By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has pardoned former New York Mets great Darryl Strawberry of tax evasion and drug charges, citing the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year’s post-career embrace of his Christian faith and longtime sobriety.

Strawberry was an outfielder and eight-time All-Star, including seven with the Mets from 1983-90. He hit 335 homers and had 1,000 RBIs and 221 stolen bases in 17 seasons.

Plagued by later legal, health and personal problems, Strawberry was indicted for tax evasion and eventually pleaded guilty in 1995 to a single felony count. That was based on his failure to report $350,000 in income from autographs, personal appearances and sales of memorabilia.

Strawberry agreed to pay more than $430,000 as part of the case. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy in 1998.

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The following year, Strawberry was sentenced to probation and suspended from baseball after pleading no contest to charges of possession of cocaine and soliciting a prostitute. He eventually spoke in court about struggling with depression, and was charged with violating his probation numerous times — including on his 40th birthday in 2002.

Strawberry ultimately served 11 months in Florida state prison, and was released in 2003.

A White House official said Friday that Trump approved a pardon for Strawberry who had served time and paid back taxes. Speaking on background to detail a pardon that had not yet been formally announced, the official noted that Strawberry found faith in Christianity and has been sober for a decade-plus, and that he’d become active in ministry and started a still-active recovery center.

Strawberry posted on Instagram a picture of himself and Trump and wrote, “Thank you, President @realdonaldtrump for my full pardon and for finalizing this part of my life, allowing me to be truly free and clean from all of my past.”

He described being home on Thursday afternoon, caring for his wife who was recovering from surgery, “when my phone kept ringing relentlessly.”

“Half asleep, I glanced over and saw a call from Washington DC. Curious, I answered, and to my amazement, the lady on the line said, ‘Darryl Strawberry, you have a call from the President of the United States, Donald Trump,’” Strawberry wrote. “I put it on speakerphone with my wife nearby, and President Trump spoke warmly about my baseball days in NYC, praising me as one the greatest player of the ’80s and celebrating the Mets. Then, he told me he was granting me a full pardon from my past.”

Trump was a New York real estate mogul before becoming a reality television star and twice winning the presidency.

Strawberry said he was “overwhelmed with gratitude — thanking God for setting me free from my past, helping me become a better Man, Husband and Father.”

“This experience has deepened my faith and commitment to working for His kingdom as a true follower of Jesus Christ,” Strawberry wrote, while also noting “This has nothing to do with politics — it’s about a Man, President Trump, caring deeply for a friend. God used him as a vessel to set me free forever!”

Strawberry’s followed Trump issuing pardons this week for a former Republican speaker of the Tennessee House and a onetime aide on public corruption charges. It adds to a list of celebrities and political allies who have similarly received unlikely pardons — including a former Republican governor of Connecticut, an ex-GOP congressman and reality TV stars who had been convicted of cheating banks and evading taxes.

Strawberry played for the Mets, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Francisco Giants between 1983 and 1999. He won the World Series with the 1986 Mets, starring alongside the likes of Dwight Gooden and Keith Hernandez, and with the Yankees in 1996, 1998 and 1999.

Strawberry was hospitalized with a heart attack in March 2024, a day before he turned 62. That same year, the Mets retired his No. 18 and an emotional Strawberry told the Citi Field crowd: “I’m truly, deeply sorry that I ever left you guys. I never played baseball in front of fans greater than you guys.”

By KIM TONG-HYUNG, Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Senior North Korean and Russian military officials discussed strengthening cooperation in their latest talks this week in Pyongyang, North Korean state media said Friday, as the two countries continue to align over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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The report came days after South Korea’s spy agency, in a closed-door briefing to lawmakers, said it had detected signs of recruitment and training activities in North Korea, possibly in preparation for additional troop deployments to Russia.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said North Korean officials, led by Pak Yong Il, vice director of the Korean People’s Army’s General Political Bureau, held talks Wednesday with a Russian delegation headed by Vice Defense Minister Viktor Goremykin.

KCNA said the two sides discussed expanding cooperation in line with the “deepened bilateral relations” developed under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The report didn’t mention any specific agreements. KCNA also said Goremykin’s delegation separately met with North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol on Thursday.

When asked whether North Korean and Russian officials may have discussed additional North Korean troop deployments to Russia, Chang Yoon-jeong, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said Seoul was closely monitoring the situation but wouldn’t make assumptions.

The North Korean-Russian meetings came days after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to South Korea for annual security talks between the allies on Tuesday and praised South Korean plans to raise its military spending in the face of threats by nuclear-armed North Korea and other regional uncertainties.

According to South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent around 15,000 troops to Russia since last fall and also supplied large quantities of military equipment, including artillery and ballistic missiles to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Kim has also agreed to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia’s Kursk region.

In its briefing to lawmakers on Tuesday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said it also believes around 5,000 North Korean military construction troops have been moving to Russia in phases since September for possible deployment in infrastructure restoration projects.

By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press

DAK LAK, Vietnam (AP) — Typhoon Kalmaegi brought fierce winds and torrential rains to Vietnam on Friday, killing at least five people, flattening homes, blowing off roofs and uprooting trees. In the Philippines, where the storm left scores dead earlier in the week, survivors wept over the coffins of their loved ones and braced for another typhoon.

