A "systematic cover-up" in the Pennsylvania Catholic Church.

A new report accuses 300 priests of decades-long abuse in the Pennsylvania Catholic Church;

VOX

• More than 300 priests from Pennsylvania's Roman Catholic Church have been accused of sexual abuse over a 70-year period, according to a new report from a grand jury. The report also identified more than 1,000 victims (and implied there are many more) who were silenced in a cover-up scheme by various Pennsylvania bishops and church leaders. [AP / Mark Scolforo]
• The Pennsylvania Supreme Court released the report, which discussed hundreds of church leaders who "largely escaped public accountability" and the Vatican officials who wanted to "avoid scandal," on Tuesdayfollowing an 18-month-long investigation into eight Catholic dioceses. [BBC]
• The overarching theme of the report was the "systematic coverup by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican," as evidenced by the church's own records, according to Pennsylvania state Attorney General Josh Shapiro. [WPXI]
• The president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the chair of the bishops' Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People said the Catholic Church is "shamed by and sorry for the sins and omissions" by its bishops and priests. [CNN / Daniel Burke and Susannah Cullinane]
• The grand jury report is a result of the most extensive American investigation into abuse in the Catholic Church to date. [Washington Post / Michelle Boorstein]
• Sex abuse survivors have called on the government to look into the US Catholic Church's history of abuse on a national level. But no federal investigation has been launched. [NYT / Laurie Goodstein]
• The discovery follows a particularly rough year for the Vatican: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick — DC's former archbishop — resigned following accusations of sex abuse, dozens of Chilean church leaders resigned after an abuse cover-up went public, and an Australian archbishop was convicted of child sex abuse. [Vox / Emily Stewart]
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Trump maintains not knowing in advance about meeting with Russians, disputing Cohen claim




WASHINGTON POST

As midterms near, fears grow that U.S. is not protected from Russian interference

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) shakes hands with New Knowledge Director of Research Renée DiResta at the end of a committee hearing in Washington on foreign influence operations on Aug. 1. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Experts say the lack of administration leadership on the issue — with President Trump at times questioning conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community about Russia’s disinformation and hacking campaign — renders less effective the efforts of agencies to mount a coordinated government action to protect the nation.

• By Ellen Nakashima and Craig Timberg

Trump's Hold on His Supporters. Why His People Stay With Him.

RICHARD COHEN, WASHINGTON POST

The results of the Helsinki summit are in. President Trump couldn’t handle statecraft or, for that matter, double negatives, but he came out of the meeting undefeated and invincible. Like with the Charlottesville hatefest or the “Access Hollywood” tape, it was just another day at the office for Trump. Unlike the mocking balloon that soared over London, Trump never loses air.

The post-summit poll numbers are instructive. While 50 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Trump handled Vladimir Putin, his Republican base stayed both loyal and comatose. In a Post-ABC News poll, 66 percent of Republicans approved of Trump’s performance. An earlier Axios-SurveyMonkey poll put the GOP figure at 79 percent, not only more impressive but also downright eerie.

It is safe to say that these numbers might have surprised even the shaken White House staffers who flew back to Washington with Trump. The commentariat was already on the air, reporting on the summit as if it were a multicar Beltway collision. Even Fox News was critical, and Newt Gingrich, whose wife is Trump’s ambassador to the Holy See, called the meeting “the most serious mistake” of Trump’s presidency — an extremely high bar.

National security adviser John Bolton got to work. On the plane, according to the Wall Street Journal, he went about the painful business of damage control and hammered out talking points advising Trump on how to reclaim reality. One idea was for Trump to assert his support for the U.S. intelligence community, the sort of prosaic statement, like a belief in God, that no president had ever had to make. Trump, of course, did so — and maintained this stance for almost a day.

There is such a thing, we are told, as Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is an ideological version of a speech disorder, which causes certain people to denounce Trump in obscene ways. It has come over the likes of Robert De Niro and, when it came to Ivanka Trump, Samantha Bee. It has prompted others to call Trump a traitor, which is a slanderous accusation too often used for crass political reasons. Sen. Joseph McCarthy called the Roosevelt-Truman administrations “20 years of treason.”

