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Gun control bills bring heated testimony to Beacon Hill

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

Dozens of gun control measures under consideration by the state Legislature are plainly at odds with recent rulings by the Supreme Court and wouldn’t actually prevent gun violence or crime, firearms advocates told a legislative joint committee.However, some of the would-be gun laws might make Massachusetts safer and potentially save lives, if advanced to the full Legislature and given the governor’s signature, gun safety advocates told the same group of lawmakers.Through four hours of occasionally heated and emotional testimony during a hearing held Tuesday morning, the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security heard from both gun owners and victims of gun violence over 56 firearms-related bills, consideration of which comes just weeks after the state House passed an omnibus gun policy proposal and while the Senate considers a similar measure.“A majority of the bills have already been incorporated, in one fashion or another, into the omnibus gun bill t...

Cambridge ban on gas-powered leaf blowers could go into effect a year earlier than first proposed

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

Landscaping businesses in Cambridge may have to trade in their gas-powered leaf blowers for electric alternatives a year sooner than the City Council initially targeted, depending on a vote looming in December.The council’s Ordinance Committee voted unanimously on Tuesday to shorten the gradual phase-out of gas-powered leaf blowers for commercial and municipal uses to 2026 from 2027.Residents would be prohibited from using the lawn equipment starting in March 2025 under the request which the City Council is likely to vote on by the end of the year – the same timeline first proposed.Councilor Patricia Nolan, who has spearheaded the proposal on the Health and Environment Committee, highlighted how the 2025-26 timeframe is being followed in Arlington, Belmont and Lexington, nearby municipalities that have voted for bans on gas-powered leaf blowers.“If I’m a landscaping company I’m already going to have to service Lexington, Arlington and Belmont by 2026, so why wouldn’t I be able to do...

Celtics’ Kristaps Porzingis gives progress update on injured left calf

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis said Tuesday that he’s feeling good and making progress in his recovery from the left calf strain he suffered in last Friday’s loss to the Magic and emphasized that he has no big concerns about the injury.Porzingis left last Friday’s game during the third quarter and missed his second game since suffering the injury on Tuesday against the Bulls. He said an MRI on Saturday revealed that he had a “low-level, low grade strain,” which confirmed his belief that the injury wasn’t serious.“I knew it wasn’t anything, but just a confirmation that something of course happened,” Porzingis said. “I felt something a little bit. But that it was just gonna be a short recovery. That’s what I was hoping for, and that’s it. …“This is the NBA, you play every other day and some small things can happen like this. So no big worries, but just looking forward to getting back out there as soon as possible.”Porzingis suggested that he could get back on a court soon. Celtics...

An expanded deer hunt is coming to a Massachusetts park where the deer population has jumped

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

The state will be shutting down a park for an expanded deer hunt in a part of the Bay State where the deer population has ballooned in recent years.The Department of Conservation and Recreation will close Quabbin Park in western Massachusetts for the expanded two-day controlled deer hunt next week. DCR said it’s shutting down the park “in the interest of public safety” on Monday and Tuesday (Dec. 4 and 5).Two-day controlled hunting began in the Quabbin Reservation more than 30 years ago — with the goal of cutting the deer population in the area, and then population maintenance. An overpopulation of deer can negatively impact the long-term health of the forest and watershed.Then in 2019, DCR proposed expanding the hunt into Quabbin Park, where the deer population had jumped. As part of this program, hunters received permits in 2019 through a lottery process.But due to the COVID pandemic, plans for this expansion of the Quabbin hunt were put on hold. Meanwhile,...

Boston vandal caused more than $10,000 in damage to historic sites during alleged rampage

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

The rampage a Boston man went on overnight Saturday at historic and religious sites across the city that included damage to graves has left officials facing a $10,000-plus bill for repairs.A historic masonry company will start work on the Paul Revere monument at the Granary Burying Ground this week, with work expected to be completed by the end of next week, a city spokesperson told the Herald on Tuesday.The spokesperson expects the cost to fix the grave to be just under $10,000 which the city will cover with capital improvement funding. For now, the capstone and stone slab have been picked up and replaced on their respective bases while the monument’s three grave markers await repairs.Down the road on Tremont Street, damaged headstones in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground will need to wait longer to be repaired due to the cold temperatures, the spokesperson said. A stone conservator will reset them next spring when the “weather breaks,” with the cost estimated to be in the “several ...