As the storm moved on, recovery work began in battered towns and villages in both countries. Across central Vietnamese provinces, people cleared debris and repaired roofs on their homes.

Jimmy Abatayo, who lost his wife and nine close relatives after the typhoon unleashed flooding in the central Philippine province of Cebu, was overwhelmed with sorrow and guilt as he ran his palm over his wife’s casket.

“I was able to swim. I told my family to swim, you will be saved, just swim, be brave and keep swimming,” said Abatayo, 53, pausing and then breaking into tears. “They did not hear what I said because I would never see them again.”

Mourning the dead in the Philippines

In Cebu, 139 people died, mostly in floodings. Villagers on Friday gathered to say goodbye to their dead, including at a basketball gym turned funeral parlor where relatives wept before a row of white coffins bedecked with flowers and small portraits of the deceased.

A state of national emergency declared by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday was still effect in the Philippines, as the country braced for another potentially powerful storm, Typhoon Fung-wong, known locally as Uwan.

Across the country, Kalmaegi left at least 188 people dead and 135 missing, the Philippines Office of Civil Defense said, and more than half a million people were displaced.

Nearly 450,000 were evacuated to shelters, and over 318,000 remained there as of Thursday.

The weather bureau said Fung-wong would come early next week and predicted it would span an estimated 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) before making landfall late Sunday or early Monday in northern Aurora province. It could also potentially affect the densely populated capital region of Manila.

The toll in Vietnam

State media said five people were killed in Vietnam — three in Dak Lak and two in Gia Lai provinces — while three remained missing in Quang Ngai.

Fifty-two houses collapsed and nearly 2,600 others were damaged or had their roofs blown off, including more than 2,400 in Gia Lai alone. Power outages affected more than 1.6 million households.

Factories lost their roofs and equipment was damaged because of flooding in Binh Dinh province. In hard-hit Quy Nhon, residents woke up to find corrugated metal roofs and household items scattered along the streets.

As the skies cleared and sunlight broke through on Friday morning, residents in Dak Lak province stepped out to assess the wreckage left behind.

Streets were littered with fallen branches and twisted sheets of metal, and muddy water still pooled in low-lying areas where the river had surged to record heights overnight. Shopkeepers dragged out waterlogged goods to dry in the sun, while families swept mud from their doorsteps and patched together missing roof tiles.

Many areas in Vietnam reported uprooted trees, damaged power lines and flattened buildings as Kalmaegi weakened into a tropical storm and moved into Cambodia on Friday.

Tropical cyclones slamming the region

Kalmaegi struck Vietnam as the country’s central region was still reeling from floods caused by record-breaking rains. Authorities said more than 537,000 people were evacuated, many by boat, as floodwaters rose and landslides loomed. The storm was forecast to dump up to 24 inches (600 millimeters) of rain in some areas before moving into Laos and northeast Thailand later on Friday.

Three fishermen were reported missing Thursday after their boat was swept away by strong waves near Ly Son Island off Quang Ngai province. Search efforts were later suspended due to worsening weather, state media said.

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The Philippines experiences about 20 typhoons and storms each year and is among the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

Vietnam, which is hit by around a dozen storms annually, has endured a relentless series this year. Typhoon Ragasa dumped torrential rain in late September, followed by Typhoon Bualoi and Typhoon Matmo, which together left more than 85 people dead or missing and caused an estimated $1.36 billion in damage.

Scientists warn that a warming climate is intensifying storms and rainfall across Southeast Asia, making floods and typhoons increasingly destructive and frequent.

Kristen Corbosiero, a professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the University at Albany, said a normal year has 23 named storms by this time, but Kalmaegi and Fung-Wong are the 26th and 27th named storms. Kalmaegi is the fourth strongest typhoon this season, she said.

“If you look at the climatology for the Philippines and for Vietnam, it’s almost the entire year that they can get them because the warm waters that fuel the storm just are there,” Corbosiero said.

Gomez reported from Manila, Philippines. Associated Press writers Joeal Calupitan in Manila, Philippines, and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — “You get used to it.”

That was Pope Leo XIV ‘s matter-of-fact response when King Charles III asked about the swarms of televisions cameras documenting his historic visit to the Vatican last month.

Charles is no stranger to paparazzi, so Leo wasn’t telling the monarch anything he didn’t already know. But Leo’s blasé comment seemed to confirm what Vatican observers have noticed recently: that Leo has indeed gotten used to being pope, and is finding his footing six months into the job.

After his shock election in May and sharp learning curve over the summer, Leo’s key priorities are coming into focus, especially where he dovetails with his predecessor, Pope Francis, and where he diverges.

As his pontificate’s six-month mark arrives on Nov. 8, here’s a rundown of what we’ve learned about the first American pope, his style, substance and where he might take the Catholic Church.

Continuity with Francis on key social justice issues

Leo showed himself in perfect lockstep with Francis when he published his first major teaching document last month, on the church’s non-negotiable “preferential option for the poor.” Francis began writing the text before he died; Leo took it over and made it his own.

