Obama administration blocks new mining claims near Yellowstone park - Washington Post

ENVIRONMENT

Mining claims halted near Yellowstone

Federal officials on Monday moved to block new mining claims at the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park, the latest push by the Obama administration to protect environmentally sensitive areas during its final months in office.

Mining claims would be prohibited on about 30,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land near the park’s northern entrance in Montana. The prohibition will remain in effect for two years while officials gather public comment and evaluate whether to designate the area off-limits to new mining claims for an additional 20 years.

The move comes as two gold-mining exploration proposals north of Yellowstone draw opposition from local environmentalists and business owners, who argue that the projects would industrialize areas crucial to migrating wildlife and could harm tourism. The two-year prohibition issued Monday wouldn’t explicitly block the existing proposals, but it could hamper them.

— Brady Dennis

Killer of boy in 1989 gets 20-year sentence

A Minnesota man was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison on a federal child pornography charge as part of a plea agreement earlier this year in which he confessed to assaulting and killing a boy in 1989, the Justice Department said.

Danny Heinrich, 53, was handed the sentence in the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. Heinrich confessed in September to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and fatally shooting 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling in October 1989, in a case that stumped investigators for decades. In his confession in September, Heinrich recounted shooting Wetterling twice and also admitted to sexually assaulting another 12-year-old boy.

Heinrich’s confession, in addition to helping lead police to the spot where he buried Wetterling’s body, was part of a deal in which he pleaded guilty to a federal child pornography charge, but did not face charges in the killing.

Wetterling’s parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling, became advocates for missing children after his disappearance.

Heinrich was named a person of interest in the abduction of Wetterling in October 2015 and was charged with possession and receipt of child pornography.

— Reuters

Germany buys Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles home: Germany has purchased a Los Angeles house once owned by Thomas Mann, averting demolition of the home where the Nobel Prize-winning novelist lived for a decade after fleeing the rise of Nazism. The home, built in 1941, was bought for $13.25 million and officials said it will be renovated and used as a residency for artists. An online petition called on the German government to save the home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Mann fled Germany in 1933 and lived in Switzerland before moving to the United States.

— Associated Press