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Multiple people rescued from burning building in Winthrop 

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

Multiple people were rescued Friday as flames burned through part of a building in Winthrop, officials said. In all, officials said four people were taken to hospitals after crews used ladders to get people to safety. The conditions of the people who were rescued were unknown as of Friday afternoon. Deputy Fire Chief Stephen Calandra said the fire started in a third floor apartment before spreading to the fourth floor of the building. Cell phone video showed the flames burning, sending smoke rising into the air. Elsewhere, pieces of insulation ended up stuck in nearby trees after the fire response. Calandra said the building had no sprinkler system inside, as it is an old building. Officials said 115 people live in the building. All the residents were accounted for as of Friday afternoon, though some pets were still missing. “I’m just so upset,” resident Debbie Pilchar said. “I don’t know if my animals are dead or alive. I don’t know if they’re goi...

MBTA announces schedule for replacing Blue Line trains with buses overnight

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

Shuttle buses will replace train service on the entire Blue Line on several nights beginning next week, the MBTA announced on Friday. The diversion will be in place beginning at 8 p.m. between April 24 and April 27. The diversion will run again beginning at 8 p.m. between May 1 and 4. The T said the work aims to make way for track work in spots along the Blue Line as it works to lift slow zones across its lines. The Blue Line currently has speed restrictions in place across 44% of its tracks. Shuttle buses will run during upcoming diversions between Government Center and Wonderland stations, with no shuttle service to Bowdoin station. The T said it is prioritizing this upcoming work to help boost the Blue Line’s ability to carry riders during a planned two-month closure of the Sumner Tunnel this summer.  Officials previously discussed starting work during upcoming diversions at 7 p.m. In their announcement on Friday, the T said it opted to push the start tim...

Avian Flu detected in dead birds in Swansea

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

Avian flu has been detected in a series of wild birds found dead in Swansea, officials said on Thursday. Town officials shared the results of testing a matter of weeks after they announced a health investigation into the deaths of a large number of geese and swans along the Cole River in town. Avian flu, known as bird flu, is very contagious among birds and can be fatal. While detected in local birds, officials said there had been no reports as of Thursday of bird flu in humans or domestic livestock in Swansea or Bristol County. Officials said they started monitoring the recent cluster of bird deaths in March. The initial cluster, officials said, impacted nine swans. Twenty four swans and one goose have now died in Swansea since March.Officials said six swans and the goose were tested, with each of them testing positive for bird flu. In a statement, Swansea Board of Selectmen Chairman Christopher Carreiro said the town “will continue to work with our state and fe...

Are you there God? It’s me, Dwight. ‘Soul Boom’ is Rainn Wilson’s new book about spirituality.

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

Christopher Borrelli | Chicago TribuneRainn Wilson, former son of Wilmette and security guard at the Baha’i House of Worship on Sheridan Road, New Trier High School graduate, best known as Dwight Schrute on “The Office,” can bet what you’re thinking. He can see the eye rolls from California. He begins his new book expecting some skepticism: Why, in the name of Scranton, should you read a book by Rainn Wilson on the importance of spirituality in contemporary life?As celebrity left turns go, it’s not Bruce Willis playing harmonica, or Gal Gadot trying to raise the spirits of mankind by singing “Imagine” on YouTube. But it does stop one short.As does this:By the time you’ve finished reading “Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution,” Wilson sheds all hesitations and proposes nothing less the fundamentals of a new faith.As far as I know, not even James Franco planted the roots of an entire religion.That’s not to suggest Wilson is a dabbler on the topic of spirituality. “Soul Boom” ...

Union, fed sign deal to staff military heating plants after shutdowns during strike

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

OTTAWA — The Defence Department says the government has reached a deal with striking workers to get heating plants at several military bases running again.The Union of National Defence Employees is part of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and its members have been on strike since Wednesday.National president June Winger says the government failed to consider heating and wastewater plant workers as essential during the strike, leading to a shortage of staff.Winger says central heating plants at bases in Petawawa, Ont., Winnipeg and Halifax shut down, as did the wastewater plant in Winnipeg. There was concern the heating plant at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., may also stop running due to a lack of staff.A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence says the Treasury Board and union have now signed an agreement to add more essential staff to heating plants across the country.Winger says that while heating plants are shut down, bases will lose everything from c...

