By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named a successor to embattled New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, two weeks after the archdiocese agreed to a $230 million proposed settlement for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

History’s first U.S. pope named Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, as the coadjutor bishop of New Orleans. The position puts Checchio in line to automatically succeed Aymond when he retires.

Related Articles

A trio of space weather satellites blast off together to study the sun’s violent side

In Jimmy Kimmel’s words: What the late-night host said upon his return from suspension

Today in History: September 24, First U.S. national monument established

Veterans who lack citizenship fear being swept up in Trump’s deportations

Maui officials lift evacuations, close shelters after wildfire threat to north shore town recedes

Checchio, 59, handled the fallout in Metuchen of the explosive 2018 sexual misconduct revelations of one of his predecessors there, then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Prior to arriving in Metuchen in 2016, Checchio had served as the rector of the U.S. seminary in Rome for a decade.

The New Orleans archdiocese agreed Sept. 8 to a $230 million proposed settlement to end one of the U.S. church’s longest and most contentious battles over abuse claims. It had proposed in May to pay at least $179.2 million in response to more than 500 abuse claims, but victims’ attorneys opposed the deal as too low.

Survivors have until late October to vote on whether or not to approve the revised settlement. If approved by two-thirds of survivors, payments could begin disbursement by next year.

Aymond reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 last November, suggesting that the Vatican kept him in place to finalize the abuse settlement and allow for an organized handover to his successor.

The archdiocese had filed for bankruptcy in May 2020, rather than handle each abuse claim separately, which survivors say allowed church leadership to avoid facing tough questions in court.

In a statement posted on the website of the archdiocese, Aymond welcomed Checchio as his successor “with great hope for the future.” Aymond said he planned to continue as archbishop until the bankruptcy is concluded “and other matters of pastoral care” are accomplished.

Checchio, for his part, expressed gratitude for his nine years in Metuchen and said he looked forward to serving the people of New Orleans.

“I am certainly grateful to our Lord and to his vicar, Pope Leo XIV, for sending me to be a part of such a beautiful community,” said Checchio, a native of Camden, New Jersey, who has a degree in canon law and an MBA.

Aymond had resisted calls for his resignation over the church’s failures, which triggered a sweeping FBI probe and a cascading crisis for the Catholic Church. An AP investigation earlier this year revealed that the archdiocese had sought help from New Orleans Saints executives to help behind the scenes with damage control.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By VOLODYMYR YURCHUK and ALEX BABENKO, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians were cautious Wednesday in their response to a surprise pivot in U.S. President Donald Trump’s views on their prospects for defeating Russia’s invasion, after he said they could win the three-year war and retake land captured by Moscow.

Russian officials, meanwhile, said developments on the battlefield showed Ukraine is unable to reclaim the occupied territory and dismissed Trump’s description of Russia as a “paper tiger.”

“Russia isn’t a tiger, it’s more associated with a bear,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “There are no paper bears. Russia is a real bear.”

Wary Ukrainians hope for solid US support

Some Ukrainians expressed hope that Trump’s words would be backed up by concrete support for Ukraine in Washington, while others were wary about the American president’s unpredictability.

Related Articles

Today in History: September 24, First U.S. national monument established

Trump says he doesn’t think Argentina needs a bailout, but US will help

Mexican megachurch leader Naasón Joaquín García pleads not guilty to sex trafficking charges

Southern China closes schools and cancels flights as Super Typhoon Ragasa nears

Trump says he now believes Ukraine can win back all territory lost to Russia with NATO’s help

“We need such support from America, from Donald Trump, and we hope that this will continue in the future — the same rhetoric, the same attitude toward us, toward Ukraine, and toward the war in Ukraine,” Olha Voronina, a 66-year-old Kyiv resident, said.

Volodymyr Cheslavskyi, a 48-year-old soldier recovering from a war wound, said he considered Trump to be more interested in making money than helping Ukraine, and kept people guessing about his true intentions with contradictory statements.