SDSU to hire ex-Colorado offensive coordinator Sean Lewis as head coach, AP source says

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Sean Lewis, who was stripped of his play-calling duties as Colorado's offensive coordinator late in the season, is being hired as head coach at San Diego State, a person with knowledge of the situation said Tuesday.The person spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the hiring hasn't been made official. Lewis, who was head coach at Kent State from 2018-2022, is expected to be introduced at a news conference Wednesday, the person said.Lewis replaces Brady Hoke, who was allowed to finish the season after the school announced his retirement with two games to go. The Aztecs (4-8) finished tied for last in the Mountain West and played in front of thousands of empty seats in their new 35,000-seat stadium. Hoke had three seasons left on his contract when the school announced his retirement.The defensive-minded Hoke failed to develop potent offenses, even when the Aztecs won a school-record 12 games in 2021.Lewis was demoted into a co-offe...

Judge dismisses liberal watchdog’s claims that Wisconsin impeachment panel violated open meeting law

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge dismissed on Tuesday a liberal watchdog group’s claims that a panel researching the possible impeachment of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice violated the state’s open meeting laws.Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington wrote in his ruling that American Oversight filed its claims prematurely and should have given District Attorney Ismael Ozanne more time to decide whether to launch his own lawsuit. Remington allowed the group to continue seeking records from the panel, however.Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos asked former state Supreme Court justices David Prosser, Pat Roggensack and Jon Wilcox in September to advise on whether impeaching current Justice Janet Protasiewicz would be justified.Protasiewicz is a member of the court’s four-justice liberal majority. Republicans are furious with her after she declared on the campaign trail last year that the Legislature’s GOP-drawn district boundaries are “rigged.” The high cour...

US gas prices have fallen or remained steady for 10 weeks straight. Here’s why

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not just you. Across the U.S., prices at the pump have felt milder in recent months.Gas prices have fallen or remained steady since Sep. 19 — marking about a 70-day trajectory of decline, Andrew Gross, spokesperson for motor club AAA, said Tuesday.As of Tuesday, the national average for gas prices stood just below $3.25, according to AAA. That’s down 25 cents from a month ago and 30 cents less than this time last year. Experts point to a recent decline in oil prices and a seasonal dip in demand, as well as easing inflation.Each penny decline in the national average saves motorists close to $3.8 million, according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “If you amplify that times 30 cents, we’re talking about Americans that are spending hundreds of millions less on gasoline today than they were a year ago.”Despite the drop, the global energy market can be volatile and lower gas prices down the road aren’t promised. Here’...

Tortoise Frank the Tank, found wandering bok choy field, gets a new home in B.C.

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

VANCOUVER — Adoption requests came from as far away as New Zealand, but Frank the Tank, a 17-kilogram tortoise found wandering in a Richmond bok choy field last month, will be staying in British Columbia.Kahlee Demers, manager at the Maple Ridge Community Animal Centre, says the shelter received an “enormous amount” of emails from people seeking to adopt Frank.She says the sulcata tortoise was taken by ferry to his new home on Monday although his new family didn’t want to be identified for privacy reasons.Despite being surrounded by leafy greens, Frank was in poor shape when he was found in early October, suffering shell rot and respiratory problems due to being out in the cold. Demers says veterinarian Adrian Walton of Dewdney Animal Hospital worked to get Frank back in shape, with the tortoise gaining some weight and showing off his “great personality.”Walton said last month that sulcata tortoises are endangered in their native Africa, but can be bought as pets i...

Writer John Nichols, author of ‘The Milagro Beanfield War’ with a social justice streak, dies at 83

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:22 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Writer John Nichols, best known for his populist novel “The Milagro Beanfield War,” has died. He was 83.Nichols died Monday at home in Taos, New Mexico, amid declining health linked to a long-term heart condition, said daughter Tania Harris of Albuquerque.Nichols won early recognition with the 1965 publication of his offbeat love story “The Sterile Cuckoo,” later made into a movie starring Liza Minnelli. The coming-of-age book and subsequent movie were set amid private Northeastern colleges that were a familiar milieu to Nichols, who attended boarding school in Connecticut and private college in upstate New York.He moved in 1969 with his first wife from New York City to northern New Mexico, where he found inspiration for a trilogy of novels anchored in the success of “The Milagro Beanfield War.”That novel — about a fictional Hispanic agricultural community in the mountains of northern New Mexico, a scheme by business interests to usurp the town̵...