Pope Francis plans to make his first public appearance since he was hospitalized more than a month ago on Sunday, greeting the public from the hospital where he’s being treated for double pneumonia.

The 88-year-old pontiff plans to offer a blessing and greeting to well-wishers from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital at the end of Sunday’s Angelus prayer, the Vatican press office said.

Francis has been in hospital since February 14 and Sunday will be the 38th day since he was admitted.

The pope usually leads the Angelus prayer and offers a reflection each week, but has not done so for the past five Sundays. The Vatican said the written text of the pope’s remarks will be released as has been done previously.

Francis’ current hospitalization has been his longest stay in Gemelli since his election as pope 12 years ago. While he has not been seen in five weeks, his presence has been felt with the Vatican releasing a short audio message from the pope as well as a photo last weekend showing him praying at that hospital’s chapel.

The Vatican said on Wednesday that the pontiff’s condition appeared to be improving, adding that his pneumonia is considered under control. He no longer requires assisted breathing but has been continuing to receive oxygen.

Last week, the pope approved a new three-year reform process for the Catholic Church, sending a strong signal he intends to remain in the post despite his lengthy stint in hospital.

Reforms on the table include how to give greater roles to women in the Catholic Church, including ordaining them as deacons, and the greater inclusion of non-clergy members in governance and decision making.

While the latest medical updates from the Vatican have spoken of improvement, it has not released any details on when the pontiff might be released from hospital and it is not yet clear if he will be out in time for Holy Week and Easter.

The Israeli air force says it struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to cross-border rocket fire in the most significant flare-up of tensions since a ceasefire brought uneasy calm to the region.

Israel and Hezbollah exchanged cross-border attacks for 13 months in the wake of the Gaza conflict before Israel launched an intense ground and aerial campaign in September last year, decimating the Iran-backed militant group’s leadership.

The Israeli strikes followed artillery and tank shelling of positions inside Lebanon, and it came after sirens echoed across northern Israel, as the military detected five projectiles had been fired at the country. According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), three were intercepted by the country’s air force and two fell inside Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to take “robust action against dozens of terror targets.”

“Israel will not allow any harm to its citizens or its sovereignty,” Netanyahu said.

The Lebanese military said it had found and dismantled “three primitive rocket launchers in the area north of the Litani River,” as it carried out investigations following the incident. It was not immediately clear who was behind the rocket fire into Israel.

The UN’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said it was “alarmed” by the Saturday morning escalation in violence, calling on all sides to “uphold their commitments.

“We strongly urge all parties to avoid jeopardizing the progress made, especially when civilian lives and the fragile stability observed in recent months are at risk,” it said in a statement. “Any further escalation of this volatile situation could have serious consequences for the region.”

Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, blamed the Lebanese government for cross-border attacks and vowed to retaliate.

“We promised security to the Galilee communities – and that is exactly what will happen,” Katz said in a statement Saturday, referring to inhabitants of northern Israel.

The Lebanese presidency condemned “attempts to drag once again into a cycle of violence,” saying President Joseph Aoun had instructed the army to protect the country’s citizens, as well as investigate the Saturday morning incident.

Israel continues to maintain a military presence at five locations in the south of Lebanon, despite agreeing to withdraw as part of a ceasefire deal, struck in November last year.

The deal brought a significant reduction in more than a year of cross-border strikes and put an end to months of a full-scale war.

The last time Israel accused the Lebanese armed group of firing projectiles across the border was in early December.

Escalation in the north comes after Israel restarted military operations in Gaza earlier in the week, putting an end to a fragile truce that had largely held since January.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The biggest obstacle to resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine is the status of Crimea and the four mainland Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia, said US special envoy Steve Witkoff, calling them “the elephant in the room” in peace talks.

In a long interview with podcast host Tucker Carlson, Witkoff – who also revealed Russia’s President Putin had commissioned a portrait of Donald Trump and sent it to him – said the administration was making progress “that no one thought was possible” with Russia, but that issues of territory still need ironing out.

The four mainland regions, which Witkoff appeared to struggle to name and needed prompting from Carlson, were illegally annexed during Russia’s full-scale invasion and Kyiv vehemently opposes giving them up.

The Kremlin has since staged referenda on joining Russia in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Kyiv and the international community decried as a propaganda exercise, but which Witkoff claimed was evidence of their desire to split from Ukraine.

“They’re Russian-speaking,” Witkoff said of the four eastern regions. “There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.”

Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy who also plays a key role in talks with Russia, said the “constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede… with regard to territory” had become “the elephant in the room” during negotiations. Talks are set to resume Monday in Saudi Arabia, with US officials set to meet officials from both Russia and Ukraine.

“The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is: Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?” Witkoff asked. “Can (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict.”

Zelensky stressed last weekend that Ukraine’s position “is that we do not recognize the occupied Ukrainian territories as Russian.”

