Nation & World Glance
Trump signed the legislation to fund the military and several civilian agencies without journalists present, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the action. The House and Senate approved the spending plan earlier this week.
Trump’s signature avoids a shutdown before the Nov. 6 elections that will determine control of Congress. But he has expressed deep frustration that the bill does not pay for his longpromised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. GOP leaders had warned Trump a shutdown could be deeply damaging to Republicans, but Trump had made the case a shutdown could, in fact, be beneficial.
The spending plan includes $675 billion for the Defense Department and increases military pay by 2.6 percent, the largest pay raise in nine years.
Airline now says 1 missing after Pacific lagoon plane crash
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The airline operating a flight that crashed into a Pacific lagoon on Friday in Micronesia says that one man is missing, after earlier saying that all 47 passengers and crew had safely evacuated the sinking plane.
Air Niugini said in a release that as of Saturday afternoon, it was unable to account for a male passenger. The airline said it was working with local authorities, hospitals and investigators to try to find the man.
The airline did not immediately offer any other details about the passenger, such as his age or nationality.
Local boats helped rescue the other passengers and crew after the plane hit the water while trying to land at the Chuuk Island airport. Officials had said earlier than seven people had been taken to a hospital.
Pope defrocks Chilean priest at center of abuse scandal
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has defrocked a Chilean priest who was a central character in the global sex abuse scandal rocking his papacy, invoking his “supreme” authority to stiffen an earlier sentence because of the “exceptional amount of damage” the priest’s crimes had caused.
In a statement Friday, the Vatican said Francis had laicized 88-year-old Rev. Fernando Karadima, who was originally sanctioned in 2011 to live a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for having sexually abused minors in the upscale Santiago parish he ran.
The Vatican said Francis was doing so for “the good of the church.”
“It is without doubt an exceptional measure, but Karadima’s grave crimes have caused exceptional damage in Chile,” Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said.
The “penance and prayer” sanction has been the Vatican’s punishment of choice for elderly priests convicted of raping and molesting children. It has long been criticized by victims as too soft and essentially an all-expenses-paid retirement, and Karadima’s whistleblowers had pressed for it to be toughened.
The Vatican cited no new evidence or crime that prompted Francis to revisit the case and impose what clergy consider to be the equivalent of a death sentence. It said he acted out of his conscience and as a pastor, referencing the canon that lays out the pope’s “supreme, full, immediate and universal power” to serve the people of God.