AP National News

The Latest: 6 more COVID cases found in local China outbreak

By The Associated Press

BEIJING — Health officials in China say six more people have become ill with COVID-19 in a southwestern Chinese city on the border with Myanmar. That brings the confirmed total in the Yunnan province city of Ruili over the past two days to 12, including three Myanmar citizens. The Yunnan Health Commission said Thursday that 23 other people have tested…

Judge: US agency illegally paid for Colorado predator hunt

By JAMES ANDERSON - Associated Press

A federal judge has found that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service illegally helped pay for a Colorado program to kill dozens of mountain lions and black bears in an experiment to determine if the predators were partly responsible for declining mule deer populations. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Marcia Krieger in Denver found that Fish and Wildlife failed to do a required analysis of the program’s environmental effects, possibly so it could fast-track federal funding for most of the $4 million program. Tuesday’s decision stops that funding for state-authorized kills of mountain lions and black bears in southern Colorado’s Upper Arkansas River Valley. A second Colorado Parks and Wildlife program in northwestern Colorado’s Piceance Basin has been completed.