REPORT: RED FLAGS RAISED BY ZINKE’S CONDUCT

ON» Interior WASHING T

Secretary Ryan Zinke’s approach to his wife’s travel and activities sparked concerns among the department’s ethics officials, according to a report issued Thursday by Interior’s inspector general office.

The report determined that staff in the department’s solicitor office “approved Lolita Zinke and other individuals to ride in Government vehicles with Secretary Zinke” although Interior policy prohibited this practice. The employee who authorized the move told investigators that “she routinely advised” Zinke’s aides “that it would be ‘cleanest’ and ‘lowest risk’ if she did not ride with him” but could find a way to justify it. This summer, Zinke changed Interior’s policy so family members could ride with him.

Judges consider state court’s power over Trump in lawsuit.

» Appeals court judgY O R K es weighing President Donald Trump’s bid to shut down a former “Apprentice” contestant’s defamation lawsuit against him are asking a hypothetical question: Could a New York court order the president to jail if he were to buck an order in the case?

The question came up — but wasn’t definitively answered — as lawyers for Trump and excontestant Summer Zervos argued Thursday in a New York appeals court. Zervos sued Trump for calling her a liar after she accused him of unwanted kissing and groping in 2007.

Another Manhattan building strips Trump name from entrance.

» Workers on Thurs

Y O R K day removed the letters spelling “Trump Place” from the 46story condominium on the Upper West Side. The scene was the culmination of a legal battle between the Trump Organization and the condo board of 200 Riverside Blvd., which this year asked a judge to determine if it had the right to remove its own signs.

Environmentalists file third lawsuit over Trump wall plans.

HOUSTON» Environmental groups filed another lawsuit Thursday challenging the Trump administration’s use of waivers to speed up construction of a border wall, this time in Texas. Three groups sued the Department of Homeland Security, a week after the agency waived environmental laws along a roughly 25mile stretch of border in the Rio Grande Valley, which is the southernmost point of Texas.

Todd Bol, founder of Little Free Library book sharing, dies.

H UDSON,

» The man who founded the Little Free Library, a nonprofit that began with a dollhouselike box of free books in his front yard and ballooned into an international booksharing and literacy project, has died. Todd Bol died Thursday in a Minnesota hospice of complications from pancreatic cancer, said Margret Aldrich, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit. He was 62. Bol designed and built the first Little Free Library at his home in Hudson in 2009 as a tribute to his mother. — Denver Post wire services