The Latest: Danish city makes pork mandatory

A city in Denmark has made pork mandatory on municipal menus, including for schools and daycare centers, with politicians insisting the move is necessary for preserving the country's food traditions and is not an attack on Muslims.

Noergaard, a member of the anti-immigration, populist Danish People's Party that proposed the council motion, said Thursday that it wasn't meant as a "harassment of Muslims," but added that he had received "several complaints about too many concessions" made to Muslims in the small, predominantly Lutheran country.

Seehofer, whose center-right party is part of Merkel's governing coalition at the national level, has become one of the most prominent critics of her handling of the refugee crisis.

Seehofer has accused Merkel of creating a "strong magnetic effect" when she announced Sept. 4 that Germany would take in refugees stranded in other European countries.

The Czech prime minister says all EU nations must work to increase the protection of the external border of the European visa-free Schengen travel zone and to ensure a proper registration of all incoming migrants to be able to reduce their influx.

An Italian ecumenical mission is in Lebanon this week to work out the final details of a pilot project to bring as many as 1,000 refugees to Italy on humanitarian visas so they're not tempted to risk sea crossings to Europe.

The U.N. refugee agency has welcomed the initiative, one of many types of private sponsorships that are enabling particularly vulnerable refugees to reach safety and start new lives in third countries.

In this case, the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy and the Rome-based Catholic Sant'Egidio Community teamed up to ask the Italian government grant 1,000 humanitarian visas for refugees in camps in Lebanon, Morocco and Ethiopia.

Macedonian authorities have reopened their borders to asylum-seekers heading north to wealthier European countries, but are only le