Conviction upheld in monsignor case

The state’s highest court on Monday reinstated the landmark child-endangerment conviction of a Roman Catholic monsignor who was the first U.S. church official ever prosecuted over his handling of sex abuse complaints. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the 2012 felony conviction of Monsignor William Lynn for endangering an altar boy abused by a priest who had been transferred to his parish despite earlier complaints.

An Arizona mother was convicted of first-degree murder and child abuse Monday in the death of her 5-year-old daughter, who prosecutors said was beaten, neglected and confined to a closet before being dumped in a trash bin in 2011. Authorities said 41-year-old Jerice Hunter kept her daughter Jhessye Shockley at the family’s suburban Phoenix home and deprived her of food and water until she died.

A former Romanian president has acknowledged approving the CIA’s request for a site in Romania, but said he would have refused had he known how it would be used. Ion Iliescu, president from 2000 to 2004, suggested he believed Romania had hosted CIA “black sites” — prisons outside the U.S. where suspected terrorists were held and subjected to harsh interrogation.

Polish border guards on Monday blocked 10 nationalistic Russian bikers loyal to President Vladimir Putin from entering Poland as part of a ride to commemorate the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany 70 years ago. The bikers approached the Polish border from Belarus on Monday morning and spent about three hours being questioned and searched by the Polish border guards before they were turned back.