News Briefs

Pope Benedict opened a new Vatican Internet news portal with the first-ever papal tweet on June 28: “Dear Friends, I just launched News.va. Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ!” • In Matamoros, Mex., the Rev. Marco Antonio Duran Romero, 48, was killed on July 2, caught in the crossfire between drug cartel gunmen and the military. • On July 2 and 3, Muslim militants in Nigeria launched a series of attacks that killed at least 10 people, and new clashes were reported between Christian and Muslim groups in the central city of Jos. • The Vatican condemned the ordination of the Rev. Paul Lei Shiyin as bishop of Leshan, China, after it was conducted on June 29 without a papal mandate. • In a letter published on June 30 in Nature, ethicists and lawyers have urged the European Court of Justice not to allow the patenting of technologies that use human embryos. • The Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, the largest women’s religious order in the United States, met in Chicago and elected a new leadership team with Patricia McDermott, R.S.M., as president. • On July 2 the Vatican reported a budget surplus of $13.1 million for 2010, the first surplus in four years.