Yet, the more dangerous variant of the syndrome is the willingness of most Republicans to support Trump no matter what. 

Take the evangelical community. Trump has been accused of adultery and of buying the silence of his alleged paramours. He has referred to impoverished nations as “shithole countries” and — unforgivably — belittled the wartime torture of Sen. John McCain. None of this shook his base. On the contrary, his support within the Republican Party has risen and solidified. It now stands at around 90 percent, which is what tin-pot dictators get in rigged elections.

The upshot is that we now have two political parties — one pro-Trump and one anti-. Some celebrated Republicans — George F. Will, for instance — have already declared their apostasy. Will is now “unaffiliated,” but no one runs for president as that. In this country, if you’re anti-Trump, realism says you’ve got to vote Democratic. (Please, no more of this Libertarian or Green Party nonsense.)

It’s impossible to say at this point whether the pro-Trump/anti-Trump dichotomy is just about the man himself or represents a wider and more permanent political realignment. (Who’s the next Trump?) But it’s clear that something beyond economics — and certainly not foreign policy — motivates Trump’s people. My guess is that it’s a low-boil rage against a vague and threatening liberalism [as well as a tribalist nativism and racism-Esco]  — urbane, educated, affluent, secular, diverse and sexually tolerant. It is, in other words, some of the same sentiment that once fueled European fascism.

Those of us who write newspaper columns know that sheer brilliance, should it happen, gets a silent nod of the head, but affirmation — saying what readers already think — gets loud hurrahs. This is Trump’s appeal as well. He validates the thinking — some of it ugly — of many Americans. To them, Helsinki doesn’t matter and even Putin doesn’t matter. Only Trump does. To them, he hates the right people.

In the Past Decade, Nearly 26,000 Murders Have Gone Without an Arrest in Major American Cities. Of Those, More Than 18,600 of the Victims — Almost Three‑Quarters — were Black.

Mary Franklin stands in front of Boston police headquarters holding a large portrait of her late husband, Melvin Franklin, who was killed in 1996. His murder is unsolved. (Yoon S. Byun for The Washington Post)

In the Past Decade, Nearly 26,000 Murders Have Gone Without an Arrest in Major American Cities. Of Those, More Than 18,600 of the Victims — Almost Three‑Quarters — were Black.

An Unequal Justice: Killings of Black People Lead to Arrests Less Often

In major U.S. cities, black victims were the least likely of any racial group to have their killings result in an arrest, according to a Post analysis of about 55,000 homicides. 

• By Wesley Lowery, Kimbriell Kelly and Steven Rich

Activist Eileen Paterson, center, the Rev. Gary Adams, left of center, and Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans, second from left, participate in a neighborhood peace walk on July 16. (Yoon S. Byun for The Washington Post)

Black victims, who accounted for the majority of homicides, were the least likely of any racial group to have their killings result in an arrest, The Post found. While police arrested someone in 63 percent of the killings of white victims, they did so in just 47 percent of those with black victims.

The failure to solve black homicides fuels a vicious cycle: It deepens distrust of police among black residents, making them less likely to cooperate in investigations, leading to fewer arrests. As a result, criminals are emboldened and residents’ fears are compounded.

In almost every city surveyed, arrests were made in killings of black victims at lower rates than homicides involving white victims.

Four cities — Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and Philadelphia — accounted for more than 7,300 of the black murders with no arrests.

In interviews with The Post, more than two dozen police chiefs and homicide commanders said they work just as hard to solve black murders but that those investigations are often hampered by reluctant witnesses.

No major U.S. city had a wider gap in arrest rates for white and black victims than Boston, where the killings of white residents are solved at twice the rate of black victims.

Police in several cities said that some types of killings are easier to solve than others. Domestic-violence cases and bar fights may present fewer hurdles to making an arrest, while gang-related shootings and drug-related killings, which are believed to account for the majority of unsolved cases, are more complicated, police said.

