World briefs

CHINA’s central bank had an odd warning yesterday: Please don’t burn fake yuan notes. Today, millions of Chinese will celebrate Qingming (Cheng Ming) Festival, the tomb-sweeping holiday, holding memorials for deceased relatives. 

MALAYSIA’s human rights commission has urged the government to reinvestigate the disappearances of a Christian pastor and a Muslim activist after a public inquiry concluded they were abducted by the police special branch for alleged proselytizing of Muslims. 

TRUMP Donald Trump is threatening to slap tariffs on cars produced in Mexico unless the country does more to stop migrants trying to cross the border to the United States. Trump told reporters that if that “powerful incentive” but “less drastic measure” doesn’t work, he’ll go through with his standing threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border.

MORMONS The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints repealed rules unveiled in 2015 that banned baptisms for children of gay parents and made gay marriage a sin worthy of expulsion. The surprise announcement by the Mormon church reverses rules that triggered widespread condemnations from LGBTQ sectors.

VATICAN Pope Francis named Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory, 71, (pictured) as the new archbishop of Washington D.C., choosing a moderate, and the first African-American, to lead the archdiocese that has become the epicenter of the clergy sex abuse crisis in the U.S.

BREXIT Prime Minister Theresa May and opposition Labour Party chief Jeremy Corbyn are poles apart — and there have been precious few signs of them having any warmth for one another — but political reality has bound them together as Britain struggles to escape its Brexit agony.