Atlanta zoo to return pandas to China
ATLANTA -- The last U.S. zoo with pandas in its care expects to say goodbye to the four giant bears this fall.
Zoo Atlanta is making preparations to return panda parents Lun Lun and Yang Yang to China along with their American-born twins Ya Lun and Xi Lun, zoo officials said Friday. There is no specific date for the transfer yet, they said, but it will likely happen between October and December.
The four Atlanta pandas have been the last in the United States since the National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China last November. Other American zoos have sent pandas back to China as loan agreements lapsed amid diplomatic tensions between the two nations.
Atlanta received Lun Lun and Yang Yang from China in 1999 as part of a 25-year loan agreement that will soon expire.
Ya Lun and Xi Lun, born in 2016, are the youngest of seven pandas born at Zoo Atlanta since their parents arrived.
As to whether Atlanta might host any future pandas, "no discussions have yet taken place with partners in China," zoo officials said.
Pelosi assailant gets 30 years in prison
The man who broke into the San Francisco home of Rep. Nancy Pelosi two years ago and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in federal prison, with credit for time already served.
Pelosi, D-Calif., was the speaker of the House at the time of the attack.
David DePape was convicted in November on two federal crimes: attempted kidnapping of a federal officer and assault on an immediate family member of a federal official.
He admitted during the trial that he had carried out the attack, but he said he never intended to hurt Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi.
DePape said his intrusion into the couple's home was part of a plot to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and interrogate her.
The court imposed the statutory maximum sentences for each offense -- 20 years for the kidnapping charge and 30 years for the assault charge, but it denied the prosecutors' request that 10 years of those sentences be served consecutively. Instead, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said the sentences would run concurrently.
DePape also faces separate state charges stemming from the attack. Jury selection for his state trial is scheduled to begin May 22.
Ex-Baltimore prosecutor seeks pardon
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore's former top prosecutor Marilyn Mosby has applied for a presidential pardon ahead of sentencing on her recent perjury and mortgage fraud convictions, according to The Baltimore Sun.
In a letter Thursday to President Joe Biden, the Congressional Black Caucus expressed support for her cause, claiming that the prosecution was politically motivated, The Sun reported.
Mosby is set to be sentenced next week. She has asked for probation while prosecutors are seeking 20 months in prison.
"Our justice system must not be weaponized to prevent progress toward a more perfect union," wrote Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., who chairs the caucus.
The letter says Mosby submitted her pardon application Wednesday.
The federal criminal charges stemmed from claims that Mosby claimed a pandemic-related hardship to make early withdrawals from her retirement account, then used that money for down payments on Florida properties. Prosecutors claimed she repeatedly lied on the mortgage applications.
Mosby lost reelection in 2022 after being indicted by a federal grand jury.
"While pardon applications generally express remorse and regret, what happens when justice was not served and in fact, denied?" Mosby wrote in her pardon application, according to The Sun. "No such remorse and regret is appropriate in this case."
Suspect gets 80 year sentence for rape
MEMPHIS -- A Tennessee man was sentenced to 80 years in prison Friday for raping a woman a year before he was charged with kidnapping and killing a schoolteacher who was on a morning run.
Cleotha Abston received 40 years in prison for aggravated rape, 20 years for aggravated kidnapping and another 20 years for being a felon in possession of a weapon. The sentences will run consecutively, Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee ruled.
Abston, 40, was convicted April 12 of raping a woman at gunpoint in September 2021. He waived a sentencing hearing in which witnesses could have testified for or against him.
Abston's lawyer, Juni Ganguli, said he plans to appeal the conviction and will file a motion for a new trial.
"We had a strong defense," Ganguli told reporters Friday. "I do not believe for a second that he raped or kidnapped or had a gun, that he put a gun to that woman."
He wasn't charged in the 2021 case until police detected his DNA on sandals found near the location where Eliza Fletcher was last seen. Abston is accused of snatching Fletcher from a street while she was jogging Sept. 2, 2022, near the University of Memphis and forcing her into an SUV.
No trial date has been set in the 2022 case.