“He can say different things each time — he supports Ukraine, or he does not support Ukraine,” Cheslavskyi told The Associated Press in St. Michael’s Square in the Ukrainian capital.

Anna Khudimova, 43, said she believed her country’s armed forces could prevail on the battlefield against Russia’s bigger army.

“But we cannot do it without the help of NATO, without the support of Europe,” she said. “If Trump influences the situation, then perhaps this can be realistic.”

Russia has occupied around 20% of Ukraine since it annexed Crimea in 2014. The all-out invasion began in February 2022.

US, Ukraine eye joint weapons production

In comments Tuesday at the United Nations and on social media, Trump took a swipe at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership, made cutting remarks about Russia’s military prowess and derided the Russian economy’s performance. He also said NATO countries should shoot down Russian warplanes entering their airspace, as happened recently in Estonia.

Trump’s comments were an unanticipated departure from his previous positions on the war, when he has been publicly cool, even at times hostile, toward Ukraine and apparently more amenable to Putin.

After taking office in January, Trump reversed the three-year U.S. policy of isolating Russia when he called Putin. He has also ruled out the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, has said Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would need to negotiate swapping land in return for a peace deal with Moscow, and on social media called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections.”

A senior Ukrainian lawmaker said Trump’s latest remarks were unexpected but important.

“What remains important to us is not only Trump’s words, but also whether he fulfills the earlier promises regarding decisive sanctions” on Russia, Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation, told the AP.

The United States and Ukraine signed earlier this year a deal granting Washington access to the country’s critical minerals and other natural resources. Another agreement is in the works, with a Ukrainian delegation due in Washington next week for talks on joint weapons production, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Olha Stefanishyna said Wednesday.

The potential deal focuses on drone manufacturing, where Ukraine is at the cutting edge of new battle-tested technology, and was discussed “in quite some detail” between Trump and Zelenskyy on Tuesday, she said.

Kremlin says it is protecting Russia’s security

Zelenskyy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were due to address the U.N. General Assembly later Wednesday.

Trump said on social media Tuesday that, “With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option.”

Russia’s state television channels cast Trump’s comments as part of his efforts to shift the burden of dealing with the conflict to Europe and encourage it to buy more American weapons.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, challenged Trump’s comment that “Russia has been fighting aimlessly.”

Moscow has been fighting to “ensure our security and our interests and remove the root causes of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine … linked to the refusal by the previous American administrations and the Europeans to take our concerns into account,” Peskov said Wednesday.

He also countered Trump’s description of Russia’s economic woes, arguing that despite some problems the Russian economy has remained strong.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who serves as deputy head of the Security Council chaired by Putin, scoffed at Trump’s comments as an “alternative reality.” He predicted that Trump could change his mind again soon.

Associated Press writer Hanna Arhirova contributed to this report.

By KEN MORITSUGU and JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — China has said it would no longer seek the special treatment given to developing countries in World Trade Organization agreements — a change long demanded by the United States.

Commerce Ministry officials said Wednesday the move was an attempt to boost the global trading system at a time when it is under threat from tariff wars and protectionist moves by individual countries to restrict imports.

Related Articles

Today in History: September 24, First U.S. national monument established

Trump says he doesn’t think Argentina needs a bailout, but US will help

Mexican megachurch leader Naasón Joaquín García pleads not guilty to sex trafficking charges

Southern China closes schools and cancels flights as Super Typhoon Ragasa nears

Trump says he now believes Ukraine can win back all territory lost to Russia with NATO’s help

It was not clear whether the announcement would lead to greater access for foreign goods to China’s vast market. The U.S. and many European countries have long complained about barriers to their exports. The change affects only ongoing and future negotiations, not existing agreements.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced the change in a speech in New York on Tuesday to a China-organized development forum at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.

Chinese officials said Beijing’s decision was voluntary and not meant to suggest that other developing countries should follow suit.

“It’s China’s own decision,” China’s top envoy to the WTO, Li Yihong, told reporters in Geneva.

