Never in the history of the Roman Catholic Church has a pope ordered bishops from around the world to come together and consider how many priests abuse children sexually and how many church officials cover for the abusers. The scandal of clergy sex abuse has deep roots in church history, but church leaders have been notoriously reluctant to acknowledge it and deal with the consequences.

Finding that a Texas court hadn't followed its instructions, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that a Texas man who killed a store clerk during a botched robbery attempt "is a person with intellectual disability," and therefore cannot be put to death.

Gilroy, Calif., is known as the garlic capital of the world. And two policies of the Trump administration — one on trade, the other on immigration — are having a mixed impact on this agricultural community south of San Francisco.

It's about 50 degrees outside, but for a moment it looks like it's snowing. But the morning air is pungent and savory, and those flakes falling from the sky are garlic skin pieces, drifting away from the peeling facility.

Christopher Ranch in Gilroy is the largest garlic producer in the country.

Russia's foreign intelligence service has asked a court to continue holding former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who has been detained since December on suspicion of spying.

A court in Moscow had wanted to hold Whelan until Feb. 28, but Russia's Foreign Security Service, or FSB, wants Whelan detained through May 28, the Interfax news agency said, according to Reuters.

For 27 years, Mark Schand lay in his prison cot in Massachusetts and plotted out the retail empire he'd been envisioning since well before his arrest.

"I would lay in bed, my eyes wide open, looking at the ceiling, just thinking of a color scheme, and picture the uniform," said Schand.

Veteran comedians know all about the funny side of anger.

The late George Carlin wrote an entire bit called "Free-Floating Hostility." Jerry Seinfeld once declared in the Los Angeles Times that "All comedy starts with anger."

Scientists have launched a major new phase in the testing of a controversial genetically modified organism: a mosquito designed to quickly spread a genetic mutation lethal to its own species, NPR has learned.

For the first time, researchers have begun large-scale releases of the engineered insects, into a high-security laboratory in Terni, Italy.

"This will really be a breakthrough experiment," says Ruth Mueller, an entomologist who runs the lab. "It's a historic moment."

The pitches to the health insurance brokers are tantalizing.

"Set sail for Bermuda," says insurance giant Cigna, offering top-selling brokers five days at one of the island's luxury resorts.

Health Net of California's pitch is not subtle: A smiling woman in a business suit rides a giant $100 bill like it's a surfboard. "Sell more, enroll more, get paid more!" In some cases, its ad says, a broker can "power up" the bonus to $150,000 per employer group.

The British woman who moved from London to Syria in 2015 to join the Islamic State won't be able to return to England, British officials say. A lawyer for the family says 19-year-old Shamima Begum's citizenship is being revoked - an action that could render her stateless.

A convicted Chinese trafficker known as the "ivory queen" has been sentenced to 15 years in jail by a Tanzanian court.

Yang Fenglan, who has lived in Tanzania on and off for decades and operated a Chinese restaurant, was found guilty of working with two Tanzanian men to smuggle more than 800 pieces of ivory between 2000 and 2004, as Reuters reported.