Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, are pleading not guilty to charges they paid $500,000 in bribes as part of a college admissions scam, according to court documents filed Monday. The couple is among 50 people charged in the nationwide scandal in which wealthy parents allegedly paid to get their children into elite universities.

UPDATE: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday signed into law a bill protecting unborn babies from abortion from the moment they have a detectable heartbeat, usually around six weeks of gestation. Even before the bill was signed, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said it was preparing a suit to challenge to the law, something DeWine and Ohio pro-life advocates anticipated.

Federal prosecutors in California said Thursday they had indicted attorney Michael Avenatti on 36 counts of stealing millions of dollars from clients, tax evasion, bank fraud, and lying during bankruptcy proceedings. Avenatti, 48, was arrested last month in New York on unrelated allegations he tried to shake down Nike for up to $25 million.

Joni Eareckson Tada, a Christian author and advocate for people with disabilities, was released from the hospital earlier this week after a 14-day stay to treat breathing problems. “Basically, over the many years, my chronic quadriplegia has put a strain on my heart and lungs,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “The good news is, doctors believe that with medication and with a more efficient way of breathing, my condition can be reversed.”

Authorities in Louisiana have arrested a man suspected of burning down three rural African American churches in the state. Holden Matthews, a 21-year-old white man, faces three state charges of simple arson of a religious building. Federal investigators are looking into whether race motived the crimes. The first fire burned St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, La., last month. Days later, the Greater Union Baptist Church and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas, La., were set ablaze. Each was more than 100 years old.

As asylum-seekers overwhelm immigration officials at the U.S. southern border, a federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy geared toward preventing sham asylum claims. U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg of San Francisco ruled that the United States must put on hold its requirement that people seeking asylum at the border wait in Mexico while their cases are processed. He gave the federal government until Friday to appeal before the ruling takes effect.

One of the 33 parents charged in the college admissions bribery scandal agreed to plead guilty Wednesday. Peter Jan Sartorio, a packaged-food entrepreneur from California, disclosed the deal as Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin appeared in federal court in Boston, along with some of the other defendants. Prosecutors accuse Sartorio, 53, of paying $15,000 in cash to have someone correct his daughter’s answers on the ACT college entrance exam. The exact charges to which he planned to plead were not immediately clear.