COLU @ CONCEPTS

DENVER (AP) — A judge on Friday threw out a former radio host’s case against Taylor Swift in a trial that delved into their dueling lawsuits over whether he groped her during a backstage meet-and-greet and whether she and her team ruined his career. U.S. District Judge William Martinez determined that the pop star could not be held liable because David Mueller failed to prove that she personally set out to have him fired after the 2013 photo op in Denver. His identical allegations against Swift’s mother and her radio liaison will go to jurors for a verdict. Mueller denies groping Swift and sued the singer, her mother, Andrea Swift, and their radio handler, Frank Bell, seeking up to $3 million as compensation for his ruined career. The singer-songwriter said in her countersuit that she wanted a symbolic $1 and the chance to stand up for other women. The jury will still consider her claim. Swift teared up as the judge read his decision and said there was no evidence of her a...

BEDMINSTER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday issued fresh threats of swift and forceful retaliation against nuclear North Korea, declaring the U.S. military “locked and loaded” and warning that the communist country’s leader “will regret it fast” if he takes any action against U.S. territories or allies. The warnings came in a cascade of unscripted statements throughout the day, each ratcheting up a rhetorical standoff between the two nuclear nations. The president appeared to draw another red line that would trigger a U.S. attack against North Korea and “big, big trouble” for its leader, Kim Jong Un. Trump’s comments, however, did not appear to be backed by significant military mobilization on either side of the Pacific, and an important, quiet diplomatic channel remained open. “If he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat — which by the way he has been uttering for years and his family has been uttering for years — or he does anything with respect to ...

BEDMINSTER, N.J. (AP) — A nuclear showdown. The world’s most unpredictable foe. A world on edge. What will the new president do? Be Trump. Faced with perhaps his gravest international crisis yet, President Donald Trump this week responded precisely as his some of supporters hoped and his critics long feared. The mix of plain-spoken bluster, spontaneity and norm-breaking risk that defined his political rise defined his approach to a round of fresh threats from nuclear North Korea. When Pyongyang punched, Trump counterpunched harder — much as he did on a debate stage flanked by political opponents. But this was not a Florida debate stage or a low-stakes celebrity Twitter war of the sort Trump perfected before entering politics. It was a standoff over North Korea’s rapidly developing nuclear program, complete with trading threats of war and the safety of millions in the balance. Over the course of the week, Trump unleashed provocative rhetoric and dismissed the careful or preci...

VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — A Maltese priest has been handed a suspended three-month sentence after he was found guilty of violent indecent assault on a woman who was undergoing psychiatric care. The woman testified that Charles Fenech, 57, a priest who was popular in the Mediterranean island nation in the 1990s for organizing activities to raise funds for disabled people, forced her to perform oral sex on him on several occasions in 2011. The woman was under the care of a psychiatrist after trying to commit suicide while her marriage was breaking up. The verdict Thursday was the first involving a Maltese priest accused of sexually abusing an adult. In 2011, two Maltese priests were sentenced to a total of 11 years in jail for sexually abusing minors. Source: www.apnews.com 

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The leaders of Poland’s Jewish community have written to the country’s most powerful politician, urging him to denounce what they say is rising anti-Semitism that has left them fearing for their future in the country. The letter, a rare voicing of concern, comes nearly two years after the election of Law and Justice, a deeply conservative, nationalistic and anti-migrant party that is backed by some groups with anti-Semitic views. Observers including the country’s human rights commissioner have noted a rise in anti-Semitism and other hate speech and as well as attacks on dark-skinned people since the party came to power. “We are appalled by recent events and fearful for our security as the situation in our country is becoming more dangerous,” Leslaw Piszewski, the head of the Jewish community in Poland, and Anna Chipczynska, the head of the Warsaw community, wrote in the letter. Chipczynska told The Associated Press on Thursday that the community sent th...

LONDON (AP) — Britain is wrestling with a volatile nexus of crime, race and religion, after 18 people were convicted of sexually abusing women and girls as young as 15. One woman and 17 men were convicted of, or admitted, to charges including rape, supplying drugs and inciting prostitution in a series of trials that ended this week at Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England. The crimes follow a pattern that has become grimly familiar from cases across Britain in the last few years. The convicted men mostly come from South Asian Muslim backgrounds. Their victims — who were plied with drugs and alcohol before being abused at parties, in taxis or in back rooms — are mostly white. The prosecution of child-grooming gangs in Rochdale, Rotherham, Oxford and now Newcastle has raised uncomfortable questions. Some allege that the crimes were long ignored by authorities afraid they would be branded racist or fearful the allegations might inflame ethnic tensions. Sarah Champion, a ...

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge overseeing a religious discrimination case against polygamous communities in Arizona and Utah has appointed an official to monitor municipal decisions involving housing rights and make sure other changes ordered by the court are carried out. Roger Carter, city manager of Washington, Utah, was appointed to monitor municipal operations in the sister cities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, on behalf of the court. His appointment on Aug. 3 was a response to a 2016 jury verdict that concluded nonbelievers were denied police protection, building permits and water hookups on the basis of religion. Carter was the last of three outsiders hired to help carry out the court-ordered overhaul of the towns, which are under court supervision for the next decade as punishment for the discrimination verdict. The towns were accused of serving as an arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism,...