News/International

Middle Eastern Christians have suffered soft, state-sponsored discrimination since the Ottomans ruled and that discrimination has been reinforced over generations by poor, underfunded education systems throughout the region. More recently this evil brew has been stirred into feverish, bigoted campaigns of hate spread by Saudi-funded Wahhabi preachers.

ROME – An Italian bishop has threatened to take legal action against “Pokemon Go,” describing the game as “diabolical” and a “totalitarian system like Nazism.”

SAN GERMAN, Puerto Rico – Mistrust of local government and federal agencies has caused doubt among Puerto Ricans about reports the Zika epidemic poses a grave situation to the island.

MANILA, Philippines – Residents of a small island in the central Philippines hailed a government order that stopped one of the country's largest mining firms from removing nickel ore stockpiles from their village.

OXFORD, England – An official of the Congolese bishops' conference said he is optimistic that the government and opposition will work with them to restart peace talks.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis met privately at the Vatican with French President Francois Hollande, who said he felt it necessary to thank the Pope in person for his words after the slaying of a French priest and other terrorist attacks in France.

NEW YORK – Police were questioning a possible suspect in the double homicide of a popular imam and his associate in Queens but there was still no clear motive even as the shocking daylight murders were becoming a flashpoint in the national debate over anti-Islamic rhetoric.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – The dust had hardly settled on Catholic Relief Services' work fighting the world's worst Ebola outbreak before the team was putting together a response to the Zika virus in the West African island nation of Cape Verde.

QUEBEC CITY – For Father Gaston Ndaleghana Mumbere, the feast of the Assumption represents his hope for better tomorrows for Congo.

MILWAUKEE – Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki of Milwaukee called the violence that broke out in the city as part of protests over the fatal police shooting of an African-American man "a self-inflicted wound."