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Massachusetts State Police seize thousands of fireworks ahead of July Fourth: ‘Leave fireworks to the pros’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

The annual crackdown on fireworks purchasers ahead of the Fourth of July is well underway in the Bay State, as State Police have seized thousands of illegal fireworks and issued 10 summonses so far in June.After fireworks incidents jumped last year in Massachusetts, public safety officials are again urging residents to leave fireworks to the professionals this summer.“@MassStatePolice have seized 1000’s of illegal fireworks and issued 10 summonses so far this month,” the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services tweeted on Wednesday.“Fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts even if bought legally in another state,” the state agency added. “Don’t risk injury, fire, or a day in court: Leave fireworks to the pros.”After a record-setting number of fireworks-related fires were reported in 2020 and then a sharp decline in 2021, fireworks incidents in Massachusetts rebounded last year.Fireworks-related fires and explosions in Massachusetts skyr...

Live updates | Titan searchers face challenges with underwater mountains, water pressure, weather

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

Follow along for live updates on the submersible that vanished while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic. ____TITAN SEARCHERS FACE UNDERWATER CHALLENGES TO FIND SUBMERSIBLEUnderwater mountains and valleys. Deep-sea water pressure. Weather conditions. And a search area twice the size of Connecticut – in waters 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep – with few clues about the Titan’s location.The crews tasked with finding the Titan, which was reported overdue Sunday night, are facing all those challenges and more to locate the submersible amid the North Atlantic waters.While undersea search efforts are nothing new – a 2019 expedition found two lost Japanese aircraft carriers that went down in World War II’s historic Battle of Midway around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands – looking for the 22-foot-long (6.7-meter) carbon-fiber vessel amid the vast ocean is far more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack.Those Japanese aircraft carriers were exponentially larger than t...

Tennessee attorney general says seeking clinic’s transgender patient records part of fraud probe

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s top legal chief said Wednesday that Vanderbilt University Medical Center turning over medical records for transgender patients is part of a “run-of-the-mill fraud investigation” and argued that his office purposefully kept the probe private to avoid a “media circus.”“We understand patients are concerned that VUMC produced their records to this office, especially when those patients received abrupt notice without any context,” Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office said in a statement. “To reiterate, this investigation is directed solely at VUMC and related providers and not at patients or their families.”News of the investigation broke earlier this week when the hospital confirmed that it had been providing transgender patient records to the attorney general’s office. The attorney general’s office said this has happened since December 2022 and has maintained that the records are confidential. But the investigation has ...

Court exempts a Texas company from following anti-discrimination law protecting LGBTQ+ workers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

A federal agency cannot force a Texas-based conservative Christian business to comply with policies barring discrimination against LGBTQ+ employees or job applicants, a federal appeals court has ruled.The decision by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity cannot deny Braidwood Management an exemption from anti-discrimination policies designed to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act. Braidwood is entitled to the exemption under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, the ruling said.“Being forced to employ someone to represent the company who behaves in a manner directly violative of the company’s convictions is a substantial burden and inhibits the practice of Braidwood’s beliefs,” Judge Jerry Smith wrote for the panel of three 5th Circuit judges. Braidwood wants to make sure it is not required to hire or retain any employee who “engages homosexual or transgender conduct,...

PGA Tour will appear before a Senate panel investigating its deal with Saudi backers of LIV

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The PGA Tour said Wednesday that it would appear next month before a Senate subcommittee whose leader asked executives from the tour, Saudi golf interests and LIV Golf to testify as Congress investigates the business deal that upended the sport.Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., announced that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations would hold a hearing on July 11 to examine the agreement involving the PGA Tour, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and the European tour to pool commercial business and rights in a new company.“Our goal is to uncover the facts about what went into the PGA Tour’s deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund and what the Saudi takeover means for the future of this cherished American institution and our national interest,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “Americans deserve to know what the structure and governance of this new entity will be. Major actors in the deal are best positioned to provide this information, and they owe ...

