Caroline Weir scored a dramatic late goal for Real Madrid to salvage a 1-1 draw with Paris FC in the Women’s Champions League on Tuesday, when Lyon defeated fellow heavyweight Wolfsburg 3-1.
Weir scored in the eighth minute of stoppage time — there were only supposed to be six — to deny Paris another win in Madrid with the visitors desperately trying to hold on after Lorena Azzaro had scored a penalty before the break.
Click to Gallery
Roma's head coach Luca Rossettini, left, talks to Manuela Giugliano during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Roma's goalkeeper Rachele Baldi distributes the ball during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Valerenga's Stine Brekken, left, AS Roma's Evelyne Viens battle for the ball during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Valerenga's Stine Brekken, 3rd from left, celebrates after scoring during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Valerenga's Stine Brekken, center, celebrates after scoring during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
The French team had won 1-0 with a penalty in 2023, when it completed home and away wins over the Spanish club.
Norway star Ada Hegerberg scored twice in Lyon’s win, while Catarina Macario and Sam Kerr both scored twice in Chelsea’s 6-0 rout of tournament debutant St. Pölten. Wieke Kaptein and an own goal from Lisa Ebert completed the scoring in Austria.
Earlier, Norwegian club Vålerenga defeated Roma 1-0 for its first win in the competition.
The Spanish side dominated the opening half-hour with Linda Caicedo hitting the crossbar after working her way through a host of defenders, and goalkeeper Mylène Chavas denying an effort from Naomie Feller.
But Filippa Angeldahl was penalized for a foul on substitute Sheika Scott and Azzaro dispatched Paris’ penalty in the 41st.
The home team’s frustration grew as its second-half pressure failed to yield a dividend with Caicedo drawing a good save from Chavas, who went on to make more stops. Goalkeeper Misa Rodríguez was booked after complaining about a questionable referee’s decision.
Weir finally made a chance count at the last when she squeezed the ball past the otherwise faultless Chavas.
“The performance was decent enough. We just couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net,” the Scotland star told ESPN.
Hegerberg grabbed two goals five minutes apart in the first half and team captain Wendie Renard scored a penalty as eight-time champion Lyon dismissed Wolfsburg’s challenge by dominating from start to finish in the teams’ 11th meeting.
Lineth Beerensteyn scored the German team’s consolation.
It was Lyon’s seventh straight win over Wolfsburg. Renard, who played in all of their previous meetings, became the first player to clock 100 wins in UEFA club competitions.
Hegerberg extended her record as the competition’s top scorer, taking her tally to 69 goals.
Stine Brekken scored and Vålerenga held on to celebrate an unprecedented win for the club in Rome.
Roma made the better start before the visitors grew in confidence with Sara Hørte hitting the post with a deflected header in the 34th minute.
Brekken, a 20-year-old midfielder, scored six minutes later when she eluded a defender with a smart turn and surged forward past more static defenders before firing the ball inside the top left corner.
“We have been fighting so long to get better and to get some points here in Champions League. So to finally get that (win) is a really, really good feeling for the team,” Brekken said.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Roma's head coach Luca Rossettini, left, talks to Manuela Giugliano during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Roma's goalkeeper Rachele Baldi distributes the ball during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Valerenga's Stine Brekken, left, AS Roma's Evelyne Viens battle for the ball during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Valerenga's Stine Brekken, 3rd from left, celebrates after scoring during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
Valerenga's Stine Brekken, center, celebrates after scoring during the women's Champions League soccer match between Roma and Valerenga, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse via AP)
BATA, Equatorial Guinea (AP) — Pope Leo XIV told inmates at one of Equatorial Guinea’s notorious prisons on Wednesday that they are not alone as he drew attention to prison conditions, human rights abuses and injustices that campaigners have denounced for years here.
Leo’s visit to the prison in the Central African port city of Bata followed in the tradition of Pope Francis, who frequently met with inmates on his foreign visits to give them a message of hope.
But Leo’s stop, at the end of his four-nation African tour, took on added significance after it emerged that Equatorial Guinea was one of several African nations that have been paid millions of dollars in controversial deals with the Trump administration to receive migrants deported from the U.S. to countries other than their own.
While none of those migrants are being held at Bata, the visit put the spotlight on Equatorial Guinea’s overall human rights record and its judiciary, which rights campaigners have criticized for its lack of independence, arbitrary detentions and other abuses.
“You are not alone. Your families love you and are waiting for you. Many people outside these walls are praying for you,” Leo told the inmates in Spanish. “If any of you fear being abandoned by everyone, know that God will never abandon you, and that the Church will stand by your side.”
The inmates, all dressed in new neon orange and beige uniforms, had gathered in a central courtyard of the prison, which appeared to have been recently painted salmon pink.
