London: Former N.Y. officials receive royal honors

Brash, bold New York met the rarefied world of royal pomp Wednesday as Queen Elizabeth II made former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani an honorary knight for his steadfastness after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Former New York Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik became honorary Commanders of the British Empire. Both said they accepted the awards on behalf of the 366 New York police and firefighters killed when the World Trade Center fell, and the thousands who dug through the wreckage later.

Giuliani, who left office as New York’s mayor on Dec. 31, said the royal honors were a reflection of the high esteem in which the world holds New Yorkers since the attacks.

“It means to me recognition for a group of people that went through the worst attack on their country ever and came through stronger than they were before,” he said outside the palace. “I’m just honored to be their representative.”

Rome: Pope gives out ashes as Lenten season opens

Performing an ancient ritual in a fifth-century basilica, Pope John Paul II smudged ashes Wednesday on the heads of cardinals, nuns and lay faithful as a reminder of their mortality and said people struck by tragedy need to regain faith and the joy for life.

“Remember that you are ashes, and to ashes you will return,” John Paul told the congregation in St. Sabina’s Basilica on the Aventine hill, one of the seven hills of ancient Rome.

As the pope bowed his head, a cardinal dabbed ashes on his silver-white, thin hair.

Then the pope, sitting in his chair, put ashes on the heads of those faithful who came up, one by one, and leaned over in front of him.

The ashes ritual opens the Catholic Church’s solemn period of penitence, sacrifice and reflection leading up to Easter, which this year is March 31.

Malawi: Food appeal issued

Malawi issued an urgent appeal for food aid Tuesday, saying people primarily children were dying of hunger.

“It’s important that action be taken now in order to prevent a worse calamity,” Vice President Justin Malewezi said in Blantyre. “Although I don’t have the statistics we have reached a crisis.”

He told reporters he had just returned from a tour of the country and local leaders everywhere reported people were hungry. He told of children dying on their mothers’ backs while they waited in line to buy corn.

Malewezi said the country bought 150,000 tons of corn from South Africa, but transporting the food had proven difficult. Key bridges on a rail line through Mozambique have been washed out in floods and a rail line in Zimbabwe was not operating, he said.

England: Princess’s body will be cremated

Even in death, Princess Margaret has gone her own way. The sister of Queen Elizabeth II is to be cremated in Slough, a workaday industrial town only a few miles but a world away from the family’s royal residence at Windsor Castle.

Slough it rhymes with cow was immortalized by poet laureate John Betjeman in 1937: “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough/It isn’t fit for humans now.”

The choice of the modest venue has raised eyebrows, but friends say cremation, while a departure from royal tradition, is what Margaret wanted.

The Times newspaper called the decision Margaret’s “final defiance of convention in a life of mold-breaking.”

The vivacious younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II died Saturday after suffering a stroke and developing heart problems. A private funeral will be Friday.