ROME: Work to raise a superyacht that sank in Sicily last year, killing a UK tech mogul and six others, was suspended Saturday after the death of a specialized diver, according to local news reports.

The diver was part of a team working to raise the 56-meter (185-foot) “Bayesian” yacht that was struck by a pre-dawn storm in August last year while anchored off Porticello, near Palermo.

The yacht sunk within minutes after being struck by something akin to a mini-tornado, killing British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, his teenage daughter and five others.

Authorities suspended work on raising the vessel after prosecutors opened an investigation Friday into the death of a 39-year-old diver, according to Italian media.

According to initial reports, the diver was part of a team working to cut and remove the 75-meter mast, a first step before recovery of the yacht itself, which is lying on its side on the seabed some 50 meters down.

TMC Marine, the British company working to raise the superyacht, did not immediately respond to an AFP request for more information.

In a statement Friday cited by news reports, TMC Marine said it was cooperating with the probe and that “the circumstances of the accident are currently being investigated by the authorities.”

Work to bring up the yacht began last week, with Italy’s coast guard saying it would take up to 25 days.

Inquests into the deaths of the five British victims of the yacht sinking are currently being held in Ipswich, in eastern England.

In Italy, prosecutors in Termini Imerese have opened investigations into the captain and three others on suspicion of manslaughter and the crime of negligent shipwreck.

Lynch, the 59-year-old founder of software firm Autonomy, had invited friends and family onto the boat to celebrate his recent acquittal in a huge US fraud case.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV laid out the vision of his papacy Saturday, identifying artificial intelligence as one of the most critical matters facing humanity and vowing to continue in some of the core priorities of Pope Francis.

In his first formal audience, Leo repeatedly cited Francis and the Argentine pope’s own 2013 mission statement, making clear a commitment to making the Catholic Church more inclusive, attentive to the faithful and a church that looks out for the “least and rejected.”

Leo, the first American pope, told the cardinals who elected him that he was fully committed to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the church.

He identified AI as one of the main issues facing humanity, saying it poses challenges to defending human dignity, justice and labor.

Leo referred to AI in explaining the choice of his name: His namesake, Pope Leo XIII, was pope from 1878 to 1903 and laid the foundation for modern Catholic social thought. He did so most famously with his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which addressed workers’ rights and capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age. The late pope criticized both laissez-faire capitalism and state-centric socialism, giving shape to a distinctly Catholic vein of economic teaching.

In his remarks Saturday, Leo said he identified with his predecessor, who addressed the great social question of the day posed by the industrial revolution in the encyclical.

“In our own day, the church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” he said.

Toward the end of his pontificate, Francis became increasingly vocal about the threats to humanity posed by AI and called for an international treaty to regulate it.

He warned that such powerful technology risks turning human relations into mere algorithms. Francis brought his message to the Group of Seven industrialized nations when he addressed their summit last year, insisting AI must remain human-centric so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-lethal tools always remain made by humans and not machines.

The late Argentine pope also used his 2024 annual peace message to call for an international treaty to ensure AI is developed and used ethically, arguing that a technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness is too perilous to develop unchecked.

In the speech, delivered in Italian in the Vatican’s synod hall – not the Apostolic Palace – Leo made repeated references to Francis and the mourning over his death. He held up Francis’ mission statement at the 2013 start of his pontificate, “The Joy of the Gospel,” as something of his own marching orders, suggesting he intends very much to continue in Francis’ priorities.

He cited Francis’ insistence on the missionary nature of the church and the need to make its leadership more collegial. He cited the need to pay attention to what the faithful say “especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, especially popular piety.” Again, referring to Francis’ 2013 mission statement, Leo cited the need for the church to express “loving care for the least and rejected” and engage in courageous dialogue with the contemporary world.

Greeted by a standing ovation as he entered, Leo read from his prepared text, only looking up occasionally. Even when he first appeared to the world on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday night, Leo read from a prepared text that he must have drafted sometime before his historic election or the hour or so after.