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A chipper-sounding Pope Francis was discharged Saturday from the Rome hospital where he was treated for bronchitis, quipping to journalists before being driven away that he's “still alive.” Francis, 86, was hospitalized at Gemelli Polyclinic on Wednesday following his weekly public audience in St. Peter's Square after reportedly experiencing breathing difficulties. The pontiff received antibiotics administered intravenously during his stay, the Vatican said. In a sign of his improved health, the Vatican released details of Francis' Holy Week schedule. It said he would preside at this weekend's Palm Sunday Mass and at Easter Mass on April 9, both held in St. Peter's Square and expected to draw tens of thousands of faithful. A Vatican cardinal will be at the altar to celebrate both Masses, a recent practice due to the pontiff having a troublesome knee issue. But Francis is scheduled to celebrate Holy Thursday Mass, which this year will be held in a juvenile prison in Rome. Still unclear was whether he would attend the late-night, torch-lit Way of the Cross procession at Rome's Colosseum to mark Good Friday. Before departing Gemelli Polyclinic late Saturday morning, Francis comforted a Rome couple whose 5-year-old daughter died Friday night at the Catholic hospital. Outside, Serena Subania, mother of Angelica, sobbed as she pressed her head into the chest of the pope, who held her close and whispered words of comfort. Francis seemed eager to linger with well-wishers. When a boy showed him his arm cast, the pope made a gesture as if to ask, “Do you have a pen?” Three papal aides whipped out theirs. Francis took one of the pens and added his signature to the child's already well-autographed cast. Asked how he felt now, Francis joked, “Still alive, you know.” He gave a thumbs-up sign. Francis exited the hospital from a side entrance, but his car stopped in front of the main entrance, where a gaggle of journalists waited. He opened the car door himself and got out from the front passenger seat. Francis had a cane ready to lean on. After chatting, he got back into the white Fiat 500 car that drove him away from Gemelli Polyclinic. But instead of heading straight home, his motorcade sped right past Vatican City and went to St. Mary Major Basilica, a Rome landmark that is one of his favorites. There, startled tourists rushed to snap photos of him as he sat in a wheelchair, which he has used often to navigate longer distances in recent years due to a chronic knee problem. When he emerged after praying, residents and tourists in the street called out repeatedly, “Long live the pope!” and clapped. Francis spent 10 days at the same hospital in July 2021 following intestinal surgery for a bowel narrowing, After his release back then, he also stopped to offer prayers of thanksgiving at St. Mary Major Basilica, which is home to an icon depicting the Virgin Mary. He also visits the church upon returning from trips abroad. Before leaving the hospital Saturday, Francis, while chatting with journalists, praised medical workers, saying they "show great tenderness." “We sick are capricious. I much admire the people who work in hospitals,” he said. Francis also said he read journalists' accounts of his illness, including in a Rome daily newspaper, and pronounced them well done. Francis stopped to talk to reporters again before he was driven into the Vatican through a gate of the tiny walled city-state, where he lives at a Holy See hotel. Speaking through an open car window, he said: “Happy Easter to all, and pray for me.'' Then, indicating he was eager to resume his routine, he said, “Forward, thanks.” In response to a shouted question from a reporter, who asked if the pope would visit Hungary at the end of April as scheduled, Francis answered, “Yes.” On yet another stop, he got out of his car to distribute chocolate Easter eggs to the police officers who drove the motorcycles at the head of his motorcade. Given his strained voice, it was unclear if the pope would read the homily at the Palm Sunday service or deliver the usually lengthy “Urbi et Orbi” [Latin for to the city and to the world] address, a review of the globe's conflicts, at the end of Easter Mass. He told reporters that after Palm Sunday Mass, he would keep his weekly appointment to greet and bless the public in St. Peter's Square. As a young man in his native Argentina, Francis had part of a lung removed, leaving him particularly vulnerable to any respiratory illness.

