Anti-abortion activists indicted

Anti-abortion activists indicted

AUSTIN, Texas

A Houston grand jury investigating undercover footage of Planned Parenthood found no wrongdoing Monday by the abortion provider, and instead indicted anti-abortion activists involved in making the videos that targeted the handling of fetal tissue in clinics and provoked outrage among Republican leaders nationwide.

David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, was indicted on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count related to purchasing human organs. Another activist, Sandra Merritt, also was indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Hot-yoga founder ordered to pay

LOS ANGELES

The founder of a popular hot yoga method was ordered Monday to pay more than $900,000 to a lawyer who said she was fired for investigating allegations of sexual harassment against the guru.

A Los Angeles jury ordered Bikram Choudhury to pay the attorney $924,500 in compensatory damages after finding he had subjected her to harassment and retaliation. The jury is considering whether to award the attorney, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, with punitive damages today.

Jafa-Bodden’s attorney, Carla Minnard, said Choudhury sexually harassed Jafa-Bodden, inappropriately touched her, and tried to get her to stay with him in a hotel suite. Choudhury fired her in June 2013 when she began investigating claims from other women of sexual abuse, Minnard said.

Pope to apologize for Catholic wrongs

VATICAN CITY

Pope Francis has concluded an annual weeklong prayer for Christian unity by making a sweeping apology for Catholic wrongs committed against other Christians and by announcing he will visit Sweden to mark the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation.

The one-day trip Oct. 31 to the southern city of Lund, where the Lutheran World Federation was founded in 1947, will be the first papal visit to Sweden since Pope John Paul II toured five Scandinavian nations in 1989.

Survey: Objections law cost millions

INDIANAPOLIS

Indiana may have lost as much as $60 million in hotel profits, tax revenue and other economic benefits when a dozen groups decided against hosting conventions in Indianapolis last year due at least in part to the controversy surrounding the state’s religious- objections law.

A document prepared by the tourism group Visit Indy shows that the 12 out-of-state groups were surveyed and all said that the state’s controversial law played a role in their decision to have their events elsewhere.

More overweight kids in Asia, Africa

Driven by the growing availability of fatty, sugary foods and beverages in low- and middle-income countries, 41 million children age 5 and under are overweight or obese, a number expected to grow to more than 70 million children worldwide during the next decade, a new World Health Organization report says.

Between 1990 and 2014, rates of young children who are overweight or obese have surged to 6.1 percent from 4.8 percent, says a WHO report released Monday. In lower middle-income countries, the number of overweight and obese children younger than 5 has doubled, from 7.5 million to 15.5 million kids.

Almost half of those overweight children (48 percent) lived in Asia in 2014, and 25 percent lived in Africa.

Associated Press