In the news

Hillary Rodham Clinton landed in her 100th country as U.S. secretary of state during a trip to Latvia and holds the record for visiting the most countries as chief diplomat, the State Department said.

Diana Calazans Mann, a Brazilian police inspector, said officials in her country broke up a ring that used Internet file-sharing to distribute child pornography in at least 34 countries, calling the images “very repugnant” and saying, “I have never seen anything as bad.”

Pope Benedict XVI has formally recognized the “heroic virtues” of Fulton Sheen, a popular U.S. bishop who denounced communism and liberal psychology before his death in New York in 1979, paving the way for procedures aimed at Sheen’s beatification, the last step before sainthood.

Amanda Clayton, a Detroit-area woman who collected about $5,500 in food aid and medical benefits despite winning a $735,000 lottery prize, has pleaded no contest to fraud and likely will be sentenced to probation, her lawyers said.

Mohammed Morsi, the newly elected Egyptian president, will not be sworn in before Egypt’s parliament as usual but will instead be sworn in Saturday before the Supreme Constitutional Court, which ordered the parliament to be dissolved.

Joaquin Arciago Guzman, a 102-year-old Philippines-born immigrant who moved to California as a teenager in 1928, became an American citizen along with about 7,300 other people in a Los Angeles ceremony.

Esmael Mangudadatu, governor of the Philippines province of Maguindanao, testified that former Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., who is on trial in the 2009 election related killings of 57 people, tried to kill Mangudadatu and his brothers months before the massacre, calling him “powerful, influential and violent.”

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is introducing legislation to make the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments recognize any marriage recognized by a state, the District of Columbia, commonwealths or territories, in an effort to get benefits for same-sex spouses.

Dr. Gustavo Hernandez, the director of pediatrics at La Raza hospital in Mexico City, said a 2-year old boy who weighs only 26 pounds is recovering and doing well after doctors at the hospital spent 10 hours removing a 33-pound tumor from his side.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/29/2012

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