COLU @ CONCEPTS

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The scandal was remarkable even by Vatican standards: The president of the “pope’s hospital” for sick children had taken nearly a half-million dollars in hospital donations and used them to spruce up the penthouse apartment of the Vatican cardinal who had appointed him. On Thursday, the Vatican tribunal indicted Giuseppe Profiti and the hospital’s former treasurer on charges they illegally diverted the money, and ordered them to stand trial. The case answers a key question raised by a recent Associated Press investigation that found that the hospital’s mission under Profiti’s leadership had been lost and was “more aimed at profit than caring for children.” So where did the money go? According to the indictment, at least some 422,000 euros ($481,000) in donations to the fundraising foundation of the Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital — popularly known as the “pope’s hospital” — went instead to renovate the penthouse of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who retired i...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department’s top civil rights official’s “flippant” remarks are raising questions about the government’s commitment to fighting campus sexual violence, even as she issued her second apology in as many days for attributing 90 percent of sexual assault claims to both parties being drunk. Candice Jackson, assistant secretary for civil rights, told victims of sexual assault meeting with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday that she was sorry for her remarks. “As much as I appreciate apologies, which are difficult, unfortunately, there’s no way to take it back. It’s out there,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center, who attended the meeting and relayed Jackson’s apology Thursday. “What’s extremely important now is that they do the hard work to counter those sorts of rape myths. They need to explicitly reject them.” DeVos also met Thursday with people who say they were falsely accused and disciplined and repr...

TEPEACA, Mexico (AP) — The police officers gripped their assault rifles tightly as they stared at the men filling plastic tanks and loading them onto a dozen pickup trucks in a cornfield in central Mexico. Even though a crime was being committed in front of them, the officers said it was too dangerous to move in. They had to wait until the army arrived to advance because the suspects were better-armed than they were and an earlier attempt to arrest them had been repelled by gunfire, officials said. “In the morning there were 40 trucks loading,” said Francisco, a security employee with the state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, who asked that his last name not be used for safety reasons. “We saw them loading, we went in, and they started shooting at us. The criminals had an armored car.” The suspects weren’t cartel traffickers loading a drug shipment, but gasoline thieves tapping a state-owned pipeline — a form of organized crime that is growing in Mexico and has ...

BEIJING (AP) — A newspaper published by China’s ruling Communist Party is dismissing late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo as a political pawn of the West whose legacy will fade. The rare mention of Liu in Chinese-language media comes as international tributes flow in for the political prisoner. He died Thursday of liver cancer. The Global Times said in Friday’s editorial that Liu lived a “tragic life” because he sought to confront Chinese mainstream society with outside support. Liu, a prolific essayist and literary critic, was serving an 11-year sentence for incitement to subversion. He was in prison when he was awarded the 2010 Nobel for advocating democratic reforms and human rights in China. World leaders have praised Liu and called on China to release his widow, Liu Xia, from house arrest. Source: www.apnews.com 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was captured complimenting the French president’s wife’s appearance Thursday as he toured a famous Paris landmark. Video footage posted on the French government’s official Facebook page showed Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and their wives chatting after their tour of the museums at Les Invalides. As they were saying their good-byes, Trump turned to Brigitte Macron and gestured toward her body. “You know, you’re in such good shape,” Trump said, before repeating the observation to her husband. “Beautiful,” he added. Brigitte Macron was her husband’s former high school teacher and their relationship has drawn international attention because of their significant age difference. But feminists and President Macron have denounced that attention as sexist, arguing that nobody would blink an eye if he were the older spouse. The Macrons’ age difference is identical to that of Donald and Melania Trump, who were spending two day...

PARIS (AP) — President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron set aside lingering differences on climate change during their meeting in France on Thursday, asserting that it shouldn’t prevent them from working together toward a post-war roadmap for Syria and to enhance Mideast security. Trump, standing alongside Macron at a news conference, said the two nations have “occasional disagreements” but that would not disrupt a friendship that dates back to the American Revolution. He remained non-committal about the United States eventually rejoining the global climate agreement that bears Paris’ name, telling Macron, “if it happens that will be wonderful, and if it doesn’t that will be OK too.” U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Paris on Thursday morning, ahead of Bastille Day celebrations in the French capital. (July 13) Macron acknowledged sharp differences on the Paris climate pact but said the two leaders could find other areas of cooperation. “Should t...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer, characterizing it as standard campaign practice and maintaining that “nothing happened” as a result of the June 2016 sit-down. The remarks in Paris during a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron came even though Trump’s own FBI pick has said the authorities should be alerted to requests for such meetings during a campaign and even after Donald Trump Jr. said he would rethink his own conduct in agreeing to the gathering in the first place. “I think from a practical standpoint most people would’ve taken that meeting. It’s called opposition research, or even research into your opponent,” Trump said. Trump Jr. released emails this week from 2016 in which he appeared eager to accept information from the Russian government that could have damaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The emails were sent ahead of a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer that Trum...