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As the heat cranks up, Boston Public Schools will remain open on first day of year, officials say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

The scorching heat is disrupting the start of the year for multiple school districts across the region, but in Boston, officials say students will stay cool in the classroom.As the heat index value approaches 100 on Thursday, students will be returning to Boston Public Schools for the first time this year.“In general, when it’s hot, for all of us, it can be uncomfortable,” Superintendent Mary Skipper said Wednesday, “particularly in getting back and forth from school for our students. We’re going to make this as fun as possible for them.”Skipper expressed confidence that the first day will go smoothly, largely due to how much the district has invested in air conditioning over the past year. About $9.2 million of the district’s $400 million in federal virus relief funds has been pumped into installing air conditioning units across its buildings, according to figures.At the start of last year, just 20 schools had 916 cooling units, but those numbers have risen significantly. Roughly 7...

Battenfeld: Who would inherit the MAGA magic if Donald Trump gets derailed, plus other key 2024 questions

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

Could Donald Trump bestow the MAGA magic on Donald Jr.?The former president’s son has been a loyal pit bull for his father, serving as a key campaign surrogate and rousing up crowds.But what if the GOP needs a “break glass in case of emergency” candidate?This is just one of the key unanswered questions haunting the 2024 race.Will a third party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy or perhaps even Trump emerge to become a serious contender? Will Donald Trump team up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to run as a third party team?Will Joe Biden really make good on his promise to run for re-election, or is the 80-year-old president just posturing?If health or cognition problems prevent Biden from running again, who will emerge on the Democratic side to replace him? Michelle Obama is just one of the intriguing names that have surfaced in Democratic Party circles.And with the advent of more and more early ballots, mail in ballots, voter fraud, illegal ballots, non citizens voting, and millions of ma...

The Burning Man party is over. Now a massive cleanup begins

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The rain has passed, and the temple has burned. Now, as Burning Man slowly empties, it’s time to clean up.Burning Man organizers have three weeks to clean up any remnants of the makeshift city plopped across over four square miles (10 square kilometers) of the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada, but a summer storm that left tens of thousands stranded in ankle-deep mud could alter that timeframe. The annual gathering, which launched on a San Francisco beach in 1986, attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians and activists to the sprawling stretch of public land for a weeklong mix of wilderness camping and avant-garde performances. One of the principles of Burning Man is to leave no trace — an expectation that all attendees will pack out everything they brought to Black Rock City and clean out their camps before leaving. But in the aftermath of torrential rains that closed roads, jammed traffic and forced many to walk miles barefoot through the muck, the area is...

Shuswap wildfire ruin is revealed as B.C. faces ‘sleeping giant’ of drought

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

SCOTCH CREEK, B.C. — All that stands of the Scotch Creek — Lee Creek firehall in the British Columbia Interior’s Shuswap region is a set of blackened stairs leading to a pile of rubble.The ruins are a stark indication of the indiscriminate power of the Bush Creek East blaze that tore through the region about three weeks ago, with speed and ferocity that officials likened to a tornado.It destroyed 176 properties and damaged 50 others. Some of that destruction was on display during separate tours on Wednesday for the media and residents who lost their homes in the region.Derek Sutherland, director of the Columbia-Shuswap emergency operations centre, said the purpose of the residents’ tours was to give them “closure” so they can hopefully begin rebuilding. “It was burning whatever was in its path, including our firehall. Some places fared better than others, of course,” he said.But while the Bush Creek East fire is among more than 400 wildfires still burni...

Man convicted of killing woman in Saskatchewan arrested in B.C., parole suspended

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

VICTORIA — A man who brutally murdered an Indigenous woman in Saskatoon is back in custody and his parole has been suspended.Victoria police say Kenneth MacKay, who is 49, was arrested Friday but did not provide further details.MacKay was found guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of 21-year-old Crystal Paskemin in 2000.He received an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.The Parole Board of Canada approved MacKay for day parole in January and it was extended in July by another six months.The board’s decision notes the parole was granted against the advice of the Correctional Service of Canada.It says MacKay’s case-management team considered him a high risk for violent reoffending and wanted a more gradual release. “There continue to be concerns regarding power and control issues and possible issues with women,” says the decision.MacKay’s release conditions included returning to a residential facility on Vancouver Island every night and r...

