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Lucas: Showdown on Beacon Hill

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

You don’t audit us, and we won’t audit you.That is what House Speaker Ron Mariano should or could be saying to Diana DiZoglio.DiZoglio is the 39-year-old new state auditor who has caused consternation at the State House — and particularly among the legislative leadership — with her vow to audit the Legislature, beginning with the 160-member House and ending with the 40-member Senate.Both branches are controlled by Democrats. DiZoglio also is a Democrat who served in both the House and Senate before being elected auditor in the last election.She promised to audit the Legislature during her campaign and is now planning to do so.Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka maintain that DiZoglio, under the three equal but separate branches of state government — the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive — does not have the authority to conduct such audits.DiZoglio believes she does.“Maybe she thinks she’s uber-powerful,” Mariano said. The Legislature, he and Spilka maint...

Boston gun violence concentrated in four neighborhoods

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

A weeklong workshop aimed at reducing gun violence in Boston concluded that most of the crimes were occurring among a small number of people in four neighborhoods, with primarily Black men harmed.The data, compiled by the Boston Police Department, show serious violence was highly concentrated in Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan and Roxbury from 2018 to 2022, according to a presentation provided by the city.Further, 84.6%, or roughly 115 of the city’s 136 homicide victims, and about 78%, or 49 of 63 homicide offenders from 2020-2022 were Black, with the majority of these crimes committed by or killing men in general.“We will not tolerate any neighborhood feeling like residents have to live in fear of violence or experience loss that ripples down, generation after generation,” Mayor Michelle Wu said at a Friday press conference in Roxbury. “We have the resources. We have the expertise. We just have to put it all together.”The data presented at this week’s Violence Reduction Center ...

All the important milestones to track during the 2023 Red Sox season

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

Baseball is a team sport, but watching players strive for and reach significant milestones can be as thrilling as the season itself.Fans probably don’t remember much about the 2015 Red Sox, who went 78-84 with a finish at the bottom of the division, but David Ortiz’s odyssey to the 500 Club is unforgettable.Rafael Devers has already spent years putting his name all over the pages of the franchise record books, and he’s still only 26 years old. The 2017 ALDS ended in disappointment, but he become the youngest player in MLB history to hit an inside-the-park home run in a postseason game. Amidst the unsatisfactory 2022 campaign, he set a Red Sox record for extra-base hits before turning 26.Of course, the overall, collective results matter. But why not appreciate the parts as well as their sum? Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters the world has ever known. Does the fact that he never won a ring change that? It shouldn’t.This is a team full of players on t...

Liberals pledge revamp of forced-labour bill, possible enforcement rules surprise MP

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is revamping its approach to modern-day slavery, promising new legislation that caught off guard the Liberal MP who has been steering a bill on forced labour through Parliament.“There is a limited lifespan to this Parliament,” Toronto MP John McKay said in an interview.McKay has been stickhandling Bill S-211, which would update Canada’s laws of forced labour and child labour in supply chains.The bill is nearing its final phase before becoming law as soon as this month. It would require Canadian firms and government departments to scrutinize supply chains, with the aim of protecting workers.Firms would have to check that none of their products or components are made in sweatshops employing children or people forced to work excessive hours for free or for paltry pay, and issue reports.The bill was first tabled in the upper chamber by Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne, whose office did not respond to an interview request.Miville-Dechêne has pr...

Budget watchdog troubled by spin around latest report on carbon pricing

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s Parliamentary budget officer said he is troubled by what he describes as the selective use of facts from his new financial analysis of carbon pricing. Yves Giroux said the report has to be put into context alongside the costs of all other climate policies, including doing nothing.“There will be costs no matter what we do,” Giroux said in an interview with The Canadian Press.Giroux opened a political firestorm last week with a new report which concluded carbon price rebates are worth more than the direct cost of the carbon price for 80 per cent of families. But he said when the carbon price’s economic impact on job growth and incomes is factored in, 80 per cent of families in most provinces might end up with less money.The Liberals, who campaigned successfully on carbon pricing in both 2019 and 2021, jumped on the first point to insist the strategy makes life more affordable.The Conservatives, who have campaigned heavily on scrapping carbon p...

