WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
Mourning Pope Francis, pro-trans rallies, and the secrets of lab-grown chocolate

 
today's international story

Pope died from stroke and heart failure, Vatican says

What happened
Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pontiff and first pope from Latin America, died from a stroke and irreversible heart failure, according to a death certificate released by Vatican physician Andrea Arcangeli yesterday. The document, made public by the Vatican, said the pope fell into a coma prior to his death early yesterday morning. He was 88 and had been in poor health since an extended hospital stay for double pneumonia.

Who said what
Amid "profound sadness", the pontiff's death "sent shockwaves around the world", said The Telegraph. During his 12-year papacy, Francis had "charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor, but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change", his incremental elevation of women in the church and embrace of LGBTQ+ Catholics, said The Associated Press. He shook up the Catholic Church "without changing its core doctrine", shifting its focus to being a "refuge for everyone".

What next?
Pope Francis's death "will set off mourning around the world and deliberations and machinations to choose a successor" through a "chain of rituals and procedures, many of which have remained unchanged for centuries", said The New York Times. Among the likely contenders are a "'continuity' pick, the possible first Asian pope or first black pontiff in centuries", said The Guardian. Francis's successor will either "cement or destroy his liberal legacy", said The Times. A "clash between conservatives and progressives" is now set to play out in the Sistine Chapel in a "battle for the soul of the Roman Catholic church".

 
 
today's trans rights story

Pro-trans rallies to spread this weekend

What happened
Pro-trans activists have pledged to hold nationwide demonstrations, with about a dozen rallies scheduled for this weekend.

Who said what
Trans rights groups, trade unions and community organisations came together on Saturday for what was billed as an "emergency demonstration" in Parliament Square against a Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman. The ruling bars trans women from accessing female-only toilets, changing rooms, or participating in women's sports, according to the head of Britain's equalities watchdog. Speaking to The Independent from the rally, Avery Greatorex, co-chair of Pride In Labour, branded the ruling a "betrayal" of the trans community.

Yesterday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned as "disgraceful" the defacing of seven statues during Saturday's demonstrations in Westminster, which saw figures including Nelson Mandela and suffragist Millicent Fawcett targeted.

What next?
Police are preparing for more potential flashpoints this weekend, with nationwide protests planned ahead of a major London demonstration scheduled for 25 May. Scotland Yard has launched a criminal investigation into the damage done to the seven London monuments.

 
 
Today's sports story

Burnley and Leeds secure Premier League promotion

What happened
Leeds United and Burnley have won automatic promotion to the top flight of English football after Scott Parker's Clarets (pictured above) beat third-placed Sheffield United 2-1 yesterday. Leeds ensured that it stayed level with Burnley on 94 points at the top of the table – and ahead on goal difference – with an emphatic 6-0 win over Stoke City.

Who said what
"I'm speechless. All that hard work this season," said Burnley captain Josh Brownhill, who scored both of his team's goals yesterday. "We've been written off so many times, people calling us boring. We've bored our way to the Premier League." Burnley fans stormed the pitch at Turf Moor to party alongside their players, but there were "unsavoury scenes", said The Sun, when Sheffield United midfielder Hamza Choudhury was seen scuffling with police and security after the match.

What next?
Leeds and Burnley's victories "ensure that another two US-owned clubs will enjoy the estimated revenue uplift of about £134 million that comes with a place in England's top tier", said ESPN. The two clubs "now face a straight shootout for the Championship title" with two games remaining this season, said Sky News.

 
 

It's not all bad

In a discovery that The Guardian said "may shed light on origins of human feasting", scientists have filmed wild chimpanzees sharing naturally fermented breadfruit in Guinea-Bissau. The mild alcohol content – akin to sipping a light beer – didn't get them drunk, but could have helped them bond. Researchers from the University of Exeter observed the chimps selecting and sharing the boozy fruit, sparking questions about whether our own traditions of social drinking and celebration may have ancient evolutionary roots.

 
 
under the radar

The secrets of lab-grown chocolate

The world's insatiable love of chocolate is facing a challenge as climate change threatens the rainforests where cocoa beans grow. But don't panic just yet because scientists may have found a sweet solution.

Lab-grown chocolate is providing a "glimmer of hope" for "chocolate aficionados", said The Mirror, and industry figures believe the products could be both healthier and tastier than conventional chocolate.

"The idea of chocolate being created in a petri dish is intriguing," said Good Food host Evan Kleiman on California radio station KCRW. Lab-grown chocolate is created through a procedure called cellular agriculture, where cocoa bean cells are cultured in a vat of sugary water – similar to how plant cells are cultivated – and then processed to produce a chocolate product.

The process means the cells can multiply swiftly and mature within a week (in contrast to the six to eight months usually required for a conventional cocoa crop) and it's hoped that the finished products could rival traditional chocolate in several ways.

Cultured chocolate could be "even better than the tree-grown kind", Alan Perlstein, CEO of California Cultured, which cultivates cocoa cells in West Sacramento, told New Scientist, because it could have higher levels of chemicals such as polyphenols that "might have health benefits". It won't have contaminants such as "heavy metals taken up from the soil or pesticides sprayed on crops", but it might have a taste that "rivals anything on the market".

Chocolate is part of a wider trend of lab-grown food that could be sold in the UK within two years as the Food Standards Agency looks at how it can "speed up the approval process" for such products, said the BBC.

 
 
on this day

22 April 1983

German magazine Stern announced the existence of the "Hitler Diaries": 60 volumes written by Adolf Hitler. The German Federal Archives quickly determined that the diaries were fakes. Star reporter Gerd Heidemann, who died in December, was convicted of embezzling large amounts of the money Stern gave him to purchase the forgeries.

 
 
Today's newspapers

"The People's Pope" is how The i Paper, The Mirror and Daily Star describe Pope Francis, who has died aged 88. The Times calls him an "outsider with a mission to change the Catholic church". The pope was "truly blessed", says The Sun, as it quotes Keir Starmer's tribute. He was a pope for "the poor, the downtrodden and the forgotten", said the PM. Meanwhile, The Telegraph notes that, ahead of Rachel Reeves's trip to Washington to discuss a trade deal between the UK and UK, the US dollar "fell to a three-year low" in a new wave of "market chaos".

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

Explosive sulking

Nobody likes obligation, but Joshua Lowe, a 19-year-old from Michigan, was so enraged at having to pet sit while his girlfriend and her family went on a Caribbean cruise that he emailed a bomb threat to the cruise line. More than 1,000 rooms on the Carnival Sunrise liner were searched after it had departed from Miami in January last year, and the ship had to be diverted to port. Lowe was sentenced to eight months in prison this week.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Ross Couzens and Chas Newkey-Burden, with illustrations by Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Buda Mendes / Getty Images; Wiktor Szymanowicz / Future Publishing / Getty Images; Alex Livesey / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images.