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State of emergency declared in Leominster as flash flooding hits region

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

City officials declared a state of emergency in Leominster Monday night as heavy rains battered the region, also triggering a flash flood emergency for Leominster and the surrounding area. The flash flood emergency declared by the National Weather Service included Leominster, Fitchburg, Lunenburg, Princeton and Sterling as of around 11 p.m. A larger swath of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire was included under a series of flash flood warnings earlier in the evening.Rescues were underway in several spots Monday night and officials said they were in the process of rushing mutual aid from neighboring communities and state agencies into hard hit areas as rain continued to fall.“Do not venture out,” said Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella in a message on Facebook around 6:30 p.m. “It is not safe.” In a subsequent Facebook Live video, Mazzarella shared a view from a parking lot near the Leominster police station which he said had been flooded since around 4:30 p.m.“Every cr...

McCaughey: Trashing the Constitution just to get Trump

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

Innocent until proven guilty. That’s a fundamental right in America, at least until now.Anti-Trump groups determined to disqualify the leading Republican candidate for president are urging state election officials across the U.S. to remove Donald Trump from the ballot, claiming he’s an “insurrectionist.” They’re citing an arcane clause in the 14th Amendment, written after the Civil War, that disqualifies anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding public office.Here’s the hitch. Trump has never been convicted of insurrection, and none of his prosecutors — not Jack Smith nor Fani Willis — is charging him with insurrection. The House of Representatives impeached him, accusing him of insurrection, but he was acquitted. So, zero convictions, one acquittal.Even so, left-wing group Free Speech For People has sent letters to state election officials labeling Trump an insurrectionist and telling these officials ...

Editorial: Art-stunt activists stunned by lack of trust

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

Extinction Rebellion Boston is aghast that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum closed its doors ahead of a protest planned by the climate group late last week.As the Herald reported, museum director Peggy Fogelman claimed the protest “would put our community and collections at risk.”How dare the Gardner make that assumption, just because Extinction Rebellion has a track record of using priceless art as stunt props.Last October, two climate activists with Extinction Rebellion were arrested after gluing themselves to the glass covering of “Picasso’s Massacre in Korea.” According to reports, they stood next to a banner declaring “Climate Chaos = War and Famine.” The group tweeted that the act served to highlight the connection between climate breakdown and human suffering. This begs the question, “how, exactly?”In 2019, Extinction Rebellion protestors doused New York City’s famous charging bull statue with fake blood. Nothing says “save the planet” like fake blo...

Kramer: Tom Brady’s legacy – never give up

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

Eventually, five of the six Super Bowl Championships won by Tom Brady as quarterback of the Patriots will be statistical accomplishments prominently displayed at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio and the Patriots Hall of Fame in Foxboro. The sixth championship, however will remain as much more than a legacy of statistics. The 68,000 in attendance at his tribute this Sunday and millions more who watched are acutely aware that there is one victory that best defines him.In February 2017, when the Patriots were trailing Atlanta 28-3 in the Super Bowl, Brady went up and down the sidelines, screaming encouragement and firing up his teammates. Many fans  who had been watching on television had already given up due to such a large deficit. Not Brady.Over the next quarter, Brady sacked Atlanta like General William Tecumseh Sherman did  for the Union  in 1864 and his leadership that day set an example that still sticks.“Never Give Up.”A card was given to those who attended the rai...

Leonardo, up close & personal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

It’s not simply that Leonardo da Vinci is the star and subject of Jim Capobianco’s “The Inventor.” What stands out is its status as that rare animated feature loaded with history.“Inventor,” in theaters only Friday, begins as the Renaissance titan opts to leave Italy and the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Pope Leo X for the more intellectually open French court where his experiments will not get him arrested.The year is 1516 and England’s Stephen Fry voices the celebrated polymath, a scientist, sculptor, painter and engineer.“This started really from the character itself of Leonardo da Vinci, more than how I would tell it,” Capobianco, 54, the writer and co-director, said in a Zoom interview. “I had made a short film and in that I was trying to depict him as a real person. Not just the genius or the wacky wizard we usually get.“In researching him I would find little notes of his — about groceries he had to pick up that day or troubles he was having with his apprentices. Th...

