News in :90 – May 9, 2019

It’s early May, but the National Weather Service reported about 10 inches of snow has fallen in Duluth, Minnesota, as of 7 a.m. Up to four inches of snow fell in central Minnesota around Brainerd.

Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking law Thursday requiring all Catholic priests and nuns around the world to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-up by their superiors to church authorities, in a new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for failing to protect their flocks.

The new church law provides whistle-blower protections for anyone making a report and requires all dioceses around the world to have a system in place to receive the claims confidentially. It outlines procedures for conducting preliminary investigations when the accused is a bishop, cardinal or religious superior.

“People must know that bishops are at the service of the people,” said Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s longtime sex crimes prosecutor. “They are not above the law, and if they do wrong, they must be reported.”

A BBC DJ was fired Thursday after using a picture of a chimpanzee in a tweet about the royal baby born to Meghan the Duchess of Sussex and her husband Prince Harry.

Danny Baker, who had a weekly show on BBC Radio 5 Live, tweeted Thursday that he has been fired after posting an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee dressed in clothes and the caption: “Royal baby leaves hospital.”

The tweet came on Wednesday, the same day Harry and Meghan posed for photos with their first child, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. The tweet was seen as a racist reference to baby Archie’s heritage. His grandmother Doria Ragland is African American.

Samantha HoangLong can be reached at hoan1058@stthomas.edu.