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Title: AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT | National
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AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT | National
Report: Top Southern Baptists stonewalled sex abuse victims
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations, according to a scathing 288-page investigative report issued Sunday.
These survivors, and other concerned Southern Baptists, repeatedly shared allegations with the SBC’s Executive Committee, “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC,” said the report.
The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for a probe by outsiders.
“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse … and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” the report said.
“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” the report added.
Russia presses Donbas attacks as Polish leader praises Kyiv
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pressed its offensive in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as Poland’s president traveled to Kyiv to support the country’s European Union aspirations, becoming the first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament since the start of the war.
Lawmakers gave a standing ovation to President Andrzej Duda, who thanked them for the honor of speaking where “the heart of a free, independent and democratic Ukraine beats.” Duda said that to end the conflict, Ukraine did not need to submit to conditions given by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Unfortunately, in Europe there have also been disturbing voices in recent times demanding that Ukraine yield to Putin’s demands,” he said. “I want to say clearly: Only Ukraine has the right to decide about its future. Only Ukraine has the right to decide for itself.”
Duda’s visit, his second to Kyiv since April, came as Russian and Ukrainian forces battled along a 551-kilometer (342-mile) wedge of the country’s eastern industrial heartland.
After declaring full control of a sprawling seaside steel plant that was the last defensive holdout in the port city of Mariupol, Russia launched artillery and missile attacks to expand the territory that Moscow-backed separatists have held since 2014 in the region known as the Donbas.
Biden to lay out in Japan who’s joining new Asia trade pact
TOKYO (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday is set to launch a new Indo-Pacific trade pact designed to signal U.S. dedication to the region and address the need for stability in commerce after the chaos caused by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The White House says the new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework will help the United States and Asian economies work more closely on issues including supply chains, digital trade, clean energy, worker protections and anticorruption efforts. The details still need to be negotiated among the member countries, making it difficult for the administration to say how this framework can fulfill the promise of helping U.S. workers and businesses while also meeting global needs.
Countries signing on to the framework were to be announced Monday during Biden’s visit to Tokyo for talks with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. It’s the latest step by the Biden administration to try to preserve and broaden U.S. influence in a region that until recently looked to be under the growing sway of China.
Kishida hosted a formal state welcome for Biden at Akasaka Palace, including a white-clad military honor guard and band in the front plaza. Reviewing the assembled troops, Biden placed his hand over his heart as he passed that American flag, and bowed slightly as he passed the Japanese standard.
Biden is in the midst of a five-day visit to South Korea and Japan — the first trip to Asia of his presidency — that wraps on Tuesday. The White House announced plans to build the economic framework in October as a replacement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the U.S. dropped out of in 2017 under then-President Donald Trump.
Vatican airs dirty laundry in trial over London property
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s sprawling financial trial may not have produced any convictions yet or any new smoking guns as prosecutors work through a first round of questioning of the 10 suspects accused of fleecing the Holy See of tens of millions of euros.
But testimony so far has provided plenty of insights into how the Vatican operates, with a cast of characters worthy of a Dan Brown thriller or a Shakespearean tragicomedy. Recent hearings showed a church bureaucracy that used espionage, allowed outsiders with unverified qualifications to gain access to the Apostolic Palace and relied on a pervasive mantra of sparing the pope responsibility — until someone’s neck was on the line.
Here are some revelations so far in this unusual airing of the Vatican’s dirty laundry:
WHAT’S THE TRIAL ABOUT?
The investigation was borne of the secretariat of state’s 350 million-euro ($370 million) investment in a London property, which was such a debacle that the Vatican sold the building this year at a cumulative loss of more than 200 million euros ($210 million).
78,000 pounds of infant formula arrives in US
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A military plane carrying enough specialty infant formula for more than half a million baby bottles arrived Sunday in Indianapolis, the first of several flights expected from Europe aimed at relieving a shortage that has sent parents scrambling to find enough to feed their children.
President Joe Biden authorized the use of Air Force planes for the effort, dubbed “Operation Fly Formula,” because no commercial flights were available.
The formula weighed 78,000 pounds (35,380 kilograms), White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden flew from South Korea to Japan.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Indianapolis to greet the arrival of the first shipment.
The flights are intended to provide “some incremental relief in the coming days” as the government works on a more lasting response to the shortage, Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Sunday.
Thomas wins 2nd PGA title in playoff after 7-shot rally
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Justin Thomas didn’t pay attention to any score but his own Sunday in the PGA Championship, knowing he was seven shots behind but with only six players ahead of him on a Southern Hills course where anything could happen.
