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Fiscal ‘storm clouds’ growing over Massachusetts after lower than expected tax collections

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

Massachusetts is not “raining money” anymore, state lawmakers said Tuesday.The top Senate budget writer and the chamber’s ranking Republican painted a less than ideal fiscal picture for Massachusetts, airing during a debate concerns they had for the future health of the state’s finances after multiple months of lower than expected tax collections.Massachusetts has experienced four consecutive months of below benchmark revenue collections during the start of fiscal year 2024, said Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues, a Westport Democrat. That follows years of “very robust revenue collections,” he said.“Even though there are storm clouds on the horizon, it’s not bright and sunny, it’s not raining money as it has been over the last few years, we are still being responsible in addressing the long-term liabilities of the commonwealth,” Rodrigues said.The first two months of the fiscal year, July and August, saw revenue collections collectively $20 millio...

Boston’s Peter Lynch inducted into Caddie Hall of Fame

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

Boston resident Peter Lynch was recently inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame in recognition of his time caddying as a teenager in Massachusetts and his use of caddying as a steppingstone to professional success.Lynch, one of the most successful money managers in Wall Street history, was honored during a ceremony at the Western Golf Association’s Green Coat Gala, a black-tie affair at The Peninsula Chicago, where more than 300 supporters helped raised more than $8.4 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation, in Chicago.Lynch caddied at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newton, which paved the way for him to receive a Francis Ouimet Fund Scholarship to attend Boston College. In 2010, he received the Ouimet Fund’s Richard F. Connolly, Jr. Distinguished Service Award for his dedication and commitment to supporting youth caddies.Lynch would eventually manage the Magellan Fund at Fidelity. 

Ex-officer Derek Chauvin makes another bid to overturn federal conviction in murder of George Floyd

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

By STEVE KARNOWSKI (Associated Press)MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin is making another attempt to overturn his federal civil rights conviction in the 2020 murder of George Floyd, saying new evidence shows that he didn’t cause Floyd’s death.In a motion filed in federal court Monday, Chauvin said he never would have pleaded guilty to the charge in 2021 if he had known about the theories of a Kansas forensic pathologist with whom he began corresponding in February. Chauvin is asking the judge who presided over his trial to throw out his conviction and order a new trial, or at least an evidentiary hearing.Floyd, who was Black, died on May 25, 2020 after Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on his neck for 9 1/2 minutes on the street outside a convenience store where Floyd tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. A bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.” Floyd’s death touched off protest...

The Georgia district attorney who charged Trump expects his trial to be underway over Election Day

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

By KATE BRUMBACK (Associated Press)ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia district attorney who charged former President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election said Tuesday that she expects his trial will be underway through Election Day next year and could possibly stretch past the inauguration in 2025.Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made the comments at an event sponsored by The Washington Post. Her remarks came shortly after Willis asked a judge for an emergency protective order to prevent evidence in the case from being leaked, just a day after news outlets reported on prosecutors’ video interviews with four co-defendants who have pleaded guilty in the case.Trump was indicted along with 18 others in Fulton County in August on charges they participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to keep the Republican incumbent in power after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump and the remaining defendants — including former New York Mayor R...

Andover teachers reach tentative contract deal with town after five-day strike

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

Andover teachers are heading back to school Wednesday and classes will resume after they reached a tentative contract agreement with the School Committee.The five-day strike that closed school for three days since last Friday came to an end around 5 p.m. Tuesday, the Andover Education Association and School Committee announced in separate posts.“We cannot begin to thank the Andover community enough for their support,” the union stated. “We cannot wait to see our students in school tomorrow!”The tentative agreement, according to the School Committee, “boosts contractual increases for teachers by 15.5% and for instructional assistants by 34%, each over four years.”Union leaders negotiated with the School Committee for more than 60 hours across five days, with sessions led by a state-appointed mediator.“We are pleased that students can get back into the classroom tomorrow morning to continue learning,” said Tracey Spruce, chair of the School Committee.  “With this deal, the administrat...

