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‘The rats are going to hate this’: Boston councilors back rodent-killing office

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

“The rats are going to hate this,” City Councilor Gabriela Coletta quipped on Wednesday about a proposal to create a Boston office dedicated to their extermination.Coletta made her remarks at a City Council meeting, where Council President Ed Flynn’s proposal for an office of pest control headed by a “rat czar” drew widespread support from his colleagues.Boston’s operation would be modeled after the pest-control operation in New York City, which appointed its first rat czar earlier this month, Flynn said. He is planning to take a train there within the next 30 days to learn about rodent-killing methods.“Having a dedicated position and office on pest control would allow us to better address the issue, allow for a more streamlined and coordinated process in reducing pests,” Flynn said.Today, pest control is handled by a number of city departments, including inspectional services, water and sewer, and public works, he said.A Boston rat czar would have similar responsibilities to ...

Tatis breaks out in dance while Cubs crowd chants, 'he's on steroids'

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Fernando Tatis Jr. showed off his expressive personality to Chicago Cubs fans Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.It happened during the fifth inning following his impressive sliding catch in the outfield, when the home crowd started chanting "He's on steroids."Tatis, who returned last week after an 80-game performance-enhancing drug suspension on Aug. 12, took the heckling pretty well by breaking out in dance and pointing to the crowd. ‘The big warm up’ begins in San Diego Over the weekend, Tatis recorded his first home run in his third game back with the Padres since being suspended.The star hitter blamed his positive test for Clostebol on a cream he said he had used for ringworm, which sent shockwaves through the team's facility and fanbase.Prior to his PED suspension, Tatis missed all of last season after breaking his left wrist in his native Dominican Republic.

Why China is trying to mediate in Russia’s war with Ukraine

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping said Wednesday that Beijing will send an envoy to Ukraine to discuss a possible “political settlement” to Russia’s war with the country.Beijing has previously avoided involvement in conflicts between other countries but appears to be trying to assert itself as a global diplomatic force after arranging talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March that led them to restore diplomatic relations after a seven-year break.Xi told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call that a Chinese envoy, a former Chinese ambassador to Russia, would visit Ukraine and “other countries” to discuss a possible political settlement, according to a government statement.It made no mention of Russia or last year’s invasion of Ukraine and didn’t indicate whether the Chinese envoy might visit Moscow.The Xi-Zelenskyy phone call was long anticipated after Beijing said it wanted to serve as a mediator in the war.WHY DOES THIS MATTER?China is the only majo...

Minister didn’t authorize fake travel docs for Afghans, says he didn’t check email

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

OTTAWA — International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan told his fellow MPs Wednesday he did not know a Canadian senator was handing out unauthorized travel documents to hundreds of Afghans during the rise of the Taliban in 2021 because he wasn’t checking his email at the time. Sen. Marilou McPhedran told the House immigration committee last week that Sajjan’s then-chief of staff, George Young, had given her a template for a “visa facilitation letter” that people could use to clear checkpoints on their way to the airport to escape the country. She shared that template with several “trusted advocates,” including the chief human rights officer with FIFA and a former Canadian Olympian.McPhedran said she doesn’t know how many letters were handed out, but believes it was about 640.Sajjan was defence minister at the time and McPhedran said she copied him and several other ministers on many emails about her activities.Sajjan told the committee he...

Rapper MoneySign Suede dies in California prison stabbing

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

SOLEDAD, Calif. (AP) — Rapper MoneySign Suede has died after he was stabbed in a shower at a California prison, authorities and his attorney said.Jaime Brugada Valdez, 22, of Huntington Park, was found in the shower area of the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.Despite life-saving efforts, he died at a prison medical facility.The agency didn’t detail his injuries but said his death was being investigated as a homicide.“They said it was a stabbing to the neck,” Valdez’s attorney, Nicholas Rosenberg, told the Los Angeles Times.Suede signed to Atlantic Records in 2021, and released his most recent album “Parkside Baby” last September, the Times said.The Monterey County prison houses more than 4,000 minimum- and medium-security inmates.Valdez was sent there after being sentenced in Riverside County last December to serve two years and eight months...