In it, Leo criticized how the wealthy live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while poor people suffer on the margins. He urged a renewed commitment to fixing the structural causes of poverty.

Leo has also embraced Francis’ ecological legacy, presiding over the first Mass using a new prayer formula “for the care of creation.” He has given the go-ahead to Francis’ ambitious plan to turn a Vatican-owned property north of Rome into a massive solar farm that could make Vatican City the world’s first carbon-neutral state.

Perhaps nowhere was Leo more Francis-like than on Oct. 23, when he met at the Vatican with Indigenous groups and representatives of popular movements who had been championed by the Argentine Jesuit.

Francis had prioritized people on the margins, and exhorted the church to accompany them as they demanded the basic human necessities of “tierra, techo, trabajo,” – land, housing and work.

Leo repeated Francis’ mantra during his audience and put his own spin on it, noting that his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, took up the issue of workers rights at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

“Echoing Francis’ words, I say today: land, housing and work are sacred rights. It is worthwhile to fight for them, and I would like you to hear me say, ‘I am here, I am with you!’” Leo said.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, a top adviser to both popes, said Leo is in perfect continuity with Francis, implementing processes that Francis set in motion.

“The transition from one Holy Father to another is not primarily a transition in policies,” Czerny said in an interview. While a change in governments from one party to the next can signal a break, “here it would be a mistake to look for that.”

“The stylistic differences are in the person, not in the teaching,” he said.

Leo’s honeymoon with conservatives continues

On style, it’s now clear that Leo is happy to pope the old fashioned way, wearing the red mozzetta cape and embroidered stole for all but the most mundane occasions.

He sticks to the script of his prepared texts, shows discipline in his liturgical observance and doesn’t ad-lib with wisecracks the way Francis sometimes did.

That has endeared him to many of the Catholic conservatives who bristled at Francis’ informality. Even though Leo is echoing many of Francis’ Gospel-mandated social justice preaching points, his style and gestures have generally won them over so far.

“What I’m hearing and sensing is a real joy in the maturity, the discipline and the tradition that he brings back to the papacy,” said Patrick Reilly, founder and head of the conservative Cardinal Newman Society, which ranks Catholic colleges in the U.S. on upholding traditional doctrine.

“I don’t know of anyone who has any concerns or is disturbed or anything like we saw,” with Francis, he said.

The Latin Mass returns to St. Peter’s

Many credit Leo for allowing a traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated at the back altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, presided over by none other than the figurehead of the American Catholic right, Cardinal Raymond Burke.

FILE- Newly elected Pope Leo XIV appears at the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

Francis in 2021 cracked down on the spread of the ancient liturgy, saying it had become a source of division in dioceses. The crackdown fueled conservative and traditionalist opposition to Francis, leading to a new impasse in the age-old liturgical wars.

But Leo has expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue with traditionalists, suggesting a detente is possible.

“We love our pope, we pray for him,” said Christina Tignot, who attended the Latin Mass service during the traditionalists’ annual pilgrimage. With her was her husband and homeschooled daughter, who joined her mother in wearing a lace veil over her head.

A willingness to chart a new path

For all his continuity with Francis, Leo has charted his own path and even corrected Francis when necessary.

In one case of a reversal, Leo abrogated a 2022 law issued by Francis that concentrated financial power in the Vatican bank. Leo issued his own law allowing the Holy See’s investment committee to use other banks, outside the Vatican, if it made better financial sense.

Leo has also met with a group of activist survivors of clergy sexual abuse, who said he promised to engage in dialogue as they press the Vatican to adopt a zero-tolerance for abuse policy worldwide. Francis had met regularly with individual abuse survivors, but kept advocacy and activist groups at an arm’s length.

A new routine elicits a comment about abortion

At the six-month mark, Leo’s personal routine is also showing a break from that of the workaholic homebody Francis.

Leo has taken to spending Monday afternoons and Tuesdays at the papal country house in Castel Gandolfo, where he can take time off and get in a tennis game in the estate’s court. (He plays with his secretary).

To the news media’s delight, Leo has agreed to field some questions each Tuesday evening as he leaves from a gaggle of reporters gathered outside, weighing in on everything from the Gaza ceasefire to immigration enforcement raids in Chicago. his hometown.

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His initially timid responses were noticed. They led to a biting television skit by Italian political satirist Maurizio Crozza, who suggested that the name “Leo” was perhaps a mismatch for a pope seemingly afraid of his own shadow.

But with the passage of time, Leo seems to be getting into his groove. He sparked a brief but seemingly temporary alarm in conservative circles when, during one recent Tuesday evening Q&A, he chimed in on the U.S. abortion debate by challenging abortion opponents about what it really means to be pro-life.

In a more formal setting, he also showed some chutzpah when Queen Rania of Jordan asked him if it was really safe to travel to Lebanon. Leo plans to visit Lebanon and Turkey on his first foreign trip at the end of the month.

They were posing for a formal photo in Leo’s library after an official state audience. Rania’s question was picked up by the Vatican camera’s hot mic, as was Leo’s response.

“Well, we’re going,” Leo said matter-of-factly, while smiling for the cameras.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.