ISTANBUL — Pope Leo travels to Lebanon on Sunday, where he is expected to appeal for peace in a country that is a continued target of Israeli air strikes, on the second and final leg of his first overseas trip as leader of the Catholic Church.

The first US pope will arrive from Turkey, where he has been visiting for four days and warned that humanity’s future was at risk because of the world’s unusual number of bloody conflicts and condemned violence in the name of religion.

Leo is due to land at Beirut’s Hariri International Airport at 3:45 p.m. (1345 GMT), ahead of meetings with the president and prime minister and an address to national leaders, the pope’s second to a foreign government.

Lebanon, which has the largest share of Christians in the Middle East, has been rocked by the spillover of the Gaza conflict, as Israel and the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah went to war, culminating in a devastating Israeli offensive.

Leaders in Lebanon, which hosts 1 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees and is also struggling to recover from years of economic crisis, are worried Israel will dramatically escalate its strikes in coming months.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Friday that he hoped Leo’s visit would help bring an end to Israeli attacks.

Lebanon’s diverse communities have also welcomed the papal trip, with leading Druze cleric Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna saying Lebanon “needs the glimmer of hope represented by this visit.”

POPE VISITING FIVE LEBANESE CITIES AND TOWNS
Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, is being closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and interacts for the first time with people outside mainly Catholic Italy.

On Saturday, Leo visited Istanbul’s famed Blue Mosque, in his first visit as pope to a Muslim place of worship. He removed his shoes in a sign of respect but did not pray at the mosque as planned, which appeared to surprise Vatican officials.

The pope, 70 and in good health, has a crowded itinerary in Lebanon, visiting five cities and towns from Sunday to Tuesday, when he returns to Rome. Leo will not travel to the south, the target of Israeli strikes.

His schedule includes a prayer at the site of a 2020 chemical explosion at the Beirut Port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

He will also lead an outdoor Mass on the Beirut waterfront and visit a psychiatric hospital, one of the few mental health facilities in Lebanon, where carers and residents are eagerly anticipating his arrival. — Reuters

TOKYO/NEW DELHI/PARIS — Global airlines scrambled to fix a software glitch on Airbus A320 jets on Saturday as a partial recall by the European planemaker halted hundreds of flights in Asia and Europe and threatened US travel over the busiest weekend of the year.

Airlines worked through the night after global regulators told them to remedy the problem before resuming flights.

Airlines that said they had completed or nearly finished all their software updates on Saturday included American Airlines, United Airlines, Air India, Delta Air Lines, Hungary’s Wizz Air, Mexico’s Volaris, Air Arabia, Saudi Arabia’s Flyadeal, and Taiwan’s carriers. Many reported no impact on operations.

The overnight effort by airlines appeared to help head off the worst-case scenario and capped the number of flight delays in Asia and Europe. In the United States, which will face high demand after the Thanksgiving holiday period, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that impacted US carriers “have reported great progress, and are on track to meet the deadline of this Sunday at midnight to complete the work.”

He posted on X that travelers “SHOULD NOT expect any major disruptions,” although one US airline, JetBlue, later said it cancelled dozens of flights that had been scheduled for Sunday.

Asia-based aviation analyst Brendan Sobie said the update was “not as chaotic as some people might think,” although “it does create some short-term headaches for operations.”

Airbus Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury apologized to airlines and passengers after the surprise recall of 6,000 planes, or more than half of the global A320-family fleet, which recently overtook the Boeing 737 as the industry’s most-delivered model.

“I want to sincerely apologize to our airline customers and passengers who are impacted now,” Mr. Faury posted on LinkedIn.

Friday’s alert followed an unintended loss of altitude on an Oct. 30 JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, which injured 10 passengers, according to France’s BEA accident agency, which is probing the incident.

AIRBUS RECALL LUCKY TIMING FOR SOME AIRLINES
The alert landed at a time of day when many European airlines and Asian airlines are winding down their schedules, leaving time for repairs. In the United States, however, it came during the day ahead of the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel weekend.

