sheepishly admitting "It's impossible to know what to get Your Holiness!" Charles and his wife, Camilla, offered the gift at the end of a half-hour meeting at the Vatican, the final day their four-day tour through Italy as part of a Brexit-inspired fence-mending effort to reassure Britain's allies. The British Embassy said the food from the Highgrove royal estate was meant to be shared with the poor. Francis, for his part, gave the royals a bronze olive branch and copies of his main teaching documents on the environment and family love.
Emergency services say four people from the same family have died in a fireworks factory explosion in Avoes, a village in northern Portugal. At least three others believed to be working at the factory are missing. Officials from the Civil Protection Service and local police told Portuguese media at the scene there was a huge explosion at the family-owned factory.
A German man who goes diving underground for a hobby has discovered what scientists say is Europe's first known cave fish. Spelunker Joachim Kreiselmaier chanced upon the fish in August 2015 while exploring the Danube-Aach cave system in southern Germany. It resembled stone loaches found in nearby rivers, but with smaller eyes, longer whisker-like barbels, larger nostrils and almost no colour on its body. In an article in Current Biology, scientists from the University of Constance who studied the fish concluded that it is a genetically distinct species.
South Africa's biggest trade union is calling on President Jacob Zuma to quit, in the wake of a Cabinet reshuffle that has cost the country one investment-grade rating and deepened a rift within the ruling African National Congress. Zuma's sacking of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan in the reshuffle last week has outraged his opponents and even some of his allies, undermining his authority as President. Cosatu, the biggest union and an ally of the ANC, joined the chorus of criticism, saying it no longer believed in Zuma's ability to lead, and that it wanted to restructure its alliance with the party.
A federal judge has formally charged former Argentina President Cristina Fernandez and her two children with money laundering and running a criminal association that received bribes from businesspeople. Judge Claudio Bonadio also ordered the retention of about US$8.3 million worth of Fernandez's assets and banned her and her children Maximo and Florencia Kirchner from leaving the country.
