Report: Pennsylvania priests molested more than 1,000 children
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — since the 1940s, and senior church officials, including a man who is now the archbishop of Washington, D.C., systematically covered up the abuse, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday.
The “real number” of abused children might be in the thousands since some secret church records were lost, and victims were afraid to come forward, the grand jury said.
“Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing. They hid it all,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a news conference in Harrisburg.
The report put the number of abusive clergy at more than 300. In nearly all of the cases, the statute of limitations has run out, meaning that criminal charges cannot be filed. More than 100 of the priests are dead, and many others are retired or have been dismissed from the priesthood or put on leave.
“We are sick over all the crimes that will go unpunished and uncompensated,” the grand jury said.
Italian bridge collapse sends cars plunging, killing 26
MILAN — A 51-year-old highway bridge in the Italian port city of Genoa collapsed in a driving rain Tuesday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 15 others as it sent dozens of vehicles tumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte called it “an immense tragedy … inconceivable in a modern system like ours, a modern country.”
The disaster, on a major interchange connecting Genoa and other northern cities with beaches in eastern Liguria into France, focused attention on Italy’s aging infrastructure, particularly its concrete bridges and viaducts built in the postwar boom of the 1950s and 1960s.
What caused the Morandi Bridge to fall remained unknown, and prosecutors said they were opening an investigation but had not identified any targets. Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said the collapse was “unacceptable” and that if negligence played a role “whoever made a mistake must pay.”
Early speculation focused on the structural weakness of the span.
UK police treat Parliament crash as terrorism, seek motive
LONDON — Police flooded central London streets and cordoned off the city’s government district Tuesday, after a speeding car plowed into cyclists and crashed outside Parliament in what authorities were treating as an act of terrorism.
With the driver in custody, counterterror detectives were working to uncover the motive behind what they suspect is the fourth vehicle attack in Britain — and the second on Parliament — in 18 months.
“Given that this appears to be a deliberate act, the method and this being an iconic site, we are treating it as a terrorist incident,” Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Britain’s top counterterrorism officer, told reporters.
A rooftop camera recorded the silver Ford Fiesta driving past Parliament and suddenly veering sharply to the left, striking cyclists waiting at a set of lights, then crossing the road and crashing into a barrier outside Parliament. Armed police surrounded the car within seconds, pulling a man from the vehicle. Police said the driver was alone and no weapons were found in the car.
Three people were hurt, none critically.
Police arrested the 29-year-old driver, a resident of England’s Midlands region who was not previously known to counterterrorism police or the intelligence services. Basu said the suspect was not cooperating with police.
Security Minister Ben Wallace said the man, whose name was not released, was a British citizen originally from another country.
Lavish court spending in poor West Virginia triggers scandal
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A $42,000 antique desk. A $32,000 blue suede sectional sofa. A $7,500 inlaid wooden floor map of West Virginia’s 55 counties.
A scandal involving lavish office renovations and other financial abuses by the highest court in one of the poorest states in America has triggered an extraordinary move by one branch of government to essentially fire another.
The West Virginia House of Delegates on Monday impeached four justices of the state Supreme Court on charges of extravagant spending and other misconduct, setting the stage for a Senate trial that could lead to their removal.
One of those impeached retired on Tuesday, averting the prospect of sitting through a proceeding that is sure to explore the justices’ fancy tastes in embarrassing detail. And the court’s fifth member retired under pressure last month.
Some Democrats have decried the impeachment drive against the elected justices as a power grab by the Republican-controlled House and Senate, strategically timed to allow GOP Gov. Jim Justice to name their temporary replacements.