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Unrelenting tornadoes that tore through parts of the South and Midwest killed at least 11 people, shredded homes and shopping centers, and collapsed a theater roof during a heavy metal concert in Illinois. Emergency responders across the region counted the dead and surveyed the damage Saturday morning after tornadoes touched down into the night, part of a sprawling storm system that also brought wildfires to the southern Plains and blizzard conditions to the Upper Midwest. The dead included four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, Cross County Coroner Eli Long told KAIT-TV. Other deaths were reported in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana and the Little Rock area. Wynne City Councilmember Lisa Powell Carter said the town about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Memphis, Tennessee, was without power and roads were full of debris. “I’m in a panic trying to get home, but we can’t get home,” she said Friday night. “Wynne is so demolished... There’s houses destroyed, trees down on streets.” The storms also killed three people in Sullivan County, Indiana, Emergency Management Director Jim Pirtle said in an email. Some residents were missing in the county seat of Sullivan, near the Illinois line about 150 kilometers southwest of Indianapolis. At least one person was killed, and more than two dozen were hurt, some critically, in the Little Rock area, authorities said. In Belvidere, Illinois, the roof of the Apollo Theatre collapsed during a tornado, killing one person and injuring 28, five severely. Calls began coming from the theater, about 110 kilometers northwest of Chicago, shortly before 8 p.m., police said. The venue's Facebook page said the bands scheduled to perform were Morbid Angel, Crypta, Skeletal Remains and Revocation. Belvidere Fire Chief Shawn Schadle said 260 people were in the venue. Responders also rescued someone from an elevator and had to deal with downed power lines outside the theater. Belvidere Police Chief Shane Woody described the scene after the collapse as “chaos, absolute chaos.” Gabrielle Lewellyn had just entered the theater when a portion of the ceiling collapsed. “I was there within a minute before it came down,” she told WTVO-TV. “The winds, when I was walking up to the building, it went like from zero to a thousand within five seconds.” Some people rushed to lift the collapsed portion of the ceiling and pull people out of the rubble, said Lewellyn, who wasn’t hurt. “They dragged someone out from the rubble, and I sat with him, and I held his hand, and I was [telling him] ‘It’s going to be okay.’ I didn’t really know much else what to do.” A tornado also killed a woman and critically injured three other people in Madison County, Alabama, emergency services worker Don Webster told WAFF-TV. The tornado in Little Rock tore first through neighborhoods in the western part of the Arkansas capital and shredded a small shopping center that included a Kroger grocery store. It then crossed the Arkansas River into North Little Rock and surrounding cities, where widespread damage was reported to homes, businesses and vehicles. Little Rock resident Niki Scott took cover in the bathroom after her husband called to warn her of a tornado. She could hear glass shattering and emerged to find that her house was one of the few on her street that didn’t have a tree on it. “It’s just like everyone says. It got really quiet, then it got really loud,” Scott said afterward, as chainsaws roared and sirens blared. In the evening, officials in Pulaski County announced a confirmed fatality in North Little Rock. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders activated 100 members of the National Guard to help local authorities respond throughout the state. The unrelenting tornadoes continued to touch down in the region into the night. The police department in Covington, Tennessee, said on Facebook that the west Tennessee city was impassable after power lines and trees fell on roads when the storm passed through Friday evening. Authorities in Tipton County, north of Memphis, said a tornado appeared to have touched down near the middle school in Covington and in other locations in the rural county. Tipton County Sheriff Shannon Beasley said on Facebook that homes and structures were severely damaged. Tornadoes also caused sporadic damage in eastern Iowa. One veered just west of Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. Video from KCRG-TV showed toppled power poles and roofs ripped off an apartment building in the suburb of Coralville and significantly damaged homes in the city of Hills. Nearly 90,000 customers in Arkansas lost power, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks outages. Outages were also reported in Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Indiana and Texas. In Illinois, Ben Wagner, chief radar operator for the Woodford County Emergency Management Agency, said hail broke windows on cars and buildings in the area of Roanoke, northeast of Peoria. More than 109,000 customers had lost power in the state as of Friday night. There were more confirmed twisters in Iowa, wind-whipped grass fires in Oklahoma, and blizzard conditions in the Upper Midwest as the storm system threatened a broad swath of the country home to some 85 million people. Fire crews battled several blazes near El Dorado, Kansas, and some residents were asked to evacuate, including about 250 elementary school children who were relocated to a high school.