US carrier JetBlue said it cancelled about 70 flights that were scheduled for Sunday, with more cancellations possible. JetBlue expects to finish software updates for 120 planes by Sunday morning, but said fixes for about 30 aircraft would still be “in progress” at that point.

About 140 jets in the company’s fleet of A320, A321 and A220 aircraft did not need the fix, the company said.

American Airlines, the world’s largest A320 operator, said 209 of its 480 jets needed the fix, below initial estimates, most of which it expected to complete by Saturday. United Airlines told Reuters on Saturday that all its aircraft had been updated.

AirAsia, one of the world’s largest A320 customers, said it aimed to complete fixes in 48 hours. India’s aviation regulator said on Saturday that carriers IndiGo and Air India were expected to complete the process on Saturday. ANA Holdings cancelled 95 flights on Saturday, affecting 13,500 travelers.

Taiwan’s low-cost airline Tigerair said eight flights would be delayed on Sunday due to the software issue.

Airlines must revert to a previous version of software in a computer that helps determine the nose angle of the affected jets and in some cases must also change the hardware itself, mainly on older planes in service. The fix must be completed before the planes can fly again with passengers, a process needing two to three hours per jet.

Globally, there are about 11,300 of the single-aisle jets in service, including 6,440 of the core A320 model. Those include some of the largest and busiest low-cost carriers.

Tracker data from Cirium and FlightAware showed most global airports operating with good-to-moderate levels of delays.

By Saturday, Airbus was telling airlines that repairs to some of the A320 jets affected may be less burdensome than first thought, industry sources said, with fewer than the original estimate of 1,000 needing the time-consuming hardware changes.

There were also unresolved questions about the impact of solar flare radiation blamed for the JetBlue incident, which is being treated by French investigators as an “incident,” the lowest of three categories of potential safety emergency.

“Any operational challenges that come at short notice and affecting a large part of your operation is tough to deal with,” said UK-based aviation consultant John Strickland. — Reuters

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)-powered shopping tools helped drive a surge in US online spending on Black Friday, as shoppers bypassed crowded stores and turned to chatbots to compare prices and secure discounts amid concerns about tariff-driven price hikes.

US shoppers spent a record $11.8 billion online, up 9.1% from 2024 on the year’s biggest shopping day, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks 1 trillion visits that shoppers make to online retail websites.

The holiday shopping season arrives amid tighter budgets, unemployment nearing a four-year high, US consumer confidence sagging to a seven-month low and price tags that have shoppers watching every dollar.

Online shopping demand increased as consumers showed savviness in the holiday season, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which noted a 10.4% growth in e-commerce sales on Black Friday, compared to an in-store sales growth of 1.7% in 2024.

The AI-driven traffic to US retail sites soared 805% compared to last year, Adobe said, when artificial intelligence tools such as Walmart’s Sparky or Amazon’s Rufus had not yet been launched.

“Consumers are using new tools to get to what they need faster,” said Suzy Davidkhanian, an analyst at eMarketer. “Gift giving can be stressful, and LLMs (large language models) make the discovery process feel quicker and more guided.”

Hot sellers on Black Friday included LEGO sets, Pokemon cards, gaming consoles like the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5, and products ranging from Apple AirPods to KitchenAid mixers.

AI AGENTS INFLUENCED $14.2 BILLION IN ONLINE SALES GLOBALLY
Globally, AI and agents influenced $14.2 billion in online sales on Black Friday, of which $3 billion came from the US alone, according to software firm Salesforce.

Salesforce, whose data includes non-discretionary items like groceries, reported that US consumers had spent $18 billion online on Black Friday purchases, up 3% from a year ago, with luxury apparel and accessories among the most popular categories.

Although US consumers spent more this Black Friday compared to last year, price increases hampered online demand, according to Salesforce, with shoppers purchasing fewer items at checkout compared to last year.

Discount rates also remained flat when compared to 2024, with AI helping shoppers discover the best deals, and an increase in the price tags made deeper discounts difficult for retailers.

Promotions and discounts may not feel as sharp as last year due to higher product costs driven by inflation and tariffs, according to Ms. Davidkhanian, and the final price doesn’t feel as compelling to shoppers.