The US raised the issue during talks with Ukrainian delegates in the Saudi city of Jeddah, Zelensky said, adding that he hopes the question can be resolved during later peace talks, rather than discussions over an initial ceasefire. “It is dragging out the process for a long, long time,” he said.

‘Gracious’ Putin

Witkoff said he was impressed by how “gracious” the Russian leader has been during the pair’s discussions, praising him as “smart” and “straightforward.”

Before meeting Putin in Moscow, Witkoff said someone in the Trump administration warned him to “watch it, because he’s an ex-KGB guy,” referring to Putin’s former career in the Soviet Union’s security agency.

Witkoff said he downplayed the person’s fears, saying Putin’s background in the agency was a measure of his intelligence. “In the old days, the only people who went into the KGB were the smartest people in the nation… He’s a super smart guy,” he recalled saying.

“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy,” Witkoff said, saying it was “gracious” of the Russian leader to receive him in Moscow for talks earlier this month.

That meeting “got personal,” he said, recalling how Putin “had commissioned a beautiful portrait of President Trump from the leading Russian artist,” which Witkoff took home to the president.

Witkoff said also that, following the assassination attempt against Trump in September, Putin said that he “went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed” for Trump, “not because he… could become the president of the United States, but because he had a friendship with him.”

Trump was “clearly touched” by Putin’s story and the portrait, Witkoff said.

Witkoff implied that resolving the war in Ukraine could lead to cooperation on a broader range of issues, and that the two sides were thinking about “integrating their energy policies in the Arctic,” sharing sea lanes, collaborating on artificial intelligence and sending liquefied natural gas “into Europe together.”

“Who doesn’t want to have a world where Russia and the United States are doing, collaboratively, good things together?” he asked.

Pope Francis will be discharged on Sunday from the hospital where he has spent more than a month being treated for double pneumonia, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the head of the team taking care of the pontiff announced.

“The Holy Father will be discharged from tomorrow in stable clinical condition with a prescription to partially continue drug therapy and a convalescence and rest period of at least two months,” Alfieri told reporters at a news conference at Gemelli on Saturday.

“Today we are happy to say that tomorrow he will be at home,” he added.

Francis has been in hospital since February 14.

The pontiff is also expected to also make his first public appearance on Sunday at the hospital’s balcony before making his way back to the Casa Santa Marta, his residence since the 2013 conclave, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

The 88-year-old pontiff will offer a blessing and greeting to well-wishers at the end of Sunday’s Angelus prayer, the Vatican press office said earlier on Saturday. Francis usually leads the prayer and offers a reflection each week, but has not done so for the past five Sundays.

The pope’s hospitalization has been his longest stay in Gemelli since his election 12 years ago. While he has not been seen in weeks, his presence has been felt with the Vatican releasing a short audio message from the pope as well as a photo last weekend showing him praying at that hospital’s chapel.

News of his discharge comes after the Vatican said this week that the Pope’s condition appeared to be improving, adding that his pneumonia is considered under control.

Last week, the pope approved a new three-year reform process for the Catholic Church, sending a strong signal he intends to remain in the post despite his lengthy stint in hospital.

Reforms on the table include how to give greater roles to women in the Catholic Church, including ordaining them as deacons, and the greater inclusion of non-clergy members in governance and decision making.

Iceland’s minister for children and education has resigned after admitting she had a child with a teenager more than three and a half decades ago, according to Icelandic media.

Ásthildur Lóa Thórsdóttir revealed that she had started a relationship with a 15-year-old boy when she was 22 and had a son with him, Iceland’s public broadcaster RUV reported on Thursday.

Thórsdóttir met the boy while working as a counselor for a religious group, the Icelandic broadcaster said, before giving birth to his child when she was 23 and he was 16.

The age of consent is 15, according to the country’s penal code. However, it is illegal for adults to have sexual relations with a child under 18 if they are entrusted to teach them, with perpetrators facing up to 12 years in prison.

The father told RUV he had never seen himself as a victim in this situation, but noted that he was in a difficult place in his life and at home turned to the church group for support.

Iceland’s public broadcaster reported that the relationship was kept secret but that the father was present for the birth of his child and initially allowed contact, but nearly all access was cut off before his son turned 1.

He was however required to pay child support for 18 years.

The young father sought assistance from the Ministry of Justice and the church’s family service to see his child, but Thórsdóttir refused him visitation rights, according to Iceland’s public broadcaster.

Shortly after RUV’s report on Thursday, Thórsdóttir resigned from her ministerial position, the public broadcaster said. She will continue to represent the People’s Party as a member of parliament.

Iceland’s prime minister said Thórsdóttir had met with the country’s three party leaders but it had been her decision to resign, according to RUV.

“We discussed the options together and heard her account of the matter in detail for the first time at that meeting,” Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir said at a news conference Friday, RUV reported. The leader reiterated that Thórsdóttir had swiftly taken responsibility by resigning.

“Of course, this is an unfortunate matter, but it has nothing to do with our work,” Frostadóttir said, adding that the prime minister’s office had not finished investigating the matter since it was brought to their attention a week ago.