Blue Jays’ Chapman declines qualifying offer, stays on open market

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

Third baseman Matt Chapman has declined the Toronto Blue Jays’ qualifying offer and remains a free agent.Chapman was one of seven players who turned down $20.325-million qualifying offers from their former teams Tuesday.The Jays extended the offer on Nov. 6. Chapman had until Tuesday to accept it.Toronto will receive an additional selection in next year’s Major League Baseball draft in compensation if Chapman signs elsewhere.Chapman signed a two-year, $25-million contract with Toronto before the 2022 season after spending his first five Major League Baseball seasons in Oakland.He hit .234 with 44 home runs and 130 runs batted in over two seasons with the Jays and was named a Gold Glove Award winner this season.

US Army to overturn century-old convictions of 110 Black soldiers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. Army is overturning the convictions of 110 Black soldiers — 19 of whom were executed — for a mutiny at a Houston military camp a century ago, an effort to atone for imposing harsh punishments linked to Jim Crow-era racism.U.S. Army officials announced the historic reversal Monday during a ceremony posthumously honoring the regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers, who had been sent to Houston in 1917, during World War I, to guard a military training facility. Clashes arose between the regiment and white police officers and civilians, and 19 people were killed.“We cannot change the past; however, this decision provides the Army and the American people an opportunity to learn from this difficult moment in our history,” Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said in a statement.The South Texas College of Law first requested that the Army look into the cases in October 2020, and again in December 2021. The Army then received clemency petitions from retired gene...

B.C. man ordered to pay $450,000 over 2019 wildfire triggered by debris burn

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

VICTORIA — The B.C. Forest Appeals Commission says a man who lit a large debris pile on fire that eventually caused a wildfire should pay the provincial government nearly $450,000 for firefighting costs and lost timber resources.In an appeal decision released last week, the commission says Clarke Matthiesen tried to blame an arsonist for the blaze that investigators say started on his property west of Quesnel, B.C., in the province’s interior. The decision says Matthiesen lit the debris fire on a property he owns with his brother in February 2019, thinking snow around the blaze would work as a “fuel break.” But it says that more than two months later, Matthiesen and his brother came upon a grass fire nearby, which they couldn’t put out with shovels. It says Matthiesen then drove to a neighbouring property to report the fire, and the BC Wildfire Service responded that evening.The commission rejected Matthiesen’s claims that his neighbour’s grandson...

Suspicious mail prompts Kansas to evacuate secretary of state’s building

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The office of Kansas’ top elections official received suspicious mail Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of its building near the Statehouse for the rest of the day.The incident occurred less than a week after election offices in at least five states states received threatening mail, some containing the potentially dangerous opioid fentanyl. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, taking the lead in the case, did not provide further details about the mail sent to the Kansas secretary of state’s office.The KBI is working with the Kansas Highway Patrol, the state fire marshal’s office and the state Department of Health and Environment, spokesperson Melissa Underwood said in an emailed statement. She said authorities evacuated the building, which also houses the Kansas attorney general’s office, “out of an abundance of caution.”“The investigation is ongoing,” Underwood said, adding that it was the only such incident reported in Kansas so far.An of...

3 still critical a day after knife attack that shocked students at Louisiana Tech University

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:33 GMT

RUSTON, La. (AP) — Three women remained in critical condition Tuesday after what officials say was a random knife attack on a college campus in north Louisiana. The suspect in the case, Jacoby Johnson, was taken into custody soon after the Monday morning attack outside a recreation center at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. Johnson, a senior at the university, was being held on four charges of attempted second-degree murder. Neither the court clerk nor the district attorney’s office in Louisiana’s Lincoln Parish had information on whether Johnson had an attorney who could comment.Four people were wounded in Monday’s attack. Three were hospitalized in Shreveport. A fourth, Debby Hollimon of Ruston, was grazed by the attacker’s knife, according to The Ruston Daily Leader. She told the newspaper she heard screams and saw a man attacking another woman. “I just ran up screaming, ‘Get off her! Get away from her!’” Hollimon said. “He stands up and looks at me wi...