The first days of January always cast their shadow over the coming year’s events, just as the final dwindling days of December encompass and focus the year just ending. We’re meant to look back, if not in anger, at least with relief that we got through it, and it seems, each year with an

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights issued a depressing portrait on Jan. 1 of a year in death in Syria. According to the group’s tracking of the many casualties of the ongoing and complex conflict, the civil war in Syria claimed 76,021 lives in 2014. Its researchers acknowledged that this

Underscoring the geographical diversity of his selections, Pope Francis named 15 cardinal electors “from 14 nations of every continent, showing the inseparable link between the church of Rome and the particular churches present in the world.” The pope announced the names on Jan. 4 and sa

Pope Francis expressed his “deep sadness” and condolences on Jan. 1 to the ecclesial community of the Diocese of Altamirano in Mexico after the murder of the Rev. Gregorio López Gorostieta, before urging “the priests and other missionaries of the diocese to continue their ecclesia

It’s your typical Hollywood story: In the late 1970s, a Jewish kid from Los Angeles answers an ad to work as secretary to a film producer. She wants to get in “the business,” but she doesn’t exactly have the pedigree. Dad’s an economist; Mom runs a bookstore. Growing up

In his World Day of Peace address on Jan. 1, Pope Francis continued his promotion of a world free of human trafficking and modern forms of slavery, calling for a globalization of solidarity which rejects a globalization of indifference. • The Italian coast guard took control on Jan. 1 of a carg