Japan launches rocket carrying X-ray telescope to explore origins of universe, lunar lander

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander. The launch of the HII-A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was shown on live video by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.“We have a liftoff,” the narrator at JAXA said as the rocket flew up in a burst of smoke and flew over the Pacific. The rocket will put into orbit around Earth a satellite called the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, which will measure the speed and makeup of what lies between galaxies.That information helps in studying how celestial objects were formed, and hopefully can lead to solving the mystery of how the universe was created, JAXA says.In cooperation with NASA, JAXA will look at the strength of light at different wavelengths, the temperature of things in space and their shapes and brightness.David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Ri...

Alexander Payne makes ’em like they used to: Fall Movie Preview

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The great films of the 1970s have long loomed in the imagination of filmmakers raised during one of the most fertile periods of American movies. But Alexander Payne wanted to take it a step further.Payne’s latest film, “The Holdovers,” isn’t just set in 1970, it seeks to imbibe the humanistic spirit of films like “The Last Detail,”“Harold and Maude,” “The Landlord” and “Paper Moon” — all movies he screened for his cast and crew. “We were very fully making a ’70s movie,” Payne says, recently speaking by phone from his desk in Omaha, Nebraska.Payne, 62, shot “The Holdovers,” set at a New England boarding school, largely with filmmaking equipment and camera lenses from that period. He mixed it in mono. “We were trying to play the exercise of: We are in 1970 making this movie,” he says.“The Holdovers,” which Focus Features will release Oct. 27 and expand on Nov. 10, is Payne’s first film in six years and it’s one of his best. Payne, the filmmaker of “Election...

Freddie Mercury’s prized piano, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ draft are champions at auction

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Freddie Mercury ’s prized piano that he used to compose “Bohemian Rhapsody” and other hits by Queen sold for more than $2 million Wednesday as some of the late singer’s massive collection of flamboyant stage costumes, fine art and original lyrics were auctioned in a sale that broke records.Items connected to the operatic “Rhapsody,” the band’s most enduring hit, brought a premium with hand-written lyrics to the song selling for about 1.4 million pounds ($1.7 million) and a gold Cartier brooch saying “Queen number 1” given to each band member by their manager after the song topped the charts, selling for 165,000 pounds ($208,000).A Victorian-style silver snake bangle Mercury wore with an ivory satin catsuit in a video for the song — long before the days of MTV — set a record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a piece of jewelry owned by a rock star, Sotheby’s said.The bracelet went for 698,500 pounds ($881,000) — 100 times its estimated low price...

Grizzly bear blamed for fatal Montana mauling and Idaho attack is killed after breaking into a house

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. (AP) — A grizzly bear that fatally mauled a woman on a forest trail west of Yellowstone National Park in July and also attacked a person in Idaho three years ago was killed after it broke into a house near West Yellowstone over the weekend, Montana wildlife officials said Wednesday. Early Saturday, a homeowner reported that a bear with a cub had broken through a kitchen window and taken a container of dog food, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said in a statement.Later that day agency workers captured the cub and shot the 10-year-old female grizzly with authorization from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, because grizzly bears are protected under the Endangered Species Act.Through genetic analysis and other identifying factors, the bear was confirmed to have been involved in the July 22 fatal attack on Amie Adamson, 48, a former teacher from Kansas, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from West Yellowstone. Efforts to trap the bear at that time were unsuccessful....

Health agency probing Air Canada vomit incident

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:48 GMT

The outrage sparked by a passenger incident involving a vomit-smeared airplane seat reflects a broader frustration with flight operations in Canada, travel specialists say.Meanwhile, the country’s public health agency says it’s investigating the recent episode.On Tuesday, Air Canada said it apologized to two passengers who were escorted off the plane by security after protesting that their seats were soiled — and still damp — ahead of an Aug. 26 flight from Las Vegas to Montreal.“They clearly did not receive the standard of care to which they were entitled,” the airline said in a statement emailed to The Canadian Press. “Our operating procedures were not followed correctly in this instance.”The Public Health Agency of Canada said it is in contact with Air Canada. It cited its mandate to ensure that anything brought into the country on conveyances ranging from planes to trains does not risk transmission of illnesses that can be spread via contact w...