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CASSANO ALL'JONIO, Italy (AP) — Pope Francis is taking aim at the Italian mob. At an outdoor Mass in Calabria on Saturday, Francis denounced Italy's biggest crime syndicate for what he called its "adoration of evil and contempt for the common good." The pope declared that all mobsters are automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Calabria is the syndicate's power base.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Military officials say more than 2,000 government troops are being deployed to protect an important dam near the city of Haditha in western Iraq. The dam is dangerously close to Rawah (RAY'-wah), which is one of three strategic cities in Anbar province that have been recently seized by Sunni insurgents.
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. (AP) — The air and ground search for a well-known outdoors writer missing on Washington state's Mount Rainier is being suspended. Karen Sykes hasn't been seen since she separated from her hiking partner on Wednesday. The National Park Service hasn't given an explanation for suspending the search for the 70-year-old Sykes.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — San Diego police say a 29-year-old man has been arrested in the holiday-season killings of two brothers and a woman one of them was engaged to marry. Police say one brother and the woman were shot in a mall parking lot Christmas Eve. They say the other brother disappeared about the same time and was found shot to death in a car trunk weeks later.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska authorities say they've shot and killed a black bear that lumbered through the front door of a downtown home in the state's capital while people were inside. Juneau police investigators determined the doorknob didn't work, so the door could be pushed open easily.
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