Prosecutors urge 3-year prison sentence for former US congressman from Indiana

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A former Indiana congressman who once served as a House prosecutor at former President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment trial should spend three years in prison for committing insider trading while working as a consultant and lobbyist after his congressional career, prosecutors urged Wednesday.Steve Buyer, 64, of Noblesville, Indiana, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11 for his March conviction by a jury on four securities fraud charges. He served in Congress from 1993 to 2011.Prosecutors said in a Manhattan federal court submission that the Republican deserves a “substantial sentence of imprisonment” after committing his crimes despite considerable success that had enabled him to amass several million dollars and start a successful business.“As a former lawyer and member of Congress, he knew the law prohibited his conduct and he chose to break the law anyway to make even more money for himself,” they wrote. “Rather than engaging in fair and legitimate inves...

Thousands of residents in Oklahoma and Louisiana remain without power following weekend storms

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Thousands of residents in Oklahoma and Louisiana remained without electricity Wednesday as work crews continued to repair power lines damaged by weekend storms.In Tulsa, Oklahoma, less than 92,000 customers remained without power after three tornadoes northeast of the city caused extensive damage Sunday, including downed trees and hundreds of snapped utility poles.The three tornadoes were each rated EF1 with winds between 86 miles per hour (138 kilometers per hour) and 110 miles per hour (177 kilometers per hour ), National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Sellers said Wednesday.“There was a lot of wind damage, but most of the damage was straight line winds,” Sellers said.Thunderstorms that moved through the Tulsa area on Wednesday slowed down repair crews, Wayne Greene, a spokesperson for Public Service Company of Oklahoma, the state’s second largest electric utility provider, said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.“Our numbers actually bumped up a littl...

Plea for video as police say two killers of Sikh temple leader escaped through park

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

SURREY, B.C. — Homicide investigators in Surrey, B.C., said the killers of a Sikh temple leader likely escaped in a vehicle that had been waiting for at least an hour a few blocks away from the crime scene.Sgt. Timothy Pierotti said Wednesday that police are urging residents near Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara to check their vehicles’ dash cameras for possible video of either the suspects or the getaway car in the shooting death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.“Vehicles such as Teslas have excellent cameras that are capable of recording movements in their surrounding area, even if the vehicle is turned off and no one is inside the vehicle,” Pierotti said. “We believe that not only may the occupants of these vehicles have been witnesses to the homicide of Mr. Nijjar, but the vehicle itself may have recorded critical evidence that could help advance our investigation.”B.C.’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team describes the two suspects in the s...

King salmon season back on in Alaska after federal appeals court lets fishery open July 1

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday halted a lower court ruling that would have shut down southeast Alaska’s chinook salmon troll fishery for the summer to protect endangered orca whales that eat the fish.The ruling by a three-judge 9th Circuit Court panel means the summer chinook, or king, salmon season will start as usual next week for an industry that supports some 1,500 fishery workers in southeast Alaska.The opinion said the state and others who were part of the appeal established a sufficient likelihood that certain and substantial impacts of the lower court’s decision “outweigh the speculative environmental threats.”The ruling “recognized the absurdity of closing down a vital economic industry for an issue that is already being remedied by the federal government,” Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor said in a statement. “Thanks to the 9th Circuit, fishing season is on come July 1.” Last month, U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle ruled in favor ...

Critics becoming impatient with Mayor Johnson's approach towards crime prevention in Chicago

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:32 GMT

CHICAGO — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to play the long game trying to get at the root causes of crime, while some are growing impatient wanting answers about police staffing.Johnson spoke about his plans to curb crime in Chicago during a press conference Wednesday as the city enters its summer season."We're working collaboratively. It's a layered approach," Johnson said in response to Chicago’s interim police superintendent Fred Waller expressing concern about officer reduction while implementing the mayor's anti-crime strategy.Mayor Johnson favors a multi-tiered long-term crime fighting strategy, as he works to promote 200 more detectives, but he's not promised to fill vacancies."Everybody knows that police strategy, alone, is insufficient, it's a failure. And I don't know how you scramble to hire people - a process that takes 18 months. Do you really want to scramble to find police officers? I don't think we want to scramble to find anyone that requires the professional t...