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Pakistan said Saturday that four of its soldiers were killed when a "group of terrorists" from across the Iranian side of the border attacked a routine military patrol operating between the two countries.    The deadly cross-border raid took place in the remote Kech district in southwestern Baluchistan province abutting Iran, the Pakistani military said in a statement.  "Necessary contact with the Iranian side is being made for effective action against terrorists on the Iranian side and to prevent such incidents in the future," the statement said, without providing further details.      The Iranian Embassy in Islamabad condemned the attack and expressed sympathy to the families of the slain soldiers.     "Terrorism is the common pain of the two countries and the two Muslim nations have sacrificed precious lives in the fight against this plague," the Iranian Embassy said on Twitter.     "Undoubtedly, strengthening the joint cooperation between the two countries will prevent terrorist groups from achieving their sinister goals," wrote the Iranian diplomatic mission.    Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “grief and sorrow over the martyrdom” of the security personnel in the terrorist attack, his office said in a statement.  No group immediately took responsibility for Saturday's attack, the second incident this year in Baluchistan, where ethnic Baluch separatists routinely target Pakistani security forces.    In mid-January, four Pakistani troops were killed when a military convoy patrolling along the more than 900-kilometer border came under an insurgent attack from across the Iranian side.     The outlawed Baluchistan Liberation Army, or BLA, routinely takes credit for attacks on Pakistani security forces. Officials in Islamabad say the group has set up sanctuaries in border areas of Iran, charges Tehran rejects.   The Global Terrorism Index, released in March by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace, said that BLA was responsible for 36% of nearly 650 terror-related deaths in Pakistan in 2022, making it "the fastest-growing terrorist group in the world."    Pakistan, the United States, and Britain have designated the BLA as a terrorist organization.    Baluch insurgents claim to be fighting for the independence of Baluchistan, alleging extortion by the central government of the region's natural resources and discrimination against its ethnic Baluch population. Pakistani authorities reject the charges.     The sparsely populated province, which also shares a significant chunk of the country's nearly 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan, is at the center of a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure development project being funded by China in Pakistan under Beijing's global Belt and Road Initiative.   

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Faced with an increasing number of women defying the compulsory dress code, Iran’s judiciary chief has threatened to prosecute "without mercy" women who appear in public unveiled, Iranian media reported Saturday. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning comes on the heels of an Interior Ministry statement Thursday that reinforced the government’s mandatory hijab law. “Unveiling is tantamount to enmity with (our) values,” Ejei was quoted as saying by several news sites. Those “who commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and will be “prosecuted without mercy,” he said, without saying what the punishment entails. Ejei, Iran's chief justice, said law enforcement officers were “obliged to refer obvious crimes and any kind of abnormality that is against the religious law and occurs in public to judicial authorities.” A growing number of Iranian women have been ditching their veils since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police last September. Mahsa Amini had been detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule. Government forces violently put down months of nationwide revolt unleashed by her death. Still, risking arrest for defying the obligatory dress code, women are widely seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media. Under Iran's Islamic Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest. Describing the veil as “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” the Interior Ministry statement Thursday said there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the issue. It urged ordinary citizens to confront unveiled women. Such directives have in past decades emboldened hardliners to attack women without impunity.

