By MEAD GRUVER

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming man who allegedly hit a wolf with a snowmobile, taped the wounded animal’s mouth shut and showed it off in a rural bar before killing it has been indicted on an animal cruelty charge by a grand jury nearly a year and a half after the incident.

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Cody Roberts last year paid a $250 fine for illegal possession of wildlife but avoided more serious charges as investigators struggled to find cooperative witnesses. Wyoming law gives wide leeway for people to kill wolves and other predators by a variety of means in the vast majority of the state.

Even so, the 12-person grand jury found enough evidence over the past two weeks to support the charge of felony animal cruelty, Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich said in a statement Wednesday.

Melinkovich had no further comment on the case. Roberts has not commented on the case and did not have a listed working number, nor an attorney on file in state District Court who might comment on his behalf.

If convicted, Roberts faces up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Widely circulated photos showed a man identified as Roberts posing with the wolf, its mouth bound with tape, on Feb. 29, 2024, in a bar near Daniel, a town of about 150 people about 50 miles south of Jackson.

Video clips showed the same animal lying on a floor, alive but barely moving.

The light punishment against Roberts led to calls for a Wyoming tourism boycott, to little apparent effect. Yellowstone National Park had its second-busiest year on record in 2024, up more than 5% from 2023.

Grand juries in Wyoming are rare. The last one to get significant attention, in 2019, found that a sheriff’s deputy did not commit involuntary manslaughter by killing an unarmed man after a traffic stop.

Government-sponsored poisoning, trapping and bounty hunting all but wiped out wolves in the lower 48 states in the 19th and 20th centuries. Starting in the 1990s, a reintroduction program brought them back to Yellowstone and central Idaho, and their numbers have rebounded.

Though wolves remain listed as a federally endangered or threatened species in most of the country, they have no such protection in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where they can be hunted and trapped.

Exceptions include Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park, where hunting is prohibited and the wild canines are a major attraction for millions of tourists. In 85% percent of Wyoming, wolves are classified as predators and can be freely killed by virtually any means.

The so-called predator zone includes Sublette County, where the wolf was killed. Groups including the Humane Society argued that Wyoming’s animal cruelty law could nonetheless apply there.

By MELISSA GOLDIN

The food pyramid that once guided Americans’ diets has been retired for more than a decade, but that has not stopped President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from regularly criticizing the concept.

He often highlights the pyramid, misrepresenting dietary standards and criticizing health initiatives of the Biden administration. Such claims were featured in a video aired Tuesday, before his appearance on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

KENNEDY: “The dietary guidelines that we inherited from the Biden administration were 453 pages long. They were driven by the same commercial impulses that put Froot Loops at the top of the food pyramid.”

THE FACTS: The original food pyramid did not mention any specific products. But at the very top, it recommended that oils, fats and sugar be consumed “sparingly.” Grains such as bread, cereal, rice and pasta were on the bottom tier, where six to 11 portions a day were recommended. The current dietary guidelines are 164 pages long, not 453. They were released in December 2020 during Trump’s first term, along with a four-page executive summary.

A scientific report used to develop the dietary guidelines is published every five years by an advisory committee. The latest report, released in December by the Biden administration, is 421 pages long. Trump’s first administration released an 835-page scientific report in July 2020 that informed the current guidelines.

“The dietary guidelines include several documents, including a scientific report which summarizes the scientific evidence supporting the dietary guidelines,” said Laura Bellows, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University. “It can be long due to the comprehensive nature of the document. That said, these findings are distilled down into concise guidelines that are foundational to the creation of consumer information and educational materials.”

Experts said that Froot Loops, a breakfast cereal, would have fallen into multiple categories under the pyramid concept, offering vague guidance to consumers.

“It’s a bit trickier than just one grouping,” Bellows said in an email. She said Froot Loops “would fall more in foods that we should ‘moderate’ … but does contribute to the grain group.” The cereal is high in sugar, she added, but does have fiber and other key nutrients.

The Agriculture Department introduced an updated pyramid guide in 2005 that incorporated new nutritional standards. It retired the pyramid idea altogether in 2011 and now uses the MyPlate concept, which stresses eating a healthy balance of different foods based on factors such as age and sex.

MyPlate recommends making half of the grains one eats in a day whole grains and cutting back on added sugars. Similar to the food pyramid, this puts Froot Loops, which has whole grains and added sugars, in both categories.

“MyPlate, not the Food Pyramid, has been the visual graphic for the US Dietary Guidelines since 2011,” said Bellows. “So, referring to the ‘top of the pyramid’ is a dated reference.”

Kennedy’s other criticism of Froot Loops has focused primarily on its manufacturer’s use of artificial dyes to enhance its color. He has made getting rid of artificial colors in foods an important part of his “Make America Healthy Again” plan.

Asked for comment on Kennedy’s remarks, the Health and Human Services Department said work is on track to release the final 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The agency said Kennedy is committed to ensuring those guidelines “are grounded in gold-standard science and reflect a clear focus on healthy, whole, and nutritious foods.”

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

By MATTHEW BROWN and COLLEEN SLEVIN

DENVER (AP) — State inspectors in Colorado found about 20 decomposing bodies behind a hidden door in a funeral home owned by a county coroner, who told them he may have given fake ashes to next of kin who sought cremations, authorities disclosed Thursday.

