Daily News Roundup: Controversy Over Coke Giving Follows Ga. Health Official to CDC

New CDC Chief Teamed With Coca-Cola on Obesity Effort: The soft-drink giant paid most of the $1.2 million cost of a Georgia program to reduce childhood obesity when Brenda Fitzgerald, the new head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was the state’s top health official, reports The New York Times. Coke has funded studies that focus on exercise rather than diet as key to curbing obesity.

N.Y.C. Sees Volunteering Surge Since Election: New York charities and organizations that match people with opportunities to donate time for causes in the city are reporting large spikes in volunteerism this year, The New York Times writes. Traffic on a city-maintained website where nonprofits post volunteer opportunities is up 20 percent over the past six months. Read a Chronicle article on the national jump in volunteering following President Trump’s election.

2 Big Nonprofit Utah Events Bar LGBTQ Groups, but Only 1 Takes Heat: America’s Freedom Festival drew a backlash for excluding an LGBTQ organization from its July 4 parade in Provo, but the state’s largest parade, Days of ’47, made a similar decision without controversy, largely because it, unlike America’s Freedom Festival, does not take state funding, writes The Salt Lake Tribune.

Health Nonprofit Draws Thousands for Basic Care in Rural Va.: The New York Times reports on the scene over the weekend in Wise County, Va., where many low-income residents camped out overnight to be first in line for dental, eye, and other treatment at a large-scale Remote Area Medical pop-up clinic. See a Chronicle photo feature about Remote Area Medical.

Opinion: Super-Rich Donors Are Due Scrutiny, Not Praise: Gratitude is the wrong response to the megagiving that allows extremely wealthy philanthropists to wield considerable and largely unchecked power, Quartz writes in an article drawn from the views of Stanford University philanthropy expert Rob Reich.

Charity Chief Gets 5 Years in $1.7 Million Swindle: British authorities say Robert Mark Davies forged invoices to drain the coffers of Cyrenians Cymru, a now-insolvent homelessness nonprofit in Swansea, Wales, funding a “lavish lifestyle” that included luxury vacations and buying several boats, BBC News reports.

N.Y. Councilman Convicted of Charity-Linked Corruption: Ruben Wills was found guilty on charges leveled three years ago that he pilfered more than $30,000 in taxpayer money, including $21,000 in state grants to New York 4 Life, a nonprofit he controlled, NY1 reports. The Queens Democrat was stripped of the seat he had held since 2011.