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An elaborate hoax that duped the U.S. city of Newark, New Jersey, into signing a sister-city agreement with a nonexistent island nation is but one example of a profusion of scams and frauds in the internet age, with hucksters constantly inventing new ways to dupe, trick and swindle. In a case that drew headlines and made Newark a laughingstock in some people’s eyes, the city signed a cultural partnership, known as a sister-city agreement, with a fake country called the United States of Kailasa, named after a mountain in the Himalayas. There was even a signing ceremony featuring Newark’s mayor and a supposed representative of Kailasa. Newark officials were led to believe that Kailasa was a Hindu island-nation off the coast of Ecuador. According to Kailasa’s website, “It is a nation without borders created by dispossessed Hindus from around the world who lost the right to practice Hinduism authentically in their own countries.” Although Kailasa does not have a formal government, it is supposedly led by a self-styled guru named Nithyananda, who calls himself “the divine holiness and supreme pontiff of Hinduism,” and claims he founded the new country in 2019. However, it is supposedly led by a self-styled guru named Nithyananda, who calls himself “the divine holiness and supreme pontiff of Hinduism,” and claims he founded the new country in 2019. He fled India in 2019 after being charged with rape and sexual assault, which he denies committing. Admitting that Newark got conned, the city council rescinded the sister-city agreement just days after it was signed. “Although this was a regrettable incident, the city of Newark remains committed to partnering with people from diverse cultures in order to enrich each other with connectivity, support and mutual respect,” the Newark City Hall said in a statement. Newark may not have been the only U.S. city that got duped. According to Kailasa’s website, some 30 municipalities have signed cultural partnership agreements, a claim VOA could neither verify nor disprove. Nithyananda has not made public appearances since 2019, although video of his sermons can be seen on social media. The self-proclaimed Hindu leader has an extensive website and Facebook page with a grandiose list of supposed accomplishments. “He appears to be misrepresenting himself at the very least,” said V.S. Subrahmanian, a cybersecurity expert and computer science professor at Northwestern University near Chicago. “It’s possible Nithyananda has delusions of grandeur and wants people to admire him,” he told VOA. “When a lot of people look up to somebody, that person can take advantage of them in various ways.” Subrahmanian added, “Organizations that show photos and videos of events they participated in can create an alternative reality other people may believe is real.” While Newark’s experience was embarrassing for the city but ultimately caused no serious harm, the same cannot be said of many other scams. The internet, including social media, is giving scammers virtually limitless avenues to commit fraud. “We’re seeing increasing phishing on emails and attachments that take them to sites that download malware on a computer,” Subrahmanian said, “and that means your passwords may be taken, including the one to your bank account.” He added, “another big risk is that they will lock your computer and demand a ransom.” “The internet and the tools that come associated with it makes it easy to create false information,” said Cliff Lampe, professor of information at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. For example, “Someone may be able to hack an account, or create a false account, and pretend to be one of your network friends.” Lampe said he is particularly concerned about one increasingly common scam. “People who think they are doing legitimate business over Facebook messages,” he said. “A real friend never contacts you for money over Facebook Messenger.” “Another I’ve seen recently is that you will get a text message saying a particular account has been closed and you need to contact us. That’s just an interim move for a scam and they’re trying to get money from you.” Lampe said. Both Lampe and Subrahmanian say educating people about protecting themselves is key. “Don’t do business over Facebook Messenger and text message. And don’t send gift cards to people you don’t know who say they have a family emergency because that’s sure to be a scam,” said Lampe. Subrahmanian said, “If you see something that sounds incredible, be cautious and verify that it’s true so you don’t get duped.”

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen arrived in Guatemala on Friday on a visit to the Central American region meant to tighten her country’s alliances with the region’s countries that have not fallen under the influence of China. Tsai held talks with her counterpart, Alejandro Giammattei, and is expected to visit the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal in the north of the country Saturday. On Sunday, she is expected to visit the new Chimaltenango hospital in the west that was built with a $22 million donation from Taipei. Tsai then travels to Belize, where she will meet Prime Minister John Briceno on Monday. On her way back to Taiwan, she is scheduled to meet U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The Taiwanese president’s visit comes just days after Honduras, a neighboring nation of Guatemala, broke ties with Taiwan, following in the footsteps of Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Costa Rica. The switches of allegiance from Taiwan to China coincide with money and promised projects from China, if the countries switch. Political analysts say it is likely only a matter of time before the Central American countries who have been loyal to Taiwan come under the influence of China and its checkbook diplomacy. China has a One China policy, and it does not allow countries to recognize both China and Taiwan. China considers Taiwan part of Chinese territory. Some material in this report came from Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.

