Washington, DC:

The US Secret Service shot a man near the White House in Washington, DC shortly after midnight on Sunday (local time) after an “armed confrontation” with law enforcement. President Donald Trump was in Florida at the time of the shooting.

The incident happened about a block from the White House, on the west side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The man was reportedly “suicidal” and is believed to be traveling from Indiana.

The Secret Service received information from local police about an alleged “suicidal individual” who was traveling from Indiana and found the man’s car and a person matching his description nearby, according to a report by Associated Press.

“As officers approached, the individual brandished a firearm and an armed confrontation ensued, during which shots were fired by our personnel,” the Secret Service said in a statement.

The man was hospitalized. The Secret Service said his condition was “unknown.”

No one else was injured in the shooting that happened around midnight about a block from the White House, according to a Secret Service statement.

The Metropolitan Police Department will investigate because the shooting involved law enforcement officers. A message left Sunday for the police department wasn’t immediately returned.

Vatican City:

Pope Francis, who is responding well to treatment for pneumonia, thanked his doctors and healthcare workers Sunday as he missed delivering a fourth straight Angelus prayer in person.

The 88-year-old, in Rome’s Gemelli hospital since February 14, issued a written Angelus in which he thanked those who volunteer to help others in need, praising their “closeness and tenderness”.

“I too experience the thoughtfulness of service and the tenderness of care, in particular from the doctors and healthcare workers, whom I thank from the bottom of my heart,” he said.

“We need this, the ‘miracle of tenderness’ which accompanies those who are in adversity, bringing a little light into the night of pain,” he said in the text published by the Vatican.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has spent time at the Gemelli before, notably for colon surgery in 2021 and a hernia operation in 2023.

This hospitalisation has been more serious, however, with Francis suffering several respiratory crises, prompting fears the road to recovery would be long, or might force the elderly pontiff to resign.

On Saturday, the Vatican said the pope appeared finally to be responding well to treatment and had seen “a gradual, slight improvement”, marking several days without crises.

Though the pope does not have a fever, his doctors want to see the more positive results “in the coming days” before giving a prognosis, an evening medical bulletin said.

The next bulletin is expected Monday afternoon.

‘Given so much’

Francis has been alternating rest, prayer and bits of work when he feels up to it.

On Sunday morning he received Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and Edgar Pena Parra, a Venezuelan archbishop who is also a senior Vatican official.

People who gathered in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, where Francis would usually stand at a Vatican window to read the Angelus to crowds below, said his presence was sorely missed.

“He is a wonderful person who has given so much and I hope that he can return as soon as possible”, said Diana Desiderio, who volunteers with the civil protection agency in Pescara.

She and fellow volunteers are praying that Francis will “return to the window again and bring peace and serenity to everyone, because we need it”, she told AFP.

The pope ended the Angelus with his traditional call for peace in conflicts, “in particular in tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo”.

He said he had “learned with concern of the resumption of violence in some areas of Syria: I hope that they cease definitively, with full respect for all ethnic and religious components of society”.

Catholics have also been gathering at the Gemelli hospital to pray for Francis or leave flowers, candles and cards.

Giuseppe Antonio Perazzo, 74, was at the hospital for the second Sunday in a row, dressed smartly in a suit and tie in the hope that the pontiff might appear at the window.

A sign he propped up in sight of the windows of the pope’s rooms urged the Argentine pontiff — a notoriously headstrong patient — to “keep doing what the doctors and nurses tell you to do”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Further investigation is underway, say cops (Representational)