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No school Friday at Winter Hill Community School in Somerville after concrete falls from ceiling

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

The Winter Hill Community Innovation School in Somerville will be closed Friday after a small section of concrete fell into a stairwell inside the building, school and city officials said. Officials said the concrete fell outside school operating hours, while the school was unoccupied. The stairwell was later closed to students and staff while a structural engineer was brought in and while city Department of Public Works staff responded, according to officials. Officials said DPW crews had “conducted minor repairs” and had been monitoring the building’s interior as of Thursday night. The planned closure on Friday now comes “out of an abundance of caution,” according to officials, to let engineers “conduct a more thorough review of the building.”In a message signed by Somerville’s Interim Superintendent of Schools Jeff Curley, Mayor Katjana Ballantyne and school principal Courtney Gosselin, officials said they are working on a plan to temporarily relocate classroo...

Summer Heat & Storms To Chilly Air

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

High heat made it in for many locations away from the coastline yesterday as inland temps soared into the lower 90s. While it was cooler at the coast, temps were still well into the 70s and 80s,allowing for a great beach day overall. Today, temps will be similar, 80s near the coast, low 90s inland. The difference today, more clouds build and scattered showers and storms break out this afternoon. After noon, scattered storms start to break out across the interior. Those storms will be most numerous inland early to mid afternoon. The risk for a shower or thunderstorm east of I-95 is highest late afternoon/early this evening. Widespread severe weather is not expected, although one or two storms could produce strong wind gusts and small hail. Localized downpours and lightning will generally be the main risks with storms. The steering winds that guide these storms are light, so slow moving downpours could produce localized street flooding. As a cold front swings through this evening, sca...

US jobs report for May could point to slower hiring as Fed rate hikes cool demand for workers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s surprisingly resilient job market may have delivered yet another month of solid hiring and pay gains in May, if economists’ forecasts prove to be correct. Still, some signs of cooling could emerge in the government report being released Friday.Analysts have estimated that hiring slowed to a still-healthy pace of 190,000 added jobs last month, according to a survey by the data provider FactSet. That would mark a decline from the robust 253,000 jobs that were gained in April and would fall below the average for the previous three months of about 220,000. The unemployment rate is projected to rise slightly to 3.5% from a five-decade low of 3.4%.Companies have steadily slowed hiring since January, when the three-month average pace of gains was an unusually strong 330,000.Federal Reserve officials would welcome a more modest rate of job growth. The central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate 10 times in 14 months in an a...

Howie Carr: Why is the GOP race a three-ring circus?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

Why are so many Republican has-beens, also-rans and never-weres jumping into the presidential primary race?It beats working.That’s my theory anyway. Just consider the latest losers who are parachuting into the fight. See if you can detect a pattern here.Next week, it’s former Vice President Mike Pence, who used to be a radio talk-show host in Indiana.Also next week, former NJ Gov. Chris Christie will be waddling into the field. In 2017, he failed a try-out to become a sports radio talk-show host in New York.Already running is Larry Elder, who used to be a radio talk-show host in Los Angeles.Two key words here: “radio” and “former.” As the old political joke goes, the job needs the man and the man needs a job.Politicians aren’t supposed to have problems getting jobs. Democrat politicians anyway.Just yesterday, wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Democrat party came up with new jobs for two of their loyal card-carrying fellow travelers. Both recently retired from elective politics due to...

Orioles’ 2023 attendance up 24% compared with last year at same point; MLB attendance up 6%

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

Michele and Dave Cookson’s first date was almost an Orioles game. He asked her out to one — but she opted to go to a Coldplay concert instead.Eighteen years later, their umpteen-hundredth date was, however, an Orioles game last week, and there are more on the way. The season ticket-holding couple from Woodberry has attended over 250 games together and they are now visiting Camden Yards more than they did during the team’s recent rebuild.They attended about 15 games a year during the Orioles’ down seasons, but now — with the team on the other side of a long rebuild — that figure has already jumped to 30. The Orioles last reached the playoffs in 2016.“It was painful, some of those rebuild years, to stay here and watch the games,” Michele said last week, donning recently acquired City Connect gear.That hasn’t been the case this season as Baltimore (35-21), despite a listless homestand this past week, currently has the third-best rec...