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North Korea has long sought to convince its own people that the U.S. and South Korea are its mortal enemies, leaving the nation no choice but to develop advanced weapons for self-protection. Analysts are questioning whether that closed society is giving leader Kim Jong Un's daughter a similarly constricted view of the outside world. Kim Ju Ae, believed to be about 10, has been spotted at military events with her father about 10 times since he introduced her to the public on November 18, a little girl standing in front of a gigantic Hwasong-17 ICBM at a launch site. Most recently, she accompanied Kim as he was overseeing simulated nuclear counterattack drills on March 18-19, the test of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile on March 16, and artillery firing drills on March 9, according to North Korea's state media KCNA. The father-daughter visits to missile sites and military events are "an indoctrinating moment for her," said Michael Madden, an expert on North Korean leadership at the Stimson Center. He said she is probably told that "the missiles guarantee … the continuity of the Kim family regime." The Kim regime spans three generations, with power passing from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il and then to the father of the girl who represents the fourth generation. Madden added that rather than being raised to see the world in shades of gray, Ju Ae is absorbing "a black-and-white way of viewing things, and that South Korea and the United States are our enemies and have been our enemies for 70-plus years." 'Very cutthroat' Kim is presenting her with this worldview to raise her as an elite member of Pyongyang's top ranks, if not as his successor who would continue the regime's authoritarian rule, suggested Ken Gause, a North Korean leadership expert and director of International Affairs Group, a part of the Strategic Studies division of the U.S.-based CNA Corporation. "There is a part of running North Korea that is very cutthroat," Gause said. "The less you know about how democracies run" and "to a certain extent, the less you know about the outside world, probably the better." Almost all the events Ju Ae attended have involved the military, a sign that she is "being placed in the context of the Korean People's Army," said Madden. "This could be read as a continuation of the partisan, guerrilla legacy of her great-grandfather Kim Il Sung," who founded the regime. A soccer match she attended with her father in February set the Defense Ministry team against a team composed of Cabinet members. Even a groundbreaking ceremony for a new street in an apartment complex in Pyongyang that she attended with Kim in February had a military twist. Members of the Youth League, which is tied to the KPA, were assigned to construct the buildings, according to Madden. For Ju Ae to be presented with the regime's narrative suggests she is not completely exempt from being brainwashed like the rest of the North Korean people, experts said. North Korea is considered one of the most repressive countries in the world, denying its people freedom of information, expression and thought or opinion, according to a 2022 report by Human Rights Watch. The regime strictly "controls virtually all information within the country" and prohibits "ordinary citizens from listening to foreign media broadcasts," according to the State Department's 2022 report on human rights practices in North Korea.   Death penalty A law adopted in December 2020, designed to preserve North Korea's socialist ideology, authorizes up to a death sentence for those caught distributing media from South Korea and the U.S. On Thursday, South Korea's Unification Ministry released a report detailing North Korean defectors' accounts of human rights situations in the country from 2017 to 2022, including crackdowns on distributing and watching foreign media contents. The regime indoctrinates its people with one-sided narratives via propaganda messages at schools and workplaces, and through state-owned media tightly controlled by the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the ruling Workers' Party, according to a report by the U.S. State Department. Former high-ranking officials in Pyongyang who defected to South Korea say ordinary North Koreans lack the information needed to form their own opinions of Ju Ae's outings in high-end outerwear. A black velvet coat with quilted stitching she wore to the ICBM launch on March 16 appeared to come from the French luxury brand Christian Dior and cost $2,800, according to a report by The Washington Post. "Ordinary North Koreans [seeing the pictures of Ju Ae] will not know she is wearing Dior," said Ryu Hyun Woo, a former North Korean acting ambassador to Kuwait since 2017 who defected to South Korea with his family in 2019. No frame of reference "They don't know what Dior is or it costs over $2,000 unless they are told," he continued in an interview with VOA's Korean Service earlier this week. "They might think it could cost a lot, but they don't have any reference to compare it with, even to become angry" at the regime. Another high-profile North Korean defector, who prefers to remain anonymous to avoid attracting the regime's attention, told the Korean Service, "North Korean residents can't fathom how expensive the coat is because they are going hungry and don't have enough food to eat." Chronic food shortages have plagued North Korea since a famine killed an estimated hundreds of thousands of people in the mid-1990s. Although it is difficult to accurately assess current conditions, many experts believe the COVID-19 pandemic worsened food insecurity.

