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Storms cause flooding in several communities across Mass.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

Severe weather swept through parts of Massachusetts Friday, causing flooding and briefly triggering a tornado warning for part of Worcester County. With storms still moving across the state around 8:30 p.m., several communities were already left dealing with flooded roads and other damage. In Deerfield, floodwaters hit several locations, slowing travel on some roads while completely washing out others. The shoulder of Route 5 in one spot in Deerfield was damaged with roughly 300 feet of a gas line “exposed and out of alignment,” according to MassDOT spokesperson Jacquelyn Goddard.Crews, Goddard said, would need to work to fix the line and reconstruct the roadway shoulder when the flood water recedes. MassDOT also reported flooding in communities including Greenfield and Leominster. One video shared with 7NEWS showed hail falling in Leominster Friday afternoon, while another video captured the moment lightning appeared to strike the ground in nearby Gardner.&...

It’s Been A While

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

For many cities and towns (Worcester included) this will be our first completely dry weekend since Memorial day Weekend!!I hear ya, Coach. Thankfully, I think we have turned the corner on are lengthy unsettled pattern dating all the way back to the first weekend in June and the dry days will outnumber the rainy days over the next 1-2 weeks. Check out the 7-day forecast…Saturday looks good. I do think we’ll have a few leftover clouds during the morning hours and some of those clouds could produce a brief shower along the immediate South Shore and Cape. For most other cities and towns, a mostly sunny day is on tap. Sunday will be dry for everyone with a sunny sky. Should be great for the beaches, pools, pickleball courts and golf courses!Luke Combs concert down at Gillette should be A-OK as this rainy pattern appears to finally be Going, Going, Gone!Have a great weekend!~JR

‘I’m all for it’: Aaron Bummer expands his role for the Chicago White, throwing multiple innings out of the bullpen

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

Aaron Bummer entered with two on and two out in the fourth inning against the Oakland Athletics on July 2.The Chicago White Sox led by three, trying to salvage the finale of the three-game series at Oakland Coliseum.The left-hander got Tony Kemp to ground out to second baseman Zach Remillard to end the threat.Bummer returned for the fifth, giving up a single and an RBI double before retiring the next three batters. He went back out to the mound for the sixth and had a 1-2-3 inning.The 2 1/3 innings in the 8-7 victory set a career high for Bummer. It was his first time pitching two innings since 2019.“It doesn’t really matter what inning, what kind of role, you’ve just got to go out there and do your job,” Bummer told the Tribune earlier this week in New York. “A lot of the guys are throwing the ball really well and (if) I put myself in a position to go out there as long as I can go out there and provide value by giving two innings or something like that...

Lucas: Healey hoping for a Miami miracle

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

Boston College football fans ought to be concerned over Gov. Maura Healey’s mocking attacks on Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida.That’s because her criticism of the Sunshine State is only providing coaches of the Florida State Seminoles and the University of Miami Hurricanes — two football powerhouses — with locker room material to use against us.When it comes to Florida, Massachusetts needs a win. It appears we can’t beat Florida in anything.Perhaps the Bay State needs a miracle, like Doug Flutie’s “Hail Mary” pass to Gerard Phelan that gave BC a miraculous last-second victory over Miami in the 1984 Orange Bowl.That win raised the spirits of millions of people. Something that no politician since JFK has been able to do.Football guru John Madden said of the height-challenged Flutie, a one-time New England Patriot, “Inch for inch, Flutie in his prime was the best quarterback of his generation.”But while there is a statue of Flutie, once a Natick resident, at Boston College he, like many ...

Red Sox Notebook: First-round pick Kyle Teel ‘hungry’ for MLB future after signing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

On Friday afternoon, a promising new member of the Red Sox organization got a taste of what his future holds.It only made him want for more.“I am so hungry to be out here one day,” Kyle Teel said as he stood by Fenway Park’s home dugout. “It’s finally coming true.”“I’m so excited to get going and ready to get to work.”The Red Sox selected Teel as the 14th overall pick in this year’s MLB Draft, and officially signed him on Friday; his $4 million bonus is about $660K under slot value.After getting the deal done, Teel took batting practice with the team while his family and agent, Scott Boras, looked on. At least one of his hits reached the top of the Green Monster, another landed deep in the visiting bullpen.That, too, was an exciting development for the young slugger. He’d played in a high school prospects exhibition game at Fenway in 2019, but said he wasn’t a home-run hitter “at all” back then.Boras...