The combination of higher prices and flat discounts means the real value of Black Friday bargains has slipped for consumers, according to Michael Ashley Schulman, the chief investment officer at Running Point.

Order volumes fell 1% as average selling prices rose 7%. Consumers also purchased fewer items at checkout, with units per transaction falling 2% on a year-over-year basis, Salesforce said.

“There are two things driving up the average selling price in the United States,” said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce.

“The first is absolutely the impact of tariffs, especially on those discretionary categories where we’ve seen a lot of growth in selling price. The other is the fact that we’re seeing a much stronger higher-income earner than average-income earner, evidenced by the strength in the luxury category,” she added.

The spending surge sets the stage for an even bigger Cyber Monday, projected to drive $14.2 billion in sales, up 6.3% on a year-over-year basis and the largest online shopping day of the year, Adobe said. Electronics are expected to see the deepest discounts on Cyber Monday, reaching 30% off list prices, along with strong deals on apparel and computers, Adobe said.

At physical stores, however, the bargain-chasing was relatively subdued on Black Friday, with some shoppers saying they feared overspending amid persistent inflation, trade-driven uncertainty, and a soft labor market. — Reuters

HONG KONG — Indonesian domestic helper Fita spoke of the confusion inside the Hong Kong high-rise apartment complex as it was engulfed in flames on Wednesday in the city’s deadliest fire since 1948.

Amid sirens, flying debris and smell of burning, Fita told her employer there was a fire but her boss did not believe her.

After going outside and seeing two buildings burning in the Wang Fuk Court complex she pressed again: “I just straight-talked to my employer – I said you have go down now.”

“It was scary. I was going to cry because I saw a lot of people confused,” Fita, 49, said.

The pair eventually got out and are staying in emergency housing.

Fita said she is now praying for those still missing and trying to track down friends among the dozens of migrant workers in the eight-building complex, seven of which were engulfed in the blaze.

The city is now mourning the 128 people known to have died – a toll that is likely to rise with 200 others still unaccounted for.

Among them are some of the city’s 368,000 foreign domestic helpers, mostly women contracted from low-income Asian countries like the Philippines and Indonesia, who live with their employers, often in cramped spaces.

They assist them with cooking, cleaning and caring for the young and elderly, many earning monthly wages as low as HK$5000 ($642) in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

BABY IN A BLANKET
Indonesia said on Saturday that six of its citizens died in the blaze, while the Philippines has said one of its nationals was critically injured, one is missing and 28 are thought to be residents of the area but their whereabouts are unknown.

The injured Philippines worker Rhodora Alcaraz, 28, cradled her employers’ 3-month-old baby in a wet blanket while trapped in a smoke-filled room for several hours before being rescued by firefighters, her sister Raychelle Loreto told Reuters.

Alcaraz, who had only been in Hong Kong for a few days, sent panicked audio messages to her sister in the Philippines via Facebook as the situation escalated.

“I’m feeling very weak. I canít breath,” she said in one of the clips, sobbing and struggling to speak.

“We are poor. Our father is just a fisherman, that is why she decided to work abroad to help the family. We are so proud of our sister and she didn’t leave the baby until they were rescued,” Loreto said.

HELPING HANDS
At a sports centre near Wang Fuk, the wooden courts were filled with mattresses and duvets as helpers and outside volunteers sorted through supplies to aid evacuees.

“They’re the backbone of the Hong Kong economy but they’re voiceless, so we’re doing what we can to find them and make sure they’re okay,” said one Hong Kong social worker, who carried a bag of food and clothes but declined to be named.

Some domestic workers who fled the complex spoke of being unable to sleep, trauma and fear for their futures as they still tried to help their host families.

Migrant worker agencies say they hope that Hong Kong government emergency funds to help stricken families will also extend to domestic helpers and assistance can be given to those who have lost passports and identity documents.

Edwina Antonio, executive director at migrant worker refuge Bethune House, said they knew of two workers who had lost their jobs as a result of the fire, possibly because of the employers’ financial plight.

“The employers should also sympathise – if they get terminated and they are traumatised by this incident, it’s a double whammy,” Antonio said. — Reuters