The WTO’s “special and differential treatment” provisions give some developing countries longer time spans to implement trade agreements, can lead to technical assistance from abroad and offer exceptions to some rules that richer countries abide by.

China is a middle-income country, and government officials emphasized that it remains part of the developing world. The U.S. has long argued China should give up the developing-country status because it is the world’s second-largest economy.

China “will always be a developing country,” Li said. “It’s very clear that the issue of developing member status and the special and differential treatment are related but distinct.”

Increasingly, though, China has become a source of loans and technical assistance to other countries seeking to build roads, railways, dams and other major projects, often undertaken by major Chinese state-owned companies.

The WTO says it doesn’t officially distinguish between developed and developing countries, but some nations self-identify as developing.

Chinese officials, in their statements, did not mention the United States by name or President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on many other countries this year, including China.

The WTO, which counts 166 countries as members, provides a forum for global trade talks and enforces agreements but has become less effective, prompting calls for reform.

The head of the Geneva-based organization described the Chinese move as “major news key to WTO reform” and applauded and thanked the country’s leaders in a post on X.

“This is a culmination of many years of hard work,” wrote Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO director-general.

Keaten reported from Geneva.

By MARCIA DUNN, Associated Space Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A cluster of space weather satellites blasted off Wednesday morning to cast fresh eyes on solar storms that can produce stunning auroras but also scramble communications and threaten astronauts in flight.

The three satellites soared from Kennedy Space Center shortly after sunrise on the same SpaceX rocket. They aimed for a sun-orbiting lookout 1 million miles from Earth, each on its own separate mission.

Altogether, the satellites from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, plus related costs, are worth about $1.6 billion. NASA’s Joe Westlake calls it “the ultimate cosmic carpool” by sharing a rocket to save money.

Heading the lineup is NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, the first to be deployed. It will scrutinize the outer limits of the heliosphere, the protective, solar wind-driven bubble of gas around our solar system.

This image provided by NASA in September 2025 depicts from left, NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite. (NASA via AP)

As a bonus, IMAP will be capable of providing advance notice of solar storms — a valuable 30-minute heads-up — for astronauts exploring the moon under NASA’s Artemis program. Officials expect the observatory to be fully operational by the time four astronauts fly around the moon and back next year.

NASA’s smaller Carruthers Geocorona Observatory also is flying, focusing on Earth’s outermost, glowing atmosphere that extends well beyond the moon. It’s named after the late scientist George Carruthers, who invented the ultraviolet telescope left on the moon by the Apollo 16 astronauts in 1972.

NOAA’s newest space weather observatory will be pushed into full-time, around-the-clock forecasting service. It will keep tab on the sun’s activity and measure the solar wind to help keep Earth safe from threatening flares.

Officials expect NASA’s satellites to be in position and operational by the beginning of next year, and NOAA’s spacecraft by spring.

Related Articles

Today in History: September 24, First U.S. national monument established

Maui officials lift evacuations, close shelters after wildfire threat to north shore town recedes

OpenAI shows off Stargate AI data center in Texas and plans 5 more elsewhere with Oracle, Softbank

What is the Rapture and why is a doomsday prediction spreading on TikTok?

Mexican megachurch leader Naasón Joaquín García pleads not guilty to sex trafficking charges

NASA is kicking in more than $879 million for its two missions, while NOAA’s share is $693 million.

While NASA already has a fleet of sun-observing spacecraft, science mission chief Nicky Fox said these newer missions offer more advanced instruments that will provide more sensitive measurements.

“Just being able to put all those together to give us a much, much better view of the sun,” she said.

The goal is to better understand the sun in order to better protect Earth, according to officials. As spectacular as they are, the northern and southern lights will not be the missions’ focus.

During a preview of NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission around the moon, science officials said Tuesday that these new space weather missions will enhance forecasting and provide vital alerts if major solar activity strikes. If that happens, the four astronauts will take temporary shelter in a storage area under the capsule’s floor to avoid the heightened radiation levels.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.