Activists

SAN FRANCISCO -- They were dismissed as "Astroturf" political activists with funny hats and they had their revenge: The rise of America's rebellious Tea Party movement grabbed headlines and scores of congressional seats during the 2010 midterm elections.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Animal welfare groups reacted with outrage Wednesday after the Iowa Legislature made the state the first to approve a bill making it a crime to surreptitiously get into a farming operation to record video of animal abuse.

MIAMI — Patricia Stephens Due, a lifelong Florida civil rights crusader who led 1960s-era demonstrations and voter-registration drives, went to jail for trying to integrate a lunch counter, and suffered permanent eye damage from a police assault, died Tuesday. She was 72.

BERLIN — Police used water cannons to disperse about 300 protesters hurling rocks and fireworks during an attempt to disrupt a shipment of nuclear waste in northern Germany on Saturday, officials said.

SALT LAKE CITY — Federal prosecutors don’t like the sentencing recommendations made for an environmental activist convicted of interfering with a government auction of oil and gas leases near two of Utah’s national parks.

CAIRO -- Bahrain sentenced eight activists to life in prison Wednesday in the latest crackdown on a 5-month-old rebellion by the island monarchy, which has been criticized by international human-rights groups for mass arrests, torture and shooting protesters.

The verdicts follow the lifting of martial law but indicate the ruling Sunni-Muslim family will not tolerate unrest among a majority Shiite population demanding an end to discrimination. Several of the activists, such as Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, are respected dissidents, and their sentences are likely to spur fresh protests.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Hundreds of activists marched to the federal courthouse Monday to support a man who became an environmental folk hero by faking the purchase of $1.7 million of federal oil-and-gas drilling leases in an act of civil disobedience.