VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY NEWS

The Washington Post
Pope Francis Makes First Public Appearance, Leaves Hospital After Five Weeks

March 23, 2025 - Pope Francis waved, gave a thumbs-up and made a gesture of blessing from his hospital balcony to a throng of well-wishers before his discharge... "Certainly, this new post-hospitalization phase will be a novel stage of his papacy," said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University.

The Washington Post
Anger, Then Relief After Pentagon Restores Navajo Code Talker Webpages

March 22, 2025 - Removing webpages about the service of Navajo code talkers and their role, historians worried, meant one of the most widely available sources for information about them had vanished. The Navajo code talkers "were fighting in the name of freedom and democracy that they themselves didn't have at home," said Paul Rosier, a professor of history at Villanova University who has spent 20 years researching them.

Forbes
How Protests and Town Halls Shape Business Decisions

March 20, 2025 - "Protests can inform corporate actions when they provide business leaders with additional data points and better understanding about their constituents' sentiment on societal issues"... Corinne Post is the Fred J. Springer Endowed Chair in Business Leadership at the Villanova School of Business.

BBC News
Four Key Takeaways From Newly Released JFK Files

March 19, 2025 - A number of the documents shed light on Kennedy's relationship with the CIA before his death and on intelligence-gathering techniques—giving a window into Cold War operations... The CIA is traditionally opposed to releasing operational or budget information, said David Barrett, a Villanova University professor and expert on the CIA and presidential power.

CBS News
JFK Files Related to Assassination Released by Trump Administration

March 19, 2025 - David Barrett, a professor of political science at Villanova University who studies the Kennedy presidency, told CBS News that "non-scholars who dive into these documents are going to be baffled as to what most of them have to do with the Kennedy or other assassinations." For scholars like him, however, he said it is "certainly the most useful release of documents that has occurred because of the redactions being removed."

CNN
Entire Planetary System of Four Tiny Exoplanets Found Orbiting the Nearest Single Star to the Sun

March 17, 2025 - After decades of searching, astronomers have uncovered some of the strongest evidence yet of exoplanets orbiting Barnard's Star... "When Barnard's star was young and active... the star blasted these small planets with X-UV radiation, frequent flares and dense winds," said Edward Guinan, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, in an email.