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Varieties

The Swiss Guards Have a New Uniform. Don’t Worry, the Iconic One Remains 

Colonel Christoph Graf wears a uniform on the day of the presentation of the updated dress uniform, known as the 'Mezza Gala' uniform, at the Swiss Guard Corps Barracks, at the Vatican, October 2, 2025. (Reuters)
Colonel Christoph Graf wears a uniform on the day of the presentation of the updated dress uniform, known as the 'Mezza Gala' uniform, at the Swiss Guard Corps Barracks, at the Vatican, October 2, 2025. (Reuters)
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The Swiss Guards Have a New Uniform. Don’t Worry, the Iconic One Remains 

Colonel Christoph Graf wears a uniform on the day of the presentation of the updated dress uniform, known as the 'Mezza Gala' uniform, at the Swiss Guard Corps Barracks, at the Vatican, October 2, 2025. (Reuters)
Colonel Christoph Graf wears a uniform on the day of the presentation of the updated dress uniform, known as the 'Mezza Gala' uniform, at the Swiss Guard Corps Barracks, at the Vatican, October 2, 2025. (Reuters)

Swiss guards wait for the arrival of Switzerland's President Karin Keller-Sutter on the occasion of a private audience with Pope Leo XIV, at the Vatican, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP)

The world’s oldest army has new uniforms.

But don’t worry: The Swiss Guards’ famed blue, yellow and red Renaissance-style billowy garb isn’t going anywhere. Rather, the pope’s army on Thursday unveiled an additional uniform for nonceremonial, formal occasions, such as a diplomatic reception or official dinner outside the Vatican walls.

Col. Christoph Graf, the Swiss Guards commander, donned the new duds at a presentation ceremony in the army's barracks ahead of the annual swearing-in ceremony Saturday of 27 new recruits.

Graf explained that the new black wool uniform, with two rows of buttons, a yellow and white belt and Mao-style collar, is actually a faithful rendition of a centuries-old suit worn by Swiss Guard officials that went out of use in 1976.

The corps tried an update a decade ago, didn’t like it, and commissioned a more faithful version that will get its first official use at a gala reception Friday on the eve of the swearing-in. An unnamed benefactor footed the bill for the uniforms, worn by just the senior ranks, which cost around 2,000 euros (2,300 dollars) apiece, officials said.

The world's oldest and smallest army

The corps, which historians consider the oldest standing army in the world, was founded in 1506 by Pope Giulio II. Tradition has it that he was so impressed by the bravery of Swiss mercenaries that he asked them to defend the Vatican. Ever since, for more than 500 years, Switzerland has been supplying soldiers to the Vatican to staff an army of 135 men.

Usually, the swearing-in ceremony is held on or near May 6 to commemorate the day in 1527 when 147 guardsmen died while protecting Pope Clement VII during the Sack of Rome.

This year’s ceremony was postponed following the death in April of Pope Francis and the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV.

The new uniform is one of several outfits the guards wear. The most famous is the “Gala Uniform,” which despite popular legend was not designed by Michelangelo. Rather, it was designed by Commander Jules Repond in the early 1900s and is based on the colors of the Medici family, according to the corps' website.

Visitors to the Vatican will also see guards policing the city state's main entrances in navy uniforms topped with a beret.

This year’s ceremony comes as plans are progressing to renovate the aging barracks for the guards to make better use of the space and increase the number of dormitory-style rooms that could, in theory, one day allow for female recruits.

There are currently no such plans, but the barracks’ cramped housing has long been cited as one of the reasons why women couldn’t be admitted. The new architectural plans call for a flexible configuration of the buildings that could, if the pope were to approve it one day, allow for a female section, said Jean-Pierre Roth, president of the foundation created in 2016 to raise money for the renovation of the barracks.

“This is not our decision,” he stressed. “The only thing we have done is that when everything is ready, if we want a special section for females, it’s possible, no problem.”

