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Superintendent Skipper, Mayor Wu go door-knocking to re-engage students ahead of school year

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

Superintendent Mary Skipper and Mayor Michelle Wu joined dozens of volunteers in visiting a couple hundred homes Wednesday morning, reengaging with families before students head back to the classroom Thursday.The annual initiative, spearheaded by Boston Public Schools’ Re-Engagement Center, targeted two groups of students: those who were chronically absent last year, meaning they missed 10% or more of school days, and those who dropped out completely.Emmanuel Allen, the center’s re-engagement director, said the brief interactions with the families go a long way in hopefully setting a positive tone for the new year.“This is really what the work is about, going after the students who may be off the grid a little bit and listening to their stories, finding options for them. It’s really that simple,” Allen said. “Once you meet personally, it leads to a couple of conversations from caring adults to really get you back on track.”More students have been considered chronically absent ...

Massachusetts seeks new State Police superintendent; pays up to $300K

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

The commonwealth is looking for a new top cop.“The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is assisting the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with their search for the next Superintendent (Colonel) of the Massachusetts State Police (MSP),” began the listing on the IACP job board for the job that pays $275,000 to $300,000 a year.And if you want the job, you better apply fast as the listing has a tight deadline: Sept. 24.Interim Col. John E. Mawn, who began as a trooper and worked his way up the ranks, took on the position following Col. Christopher Mason’s retirement on Feb. 17 following 40 years with the MSP. Should the state hire a new colonel before he’s been on the job a year, his superintendent-level pension benefits may not take effect, based on the state law governing State Police.Neither Gov. Maura Healey’s office nor a spokesman for the State Police returned Herald inquiries for comment regarding the posting, the speed of the deadline, whether Mawn could keep the su...

As the heat cranks up, Boston Public Schools will remain open on first day of year, officials say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

The scorching heat is disrupting the start of the year for multiple school districts across the region, but in Boston, officials say students will stay cool in the classroom.As the heat index value approaches 100 on Thursday, students will be returning to Boston Public Schools for the first time this year.“In general, when it’s hot, for all of us, it can be uncomfortable,” Superintendent Mary Skipper said Wednesday, “particularly in getting back and forth from school for our students. We’re going to make this as fun as possible for them.”Skipper expressed confidence that the first day will go smoothly, largely due to how much the district has invested in air conditioning over the past year. About $9.2 million of the district’s $400 million in federal virus relief funds has been pumped into installing air conditioning units across its buildings, according to figures.At the start of last year, just 20 schools had 916 cooling units, but those numbers have risen significantly. Roughly 7...

Battenfeld: Who would inherit the MAGA magic if Donald Trump gets derailed, plus other key 2024 questions

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

Could Donald Trump bestow the MAGA magic on Donald Jr.?The former president’s son has been a loyal pit bull for his father, serving as a key campaign surrogate and rousing up crowds.But what if the GOP needs a “break glass in case of emergency” candidate?This is just one of the key unanswered questions haunting the 2024 race.Will a third party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy or perhaps even Trump emerge to become a serious contender? Will Donald Trump team up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to run as a third party team?Will Joe Biden really make good on his promise to run for re-election, or is the 80-year-old president just posturing?If health or cognition problems prevent Biden from running again, who will emerge on the Democratic side to replace him? Michelle Obama is just one of the intriguing names that have surfaced in Democratic Party circles.And with the advent of more and more early ballots, mail in ballots, voter fraud, illegal ballots, non citizens voting, and millions of ma...

The Burning Man party is over. Now a massive cleanup begins

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The rain has passed, and the temple has burned. Now, as Burning Man slowly empties, it’s time to clean up.Burning Man organizers have three weeks to clean up any remnants of the makeshift city plopped across over four square miles (10 square kilometers) of the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada, but a summer storm that left tens of thousands stranded in ankle-deep mud could alter that timeframe. The annual gathering, which launched on a San Francisco beach in 1986, attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians and activists to the sprawling stretch of public land for a weeklong mix of wilderness camping and avant-garde performances. One of the principles of Burning Man is to leave no trace — an expectation that all attendees will pack out everything they brought to Black Rock City and clean out their camps before leaving. But in the aftermath of torrential rains that closed roads, jammed traffic and forced many to walk miles barefoot through the muck, the area is...