In his remarks, Leo also reminded authorities that justice is meant to protect society, but that incarceration is not meant to be punishment alone.
“To be effective, it must always promote the dignity and potential of every person,” he said. “True justice seeks not so much to punish as to help rebuild the lives of victims, offenders and communities wounded by evil.”
Leo began the day with Mass in Mongomo, an eastern city on the border with Gabon that has experienced major development since Equatorial Guinea’s oil boom in the 1990s.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been accused of widespread corruption and authoritarianism in his four-decade rule, comes from Mongomo and the city has benefited from government investment and infrastructure, even though no official institutions are located here.
While more than half of Equatorial Guinea’s population lives in poverty, Mongomo boasts opulent buildings, curated gardens behind gilt-tipped gates, an 18-hole golf course and is the starting point of the lone highway in the country, linking the city to Bata on the west coast.
Obiang and his wife were on hand for Leo’s Mass, as was their son, Teodoro “Teddy” Nguema Obiang, the country’s vice president who was convicted of embezzling millions of euros by a French court, which handed him a three-year suspended sentence, a 30 million euro ($35.2 million) fine and ordered the seizure of his luxury homes and cars in France worth tens of millions of euros. The country has protested the seizures at the International Court of Justice.
Last year, the United States gave the younger Obiang a temporary waiver on U.S. corruption sanctions so he could travel to a U.N. gathering and visit other American cities. Obiang also met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.
The Vatican said an estimated 100,000 people attended the Mass, most standing in the grand entryway to Mongomo’s Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. The monumental church was consecrated in 2011 and is modeled on St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
Before Mass, Leo greeted the crowd and the presidential family. With the Obiangs by his side, he blessed the cornerstone of a future cathedral to be built in the country’s new capital, Ciudad de la Paz, or City of Peace.
In his homily, Leo urged all citizens to work together to build a society “capable of engendering a new sense of justice,” where there is “greater room for freedom” and where “the dignity of the human person always may be safeguarded.”
He urged everyone, according to their roles, to work to “serve the common good rather than private interests, bridging the gap between the privileged and the disadvantaged.”
“My thoughts go to the poorest, to families experiencing difficulty and to prisoners who are often forced to live in troubling hygienic and sanitary conditions,” he said.
Equatorial Guinea’s prisons and justice system have been repeatedly faulted by the United Nations and condemned by human rights groups and the U.S. State Department.
In its 2023 report on the country, the U.S. listed a host of abuses, including arbitrary or unlawful killings and arrests, political detentions, torture, life-threatening prison conditions and “serious problems” with the judiciary’s independence.
The government has denied rights abuses.
On the eve of his prison visit, 70 human rights organizations published an open letter to Leo, urging him to speak out especially about the U.S. deportation of migrants here and encourage African nations to not be complicit.
“These practices circumvent humanitarian protections, expose refugees to detention and coercion, and subject individuals to refoulement, in direct contravention of international law,” they wrote.
In the run-up to Leo’s arrival, the government released nearly 100 people who had been arrested in a 2022 crackdown on street violence, according to a local lawyer, who requested anonymity given the country’s human rights record.
The lawyer termed the releases one “positive outcome” of the visit but also noted that the government still hasn’t taken action on releasing jailed activists and politicians.
EG Justice, a rights group which has repeatedly denounced the detention of political prisoners in Equatorial Guinea, urged Leo to use his moral authority to speak out about abuses and the detention of activists and politicians especially.
“There are individuals — prisoners of conscience, and human rights activists — in detention whose cases raise serious humanitarian and due process concerns,” said Tutu Alicante, a U.S.-based activist who runs the EG Justice group.
Monika Pronczuk contributed to this report from Malabo.
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.
Pope Leo XIV arrives at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on the 10th day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa, in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Pope Leo XIV arrives at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on the 10th day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa, in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Pope Leo XIV arrives at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on the 10th day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa, in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Faithful wait for the arrival of Pope Leo XIV at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, on the 10th day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa, in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Pope Leo XIV arrives at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on the 10th day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Pope Leo XIV blesses the faithful at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Pope Leo XIV, delivers a speech during his meeting with the staff and patients of the "Jean Pierre Olie" Psychiatric Hospital in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Faithful wait for the arrival of Pope Leo XIV on the occasion of his meeting with representatives of the world of culture in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, on the ninth day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Pope Leo XIV waves to the faithful prior to the start of a meeting with representatives of the world of culture in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, on the ninth day of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Faithful wait for the arrival of Pope Leo XIV at the airport in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Pope Leo XIV, flanked by Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, right, is welcomed by Archbishop Juan Nsue Edjang Mayé, left, and Juan Domingo-Beka Esono Ayang upon his arrival at Malabo International Airport in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