Ask Amy: Retired teachers not fans of loan forgiveness

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

Dear Amy: I belong to a group of nine women who are all retired teachers of various ages. We have met monthly for 35 years.We started this group because, although we worked for the same school district, several moved to different schools, and this was a way for us to stay connected.In the past we have been respectful, loving, and supportive toward each other. Lately I have not been feeling the love, and I am devastated.At our last meeting I announced, very proudly, that my daughter (also an educator) received loan forgiveness of $52,000.My daughter has two master’s degrees and has been working with children for 20 years. She has paid promptly on her loans for 10 years now, and this debt forgiveness is truly a blessing.When I mentioned this news — my goodness, you would have thought I told them she’d robbed a bank!All but one person (who I had told earlier and was very supportive), expressed their opinions about the loan forgiveness program and how they were against their tax d...

Horoscopes April 8, 2023: Patricia Arquette, choose personal growth

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Taylor Kitsch, 42; Patricia Arquette, 55; Robin Wright, 57; John Schneider, 63.Robin Wright (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP) Happy Birthday: You have high expectations. Monitor what’s possible, and consider the best way to take advantage of an offer without taking on more than you can handle emotionally or financially. Set a budget you can afford and make it clear to anyone trying to talk you into something. Choose personal growth over boosting up someone else. Your numbers are 7, 18, 26, 28, 37, 42, 45.ARIES (March 21-April 19): Take nothing for granted. Do for yourself and be clear regarding what you are willing and able to do for others. Expand your interests, learn something new and refuse to let anyone talk you out of your hard-earned cash. Don’t share personal information. 2 starsTAURUS (April 20-May 20): Formulate a plan, share your strategy with people you want to help or know you can count on, and proceed. A change in the way...

Bridge: April 8, 2023

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

“Simple Saturday” columns focus on basic technique and logical thinking.It may be well to put all your eggs in one basket, then keep an eye on the basket. But if yours tends to leak, you may need an extra basket.Today’s North-South bid easily to 3NT. South’s jump to 2NT promised a balanced 18 to 20 points, and North had an easy raise. West led the deuce of spades. When East played low to prevent dummy’s king from becoming an entry, South’s queen won.DOWN ONESouth next led the jack and a second diamond to dummy’s king. When no ace appeared, he gave up on the diamonds and led a club to finesse with his jack, losing. He won only two tricks in each suit: down one.South’s play wasn’t eggsactly best. He should lead a diamond to dummy’s ten at Trick Two, then try a club to his eight. If West won with the nine or ten and, say, shifted to a heart, South could win and lead a diamond to dummy. He would be safe if a defender held A-x o...

Word Game: April 8, 2023

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

TODAY’S WORD — NEAREST (NEAREST: NEAR-est: At or within a short distance.)Average mark 40 wordsTime limit 60 minutesCan you find 58 or more words in NEAREST? The list will be published Monday.YESTERDAY’S WORD — SAINTLY sail saint salt salty sanity satin satiny silt silty slain slant slanty slat slay slit snail snit stain stay alit anti antsy inlay inly nail nastily nasty tail tansy tiny lain laity last lint linty liny list litanyTo purchase the Word Game book, visit WordGameBooks.com. Order it now for just $5 while supplies last!RULES OF THE GAME:1. Words must be of four or more letters.2. Words that acquire four letters by the addition of “s,” such as “bats” or “dies,” are not allowed.3. Additional words made by adding a “d” or an “s” may not be used. For example, if “bake” is used, “baked” or “bakes” are not allowed, but “bake” and “baking” are admissible.4. Proper nouns, slang words, or vulgar or sexually explicit words are not allowed.Contact Word Game cr...

Twitter Deploys Classic Musk Tactics to Hunt Down Leaker

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:51 GMT

Twitter last month submitted a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice to GitHub — a web service designed to host user-uploaded source code — demanding that certain content be taken down because it was allegedly “[p]roprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools.” Twitter subsequently filed a declaration in federal court supporting its request for a DMCA subpoena, the ostensible aim of which was “to identify the alleged infringer or infringers who posted Twitter’s source code on systems operated by GitHub without Twitter’s authorization.”However, Twitter appears to have revised its DMCA notice, essentially a claim of copyright infringement, the same day it was filed to request not only information about the uploader, but also “any related upload / download / access history (and any contact info, IP addresses, or other session info related to same), and any associated logs related to this repo or any forks thereof.” In other words, Twitter is now seeking infor...