Trump honors federal immigration officials at White House
By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump planned to use a White House event Monday to pay tribute to federal immigration officials, returning to the fight over the U.S. southern border.
The president was honoring employees of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Protection. The federal agencies have been thrust into the debate over the Trump administration’s separation of migrant children from their parents after they illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump has assailed some Democratic lawmakers for seeking to abolish ICE ahead of the November midterm elections. In a letter to state and local leaders, Trump wrote that ICE workers had been subjected to a “nationwide campaign of smears, insults and attacks” by politicians “catering to the extreme elements in our society.”
Trump has made border security a key part of his message as he tries to maintain Republican control of Congress in the November elections.
Before the president arrived, the White House held a panel discussion on immigration with several state and local officials, who pointed to the role that a secure border plays in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking and questioned calls to abolish ICE.
Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, who has worked closely with the administration on immigration legislation, said he struggled to see the point of eliminating the federal agency, likening it to someone saying, “I want to get rid of the Marines.”
“I just think it’s unconscionable, and frankly, I think it’s downright unpatriotic and treasonous,” Perdue said.

Latest: Official: Man held in US wanted for murder in Mexico
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Latest on the arrest by immigration agents of a man as he drove his wife to the hospital so she could give birth (all times local):
11:20 a.m.
An official of the Mexican state of Guanajuato confirms that a man detained by immigration agents in California is wanted on an arrest warrant for homicide in Mexico.
The official spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to be quoted by name and could not say when the crime occurred, but said it was an intentional homicide case akin to a U.S. murder charge.
The official says that Mexican prosecutors had asked the U.S. government to help find and detain Joel Arrona Lara.
Arrona Lara’s wife had to drive herself to the hospital and give birth without her husband after he was detained by immigration agents Wednesday in San Bernardino, California.
The couple came to the U.S. 12 years ago from the city of Leon, Guanajuato, without legal authorization to live in the U.S.
— By Mark Stevenson in Mexico City.
___
10:15 a.m.
The lawyer for a Mexican migrant detained by immigration agents in California while driving his wife to a hospital to give birth says the man may have been mistaken by agents for his brother.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say Joel Arrona Lara was wanted on a warrant in a homicide case in Mexico.
He was detained last week while stopping for gas.
His wife, Maria del Carmen Venegas, had to drive herself to a scheduled C-section.
Arrona attorney Emilio Amaya Garcia told KCBS-TV on Sunday he is unaware of any warrant and has been unable to confirm it with the Mexican consulate.
Garcia says authorities might have mistaken Arrona for his brother, who has done jail time in Mexico.
A telephone message to the consulate was not returned.

Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement official says he hopes the state’s Roman Catholic leaders will “cease their denials and deflections” about a grand jury report into sexual abuse of children by priests following a letter to the faithful from Pope Francis condemning the attacks and efforts to hide them. Attorney General Josh Shapiro says the letter the pope sent Monday “acknowledges the painful truth.” The pope’s letter said church officials “showed no care for the little ones.”

PennDOT District 11 is announcing inspection activities are underway on the Rochester-Beaver Bridge (Route 51) ramp to southbound Route 18 in Rochester Borough. Lane restrictions and traffic shifts will occur in each direction of Route 65 under the ramp to allow crews from the Larson Design Group to conduct inspection activities.  Restrictions will occur from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday, August 20-23. The ramp will remain open during the inspection work.

THE ALIQUIPPA POLICE DEPARTMENT IS SEEKING FUNDS FOR A SECOND K-9 AND VEHICLE. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO HAS MORE. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s report…

Pope on sex abuse: “We showed no care for the little ones”
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis issued a letter to Catholics around the world Monday condemning the “crime” of priestly sexual abuse and its cover-up and demanding accountability, in response to new revelations in the United States of decades of misconduct by the Catholic Church.
Francis begged forgiveness for the pain suffered by victims and said lay Catholics must be involved in any effort to root out abuse and cover-up. He blasted the self-referential clerical culture that has been blamed for the crisis, with church leaders more concerned for their reputation than the safety of children.
“With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives,” Francis wrote.
“We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.”
The Vatican issued the three-page letter ahead of Francis’ trip this weekend to Ireland, a once staunchly Roman Catholic country where the church’s credibility has been damaged by years of revelations that priests raped and molested children with impunity and their superiors covered up for them.
Priestly sex abuse was always expected to dominate the trip, but the issue has taken on new gravity following revelations in the U.S. that one of Francis’ trusted cardinals, the retired archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick, allegedly sexually abused and harassed minors as well as adult seminarians.
In addition, a grand jury report in Pennsylvania last week reported that at least 1,000 children were victims of some 300 priests over the past 70 years, and that generations of bishops failed repeatedly to take measures to protect their flock or punish the rapists.
In the letter, which was issued in seven languages and addressed to the “People of God,” Francis referenced the Pennsylvania report, acknowledged that no effort to beg forgiveness of the victims will be sufficient but vowed “never again.”
He said, looking to the future, “no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated.”
Francis didn’t, however, provide any indication of what concrete measures he is prepared to take to sanction those bishops — in the U.S. and beyond — who covered up for sexually abusive priests. Francis several years ago scrapped a proposed Vatican tribunal to prosecute negligent bishops, and he has refused to act on credible reports from around the world of bishops who have failed to report abusers to police or otherwise botched handling cases, and yet remain in office.
In Chile, where a church sex abuse scandal exploded earlier this year, Francis strong-armed the 31 active bishops to offer to resign en masse over their handling of abuse. So far he has accepted five of their resignations.
Unlike the U.S. bishops’ conference, which has referred only to “sins and omissions” in their handling of abuse, Francis labeled the misconduct “crimes.”
“Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others,” he wrote. “An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.”

Sign at high school named for Cardinal Wuerl is vandalized
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A sign at a Roman Catholic high school in Pennsylvania named for Cardinal Donald Wuerl has been vandalized with paint.
Monday is the first day of school for North Catholic High School. It is part of the Pittsburgh Diocese, where Wuerl was bishop from 1988 to 2006. Wuerl is now archbishop of Washington.
A recent grand jury report on six Pennsylvania dioceses accused Wuerl of helping protect some child-molesting priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh.
Wuerl has apologized for the damage inflicted on the victims but also has defended his actions.
The paint on the sign covered Wuerl’s name. Some school alumni have organized a petition online to remove his name.

A SUSPECT IN FRIDAY’S BANK ROBBERY IN NEW BRIGHTON IS STILL BEING SOUGHT. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO HAS THE UPDATE. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s report…

U-S DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY BEN CARSON AND CONGRESSMAN KEITH ROTHFUS WILL BE IN BEAVER COUNTY TODAY. THE SECRETARY AND CONGRESSMAN WILL BE TOURING ECONOMY VILLAGE OF AMBRIDGE PUBLIC HOUSING THIS MORNING TO SEE THE IMPACT OF SUPPORTIVE SERVICES UPONING HOUSING RESIDENTS. THEN LATER TODAY, THE TWO WILL TOUR THE MIDLAND OPPORTUNITY ZONE. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO WILL BE COVERING THEIR VISITS AND WILL HAVE A FULL REPORT REPORT FOR US DURING THE NOONDAY REPORT.