But residents and community leaders in many cities remain skeptical that police are doing all they can to solve black homicides.

“Black life is seen as not as important,” said the Rev. William Barber, a national civil rights leader, who called the failure by police to solve black homicides a civil rights crisis on par with questionable police shootings of minorities and wrongful convictions of black men.

“The black community gets cut by both edges of the sword,” said Barber, who until last year led the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. “There’s no big rush to solve a case when it’s considered ‘black on black.’ But if it is a black-on-white killing, then everything is done to make an arrest.”

WASHINGTON POST

Arn The Borowitz Report Kremlin Names Trump Employee of the Month “No one has worked more tirelessly for the glory of the Fatherland than Donald Trump,” Vladimir Putin said in an official statement. By Andy Borowitz old, who now resides in Hell, delivered a statement exclusively to The Borowitz Report.=

The Borowitz Report “I Was Never This Blatant,” Says Benedict Arnold in Hell “I was brought up to believe that betraying your country was something you’d do very secretively,” Arnold said. By Andy Borowitz

The Borowitz Report Obama’s Barrage of Complete Sentences Seen as Brutal Attack on Trump Appearing at his first public event since leaving office, the former President fired off a punishing fusillade of grammatically correct statements. By Andy Borowitz

RUSSIAN-AMERICAN SUMMIT: PRESIDENT PUTIN PRESENTS HIS PET POODLE DONALD TO AMERICA.

Ex-CIA chief John Brennan calls Trump 'nothing short of treasonous' after fawning press conference with Putin and says performance goes beyond 'high crimes and misdemeanors'

John McCain calls Trump's press conference with Putin 'one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory' and says he 'abased himself before a tyrant'

Putin pressed in interview2:04

(Video: Melissa Macaya/The Post; photo: AP)

The Fix

Analysis

Fox News’s Chris Wallace gives Putin the grilling Trump won’t

The interview turned heated at points, with Wallace clearly frustrated by Putin’s trademark filibustering and Putin clearly frustrated by a journalist actually challenging him.

• By Aaron Blake

Putin’s view triumphs in Helsinki as Trump questions U.S. intelligence

The meeting highlighted the global ascendance of the Russian president’s ruthless approach to politics and to facts — the posture that any truth can be an illusion, that any journalist or public servant is likely pursuing an ulterior motive.

The Take

Analysis

The moment called for Trump to stand up for America. He chose to bow.

Time and again, in the face of strong and direct questions by two American reporters, the president refused to stand up for the country he was elected to represent and protect.

Trump Trusts Putin’s Denial, but Seven U.S Intelligence Groups Blame Russia for Election Meddling

On Monday, President Trump continued to cast doubt on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the consensus position of American intelligence agencies and both parties on Capitol Hill.

July 16, 2018

Trump’s E.P.A. Chief Forced Out Under Cloud of Ethics Scandals

By CORAL DAVENPORT, LISA FRIEDMAN and MAGGIE HABERMAN 9:51 PM ET 

• Embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was finally forced out on Thursday after an onslaught of scandals that led to more than a dozen investigations of his use of staff, VIP travel, and efforts to gain perks and boost his household income. The top official had caused a flood of humiliating headlines. In just one of a litany of scandals that swirled around Pruitt, aides say Pruitt asked them to help his wife find a job that would net her a salary that topped $200,000. There were reports of efforts to score tickets to top tier events, enjoy cut-rate lodging, fly first-class, meet lobbyists without a public record, blow through Washington D.C. traffic – and maybe even become the next attorney general with authority over the Russia probe. In a lengthy resignation letter he hit out at the 'unrelenting attacks on himself and his family'. An aide to Mr. Pruitt lost her job last year after objecting that the changes to official calendars could be illegal, a former senior staffer said. Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general, had been hailed by conservatives for his zealous deregulation, but could not overcome the stain of those ethics questions. Reportedly, Trump fired Pruitt without talking to him, leaving the work to Chief of Staff John Kelly.
• The E.P.A.’s deputy administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, will act as the agency’s leader until President Trump nominates a new administrator.