Escaped inmate caught after tip
Houston A death row inmate who slipped out of a Texas jail last week wearing street clothes was captured Sunday as he talked on a pay phone in Shreveport, La., about 200 miles away, authorities said.
Charles Victor Thompson had a bicycle with him when Shreveport police, acting on a tip, approached him around 8 p.m. Sunday, Harris County sheriff’s Lt. John Martin said.
“He was standing in front of a liquor store and appeared to be intoxicated,” Martin said.
When the officers asked his name, he said “You know who I am.” Then he identified himself as Charles Thompson, Martin said.
Thompson, 35, is scheduled to be in court Monday in Shreveport, and if he waives extradition, he will be returned to Texas immediately, Martin said.
Archdiocese property sales will net millions
Boston The Archdiocese of Boston is expected to make more than $90 million through the sale of church property as part of a plan to deal with financial struggles blamed in part on the clergy sex abuse crisis, according to a published report.
Most of the revenue comes from the liquidation of churches that have been merged or closed under Archbishop Sean O’Malley reconfiguration plan.
Those proceeds, outlined in the Boston Sunday Globe, are on top of the $99 million sale of the cardinal’s residence and surrounding property in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood last year.
The Globe review found that since August 2003, the archdiocese had received more than $32 million in sales of property from 15 parishes closed last year. Eight other purchase and sale agreements worth $29 million are pending, according to Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese. The sale of unused land and abandoned buildings have netted an additional $30 million.
India leaders join to open Hindu temple
New Delhi India’s Muslim president, Sikh prime minister and Hindu nationalist opposition leader joined Sunday to open one of the biggest Hindu temples of modern times, a $45 million pink sandstone shrine to religious tolerance.
The Swaminarayan sect that built the temple — the length of a soccer field and the height of a 12-story building — runs another temple in Gujarat state.
President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and opposition leader L.K. Advani of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party joined in pushing open the door of the main hall of the Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in New Delhi.
The presence of the three leaders reflects the country’s entrenched communal diversity, which has been tested often by religious riots.
More than 7,000 sculptors built the colonnaded temple over five years. It sits on 234 pillars topped by nine domes and is bedecked by more than 20,000 statues of gods and goddesses, encompassing the gamut of the Hindu pantheon.
The presiding deity of the temple is Swaminarayan, who was born in 1781 and renounced home at age 11 to become an ascetic.
As an adult, he battled caste discriminations and religious superstitions that dog Hindu society.