Monks’ Casket Fight Heads Back to Court

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Louisiana’s funeral industry isn’t ready to give up the fight to preserve its exclusive right to sell caskets. On Monday (Aug. 15), lawyers for the Louisiana Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors appealed a federal judge’s July 21 ruling that...

Monks’ Suit Over Caskets Heads to Trial

COVINGTON, La. (RNS) A federal lawsuit brought by a group of monks fighting for the right to sell handcrafted caskets without a state license is set to go to trial Monday (June 6) in New Orleans. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled in April that lawyers...

Bhutanese Protest Tobacco Charge Against Buddhist Monk

NEW DELHI (RNS) Protesters in Bhutan are denouncing the three-year prison sentence of a Buddhist monk charged with violating the small kingdom’s anti-tobacco law. The 23-year-old monk, Sonam Tshering, was the first victim of a ban rooted in the religious zeal of...

Karmapa Lama Denies Charges of Spying for China

NEW DELHI (RNS) In an unprecedented probe of exiled Tibetan Buddhist monks, Indian officials want to know why top Buddhist leaders had $1.5 million in cash stashed away at their headquarters in Dharmsala. Police seized $1.5 million of cash in Indian and foreign...