Another week and another look at another week’s goings-on in Europe, or as Grandma Riva, born in Horodenka, Ukraine, circa 1888 — featured here holding a very young Jack Friedman after being called away from her weekly poker game — called it, “Youpe.”
European interior ministers from Denmark, Germany, Greece, Austria, and the Netherlands met in Munich last week to finalise a deal to deport those who have entered their countries illegally and send them to Rwanda, while European foreign ministers met in Brussels to strengthen the bloc’s “emergency security protocol,” designed to help member states coordinate their responses when a hybrid threat is identified. “We need to be vigilant because we see in the intelligence that Russia is planning more sabotage acts,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. Polish authorities, fearing an imminent attack by Russia, issued new guidance on how people should respond to an air attack, including advising people to use designated shelters where available, to take essential medication, and to prepare an evacuation bag. Authorities also recommend that people should put at least two solid walls between themselves and the outside. In France, Pope Leo XIV made the first papal visit to the country in 18 years. Though he was born in Chicago, his paternal grandmother was born in France. The pope visited the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, one of the world’s most renowned Catholic pilgrimage sites, where, it was reported, between February and July 1858, Bernadette Soubirous — a young girl from a modest background who suffered from asthma — reported 18 visions of a lady dressed in white in the Grotto of Massabielle, while also in the country, Catholic private schools suspended regular classwork and devoted the day to the Pope’s arrival in the country. A statement from the General Secretariat for Catholic Education (Sgec), headed by Guillaume Prévost, said, “This day must be compulsory for pupils as well as for all teachers and staff, in the same way as any other school day.” Finland’s largest and longest-running travelling carnival, Tivoli, is closing after 138 years of operation. It has been losing money for the past seven years. When it first opened in 1888, Tivoli was thought by some to be a “corrupting influence.”