Measuring Canada’s defence commitment in terms of dollars a ‘bad mistake’: ambassador

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

CLEVELAND — It’s an all-too-common “bad mistake” to judge Canada’s commitment to global military security solely on the basis of how much money it spends on defence, President Joe Biden’s envoy to Ottawa said Friday. David Cohen refused to comment on a Washington Post report this week that said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had privately told NATO officials Canada would never hit the military alliance’s spending target of two per cent of GDP.But he had a lot to say about whether Canada deserves its long-standing reputation as miserly when it comes to devoting resources to the Canadian Armed Forces. “I think it would be a bad mistake — and I frankly think that too many people are making this mistake … that somehow we need to assess Canada’s commitment to defence by one metric,” Cohen said. “I don’t think that’s right.” Cohen was the keynote speaker Friday among several past and present U.S. ambassadors, tra...

Stock market today: Stocks close quiet week with small gains

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

Stocks capped a listless day of trading Friday with slight gains for the major stock indexes, closing out a quiet week on Wall Street highlighted by a batch of mostly mixed corporate earnings reports.The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq composite all gained 0.1% after drifting between small gains and losses for most of the day. The indexes each posted a slight loss for the week.Health care companies and a range of consumer product makers gained ground, tempering losses in banks, technology stocks and elsewhere. Truist Financial and KeyCorp, two of the larger regional banks, were among the biggest decliners in the S&P 500. Truist fell 6% and KeyCorp ended 3.7% lower.Bond yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates and other loans, rose to 3.56% from 3.54% late Thursday.Trading was muted as investors focused on the latest corporate earnings reports and forecasts in a bid to get a better sense of how companie...

Swiss billionaire’s fund helped push against ‘dark money’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

A fund controlled by a Swiss billionaire who has steered tens of millions of dollars to liberal causes also donated as much as $50,000 to the nonpartisan group Common Cause to advocate for a federal ban on donations like his.David Vance, a spokesman for Common Cause, which advocates for limiting big money in politics, confirmed that the group received a donation from the Berger Action Fund, founded by Hansjörg Wyss. The fund has enabled Wyss, who lives in Wyoming but remains a Swiss citizen, to donate enormous amounts of money to liberal causes without running afoul of the United States’ ban on foreign citizens contributing to political campaigns.Vance said the donation last year was between $25,000 and $50,000, adding that Common Cause normally reports the range of donations rather than precise dollar amounts. That’s a small fraction of the nearly $28 million in grants Common Cause reported receiving in 2022.The grant also pales in comparison to Berger’s overall c...

Mississippi OKs more state policing in mostly Black city

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s Republican governor signed a bill on Friday to expand the territory of a state-run police department inside the majority-Black capital city of Jackson, and the new law is expected to face a court challenge from the NAACP. The legislation was passed by a majority-white and Republican-controlled state House and Senate. Jackson is governed by Democrats and about 83% of residents are Black, the largest percentage of any major U.S. city.NAACP national president Derrick Johnson, who lives in Jackson, said the law would treat Black people as “second-class citizens” by stomping on rights of local self-government. He said at a community meeting on April 6 in Jackson that the NAACP intends to sue the state.“They’re only imposing this on the city of Jackson,” Johnson said. “No other jurisdiction in the state of Mississippi will have this type of oversight and taking of local authority. That is a direct violation of equal protection.”Gov. Tate Ree...

Black bear attacks 74-year-old woman in Connecticut

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:32:26 GMT

A 74-year-old Connecticut woman suffered bites to her arms and legs Friday when she was attacked by a black bear while out walking her dog on a leash in the Hartford suburb of Avon, state environmental officials said. The woman was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that weren’t life-threatening, officials said.The 12-year-old female bear was located a short time later by authorities, who killed the animal, which will be tested for rabies. The bear had been tagged as part of the state’s bear tracking program.This was the first bear-on-human attack this year in the state. There were two last year, including one in October in which a 10-year-old boy in Morris was mauled in a backyard. Jenny Dickson, the director of the wildlife division of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said the bear was in the area with three yearling cubs, but it is unclear why it attacked.“It could have been just the general reaction bears have to dogs, whether they’r...