He never could have dreamed how it all played out, a chaotic final hour of pressure moments, clutch putts and unimaginable heartache for Mito Pereira.
Thomas hit a shank on the sixth hole. He made a 65-foot birdie putt that began his record-tying comeback. He missed a 10-foot birdie putt on the final hole that he feared would cost him. He never led until one hole remained in his three-hole aggregate playoff with Will Zalatoris.
And when Thomas tapped in for par to capture another PGA Championship title, he stood erect on the 18th green with a mixture of joy and disbelief.
“I was asked early in the week what lead is safe and I said, ‘No lead,’” Thomas said. “I can’t believe I found myself in a playoff.”
‘A long journey’: Volunteers from Belarus fight for Ukraine
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — One is a restaurateur who fled Belarus when he learned he was about to be arrested for criticizing President Alexander Lukashenko. Another was given the choice of either denouncing fellow opposition activists or being jailed. And one is certain his brother was killed by the country’s security forces.
What united them is their determination to resist Lukashenko by fighting against Russian forces in Ukraine.
Belarusians are among those who have answered a call by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for foreign fighters to go to Ukraine and join the International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine, given the high stakes in a conflict which many see as a battle pitting dictatorship against freedom.
For the Belarusians, who consider Ukrainians a brethren nation, the stakes feel especially high.
Russian troops used Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine early in the war, and Lukashenko has publicly stood by longtime ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing him as his “big brother.” Russia, for its part, has pumped billions of dollars into shoring up Lukashenko’s Soviet-style, state-controlled economy with cheap energy and loans.
GOP candidate’s security clearance becomes issue in SC
SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (AP) — After losing a high-profile bid for a South Carolina congressional seat in 2018, Republican Katie Arrington took a job at the Defense Department, where she focused on securing military supply chains, ensuring thousands of companies that contract with the federal government were implementing cybersecurity protocols.
Arrington’s civil servant work as chief information officer for the Acquisition and Sustainment Office was in line with what she characterizes as her longtime passion for cybersecurity and defense. But as she seeks to revive her political career, Arrington’s time at the Pentagon is becoming a central issue in her campaign.
Freshman GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, whom Arrington hopes to defeat in South Carolina’s June 14 primary, is calling on Arrington to take a lie detector test about why she lost access to classified information. A Mace-funded, anti-Arrington website, meanwhile, has sections labeled “Leaks Classified Information” and “Busted: Loses Her Security Clearance.”
The dispute is likely to surface at a debate between the two on Monday.
The episode reflects the intensity of one of the most closely watched GOP congressional primaries this year. Former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Mace in 2020, has backed Arrington’s bid to unseat her, infuriated by the incumbent’s criticism of him, including his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The result will be another barometer of Trump’s influence within the GOP as he weighs another potential White House bid.
Gangs strangle Haiti’s capital as deaths, kidnappings soar
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — It was about 6 a.m. when Venique Moïse flung open the door of her house and saw dozens of people running — their children in one hand and scant belongings in the other — as gunfire intensified.
Minutes later, she joined the crowd with her own three kids and fled as fires burned nearby, collapsing homes. Over the coming hours and days, the bodies of nearly 200 men, women and children — shot, burned or mutilated with machetes by warring gangs — were found in that part of Haiti’s capital.
“That Sunday, when the war started, I felt that I was going to die,” Moïse said.
Gangs are fighting each other and seizing territory in the capital of Port-au-Prince with a new intensity and brutality. The violence has horrified many who feel the country is swiftly unraveling as it tries to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the United Nations prepares to debate the future of its longtime presence in Haiti.
Experts say the scale and duration of gang clashes, the power criminals wield and the amount of territory they control has reached levels not seen before.
Heard’s lawyers try to poke holes in Depp’s libel lawsuit
Attorneys for actor Amber Heard spent much of last week trying to portray her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, as a jealous and drunken abuser who can only blame himself for his nose-diving Hollywood career.
Since Heard concluded her testimony in a Virginia courtroom Tuesday, her lawyers have presented witness testimony from people who were once close to Depp but shunted from his orbit. They’ve included Depp’s former longtime agent, the actor Ellen Barkin and Heard’s sister.
The attorneys’ goal: Undermine Depp’s libel suit against Heard. The suit claims she falsely portrayed him as a domestic abuser and cost him his lucrative film career, including the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie franchise.
Depp points to a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which Heard described herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” Depp’s lawyers say he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.
The trial will enter its sixth week when it resumes Monday. Below are snippets of testimony from some of the witnesses called last week by Heard’s attorneys in their attempt to poke holes in Depp’s case.
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