Ten years ago: Pope Benedict XVI promised “church action” to confront the clerical abuse scandal. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was suspended for six games for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy. (Commissioner Roger Goodell handed down the punishment after prosecutors decided not to bring charges in a case involving a 20-year-old college student who’d accused Roethlisberger of sexually assaulting her.) Juan Antonio Samaranch, 89, who’d served as president of the International Olympic Committee for 21 years, died in Barcelona, Spain.
Five years ago: An Egyptian criminal court sentenced ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prison over the killing of protesters in 2012. The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Michele Leonhart, announced her retirement in the wake of allegations that DEA agents had attended sex parties with prostitutes. Pope Francis accepted the resignation of U.S. Bishop Robert Finn, who’d pleaded guilty to failing to report a suspected child abuser. Mary Doyle Keefe, 92, the model for Norman Rockwell’s iconic 1943 Rosie the Riveter painting, died in Simsbury, Connecticut.
One year ago: President Donald Trump spoke with the newly-elected Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to congratulate him on his landslide election victory. (A second phone call in July, in which Trump solicited Zelenskiy’s help in gathering potentially damaging information about his principal Democratic rival, Joe Biden, would lead to Trump’s impeachment by the House.) Suicide bombings at three churches and three luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday killed more than 250 people; the attackers were homegrown militants who had pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group.
