KINGSTON, NEW YORK (AP) – A juvenile harbor seal has forgone life in the ocean, instead choosing a home nearly 100 miles up the Hudson River – behaviour that wildlife officials called “unprecedented”.

The animal was likely abandoned as a pup by his mother in Maine, officials said. A Connecticut rescue centre cared for him, then released him in Rhode Island in early 2019 with an electronic tracking tag.

By that August, he’d settled down on the Hudson near Saugerties Lighthouse, under the watchful eye of the lighthouse keeper, staying for 620 days.

“It is a story like none we have ever heard of… a marine mammal showing such extended affinity and fidelity to freshwater,” said Tom Lake of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Almanac, The Daily Freeman reported on Tuesday.

But the seal’s life on the river had one interruption.

Harbor Seal No 246 – as he’s known officially – disappeared last April, leaving wildlife officials stumped for months.

Turns out he needed rescuing again, catching an infection and a skin condition called “seal pox” after swimming down to Long Island’s Atlantic Beach.

Thankfully, Seal 246 was picked up by the New York Marine Rescue Centre. Once he recovered, they released him last summer, likely expecting he’d head out to sea.

The critter had other plans.

He journeyed 210 miles, from Hampton Bays all the way back up the Hudson to his old stomping grounds near Saugerties. The lighthouse keeper noticed his return in August.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Three white men convicted of murdering African American jogger Ahmaud Arbery after chasing him in their pickup trucks were sentenced to life in prison on Friday in a case that highlighted United States (US) tensions over racial justice.

Travis McMichael, 35, and his father Gregory McMichael, 66, were sentenced to life without parole, while their neighbour, William ‘Roddie’ Bryan, 52, who had a less-direct role in the murder and cooperated with investigators, was given life with the possibility of parole.

The three were convicted in November of multiple counts of murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment for chasing down 25-year-old Arbery on February 23, 2020 as he ran through their Satilla Shores neighbourhood near Brunswick, in the southern US state of Georgia.

Pronouncing the sentence, Georgia Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley called the murder “a tragedy on many, many levels”.

Weighing the verdict, Walmsley said he kept thinking of “the terror of the young man running through Satilla Shores”.

“He left his home apparently to go for a run and he ended up running for his life,” Walmsley said.

“He was killed because individuals here in this courtroom took the law into their own hands.”

The Arbery case had added to a burst of nationwide anger and protests in 2020 over police killings and mistreatment of African Americans, sparked initially by the death in May that year of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Before the sentencing, members of Arbery’s family asked the court to give the three the harshest possible penalty.

“They each have no remorse and do not deserve any leniency,” said Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones. “This wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. They chose to target my son because they didn’t want him in their community.”

His father, Marcus Arbery said, “The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I’ll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again, not at a dinner table, not at a holiday and not at a wedding.”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (AP) – Two Haitian journalists were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince, police said on Friday, as a surge in violence continues to shake the Caribbean nation.

One of the journalist’s employers and some media reports said the men had been shot then burned alive, but police did not confirm this. A police statement said only that the bodies had “large-caliber bullet wounds”.

Radio Ecoute FM said journalist John Wesley Amady was killed by “armed bandits” on Thursday in Laboule while he was reporting on security issues in the gang-plagued area.

“We condemn with the utmost rigor this criminal and barbaric act, which constitutes a serious attack on the rights to life in general, and those of journalists in particular to exercise their profession freely in the country,” said the station’s general manager, Francky Attis.

Police released a statement confirming the deaths of Amady, 30, and Wilguens Louissaint, 22.

Initial reports were that three journalists went to the scene and two were killed, while the third escaped.

“The Almighty Gangs struck again in Haiti at the start of 2022,” said Godson Lebrun, President of the Haitian Online Media Association. “I bow to the remains of these fellow journalists who were killed just because they wanted to inform! I demand an investigation and may justice be granted!”

In New York, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, “This is just one more example of what journalists the world over face and sadly, we may expect the impunity with which they are murdered for just trying to tell the truth.”

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry condemned the killings.

“On behalf of the government, I offer my condolences to the family and friends of the victims, as well as to the press in general,” he said.

Henry has vowed to crack down on gangs that authorities blame for a spike in kidnappings and for blockages at gas distribution terminals that caused a severe fuel shortage in recent months.

BERLIN (AP) – Germany’s leaders agreed on Friday to toughen requirements for entry to restaurants and bars, and decided to shorten quarantine and self-isolation periods as the Omicron variant spreads fast through the country.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the 16 state governors built on restrictions introduced just after Christmas that limited private gatherings to 10 people and effectively shut nightclubs.

People have already been required for some time to show proof of full vaccination or recovery to enter establishments — as well as many non-essential shops, theatres and cinemas.

Friday’s decision calls for the requirements to be ratcheted up for restaurants.

Customers will have to show either that they have received a booster shot or provide a negative test result on top of proof that they have been vaccinated or recovered.

“Half the population will be boosted… in a few days” and will be able to go to restaurants without a test, Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey told reporters. “This is an extra incentive to get boosters.”

Still, the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said it wouldn’t introduce the new rule for now because its cases mostly still involve the Delta variant, and Bavaria said it was sceptical.

Scholz and the governors also agreed to shorten quarantine or self-isolation periods that are currently as long as 14 days, something that many other countries already have done.

People who have received boosters will no longer have to go into quarantine after having contact with coronavirus cases, and neither will people who have been fully vaccinated or recovered in the past three months.

All others can end their quarantine or self-isolation period after 10 days if they don’t have – or no longer have – symptoms; that can be cut to seven days with a negative test.

“These are strict rules, but they are pragmatic and mean an easing of the current rules,” Scholz said.

Friday’s decision by federal and state governments stated that the use of protective FFP2 masks in shops and on public transport is “urgently recommended”.

The COVID-19 situation in Germany has been foggy for the past two weeks because of very patchy testing and slow reporting over the holiday period.

Official figures, which authorities have acknowledged don’t yet show the full picture, have shown a steady increase in the infection rate over the past week.