School board wants workers comp for teacher shot by boy, 6

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The Virginia school district where a 6-year-old shot his teacher argues that her injuries fall under the state’s workers compensation act and cannot be addressed through her $40 million lawsuit, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Abigail Zwerner was “clearly injured while at work, at her place of employment, by a student in the classroom,” the Newport News School Board stated in response to her lawsuit, which it wants dismissed. The school board also rejected Zwerner’s claim that she could reasonably expect to work with young children who pose no danger, pointing to numerous incidents of violence against teachers across the U.S. and in Newport News. “While in an ideal world, young children would not pose any danger to others, including their teachers, this is sadly not reality,” the filing stated.Zwerner, 25, was shot in the hand and chest on Jan. 6 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary. She spent...

Alabama judge: No bond for suspects in Sweet 16 shooting

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

DADEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday denied bond for five suspects charged with reckless murder in connection with a shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party that killed four people and injured dozens in Alabama, according to court records and state investigators. Tallapoosa County District Judge Clayton Turner ordered Wilson LaMar Hill Jr., 20, of Auburn; Johnny Letron Brown, 20, of Tuskegee; and Willie George Brown Jr., 19, also of Auburn, to be held without bond. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said that the judge also denied bond for two juvenile suspects. The state agency previously identified the pair as Tyreese “Ty Reik” McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, both of Tuskegee. A sixth suspect, a 15-year-old from Tuskegee, is awaiting a hearing, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said. The six are each charged with four counts of reckless murder in connection with the April 15 shooting in Dadeville that killed four people and injured 32 others. Two Dadeville High Sc...

Mexico’s president admits he briefly fainted due to COVID-19

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president acknowledged Wednesday he did “briefly faint” over the weekend before he was diagnosed with COVID-19, something his spokesman had previously denied. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said his doctors had been concerned enough to administer a liter of rehydration fluids. He said in a videotaped chat from the National Palace in Mexico City — where he lives and is isolating — that doctors wanted to fly him back to the capital in a stretcher.López Obrador had been on a working tour of the Yucatan peninsula Sunday when he tested positive for the coronavirus, his third bout of COVID-19.But he wrote in his social media accounts Sunday that “it isn’t serious.”Reports in the local press that day said López Obrador had felt faint Sunday morning and had to cancel his tour, something his presidential spokesman denied at the time.But on Wednesday, the president acknowledged that it “had become complicated … I had a crisis, because my blood pressure...

B.C. coroner’s inquest hears updated toxicology results for Myles Gray

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

BURNABY, B.C. — An initial drug screening report suggested Myles Gray had a natural psychoactive compound in his system when he died, but followup testing revealed a concentration that didn’t meet the threshold for detection, a forensic toxicologist told the British Columbia coroner’s inquest into the 33-year-old’s death.Aaron Shapiro testified that he reviewed the original toxicology report and changed the finding for mitragynine, an extract from an Asian plant known as kratom.“What this means is that the drug was either not present in the sample, or it means that the drug was present at a concentration that was below our instruments’ ability to detect it,” said Shapiro, testifying as an expert witness.“Unfortunately I can’t tell the difference between those two scenarios.”Gray died in August 2015, shortly after a beating by several Vancouver police officers that left him with injuries including a fractured eye socket, nose and ...

LL Cool J, first tour in 30 years, to stop in Chicago

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:36:00 GMT

CHICAGO -- "Ladies Love Cool James" will be hitting the road to tour for the first time in 30 years.LL Cool J will be stopping in Chicago for his "The F.O.R.C.E Live" tour at the United Center on Sunday, August 13.LL Cool J, more recently known for his acting, was one of the first hip-hop artists to achieve commercial success after his 1985 hit "I Need A Beat" from his debut album "Radio." But, his fourth studio album "Mama Said Knock You Out" in 1990 cemented his place in the hip-hop history books. Chicago & House Music: A relationship over four decades in the making The two-time Grammy Award winning hip-hop legend will have quiet the support during "The F.O.R.C.E Live" tour.Three-time Grammy Award winning supergroup, The Roots, will be embarking on the summer tour with LL Cool J. The Philadelphia-native band have been around for over 35 years and continue to redefine their style with hits like "The Seed (2.0)," "What They Do," and their Grammy Award winning single "You Got M...