EU flag drapes coffin of Sassoli, head of bloc’s parliament

ROME (AP) — With a state funeral, Italy has paid tribute to David Sassoli, the president of the European Union’s parliament, who died earlier in the week. An EU flag draped the coffin. Top EU and Italian authorities attended the service on Friday in a church in Rome. Sassoli died in an Italian hospital on Tuesday. He was 65, and had suffered for months with poor health following pneumonia. Bologna Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, a friend of Sassoli, said in a homily that the EU parliament’s president saw politics as serving the common good and that he wanted a united Europe whose institutions functioned well.