The renovation process is complicated given Vatican City is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which means any renovation must be approved by the UN body’s technical experts. The Vatican received the first green light to its architectural plans in 2023 and is expected to present revised plans in the coming weeks, Roth said.

Roth, the former president of the Swiss National Bank, said 48 million euros had so far been raised in cash and financial pledges, but that construction costs in Rome had increased significantly since the first budgets were prepared and that a new fundraising appeal would be launched in 2026.

Originally, there were hopes to unveil the new barracks in 2027, the 500th anniversary of the Sack of Rome. Now, the hopes are that the construction can begin in 2027, Roth said.

A big year for new recruits

The criteria for entry into the army are strict: Guards must be Swiss, male, practicing Catholics, aged 19-30, at least 1.74-meters (5-foot-7-inch) tall and have an “impeccable reputation”. They must be in good health, have a high school diploma or equivalent and have completed Swiss military training.

They need a driver’s license and be willing to serve for at least 26 months. Most guards are unmarried, but recruits 25 and older are allowed to marry if they have already served for five years and pledge to stay on for another three.

One of the new recruits being sworn-in on Saturday, identified by the corps by his first name, Dario, for security reasons, said he grew up knowing of the guards because his father had served from 1989-1991, and decided to join himself after attending a friend's swearing-in ceremony in 2023.

Dario started in January, and has already been on duty during one of the most momentous years in recent Vatican history: A Jubilee year that brought millions of pilgrims to Rome, and the death of one pope and the election of another.

“What we have experienced now in this one year alone, other Swiss Guards haven't experienced in their whole service time,” he said. Speaking in the barracks' courtyard, Dario said there were a lot of hours of extra work, but that's what the job is all about.

“You are here to serve, not to go on vacation in Rome,” he said.

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Varieties

Angelina Jolie Visits Egyptian Side of Rafah Crossing to Gaza

US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
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Angelina Jolie Visits Egyptian Side of Rafah Crossing to Gaza

US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie visited on Friday the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing into Gaza, where she spoke with members of the Red Crescent and truck drivers ferrying humanitarian aid, AFP journalists said.

According to local media, the actor and former special envoy for the UN refugee agency made the visit to see the condition of injured Palestinians transferred to Egypt and to look into aid deliveries into the devastated territory.

Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, 414 people have been killed and 1,142 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. The overall Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,266.

Accompanied by an American delegation and greeted by former and current officials, Jolie said she was "honored" to meet aid volunteers at the crossing.

A Red Crescent volunteer told the Oscar winner that "there are thousands of aid trucks just waiting" at the border crossing.

The Rafah border crossing was set to be reopened under the ceasefire in effect in Gaza since October, but has so far remained closed.

Varieties

2025 Was UK's Hottest and Sunniest Year on Record

FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo
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2025 Was UK's Hottest and Sunniest Year on Record

FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo

Last year was Britain's hottest and sunniest on record, the national weather service confirmed on Friday, calling it a "clear demonstration" of the impacts of climate change.

"2025 now joins 2022 and 2023 in the top three warmest years since 1884," the Met Office said in a statement, noting the United Kingdom's mean temperature through last year was 10.09 degrees Celsius.

"This is an increasingly clear demonstration of the impacts of climate change on UK temperatures," it added.

"It is also only the second year in this series where the UK's annual mean temperature has exceeded 10.0C."

The previous record of 10.03C was set in 2022, AFP reported.

It means four of the UK's last five years now appear in the top five warmest years since 1884, and all of the top ten hottest years will now have occurred in the last two decades.

The Met Office had already announced last month that 2025 was the country's sunniest year since that record series began in 1910.

The UK -- which comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- saw 1648.5 hours of sunshine, 61.4 hours more than the previous record set in 2003.

An "exceptional" amount of sunshine during the spring followed by long spells of clear skies during the summer helped set the record, the Met Office has noted.

Mark McCarthy, its head of climate attribution, said the "very warm" year was "in line with expected consequences of human-induced climate change".

