ROBOT BROTHEL SHORTCIRCUITS IN HOUSTON
» A Canadian
H OUSTO N company’s plan to open a socalled robot brothel in Houston has been shortcircuited by city leaders.
Houston’s City Council on Wednesday updated one local ordinance to specifically ban individuals from having sex with an “anthropomorphic device,” a device that resembles a human being, at a sexuallyoriented business. But the change wouldn’t ban the company from selling the dolls for use elsewhere.
The company, KinkySdollS, had said it wants to open a “love dolls brothel” in Houston.
FDA: 38 sick from tainted eggs from Alabama.
ALA.» The BIRMINGHAM, government says 38 people in seven states have gotten sick from eggs produced by an Alabama farm.
The Food and Drug Administration says the illnesses are linked to salmonellatainted eggs from Gravel Ridge Farms, which is north of Birmingham in Cullman.
The agency issued a recall notice last month, and it provided an update Tuesday.
The FDA says 10 people were hospitalized after coming in contact with cagefree eggs from the farm, but no one has died.
Most of the illnesses are in Tennessee, where 23 people have been affected. Alabama has had seven cases and Ohio has four. Single cases have occurred in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky and Montana.
Pope opens youth meeting as sexual abuse survivors stage sitin.
CITY» Pope Francis VATICAN urged Catholic bishops to dream of a future free of the mistakes of the past as he opened a global church leadership meeting Wednesday amid renewed outrage over the priestly sexual abuse and coverup scandal.
Down the block from the Vatican’s synod hall, about two dozen abuse survivors staged a sitin, demanding their cause be taken up at the meeting and voicing outrage that some of the delegates had covered up for abusive priests.
Francis welcomed more than 250 priests, bishops and cardinals — as well as 34 young Catholics — to a monthlong meeting on ministering to future generations, urging young and old to listen to one another without prejudice.
Peru court overturns pardon of exleader Fujimori.
Peru’s Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a medical pardon for former President Alberto Fujimori and ordered the strongman be returned to jail to serve out a long sentence for human rights abuses.
Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori on humanitarian grounds last Christmas Eve in what was widely seen as an attempt to stave off impeachment by courting favor with Fujimori’s allies in Congress. Kuczynski resigned three months later.
Almost from the outset, the ruling was slammed by human rights groups as a “pact of impunity,” while the InterAmerican Court on Human Rights had also demanded that Peru review its legality.
The high court in its 224page decision said the pardon was unlawful because Fujimori’s crimes are considered crimes against humanity, and therefore can’t be pardoned under Peruvian and international law.