News in brief

By The Associated Press

Ireland poised to get its youngest ever premier

LONDON | Ireland is poised to get its youngest-ever premier next month after Simon Harris secured the leadership of the Fine Gael party on Sunday, replacing Leo Varadkar who announced his surprise resignation last week.

The 37-year-old Harris, who has been the coalition government’s further and higher education minister, was the only candidate to put his name forward to succeed Varadkar, who had been Ireland’s previous youngest prime minister, or what Ireland calls its taoiseach.

Harris is expected to be formally elected premier in the Irish parliament in early April after lawmakers return from their Easter break.

Pope Francis

skips Palm

Sunday homily

ROME | Pope Francis has decided at the last minute to skip his homily during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square. He is avoiding a strenuous speech at the start of a busy Holy Week that will test his increasingly frail health. He has been hobbled by respiratory problems and bad knees.

The 87-year-old pontiff blessed the palm fronds and olive branches carried by the faithful from the altar. Vatican officials estimated some 25,000 people attended the Mass, held under a sunny, breezy spring sky.

Off and on this winter, Francis has been battling what he and the Vatican have described as a case of the flu, bronchitis or a cold.

NBC’s Chuck Todd lays into network for hiring Ronna McDaniel

NEW YORK | Former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd says that some NBC News journalists are uncomfortable that the network had hired former Republican National Committee head Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor. What was unusual was Todd’s outlet for the criticism — on the NBC show he used to run.

Appearing Sunday as a panelist, Todd said NBC bosses owed his successor, Kristen Welker, an apology, for putting her in the uncomfortable position of interviewing McDaniel on the show. News outlets hiring politicians as analysts is hardly unusual. But the speed with which McDaniel made the switch, and her support of false claims by Donald Trump, intensified criticism of the hiring.

—From AP reports