In brief: Queen visits Northern Ireland

Enniskillen, Northern Ireland – Queen Elizabeth II prayed Tuesday with Catholic and Protestant leaders from across Northern Ireland as this long-divided land demonstrated its rising faith in a shared future – and braced for a peacemaking milestone that has been a quarter-century in the making.

The British monarch visited the lakeside town of Enniskillen, scene of one of the Irish Republican Army’s most shocking atrocities, for events symbolizing how far Northern Ireland has come from its darkest days of bloodshed.

Today, she’s expected to meet and shake hands with Martin McGuinness, former commander of the dominant Provisional IRA faction, in what many see as the symbolic conclusion to a four-decade conflict.

McGuinness today is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland’s unity government, an institution forged following the Provisionals’ 2005 decision to renounce violence and disarm.

Toddler’s 33-pound tumor removed

Mexico City – Mexican doctors say they have successfully removed a 33-pound benign tumor from the body of a 2-year-old child.

Dr. Gustavo Hernandez, director of La Raza Medical Center in Mexico City, said the tumor was heavier than the child, who at the time of the June 14 surgery weighed 26 pounds.

Hernandez said Tuesday the child from the northern state of Durango was born with a lump that eventually covered the right side of his body from his armpit to his hip. The doctor said it took doctors at the La Raza Medical Center 10 hours to remove the tumor.

Hernandez said the boy is recovering and doing well.