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Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 5, 2008
France: Apparition approved
PARIS -- A Roman Catholic bishop said Sunday that the church has officially recognized that the Virgin Mary appeared to a 17th- century shepherd girl in the French Alps.
Speaking at Mass in remarks broadcast nationally on France-2 television, Monsignor Jean-Michel di Falco Leandri said he recognized the "supernatural origin" of the apparitions to 17-year- old Benoite Rencurel from 1664 to 1718.
The bishop, in an interview on France-Info radio, said the decision meant the church "has committed itself in an official way to say to pilgrims 'you can come here in total confidence." The recognition process involved a panel of experts including two theologians and an investigating judge, he said.
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Officials at Notre-Dame-du-Laus church say that after four months of daily apparitions starting in May 1664, the Virgin Mary asked Rencurel to build a church and a house to receive priests.
Great Britain: Brown worried
LONDON -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Sunday that concerns about rising prices of food, utilities and gasoline contributed to his party's worst local election results in 40 years.
Brown responded on Sunday to reports that the outcome has shaken confidence in his leadership of the Labour Party.
The party took 24 percent of the vote in Thursday's local elections in England and Wales, which were capped by Labour losing control of London's City Hall to Conservative candidate Boris Johnson.
"I feel responsible. There are no excuses on my part at all," Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Responding to criticism about his personality, Brown -- who is often described as dour -- admitted he was not as outgoing as some voters might like.
Japan: Record low for children
TOKYO -- Japan, which designates every May 5 as Children's Day, has fewer children to celebrate than any time in the last century.
A government report released Sunday said there were 17.25 million children aged 14 or younger as of April -- a record low for the 27th consecutive year.
The last time Japan had fewer children was in 1908, and children's share of the general population -- 13.5 percent -- is the lowest ever recorded.
Japan now has the lowest percentage of children among 31 major countries, the report said.
Latvia: Ship runs aground
RIGA -- A cruise ship with 984 people on board ran aground early Sunday in the Baltic Sea, off the northwest coast of Latvia, the coast guard said.
The Bahamas-registered Mona Lisa had embarked from Kiel, Germany, and was destined for Riga when it ran aground on a sand bank about 10 miles from the Latvian coast in the Irbe Strait between Latvia and the Estonian island of Saaremaa.
Latvian Coast Guard Service spokeswoman Liene Ulbina said the passengers, most of whom are German, were safe and not at immediate risk.
Coast guard officer Ruslans Kulesovs said rescuers attempted to free the cruise ship, pumping out ballast water to reduce its weight.
Somalia: Airstrike protested
MOGADISHU -- More than a thousand people protested on Sunday against a U.S. airstrike last week that killed the reputed head of al-Qaida in Somalia along with 24 other people in a central Somali town, organizers said.
The protesters -- most of them women and children -- took to the streets in Dusamareeb shouting "Down with the Bush administration, the so-called superpower!" and "Down with their stooges!"
Town chairman Mohamed Mohamud Warsame said by telephone that about half of the town's population of 3,000 people had taken part in the demonstration.
Abdi-risaq Moalim Ahmed, the head of education in the town, said three students died and four were seriously injured in Thursday's airstrike on the house of Aden Hashi Ayro. He said the students were between the ages of 13 and 19.
"Our town has been severely affected by the recent U.S. attack and still we fear because planes continue to fly over our city," Ahmed said.
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