U.S. lifts ban on elephant-part imports
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration is lifting a federal ban on the importation of body parts from African elephants shot for sport.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a written notice Thursday saying that allowing elephants in Zimbabwe and Zambia to be killed will enhance the survival of the threatened species by raising money for conservation programs from wealthy trophy hunters who pay to shoot them.
The change marks a shift in efforts to stop the importation of elephant tusks and hides, overriding a 2014 ban imposed by the administration of President Barack Obama. The new policy applies to the remains of African elephants killed between January 2016 and December 2018.
The world’s largest land mammal, the African elephant has been classified as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act since 1979.
Zinke deemed ‘deficient’ on travel data
WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke failed to properly document his use of private jets and whether his wife paid her way when accompanying him on official travel, the agency ’s inspector general’s office said.
A memo from the department’s inspector general comes in response to an investigation of travel on charter jets by Zinke, including trips to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Alaska and Montana, his home state.
“We have found the documentation and adherence to department travel policies deficient,” the memo to Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt said. “We discovered several issues that need prompt attention and changes to current … procedures.”
Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall also wrote that she has “not been able to determine the full extent” to which Zinke’s wife, Lolita Zinke, accompanied him on travel and paid for her trips.
Zinke, as well as other members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, face criticism for flying on private or military charter jets, and the costs of that travel.
Zinke has dismissed scrutiny of his travel as “a little B.S.,” and said all his travel has been reviewed by ethics officers.
Ohio pastors charged in girl’s sex abuse
Three pastors accused of exploiting and abusing teenage girls were indicted this week on federal child sex trafficking charges in Toledo, Ohio.
Kenneth Butler, 37; Anthony Haynes, 38; and Cordell Jenkins, 47, were charged with conspiracy for child sex trafficking as part of an 11-count indictment issued Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Ohio said. The three pleaded innocent to the charges.
They are accused of sexually assaulting a girl beginning in 2014, when she was 14, through 2017. Some of the abuse is thought to have taken place at hotels and at Greater Life Christian Center in Toledo, where Haynes was a pastor and used his telephone to record the sexual assaults, prosecutors said.
Haynes gave the girl money and told her not to tell anyone, saying it would ruin his family and his church, according to court documents. He “facilitated” the victim being abused by several other men, including Jenkins, prosecutors said.
15 tainted Chicago convictions tossed
CHICAGO — A Chicago judge threw out convictions for 15 men Thursday after prosecutors acknowledged that the cases had been tainted by a corrupt police sergeant who manufactured evidence.
As 10 of the men stood before him, Judge Leroy Martin Jr. granted prosecutors’ request to toss the convictions, many of which resulted in prison terms. It was the latest chapter in a scandal that arose from former Sgt. Ronald Watts’ 2013 conviction for extorting money from drug dealers.
After reviewing the cases, Mark Rotert, chief of Cooke County’s conviction integrity unit, said the office did not have confidence in the police reports and testimony.
State’s attorney spokesman Robert Foley said prosecutors are looking into dozens of other cases and identified a pattern suggesting “corrupt activity” involving Watts and “members of his crew.”
Joshua Tepfer, defense attorney with the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project, said Watts was involved in about 1,000 cases and as many as 500 convictions over eight years.