Shuswap wildfire ruin is revealed as B.C. faces ‘sleeping giant’ of drought

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

SCOTCH CREEK, B.C. — All that stands of the Scotch Creek — Lee Creek firehall in the British Columbia Interior’s Shuswap region is a set of blackened stairs leading to a pile of rubble.The ruins are a stark indication of the indiscriminate power of the Bush Creek East blaze that tore through the region about three weeks ago, with speed and ferocity that officials likened to a tornado.It destroyed 176 properties and damaged 50 others. Some of that destruction was on display during separate tours on Wednesday for the media and residents who lost their homes in the region.Derek Sutherland, director of the Columbia-Shuswap emergency operations centre, said the purpose of the residents’ tours was to give them “closure” so they can hopefully begin rebuilding. “It was burning whatever was in its path, including our firehall. Some places fared better than others, of course,” he said.But while the Bush Creek East fire is among more than 400 wildfires still burni...

Man convicted of killing woman in Saskatchewan arrested in B.C., parole suspended

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

VICTORIA — A man who brutally murdered an Indigenous woman in Saskatoon is back in custody and his parole has been suspended.Victoria police say Kenneth MacKay, who is 49, was arrested Friday but did not provide further details.MacKay was found guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of 21-year-old Crystal Paskemin in 2000.He received an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.The Parole Board of Canada approved MacKay for day parole in January and it was extended in July by another six months.The board’s decision notes the parole was granted against the advice of the Correctional Service of Canada.It says MacKay’s case-management team considered him a high risk for violent reoffending and wanted a more gradual release. “There continue to be concerns regarding power and control issues and possible issues with women,” says the decision.MacKay’s release conditions included returning to a residential facility on Vancouver Island every night and r...

Japan launches rocket carrying X-ray telescope to explore origins of universe, lunar lander

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander. The launch of the HII-A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was shown on live video by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.“We have a liftoff,” the narrator at JAXA said as the rocket flew up in a burst of smoke and flew over the Pacific. The rocket will put into orbit around Earth a satellite called the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, which will measure the speed and makeup of what lies between galaxies.That information helps in studying how celestial objects were formed, and hopefully can lead to solving the mystery of how the universe was created, JAXA says.In cooperation with NASA, JAXA will look at the strength of light at different wavelengths, the temperature of things in space and their shapes and brightness.David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Ri...

Alexander Payne makes ’em like they used to: Fall Movie Preview

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The great films of the 1970s have long loomed in the imagination of filmmakers raised during one of the most fertile periods of American movies. But Alexander Payne wanted to take it a step further.Payne’s latest film, “The Holdovers,” isn’t just set in 1970, it seeks to imbibe the humanistic spirit of films like “The Last Detail,”“Harold and Maude,” “The Landlord” and “Paper Moon” — all movies he screened for his cast and crew. “We were very fully making a ’70s movie,” Payne says, recently speaking by phone from his desk in Omaha, Nebraska.Payne, 62, shot “The Holdovers,” set at a New England boarding school, largely with filmmaking equipment and camera lenses from that period. He mixed it in mono. “We were trying to play the exercise of: We are in 1970 making this movie,” he says.“The Holdovers,” which Focus Features will release Oct. 27 and expand on Nov. 10, is Payne’s first film in six years and it’s one of his best. Payne, the filmmaker of “Election...

Freddie Mercury’s prized piano, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ draft are champions at auction

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:16:13 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Freddie Mercury ’s prized piano that he used to compose “Bohemian Rhapsody” and other hits by Queen sold for more than $2 million Wednesday as some of the late singer’s massive collection of flamboyant stage costumes, fine art and original lyrics were auctioned in a sale that broke records.Items connected to the operatic “Rhapsody,” the band’s most enduring hit, brought a premium with hand-written lyrics to the song selling for about 1.4 million pounds ($1.7 million) and a gold Cartier brooch saying “Queen number 1” given to each band member by their manager after the song topped the charts, selling for 165,000 pounds ($208,000).A Victorian-style silver snake bangle Mercury wore with an ivory satin catsuit in a video for the song — long before the days of MTV — set a record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a piece of jewelry owned by a rock star, Sotheby’s said.The bracelet went for 698,500 pounds ($881,000) — 100 times its estimated low price...