Pope visits France

Published 5:00 am Saturday, September 13, 2008

: In his first visit to France as pope on Friday, Benedict XVI touched on central themes of his papacy — the tensions between faith and reason and church and state, as well as his efforts to reach out to Muslims and Jews — and urged an increasingly irreligious Europe to look back to its intellectual roots in Christian monastic culture. After his speeches, the pope said a Mass at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.

BAGHDAD — At least 31 people were killed and 60 wounded in a car bomb attack Friday in the center of the predominantly Shiite town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, according to Iraqi police officers in Dujail and in the provincial capital, Tikrit.

The bombing occurred at dusk as many residents rushed to make last-minute purchases from the central market before going home to break the daytime fast observed by the majority of Iraqis during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

— From wire reports