Highlights

Two special envoys sent by Pope Francis to investigate a child sex abuse scandal in Chile were meeting priests in Santiago when aides rushed into the room with an alarming development: police were about to start raiding Church offices. This is how it unfolded.

The first trial of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe begins today with Paul Manafort, a former chairman of President Trump’s campaign, facing charges that he hid tens of millions of dollars earned in Ukraine in offshore accounts and defrauded banks for loans. Here are some of the key players in the case.

North and South Korea discussed reducing tension but didn’t announce any detailed agreements after military talks, while the United States detected renewed activity at a North Korean missile factory, casting more suspicion over the North’s intentions.

World

On August 1, when face veils are banned in Denmark, some women are not planning on leaving their niqabs at home. Instead, they will be defying the law and taking to the streets in protest.

Gunmen stormed a government building in Afghanistan’s eastern city of Jalalabad today, taking dozens of hostages after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance gate.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his main opponent Nelson Chamisa both said they were confident of victory, after peaceful voting in the first election since the end of Robert Mugabe’s nearly four decade rule.

Last week the United States restored the $195 million in military aid that it had withheld from Egypt because of the country’s human rights record and its ties to North Korea. This was the right move, writes Bruce Clingan for Reuters Commentary.

Sponsored by Barclays: Job security in the robot economy. As machine learning and AI become more commercially viable, will humans be replaced in the workplace? We don’t think so. Find out why.

Two @Reuters journalists have been detained in Myanmar for 232 days. See our full coverage: https://reut.rs/2yPnwus

8:35 AM - July 31, 2018