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Andrew Kaczynski and Rachel Louise Ensign's love story: Braving through 3 years of marriage and losing Francesca

According to a Times report, Kaczynski was engaged to Rachel Ensign in 2016 and Politico reported that the couple married in May 2017

It's a tragic day for Andrew Kaczynski and Rachel Louise Ensign. The journalist and political reporter for CNN shared the heartbreaking news of the death of his nine-month-old daughter Francesca — also known as Bean, Beanie or Beans — on Instagram. On Christmas Eve, Kaczynski had tweeted, “If anyone can spare a pray for our Bean this Christmas, would just ask they include Francesca in their thoughts and hope for a Christmas miracle for our family,” according to our earlier report.

Hours later, he announced her passing. “It’s with a very heavy heart we have to tell you that Francesca passed away last night in her mom and dad’s arms. We just posted her obituary,” the 31-year-old wrote on Instagram and shared a set of photos of the adorable little one. 

He shared the news on Twitter too... and wrote, “We’re heartbroken to have to announce our beautiful daughter Francesca passed away last night in the arms of her mom and dad. There will always be a Bean-sized hole in our hearts for her. We’re so grateful to have known her love. Francesca, we love you.” 

As the Internet mourns the little one, here's a little background about Andrew Kaczynski and Rachel Louise Ensign, their career graphs and their love story. 

Who is Andrew Kaczynski?

Born on November 30, 1989, and based in New York, Andrew Kaczynski is of Italian, Polish and Italo-Albanian ancestry. A history undergrad at St John’s University in New York who attended college at Ohio University first, he interned for the Republican National Committee and the office of Congressman Bob Turner. 

In 2011, he gained popularity by digging through C-SPAN archives, YouTube and Google Video to post old video clips of politicians, challenging them on their contradictory statements, and was soon dubbed “the most influential amateur opposition researcher”.

That very year, he was hired as a political reporter for BuzzFeed News. By 2012, he was in the limelight for exposing numerous clips of Mitt Romney supporting an individual mandate and sharing a clip of Barack Obama protesting at Harvard while at law school over a lack of faculty diversity.

In an interview, he said, “I wanted to give people another perspective that you usually don’t get to see, so they can see how they’ve evolved on certain issues, whether they changed their core convictions when it’s politically convenient.”

On October 3, 2016, Kaczynski and his team left BuzzFeed and joined CNN. According to the Times, Kaczynski “received a diagnosis of pancreatitis at 19” and doesn’t smoke or drink. Did you know Time named Kaczynski's Twitter feed one of “The 140 Best Twitter Feeds” of 2013? He also clinched the “Beast Best” award on the Daily Beast website and New York Magazine named him the 13th most influential Tweeter in New York City.

Who is his wife, Rachel Louise Ensign?

Based in New York, Rachel Louise Ensign has worked at Yahoo Finance, The (Toronto) Star, MarketWatch, Yahoo, Fox Business, Morningstar, Global Finance and Financial News. Currently, her Twitter bio dubs her a “Banking reporter at the Wall Street Journal.” 

According to a Times report, Kaczynski was engaged to Rachel Ensign in 2016 and Politico reported that the couple married in May 2017. Calling it “non-scene”, the report described the wedding as “Lots of family and old friends … [celebrating a] wonderful evening at Prospect Park boathouse. The bride and groom were married by the groom’s older brother, Steve. There was a reading of a passage from ‘All the King’s Men’ and a reading of the poem ‘Ithaka’. A live band played throughout the evening. … They met in intern group housing in DC.”

The two have been together ever since and soon gave birth to their daughter, Francesca, who was diagnosed with a rare and “very aggressive” brain tumor. He said, “A personal note: Our six-month-old daughter Francesca was diagnosed with an extremely rare and very aggressive rhabdoid brain tumor this week. We’re looking at any and all treatments right now, including experimental. Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers.”

He added, “Our daughter is the strongest person I know and I am confident she will fight this as hard as she can. In the meantime, I’m gonna be off work for a few weeks while we get started on treatment. I just want to thank all our friends, strangers and medical staff for their support.”