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The bodies were discovered in a room behind a door hidden by a cardboard display during an inspection of Davis Mortuary in Pueblo, about 110 miles south of Denver. Inspectors found a “strong odor of decomposition” after arriving at the business on Wednesday. Brian Cotter — the owner and Pueblo County coroner — had asked them not to enter the room, according to a document from state regulators.

Colorado long had some of the weakest oversight of funeral homes in the nation, with no routine inspections or qualification requirements for funeral home operators. That has allowed numerous abuses, including a pending case involving nearly 200 decomposing bodies that were found stored at room temperature in a building in Penrose, Colorado, about 30 miles from Pueblo.

A sentencing in that case of one of the funeral home’s owners for corpse abuse is set for Friday.

The discovery in Pueblo came during the first inspection of Davis Mortuary under rules adopted last year in response to prior crimes within Colorado’s funeral industry.

Before the law changed, funeral homes could only be inspected if a complaint had been filed against them. Davis Mortuary did not have any complaints, said Sam Delp, director of the Division of Professions and Occupations in the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.

Cotter told inspectors that some of the bodies had been awaiting cremation for about 15 years, according to the document from state regulators that explained why the state suspended the mortuary’s registration.

“This is a profound violation of trust and a heartbreaking betrayal of the families who entrusted their loved ones to this funeral home,” Colorado Bureau of Investigation director Armando Saldate III said.

The estimate of 20 bodies in the room came from funeral home staff. The corpses were not immediately removed, and authorities said as a result, they did not yet have a precise number.

Investigators on Thursday were collecting evidence with the help of state troopers trained in responding to hazardous materials, Saldate said, noting that they were “respectfully and humanely” handling the bodies.

Cotter has not been arrested, and Pueblo County District Attorney Kala Beauvais said no charges have been filed as the investigation continues.

A woman who answered the phone at the mortuary said it had no comment and declined to make Cotter available for an interview.

Cotter did not immediately respond to a message left with the coroner’s office.

Cotter and his brother, Chris, bought Davis Mortuary in 1989, according to the business’s website. It said the brothers brought with them an “old school” way of operating that they learned from their father, who owned and operated funeral homes in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska.

In most states, funeral homes are routinely inspected, but for many years, no such rules were on the books in Colorado.

Owners of a funeral home in Grand Junction, Colorado, were convicted in 2022 of selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes. In yet another case, a woman’s body was found last year in the back of a hearse where a suburban Denver funeral home had left it for over a year. At least 30 sets of cremated remains were found stashed throughout that funeral director’s home.

Colorado lawmakers last year approved changes intended to tighten oversight, bringing the state in line with most other states. One requires regulators to routinely inspect funeral homes and gives them more enforcement power. Another implements licensing for funeral directors and other workers in the industry. They would need to pass background checks and a national exam while possessing degrees and work experience.

Previously, funeral home directors in Colorado didn’t have to graduate from high school, let alone have a degree.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has revoked the Minneapolis DFL’s endorsement of mayoral candidate and state senator Omar Fateh, who is challenging Mayor Jacob Frey in this year’s election.

Fateh, a democratic socialist, won the endorsement on July 19 at a Minneapolis DFL convention marked by difficulties and delays with the party’s electronic voting system.

A review by the state party found that those flaws with the voting system warranted nullifying the convention’s results.

Frey, a Democrat, filed a complaint about the voting process at the convention, and the state party decided to review the process.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

His campaign claimed only 578 votes were counted on the first mayoral ballot, even though there were more than 1,000 delegates and alternates present.

“After a thoughtful and transparent review of the challenges, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee found substantial failures in the Minneapolis Convention’s voting process on July 19th, including an acknowledgement that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention,” Minnesota DFL Chair Richard Carlbom said in an announcement of the decision.

Complaints about the process

Complaints about the process included allegations that the electronic voting system was flawed, leading to candidates getting dropped from the ballot early in the process, even though they likely had enough votes to remain, according to the review.

The DFL found the convention failed to count 176 votes, which resulted in candidate DeWayne Davis’ removal from the ballot in the first round of voting, even though he had above the minimum 20% support needed to move forward.

After an evening of difficulties with the electronic voting system, the convention suspended its rules and voted by a show of hands.

A draft report from the state DFL’s rules committee, set to be released in full later this week, also found that the Minneapolis DFL didn’t secure its delegate credential spreadsheets, allowing them to be accessed by campaigns. They also lost the entire Ward 5 credentials book, meaning delegates have to reestablish their status, the report said.

As part of the state party committee decision, the Minneapolis DFL is barred from holding another mayoral endorsement convention in 2025 and won’t be able to endorse a candidate through its central committee.

The state party also placed the city party on probation for two years and ordered it to submit an improvement plan.

Responses from Fateh, Frey

In response to the decision, Fateh accused the DFL of “insider games” and “backroom decisions.”

“28 party insiders met privately and voted to overturn our endorsement,” Fateh said in a post on BlueSky. “Let me be clear, we’re still in this fight. And we’re going to win.”

Frey praised the decision in a statement.

“I am proud to be a member of a party that believes in correcting our mistakes, and I am glad this inaccurate and obviously flawed process was set aside,” he said. “I look forward to having a full and honest debate with Senator Fateh about our city’s future.”

Election Day is Nov. 5.

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