Ivory investigator killed
An American conservationist regarded as the world’s foremost investigator into the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn has been found stabbed to death in Kenya. The body of Esmond Bradley Martin was found by his wife at their home in Langata on the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi. He had at least one stab wound to the neck, and a burglary gone wrong was the most plausible theory, police said. Bradley Martin, 76, is the second conservationist investigating the ivory trade to meet a violent death in six months, raising fears that politically connected wildlife mafias are seeking to eliminate campaigners exposing their networks. He had been investigating the smuggling of ivory through Tanzanian and Kenyan ports to southeast Asia.
Absentee MPS face fines
French MPS face fines for failing to attend parliament, under a plan to restore the battered reputation of the country’s political class. Officials were granted powers to fine serial absentees decades ago, but no speaker has had the courage to penalise MPS, for fear of political ostracism. Francois de Rugy, the Speaker of the National Assembly and a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, says MPS will be fined €4320 (NZ$7350) for missing at least a third of parliamentary votes every session. Those absent for more than half of the votes will be forced to pay €8640 (NZ$14,700). There will be an extra penalty of €360 (NZ$612) for MPS who miss at least two parliamentary committee meetings in a month.
Frasier star Mahoney dies
Actor John Mahoney, who played the cranky, blue-collar dad in the hit sitcom Frasier, has died. He was 77. Mahoney died on Monday in Chicago after a brief hospitalisation, his manager said. In the hit Cheers spinoff that aired from 1993 to 2004, Mahoney played Martin Crane, a disabled ex-policeman who acted as a counterpoint to his pompous psychiatrist sons Frasier, played by Kelsey Grammer, and Niles, played by David Hyde Pierce. Mahoney, an Englishman who made Chicago his home town, was a two-time Emmy nominee for Frasier.