Dear Abby; Hubby wants another child, despite wife’s PPD

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

Dear Abby: When my grandchild was born five years ago, my daughter suffered from severe postpartum depression and had to be hospitalized. Her father, who is not in good health, and I lived seven hours away and traveled as often as we could to help out. At one point my son-in-law called and told me she was catatonic and not responding to him. It was terrifying.Now, these few years later, her husband is pressuring my daughter to have another child. My daughter is understandably afraid, and I’m afraid for her. She thinks her husband has forgotten what they went through. I know it’s not my decision to make, but she’s my daughter, and I worry about her well-being. She knows how I feel but tells me she feels caught between my feelings and those of her husband. She told me I won’t always be around and she will have to deal with his resentment.I don’t understand why he would want my daughter to risk another bout of the PPD she suffered the first time. I donR...

Woman arrested on suspicion of mailing drug-laced letter to county jail

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A North County woman suspected of mailing a drug-laced letter to a county jail was arrested last week, authorities said.On Aug. 23, the Sheriff's Mail Processing Center intercepted a letter that had the appearance of being soaked in an unknown liquid that had already dried, Sgt. Aaron Brooke with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department said in a news release Monday.The letter, which was intended for an individual in a detention facility, tested positive for liquid methamphetamine and then seized as evidence, per law enforcement. How to see wolves in San Diego County this fall Misty Vantine, 45, was arrested Friday in the parking lot of the George Bailey Detention Facility in Otay Mesa after methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia was found inside of her vehicle, according to the sheriff's department. Vantine was booked into the Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility on suspicion of bringing drugs into a jail, trying to sell a controlled substance to an individua...

Aerosmith postpones shows after frontman Steven Tyler suffers vocal cord damage

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Aerosmith has postponed a half-dozen dates on their farewell tour because frontman Steven Tyler injured his vocal cords during a performance, Tyler announced Monday.“I’m heartbroken to say I have received strict doctor’s orders not to sing for the next thirty days,” Tyler, 75, posted on Instagram. “I sustained vocal cord damage during Saturday’s show that led to subsequent bleeding. We’ll need to postpone a few dates so that we can come back and give you the performance you deserve.” The band known for “Dream On,” “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” began its “Peace Out” farewell tour on Sept. 2 with a tour-hour set in Philadelphia. Last Saturday’s show was held on New York’s Long Island.The 40-date run was to include a stop in the band’s hometown of Boston on New Year’s Eve with the final show originally scheduled for Jan. 26 in Montreal.The new dates are Jan. 29 in Detroit; Feb. 14 in Chicago; Feb. 17 in Washington D.C., Feb. 21 in Toron...

Atlanta, New Orleans, San Francisco areas gain people after correction of errors

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

Some of the most high-profile urban areas in the U.S. gained population on Tuesday. But it’s not because of a sudden flood of moving trucks into Atlanta, New Orleans and San Francisco.Rather, the U.S. Census Bureau corrected errors made in the population and housing counts of urban areas that were officially released in December, according to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday.The Atlanta urban area had its population adjusted to 5.1 million residents from 4.9 million residents. An additional 100,853 residents living in more than 37,000 homes had been mistakenly assigned to the Gainesville, Georgia, urban area.The population of the New Orleans urban area grew to 963,212 residents from 914,531. The additional 48,681 residents had been mistakenly assigned to the Laplace-Lutcher-Gramercy, Louisiana, urban area, which was supposed to be deleted following a merger with the New Orleans urban area.The San Francisco-Oakland urban area’s population was corrected to 3.5 m...

Cash bail disproportionately impacts communities of color. Illinois is the first state to abolish it

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:24 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — It took four and a half months for Shannon Ross’ life to unravel. Ross, who describes himself as Indigenous and a person of color, was arrested in Chicago in October 2019 on weapons charges and ultimately found not guilty. But that came only after he spent months in jail awaiting trial, lost his home, car, job and countless moments with his children.Ross couldn’t afford the $75,000 bond set during a hearing that he recalls lasted only a few minutes.“I had to lose everything to prove that I wasn’t guilty,” he told The Associated Press. “It messes with you mentally, psychologically. It messes up relationships; it messes up the time you put in to build your life up.”But Illinois is about to overhaul the system that upended Ross’ life. Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act, which abolishes cash bail as a condition of pretrial release, will take effect Sept. 18, making Illinois the first state to end cash bail and a testing ground for whether — and how — it works on ...