Cape Cod shark documentary ‘After The Bite’ will stream on HBO Max this summer: ‘We can find ways to coexist’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

A documentary that explores the new normal of great whites sharks patrolling Cape Cod’s shallow waters as they hunt for seals, and the fallout from a young man being killed by an apex predator at a popular local beach, is coming to HBO Max this summer.Award-winning filmmaker Ivy Meeropol recently spoke to the Herald about her documentary, “After The Bite,” which dives into how the Cape’s coastal community is confronting dramatic changes to the marine environment and way of life.The explosion of the seal population along the Cape due to federal protections has sparked the phenomenon of great white sharks feasting on seals every summer and fall. As a result, there have been some shark and human encounters, including in 2018 when Arthur Medici was killed by a shark.During the years before that fatal shark bite, Meeropol like others had started to notice more seals in the area, and everyone was frequently talking about seals and sharks.“Then when Arthur Med...

Trump, DeSantis jab at each other on campaign trail in 1st dueling appearances as 2024 candidates

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

GRIMES, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of his chief rival Ron DeSantis on Thursday, jumping immediately on remarks by the Florida governor on the campaign trail to try to highlight his own strength as the leading GOP presidential candidate.Trump, appearing in Iowa as DeSantis campaigned in New Hampshire, made a point of telling about 200 members of a conservative club gathered at a Des Moines-area restaurant that they could ask him questions — an offer that came not long after DeSantis snapped at an Associated Press reporter who asked him why he wasn’t taking questions from voters at his events.“A lot of politicians don’t take questions. They give a speech,” Trump said to audience members, many of whom wore red “Make America Great Again” hats espousing his political movement. Trump, throughout the day, also repeatedly pushed back against DeSantis’ argument that it will take two terms in the White House to implement an age...

Blinken says no Ukraine cease-fire without a peace deal that includes Russia’s withdrawal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that there can be no cease-fire in the war in Ukraine unless it is part of a “just and lasting” peace deal that includes Russia’s military withdrawal.Blinken said that “a cease-fire that simply freezes current lines in place — and enables Putin to consolidate control over the territory he has seized, and rest, rearm, and reattack — that is not a just and lasting peace.”Russia must also pay a share of Ukraine’s reconstruction and be held accountable for launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, Blinken said in a speech during a visit to Finland, which recently joined NATO and shares a long border with Russia.Allowing Moscow to keep the one-fifth of Ukraine territory it has occupied would send the wrong message to Russia and to “other would-be aggressors around the world,” according to Blinken.Washington is ready to support peace efforts by other countries, including recent overtures from...

U.S.: Tanks, F-16 jets part of long-term strategy for Ukraine, won’t be ready for upcoming offensive

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Training for Ukrainian forces on advanced U.S. Abrams tanks has begun, and while those systems will not be ready in time for the imminent counteroffensive, those weapons will be critical in the longer-term to Ukraine ultimately pushing Russia out of its occupied territories, Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley said.Tank training began as the U.S. and allies began to work out agreements to train Ukrainians on F-16 fighter jets — another long-wished-for advanced capability. Ultimately, while the tanks are needed to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, the F-16s would be part of a longer-term security plan to deter future attacks, Milley said Thursday. “Everyone recognizes Ukraine needs a modernized Air Force,” Milley said. “It’s going to take a considerable amount of time.” Milley said detailed planning on class sizes, the types of flying tactics and locations for training was underway now between the U.S. and allies such as the Netherlands and the U.K....

Champions League final referee keeps job after apologizing for ties to far-right leader

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:01:11 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Polish soccer referee Szymon Marciniak apologized Friday for speaking at a business event tied to a far-right politician and was confirmed by UEFA to officiate next week’s Champions League final.Marciniak’s appointment for the game between Manchester City and Inter Milan on June 10, months after he refereed the World Cup final in Qatar, was at risk Thursday after a Warsaw-based anti-racism group alerted UEFA to his conference appearance this week.UEFA said Friday it accepted Marciniak’s “profound apologies and clarification” and that anti-racism group Never Again had also then asked for the referee to be retained.“I want to express my deepest apologies for my involvement and any distress or harm it may have caused,” Marciniak wrote in a statement published by UEFA, adding he was “gravely misled and completely unaware” of the links to Slawomir Mentzen, a leader of the far-right Confederation party.“I had no knowledge that (the conference) was associate...