"Although it doesn't mean every year will be the warmest on record, it is clear from our weather observations and climate models that human-induced global warming is impacting the UK's climate," he added.

Varieties

Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
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Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Beside the railroad tracks of Copenhagen’s train station, right in the heart of the Danish capital, stands a red-brick building with an ornate façade and a copper-clad cupola still turning green over time.

When it opened in 1912 as the Central Post Building, its grandeur echoed the booming postal and telegraph services that crisscrossed Denmark, connecting Danes to one another.

A little over a century later and that building, now a luxury hotel, presides over a city, and a country, where the postal service no longer delivers letters, according to CNN.

Denmark’s state-run postal service, PostNord, will deliver its last ever letter on Tuesday, as the digital age brings its 400-year-run to an end. This makes Denmark the first country in the world to decide that physical mail is no longer either essential or economically viable.

Denmark’s postal service delivered more than 90% fewer letters in 2024 than in 2000. The US Postal Service delivered 50% less mail in 2024 than in 2006.
And as our correspondence has moved largely online – transfiguring into WhatsApp messages, video calls, or just an exchange of memes – our communication and language have changed accordingly.

Letters themselves “will change status” too, often coming to represent more intimate messages than their digital counterparts, said Dirk van Miert, a professor at the Huygens Institute in the Netherlands who specializes in early modern knowledge networks.

The knowledge networks that letters facilitated for centuries are “only expanding” in their online form, expediting both access to that knowledge as well as the rise of disinformation, he told CNN.

PostNord has been removing the 1,500 mailboxes scattered across Denmark since June. When it sold them off to raise money for charity on December 10, hundreds of thousands of Danes tried to buy one.

For each mailbox, they paid either 2,000 ($315) or 1,500 ($236) Danish krone, depending on how worn they were.

Instead of posting letters, Danes will now have to drop them off at kiosks in shops, from where they will be couriered by private company DAO to both domestic and international addresses. PostNord will continue delivering parcels, however, as online shopping remains ever popular.

Denmark is one of the world’s most digital nations; even its public sector utilizes several online portals, minimizing any physical government correspondence and making it much less reliant on postal services than many other countries.

Still, the need for physical correspondence continues around the world, even if it is diminished.

Almost 2.6 billion people remain offline, according to the UN-affiliated Universal Postal Union, and many more “lack meaningful connectivity,” thanks to inadequate devices, poor coverage and limited digital skills. Rural communities, women and those living in poverty are among the worst affected, it added.

And even in countries like Denmark, some groups who are more reliant on postal services, like older people, may be adversely affected by the changes, advocacy groups say.

“It’s very easy for us to access our mail on the phone or a website... but we forgot to give the same possibilities to those who are not digital,” said Marlene Rishoej Cordes, a spokesperson for the DaneAge Association, which advocates for older people.

The letter has undergone transformations before, in both medium and style. “It changed formats from papyrus or wax tablets... then paper later on, vellum in the Middle Ages, and now we have electronic devices,” said Van Miert.

In the 17th century, following the traditions laid down by great philosopher-letter-writers, like Cicero and Erasmus, students were taught “how to write a proper letter, a letter of consolation, praise or congratulations,” he added. “For a diplomatic letter, a wholly different style was required than for a personal, or what they called a familiar, letter.”

Letters have come to represent an “element of nostalgia” and a permanence that technology cannot match, Nicole Ellison, a professor at the University of Michigan specializing in computer-mediated communication, told CNN.

Still, like the students who altered their letter-writing styles according to different contexts, digital communication has evolved to compensate for some of the personal touches and emotional cues a handwritten letter can convey.

Nonetheless, the demise of the letter is already sparking nostalgia in Denmark.

“Look closely at the picture here,” one Danish user on X said, alongside a photo of a mailbox. “Now in 5 years I will be able to explain to a 5-year-old what a mailbox was in the old days.”