"While [much of] the rest of the U.S. has its Anglo-Saxon heritage, New Orleans' mother country is France – and that makes a big difference," explained Alexandra Stafford, president of the Council of French Societies, an umbrella organization that promotes the many French nonprofit organizations in Louisiana's most populous city. "Our French connection brings a different flavor to our community," she continued. "A different vocabulary, different traditions, different food and most importantly, a joie de vivre that other parts of America don't have!" That joie de vivre was on full display on March 25. The aroma of moules frites, crepes and raclette cheese with cornichons, as well as the longing lyrics of a French ballad all emanated from a side street. Children laughed and played while some ate colorful macarons, and a trio of women dressed as Marie Antoinette took a photo in front of an oversized sign that read, "Bonjour!" One could be excused for thinking for a moment they were entering a Parisian street festival. In reality, this was taking place at Fête Française, the annual outdoor street fair hosted by Ecole Bilingue, one of a half-dozen French immersion schools in New Orleans. Events like this make sense in a city originally called La Nouvelle-Orléans by its 18th century French founders. And though, according to a survey at the start of the current century, only about 1% of residents still speak French, this neighborhood festival serves as evidence that New Orleans continues to be influenced in countless ways by its Francophone past. "Many residents can still recall a time when French was spoken widely in homes here," Ecole Bilingue's head of school, or chef d'établissement, Pierre-Loïc Denichou, told VOA. "Louisiana is a state whose identity relies on its historic ties to the French colonial period, and so our school and our festival are about embracing what makes living here unique from anywhere in the world. "We are preserving a culture born from the influence of so many cultures," he added, "an important one being that of the French." From croissants to street grids On the other side of town, Dominique Rizzo and his small team prepare pastries in the morning at his shop, Celtica French Bakery. Rizzo said he moved to New Orleans from France decades ago to share his love for the food of his native country with his adopted hometown. "I make my pastries with the kind of care and quality you'd find in France," he explained. "The light and fluffy pastries, the flaky and buttery croissants, and the sweet and indulgent desserts — the French turned baking into an art, and I think people come to my Celtica to find a little corner of Paris in New Orleans." Food is one of the most celebrated examples of sustained French influence in New Orleans, but it's far from the only example. Joseph Mistrot is the former president of L'Union Française, a local nonprofit founded in 1872 to teach the French language and preserve Francophone culture. His great-grandfather emigrated to New Orleans from France in the late 19th century and his Cajun grandmother's first language was French. Mistrot said Mardi Gras is another high-profile example of how historic Francophone influences endure in New Orleans today. "Mardi Gras is our premier event of the year and is a direct reflection of our ties to France," he said. "The season starts with a parade by the Krewe of Jeanne d'Arc, in honor of the French heroine and [an unofficial] patron saint of New Orleans. It ends with the Boeuf Gras, which is an old French tradition in which a cow was paraded through the street before being slaughtered for the final feast before Lent." "Today, in New Orleans, it's not a real cow," Mistrot was quick to add. "It's made of paper-mache and part of a parade float, but it's from the same tradition." French influence can even be seen in how the city was built. Whereas most American cities have a street grid composed of perfect squares and right angles — Manhattan being a classic example — New Orleans, which was founded along the twisting, winding Mississippi River, benefits from a French-style street grid with an irregular geometry. "French influence in New Orleans is traceable to the spring of 1682, when the French-Canadian explorer Robert La Salle first passed the future site of the city and claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France," explained Richard Campanella, an author and geographer with New Orleans' Tulane University. "By the end of the 17th century, an outpost was established within that