Nation & World Watch
vHelena, Mont.: Diocese makes deal in abuse cases
A Montana Roman Catholic diocese filed for bankruptcy protection Friday as part of a settlement with 72 people who filed sex abuse claims, church officials said Friday.
The Diocese of Great Falls-Billings said it would contribute to a fund to compensate victims and set aside additional money for those who have not yet come forward. The amount of the settlement was not released.
“I express my profound sorrow and sincere apologies to anyone who was abused by a priest, a sister or a lay church worker,” Bishop Michael Warfel said in a statement. None of those accused are active in parish ministry, and nearly all are deceased, Warfel said.
vWashington: US freezes assets of N. Korean agents
The U.S. Treasury froze the assets of 11 agents of the North Korean government Friday in response to the regime’s continued development of a nuclear missile program.
The sanctions target North Korean agents working in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba whom the Treasury Department accuses of helping to procure components for weapons programs or financial networks that help them.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the sanctions were “aimed at disrupting the networks and methods that the government of North Korea employs to fund its unlawful nuclear, ballistic missile and proliferation programs.”
North Korea has launched at least three test missiles in the past month, rattling U.S. allies in Asia.
vWashington: A blue mood for the White House
The White House will briefly become a blue house Sunday to mark World Autism Awareness Day.
Spokesman Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump is keeping a promise to the late wife of his friend Bob Wright that he would illuminate the White House in blue if he won the election.
Wright and his wife, Suzanne, founded the advocacy group Autism Speaks in 2005. The organization uses the color blue in its logo. Suzanne Wright died last year.
vPakistan: Suicide bomber kills 24 near mosque
A car bomb exploded Friday near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the town of Parachinar in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 100, officials said.
The bomb was detonated near the mosque, which is not far from the busy Noor Market, said Mushtaq Ghani, a spokesman for the provincial government. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Taliban militants, claimed responsibility.
Spokesman Asad Mansoor said the attack was carried out by one of the group’s members and targeted minority Shiites, who are considered to be heretics by the militants.
vVenezuela: Clashes follow court’s power grab
Security forces violently suppressed protests that broke out in Venezuela’s capital Friday after the Supreme Court gutted the opposition-controlled Congress of its last vestiges of power.
Governments across Latin America condemned the power grab, which the head of the Organization of American States likened to a “self-inflicted coup” by socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
In Caracas, riot police fired buckshot and swung batons at students who gathered outside the Supreme Court. Several protesters were arrested, and some journalists had their cameras seized by the police. An airman hands Joan Harrison the flag that covered the casket of her father, John L. Harrison Jr., at his funeral Friday in Philadelphia. Harrison was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen in World War II.