News in brief

By The Associated Press

To save spotted owls, U.S. officials plan to kill another owl species

U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls in coming decades. Their goal is to help spotted owls, which are being crowded out by barred owls from the eastern U.S.

Past efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting the forests where they live. But officials say the proliferation of barred owls in recent years is undermining that earlier work and putting spotted owls on the path to potential extinction.

The notion of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists.

Two charged with conspiring to bribe juror plead not guilty

MINNEAPOLIS | Two of five people charged with conspiring to bribe a Minnesota juror with a bag of $120,000 in cash in exchange for the acquittal of defendants in one of the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud cases pleaded not guilty Wednesday.

Said Shafii Farah and Abdulkarim Shafii Farah were arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Tony Leung in Minneapolis. A third co-defendant already pleaded not guilty last week. They are each charged with one count of conspiracy to bribe a juror, one count of bribery of a juror and one count of corruptly influencing a juror. Leung ordered both men detained before trial, saying the crimes of which they are accused threaten foundational aspects of the judicial system.

“In my decades on the bench, I’ve not experienced an attempt at bribing a juror in such a precalculated and organized and executed way,” Leung said. “That to me goes to the heart of an attack on our judicial system, on the rule of law.”

Italian court upholds conviction of two Americans but reduces sentences

ROME | An Italian appeals court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of two American men in the slaying of an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation but significantly reduced their sentences.

The new verdict, ordered after Italy’s highest court threw out the original convictions, drew acceptance from the men’s families and disappointment from the officer’s widow.

Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth had been found guilty in the July 2019 slaying of Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, and after the first trial, were both sentenced to life in prison, Italy’s harshest penalty.

Those sentences were reduced on appeal before Italy’s highest Cassation Court last year ordered a new trial altogether. On Wednesday, the appeals court convicted Finnegan and sentenced him to 15 years and 2 months in prison; it sentenced Natale-Hjorth to 11 years and four months, along with a 800 euro ($863) fine.

—From AP reports