claim." As French surveyors laid out plantation parcels in the next decades, Campanella said, they had to be fair and give each landowner a piece of the fertile land beside the Mississippi River, as well as shipping access. The solution was thin, "long-lot" plantations, known as the "arpent system." As these lots were eventually divided up into neighborhoods in the 19th century, the street grid adhered to the earlier plantation boundaries. Some of today’s street names were derived from those plantations as well as the names of famous French historical figures and families. "Look at any map or satellite image of New Orleans, and you will still readily see the imprint of this old, French surveying system from centuries ago." Francophone with local flair In the centuries since New Orleans' original settlement by the French, several elements of Francophone influence have waned. Fires in the city's famous French Quarter destroyed much of its French architecture, which was replaced with a Spanish style after Spain took control of the city in the late 18th century. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 resulted in La Nouvelle-Orléans becoming part of the United States. As the Anglo "Américains" flooded into the new territory, the existing — and previously dominant — French Creole population slowly lost political control. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, French-owned businesses closed, and the French language largely disappeared from homes in the city, though it can still be found in more rural parts of Louisiana. "After the Civil War, and the destruction of Louisiana's economy in the years after, ties between New Orleans and France weakened considerably," explained Thomas Klingler, director of linguistics in the French and Italian department at Tulane University. But lovers of Francophone culture are adamant that many aspects of French influence have survived over the years and are readily apparent to the eyes – and the tastebuds. French restaurants abound in New Orleans, but this is a different type of French from what you'll find in Paris. "New Orleans cuisine is unparalleled in the world, and like the residents who live here, our food is a mix of French, Spanish, African, Caribbean and more recently Vietnamese influences," Ryan Pearson, executive chef at New Orleans restaurant Couvant, told VOA. As Pearson prepares Couvant's most popular entree, he highlights the push and pull between the city's unique identity and how French culture plays a major role in shaping it. "We wrap veal in brioche and layer in a chicken mousse, which is served with a sauce diable — and this is all very French," he explained, carefully painting the plate with the sauce. "But at the same time, we are adding locally sourced ingredients like cauliflower and mushrooms because that's something we're committed to alongside the French technique of our cooking." Commitment to the future It's a metaphor for life in New Orleans. An American city with a historic but enduring French connection shaped by cultures from across the globe. The importance of the relationship between Louisiana and France was on full display in the final weeks of 2022. On a three-day visit to the United States, French President Emmanuel Macron made a memorable stopover in the city. "Everywhere you looked in the French Quarter, people were in the streets by the hundreds to greet him," remembered Nathalie Beras, the Consul General of France in Louisiana. She spoke of a speech the president gave, announcing a new program to support bilingualism and access to French language — not just in New Orleans, but across the United States. "That he made that announcement here — it was a clear sign that the link between France and New Orleans is very strong," she told VOA, "not only historically, but in the present and for the future." And that he was so well-received in this Francophone city? "It's a sign we share so much," she added. "Perhaps most importantly, an appreciation for life."

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The United States has announced its intention to open an embassy in Vanuatu. The State Department said in a statement Friday that the establishment of a Vanuatu embassy would “further strengthen the bilateral relationship.” Washington’s opening of an embassy in the South Pacific nation is widely viewed as a means of countering the growing Chinese influence in the region. The United States has also announced plans to open embassies in the Pacific Island nations of Kiribati and Tonga.