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Boston City Council to vote on amended Mass and Cass tent ban Wednesday

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

Ricardo Arroyo will ask his City Council colleagues to vote Wednesday on an amended anti-encampment ordinance he’s filed, saying that the changes strengthen the legality of what the mayor proposed in late August for the Mass and Cass zone.The amendments would eliminate a monetary, or $25, penalty for people who refuse tent removal, and directly involve the Boston Public Health Commission in cases where shelter space is unavailable, but the city must place restrictions on outdoor encampment activity for public health and safety reasons.City officials would also be required to track available shelter space on a daily basis, per the changes, and provide notice of tent removal in a variety of languages, Arroyo wrote in a letter to councilors.“The chair of the committee does not support this ordinance,” Arroyo wrote, referring to himself. “These amendments, however, clarify implementation of this ordinance for city departments and city employees, and also make efforts to strengthen the l...

Trump speaks to packed house in New Hampshire after filing nomination papers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

DERRY, N.H. — While former President Donald Trump was in Concord filing his nomination paperwork with the New Hampshire Secretary of State, thousands of his supporters began to line up at the New England Sports Center to await his arrival.The room where Trump would speak, a gymnasium covered in folding chairs, filled to capacity with “MAGA” bedecked voters well before the 45th president took the stage around 3 p.m. on Monday. Some chanted and danced in the aisles as they waited for the former president.“Vote for Trump and solve your problems,” Trump told an audience of more than 2,500.The former president seemed full of energy as he delivered a wide-ranging, nearly two-hour address that brought the crowd to its feet on several occasions. Trump more than once took specific aim at President Biden, who Trump said was left with a roaring economy that the current president has not maintained.“I will end Joe Biden’s inflation disaster and we will quickly rebuild the greatest economy...

Boston-area dentist who ripped down posters of Israeli hostages has been fired: ‘It’s appalling. It’s cold-hearted. It’s evil’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

A woman who was caught on camera ripping down posters of Israeli hostages at a Chestnut Hill shopping center has been fired from a local dental office.The video of the Boston-area dentist went viral over the weekend after she was seen at The Street shopping area taking down posters of Israelis, who have been kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.After the organization StopAntisemitism identified the woman as a local endodontist, the group reached out to her employer and she was fired soon after.“It’s appalling. It’s cold-hearted. It’s evil,” StopAntisemitism Executive Director Liora Rez told the Herald on Monday.“I’m not sure what sort of depraved human being would look at posters of kidnapped babies and think the appropriate course of action would be to tear them down,” Rez added. “Tearing down any attempt to bring awareness to that campaign is very frightening.”The Herald reached out to the Boston-area dentist, but she could not ...

Hamas frees two Israeli women, but not their husbands

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas on Monday released two elderly Israeli women held hostage in Gaza as the United States asked Israel to hold off on a ground assault to negotiate the release of more hostages.The two freed hostages, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper, were taken out of Gaza at the Rafah crossing into Egypt, where they were put into ambulances, according to footage shown on Egyptian TV. The two women, along with their husbands, were snatched from their homes in the kibbutz of Nir Oz near the Gaza border during Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israeli communities. Their husbands, ages 83 and 84, were not released.“While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those — some 200 innocent people — who remain hostages in Gaza,” Lifshitz’ daughter, Sharone Lifschitz, said in a statement.Lifschitz, an artist and academic in London who uses a different spelli...

Battenfeld: War and foreign policy become new flash point in 2024 White House campaign

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

With President Biden threatening to draw the U.S. into a wider Mideast war, suddenly foreign policy – an issue almost overlooked weeks before – has become a heated flash point in the 2024 White House campaign.Biden’s attempt to tie the Israel-Hamas conflict to support for Ukraine has drawn the ire of Republicans and presidential candidates looking to separate themselves from the crowded field. And the Democratic president’s strong stance for Israel is prompting blowback in his own party — potentially siphoning away badly-needed progressive voters.Some candidates and their super PACs are jumping into war footing, flooding the airwaves with new ads about the Israeli-Hamas war.“The shame of it all is that we wouldn’t be in this terrible position if Joe Biden hadn’t been so weak in Afghanistan, so slow in Ukraine, so pandering to Iran, and so absent from the border,” GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said on X. “The world is on fire and Am...

