Confidentiality

VATICAN CITY — A Vatican judge on Monday ordered the butler who personally served Pope Benedict XVI to stand trial for allegedly pilfering hundreds of confidential documents from the papal apartments and passing them to an Italian journalist. Paolo Gabriele, 45, will be tried by a Vatican tribunal this fall on charges of aggravated theft. A second defendant, Claudio Sciarpelletti, 49, a computer technician in the offices of the Holy See, is charged with aiding and abetting the butler.

At what point does creative freedom collide with moral accountability? Sheila Callaghan's bleakly sardonic “Roadkill Confidential” at Son of Semele Theater poses the question in uniquely unsettling terms. Ethical considerations don't deter megalomaniacal artist-provocateur Trevor Pratt (Melissa Randel) from knowingly constructing her latest work out of furry accident carcasses infected with a strain of tularemia that's lethal to anyone who touches them. Her dangerous project incurs the invasive surveillance of a sinister one-eyed FBI Man (Daniel Getzoff)

Rajat Gupta, a formerGoldman Sachs Group Inc.board member accused of insider trading, won't testify this week in his own defense, his lawyer said. Gupta's chief lawyer, Gary Naftalis, said in a letter Sunday to the federal court in New York that his client won't take the stand after saying earlier that it was "highly likely. " Gupta has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers say the government's case is speculative. Federal prosecutors rested their case Friday. Gupta faces as long as 25 years in prison if convicted on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday spoke out for the first time about the turmoil over leaked Vatican documents, seeking to reassure the faithful that the church would weather the storm. The pope, who acknowledged "sadness in my heart" one week after his personal butler was arrested by Vatican police and accused of stealing confidential papal correspondence, blamed the media for exaggerating "gratuitous rumors" and giving a distorted image of the Holy See. He said he had no doubt that "despite the weakness of men, the difficulties and the trials," the church would always be guided on its path by the Holy Spirit.

High price,poor product If you can't buy 'em, beat 'em. That could be the motto for Steven Cohen , the hedge-fund billionaire and runner-up in the bidding for the Dodgers. The San Diego Padres are up for sale, and Cohen is thought to be one of at least five potential buyers cleared by Major League Baseball to review the team's confidential financial data. Cohen already owns a small stake in his hometown New York Mets, but the majority owners of the Mets appear to have staved off the legal and financial distress that might have enabled Cohen to buy them out completely.

State regulators determined that a Redding hospital owned by Prime Healthcare Services Inc. violated patient confidentiality by sharing a woman's medical files with journalists and sending an email about her treatment to 785 hospital workers. In a report issued this week, the California Department of Public Health found that Shasta Regional Medical Center had five deficiencies related to the unauthorized disclosure of medical information on a diabetes patient treated there in 2010.

Manuel Vega was in the courtroom when the Los Angeles Archdiocese agreed to pay clergy abuse victims a landmark $660-million settlement. The bailiff had to whisk some of the victims out to make room for all the high-fiving lawyers filing in for their payday, he says. "Some were even chest-bumping," recalls the retired police officer. "To me, it looked like a frat party. " Vega, who says he was molested as a boy by a priest in Oxnard, went along with the settlement only because his attorneys assured him the church would turn over confidential personnel files that would reveal the truth about priest abusers, and those who shielded them, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

The Boy Scouts of America is seeking to reverse a Santa Barbara judge's order to release 20 years' worth of confidential files detailing allegations of sexual abuse by troop leaders and others within its ranks. Lawyers for a former Scout, who was 13 when a volunteer leader sexually abused him in late 2007, contend the files will expose a "culture of hidden sexual abuse" in the organization and its failure to warn boys and their parents about "pedophilic wolves. " The negligence suit alleges that a local Scout executive tried to talk the boy's mother out of reporting the crime to police and cites that as an example of a longstanding effort to conceal widespread abuse in Scouting.

AVELLA, Pa. - About two years ago, Dr. Amy Pare began treating members of the Moten family and their neighbors from a working-class neighborhood less than half a mile from a natural gas well here. A plastic surgeon whose specialty includes skin cancer, Pare removed and biopsied quarter-size skin lesions from Jeannie Moten, 53, and her niece, only to find that the sores recurred. "The good news is that it wasn't cancer, and the bad news is that we have no idea what it is," Pare said.

WASHINGTON — Police and federal agents pulled the car over in a suburb north of Denver. An FBI agent showed his badge. The driver appeared not startled at all. "My friend," he said, "I have been waiting for you. " And with that, Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela stepped out of his white 2002 BMW X5 and into the arms of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over the next several days at his ranch in Colorado and an FBI safe house in Albuquerque, the Mexican cartel chieftain — who had reputedly fed one of his victims to lions in Mexico — was transformed into one of the FBI's top informants on the Southwest border.