Restaurants seek creative ways to stay competitive as spending on dining slows

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego’s dining scene is competitive, but a new restaurant in Little Italy is going in a different direction to catch the customers’ attention.“Decided to make it a little more elegant, but at the same time very affordable,” said Giovani Gargano, owner and manager at The Heights in Little Italy. The Heights is currently in its soft opening stage. The food and ambience might make people believe their check would be big here, but the owners are hoping to capture a consistent clientele.“Everybody kind of is afraid to spend that much money for dining, especially in this area where everybody likes to go out almost every night,” Gargano said.Gargano says the restaurant intentionally priced items about 20% below average for comparable spots.“We want them to feel comfortable to come back,” Gargano said. Jurassic Park experience opens in East Village Other restaurants are also starting to see they may have to work harder to keep business booming.“Anywhere between 8% to...

Former Spokesman-Review editor arrested and accused of paying girls for sexually explicit images

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former Washington state newspaper editor was arrested on allegations of paying girls in exchange for sexually explicit images.Steve Smith, 73, was executive editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane from 2002 to 2008. Washington State Patrol detectives arrested Smith Thursday on 10 counts of first-degree possession of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, KHQ reported.He declined a jail interview with The Spokesman-Review Thursday evening. At a hearing Friday, he was ordered held on $25,000 bond. The Associated Press was unable Friday evening to locate an attorney who could speak for Smith.An account in Smith’s name for a mobile cash payment service was linked to an investigation into children using social media to send sexually explicit photos of themselves in exchange for money sent to them via the app, according to court documents. The victims, 10-to-14-year-old girls, sent images to an Instagram account and received money throug...

A Nevada woman who hired a hitman using bitcoin to kill her ex-husband gets five years in prison

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada woman who admitted to hiring a hitman on the internet for $5,000 in bitcoin to kill her ex-husband “and make it look like an accident” was sentenced to five years in prison.Kristy Lynn Felkins, 38, of Fallon, Nevada, pleaded guilty in March to a charge of murder-for-hire as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that avoided trial, court records show.A U.S. District Court judge in California also ordered on Thursday that Felkins be released under supervision for three years after she serves her prison sentence.Felkins began communicating with someone in 2016 on a dark web hitman website that claimed to offer murder-for-hire services, according to her September 2020 indictment. Felkins wanted her ex-husband killed while he was traveling in Chico, California, the indictment said.Authorities described the website as a scam that simply took money from unsuspecting customers.In a statement admitting her guilt that was entered into the court record as part of h...

Tornado damage to Pfizer plant unlikely to cause major drug supply shortages, FDA says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Most of the destruction from a tornado that tore through eastern North Carolina Wednesday and struck a large Pfizer pharmaceutical plant affected its storage facility, rather than its medicine production areas, the company said Friday.The drugmaker’s ability to salvage production equipment and other essential materials could mitigate what experts feared would be a major blow to an already strained system as the United States grapples with existing drug shortages.“We do not expect there to be any immediate significant impacts on supply given the products are currently at hospitals and in the distribution system,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf said Friday.An EF3 tornado touched down Wednesday near Rocky Mount, ripping the roof off a Pfizer factory responsible for producing nearly 25% of the American pharmaceutical giant’s sterile injectable medicines used in U.S. hospitals, according to the drugmaker.Pfizer said Friday that a w...

Developer who paid $500,000 bribe to Los Angeles councilman sentenced to 6 years in federal prison

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:45 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A real estate developer was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for paying $500,000 in bribes to a Los Angeles city councilman for help with a downtown project.Dae Yong Lee, also known as “David Lee,” also was fined $750,000 and a company that he controlled was fined $1.5 million plus prosecution costs, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.Prosecutors said that in 2017, Lee bribed José Huizar and the councilman’s special assistant to help resolve a labor organization’s appeal that was blocking approval of a planned development that was to include more than 200 residences and some 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters) of commercial space.At the time, Huizar chaired the city’s powerful Planning and Land Use Management Committee.In 2017, Lee made three cash payments totaling $500,000 to Huizar’s assistant, George Esparza, prosecutors said.Last year, Lee and the company were convicted of bribery, honest services w...