Appeals panel questions why ‘presidential immunity’ argument wasn’t pursued years ago in Trump case

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals panel wants to know why lawyers for former President Donald Trump didn’t try years ago to use a claim of absolute presidential immunity to shield him from a defamation lawsuit by a woman who accused him of sexual assault.A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan listened Monday as a lawyer for Trump argued that a lower-court judge was wrong to reject the defense after it was raised three years after columnist E. Jean Carroll first sued Trump.The lawsuit seeks to hold Trump liable for comments he made while president in 2019 after Carroll said publicly for the first time in a memoir that Trump sexually abused her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1996. Trump has adamantly denied ever encountering Carroll in the store or knowing her.The court did not immediately rule.Circuit judges Maria Araujo Kahn and Denny Chin questioned Trump attorney Mi...

5 killed, including a police officer, in western Mexico state of Michoacan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Five people, including a police officer, were shot to death Monday in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, the office of the state’s attorney general posted on X, formerly Twitter.The attack, in which two other people were injured, was the latest in a wave of violence across a region where powerful cartels continue to wrestle for control.The bodies were found Monday morning on a highway in the township of Tacambaro after an attack targeting the mayor’s brother. The state prosecutor’s office did not say if the mayor’s brother was among the wounded.A video of the attack circulating on social media appeared to show heavy gunfire, followed by at least five armed men running to board a pickup truck.Despite the government sending more than 2,000 National Guard troops and military personnel last month, Michoacan remains one of the deadliest states in Mexico when it comes to homicides, according to the national security department.Several crimin...

Prince William to travel to Singapore for Earthshot Prize announcement on climate projects

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Prince William will travel to Singapore next month to name the winners of his Earthshot Prize, a global competition to find solutions to the challenges of climate change.William created the prize three years ago to encourage inventors and entrepreneurs to develop technologies to combat global warming and mitigate its impact on the environment.Singapore was chosen to host the latest annual awards ceremony because of its role as a “hub for innovation” in Southeast Asia, William’s office at Kensington Palace said in a statement. During his four-day trip to Singapore, the prince will meet with local groups to learn how they are working to protect and restore the planet.William will also attend the United for Wildlife global summit, featuring representatives of law enforcement agencies, conservation groups and corporations that are working to combat the trade in illegal wildlife products, which is estimated at $20 billion annually.The Earthshot Prize is named after the late...

Off-duty St. Louis officer accused of shooting at trick-or-treating event no longer employed

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — An off-duty St. Louis County officer accused of displaying his badge and firing into the air at a trick-or-treating event no longer is employed at the agency, a police spokesperson confirmed Monday. Matthew McCulloch was no longer working at the department as of Thursday, St. Louis County Police officer Adrian Washington said in an email. He had been on unpaid administrative leave. Washington declined to comment on whether McCulloch was fired or quit, describing it as a personnel matter.McCulloch is charged with child endangerment, unlawful use of a weapon, armed criminal action and making a terrorist threat during a school-sponsored trunk-or-treating event attended by hundreds of parents and children Oct. 15 in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood. Police said McCulloch told multiple attendees that “you are all going to die,” according to the probable cause statement.After a man responded by pushing McCulloch to the ground, police said McCulloch lifted his shirt to sho...

Hundreds of photos from the collection of Elton John and David Furnish will go on display in London

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:17 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Photos of iconic celebrities and historic moments from the collection of Elton John and David Furnish will go on display at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum next year.The museum said Tuesday that the exhibition, titled “Fragile Beauty,” will include 300 images by more than 140 photographers, including Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, William Eggleston, Zanele Muholi and Ai Weiwei.The images, many of which have never been on public display, will be on show from May 18, 2024, until Jan. 5, 2025.The exhibition will include portraits of stars including Marilyn Monroe, Miles Davis and Chet Baker, and photojournalism from historic moments including the Black civil rights movement of the 1960s, 1980s AIDS activism and the Sept. 11 attack.The works cover the period from the 1950s to the present. The exhibition follows a show of earlier, black-and-white photographs from the collection held at London’s Tate Modern in 2016.John began collecting photographs afte...