The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to settle sex abuse claims made by more than 1,3000 alleged victims dating back to the 1940s. 

“I am sorry for everyone one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” said Archbishop José H. Gomez in a statement. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered.”

The settlement brings the overall amount the Archdiocese of Los Anegeles has paid out to settle sex abuse lawsuits to nearly $1.5 billion, following a $660 million settlement with about 500 alleged victims in 2007.

Officials say the agreement in principle was reached to settle the remaining claims filed under Assembly Bill 218, which temporarily waived the statute of limitations for alleged victims to seek damages in sex abuse claims, according to Archbishop Gomez’s statement. 

“This is the largest single child sex abuse settlement with a Catholic archdiocese,” said a release from the law firm representing the victims. 

Archbishop Gomez approved the settlement and confirmed the administrative office of the Archdiocese will bear the financial responsibility. 

“We have determined that funding for this settlement will be drawn from reserves, investments, and loans, along with other Archdiocesan assets and payments that will be made by religious orders and others named in the litigation,” Gomez’s statement said. “No designated donations to parishes or schools or to archdiocesan-wide collections and campaigns … will be used for the financing of this settlement.”

In his letter, Gomez also promised that the church will remain vigilant to make sure that no one serving in the ministry will harm a minor again. 

Of the more than 3,000 remaining lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of children that have been filed in California under AB-218, 1,600 were filed in Northern California, 500 in San Diego County and 200 in Orange County, attorneys said. Several California dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection in the wake of the lawsuits. 

“The massive amount of this settlement reflects the amount of grievous harm done to vulnerable children and the decades of neglect, complicity and cover-up by the Archdiocese which allowed known serial predators to inflict this harm. I encourage other religious institutions within the Catholic Church to meet their responsibilities and take accountability,” said the victims’ attorney Morgan A. Stewart.

A Georgia judge has declared that seven new election rules recently passed by the State Election Board are “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox issued the order Wednesday after holding a hearing on challenges to the rules. The rules that Cox invalidated include three that had gotten a lot of attention — one that requires that the number of ballots be hand-counted after the close of polls and two that had to do with the certification of election results.

The State Election Board, which is controlled by three Republicans endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has passed several rules in recent months mostly dealing with the processes that happen after ballots are cast. Trump narrowly lost Georgia to President Biden in the 2020 presidential election but claimed without proof that widespread fraud cost him victory in the state.

Democratic Party organizations, local election officials and a group headed by a former Republican state lawmaker have filed at least half a dozen lawsuits over the rules. Democrats, voting rights groups and some legal experts have raised concerns that some rules could be used by Trump allies to delay or avoid certification or to cast doubt on results if he loses next month’s presidential election to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

One new rule that a judge blocked requires that three separate poll workers count the number of Election Day ballots by hand to make sure the number of paper ballots matches the electronic tallies on scanners, check-in computers and voting machines.

Georgia voters make selections on a touchscreen voting machine that prints out a piece of paper with a human-readable list of the voter’s choices as well as a QR code. That is the ballot that the voter puts into a scanner, which records the votes. The hand-count would be of the paper ballots — not the votes.

Critics, including many county election officials, argued that a hand-count could slow the reporting of election results and put an extra burden on poll workers at the end of an already long day. They also said there isn’t enough time to adequately train poll workers.

The rule’s supporters argued the count would take extra minutes, not hours. They also noted that scanner memory cards with the vote tallies could be sent to central tabulation centers in each county while the hand-count is completed so the reporting of results would not be slowed.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Tuesday had temporarily blocked the hand-count for the November election while he considers the legal merits. He said the hand-count may ultimately prove to be good policy, but it’s too close to the general election to implement it now. The State Election Board could appeal.

Two other new rules that Cox invalidated were passed by the Georgia State Election Board in August and have to do with certification. One provides a definition of certification that includes requiring county officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying results, but it does not specify what that means. The other includes language allowing county election officials “to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections.”

Supporters argued those rules are necessary to ensure the accuracy of the vote totals before county election officials sign off on them. Critics said they could be used to delay or deny certification.