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OBF: Sports wagering embraced by Mass. bettors

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

There was a “betting riot” at Fenway Park in 1917, a point-shaving scandal at Boston College 45 years ago, and a bookmaker never more than two phone calls away in Massachusetts for decades before legal sports betting launched here earlier this year.Little wonder why legal sports betting went from $0 to $4.313 billion in Massachusetts during 2023.The state’s legal retail and online sportsbooks have generated $4,313,764,999.06 in handle through Nov. 30. Retail sports betting began in Massachusetts on Jan. 31. Mobile and online betting launched on March 10.You may have seen a few (thousand) TV commercials about it.The state’s retail and online sportsbooks have posted an adjusted gross revenue of $410,638,372.68 and paid $81,788,017.40 to the state in taxes.As we noted last week, the (State) House always wins.With $81.7 million in taxes collected after just 265 days of mobile betting, the state has crushed its high-end estimate of $70 million in sports betting revenue in Year 1.How did ...

Family bonds over time on mountains

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

There are few things Molly Garcia of Plymouth savors more than a day out on skis with her 11-year old son James.They grabbed first tracks on opening day at Bretton Woods this season – a family favorite – and they intend on getting many more days in.That said, Garcia shares, her decision to carve out time for skiing sometimes gets pushback from others. In the current parenting world of busy, busy and dedicated to teams, she said, many of her fellow parents question her choices.But she’s solid with those decisions, she said, and the proof comes via her son, who loves skiing with her and in general.It’s not that she’s not a team sport person. She ran track and played field hockey – even playing for Colgate in college. But even with that, the world allowed time for other things, like skiing for her. She’s thankful for that history. Her son plays basketball (as well as golf) on teams with schedules that allow space for other things. While many of his friends are on regional travel teams,...

Ski Wednesday: Getting kids involved in sport is a lifetime gift

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

There’s a big hurdle to raising a ski family today: The now norm of hyper-scheduling of kids and their activities makes the notion of grabbing a few ski days with the family (never mind choosing to partake for an entire season) seem nearly implausible.While this is all, of course, done with a goal of fun, learning and health, this lifetime skier who grew up back in a time (insert “Get off my lawn!” vibe here) when you could be on a school winter sports team and still have most of your weekends free is here to take a perhaps controversial stand: letting your kids miss a soccer/cheerleading/hockey/semipro paintball/whatever it is they are signed on to do here and there event to get out on snow is a worthy choice.I”m here to suggest (OK, urge): Fight the hyper-scheduling and throw some ski days into the mix. To me, it’s good for your child, your relationship and their future.And yet, more and more, friends tell me they cannot get their kids out skiing because of other sports, because t...

Dear Abby: The real reason for BF’s mystery absence

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

Dear Abby: My boyfriend of three years works six days a week with Sundays off. For the last six weeks, my calls have gone unanswered from Saturday evening through Monday morning. He’d provide a lame excuse, apologize for the “missed” calls, and the next weekend, the same thing would happen. Long story short, he was spending time in a drug house on the weekends. He ignored my calls because he didn’t want me to know what he was doing. He says it’s “no big deal,” he isn’t doing it anymore and we should move forward as if this never happened.My issue is, I no longer trust him or his judgment because I never imagined he’d do anything like this. Since he has, I no longer feel like I know him. What he did was deceitful and extremely selfish. Now he says I’m throwing away our relationship because “he made a mistake.” To me, it isn’t a mistake if you repeat the behavior over and over. He CHOSE to do drugs, hide it ...

Fire erupts at tortilla factory in Chula Vista

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- A fire broke out Tuesday at a tortilla manufacturing facility in Chula Vista, authorities said. The blaze occurred around 7:10 p.m. at 2765 Main St., the Chula Vista Fire Department (CVFD) confirmed to FOX 5. One person dead, another hurt after SUV goes off 300-foot cliff in rural East County Multiple fire agencies responded to the scene, where they evacuated 25 workers from the building, per CVFD. Firefighters worked on the roof to put out the flames.No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.Check back for updates on this developing story.

USC Song Girls: An inside look behind spirit, pride of Trojans ahead of Holiday Bowl

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

SAN DIEGO - It is less than 24 hours away from the Holiday Bowl and the spirit and pride of the USC Trojans and Louisville Cardinals are battling it out ahead of their debut at Petco Park. It's an experience a member of our FOX 5 San Diego team once had for herself back in 2019. It's no secret our Weather Anchor and Field Reporter Sarah Alegre is a diehard fan of the USC Trojans. She's a 2020 alum and former dancer with the world-famous USC Song Girls. Our Raoul Martinez and Phil Blauer just so happen to be alums as well. It was 2019 at SDCCU Stadium for San Diego's biggest holiday party of the year. USC fans were in the stands and Alegre was on the field, rocking her turtleneck while cheering on the Trojans for one last time...or so she thought. "You look at that iconic uniform and you know that that's the University of Southern California," shared current USC Song Advisor Audrea Harris. “You put that uniform on. I like to say it's like Superman.”Just about four years later, Alegre...

Odds for more sports betting expansion could fade after rapid growth to 38 states

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — At his suburban St. Louis home, Brett Koenig can pull out his smartphone and open a sports betting app. But he can’t place a bet. He is blocked by a pop-up message noting he is not in a legal location. Missouri is one of a dozen states where sports wagering remains illegal more than five years after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to adopt it.“It just seems silly that everyone else can do it and we can’t,” said Koenig, who has launched a social media campaign called “Let MO Play” to rally support for legal sports betting in his home state.Other states have reaped a total of over $4 billion of taxes from more than $280 billion wagered on sports since 2018. Vermont will become the latest to accept sports bets, starting Jan. 11, But the odds for expansion to additional states appear iffy in 2024 because of political resistance and the sometimes competing financial interests of existing gambling operators. “The handful of st...

Live updates | Israel’s forces raid a West Bank refugee camp as its military expands Gaza offensive

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank, killing at least six Palestinians, Palestinian health authorities said early Wednesday. The Israeli military had also expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to the densely populated urban refugee camps in the central part of the territory Tuesday.Residents reported shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps in the tiny, cramped enclave. The built-up towns hold Palestinians whose families fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s independence. The camps are now crowded with Palestinians who fled northern Gaza in the early stages of Israel’s ground offensive.More than 20,900 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead. About 1,200 people wer...

Deported by US, arrested in Venezuela: One family’s saga highlights Biden’s migration challenge

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — Pedro Naranjo idolized his father growing up and followed him into the Venezuelan air force to fly helicopters. So deep was their bond that when the older Naranjo feared being jailed for plotting against Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, father and son fled to the United States together.Now the two have been separated by an overstretched U.S. immigration system that has left the retired Gen. Pedro Naranjo in legal limbo in the U.S. His loyal son, a Venezuelan air force lieutenant, sits in a Venezuelan military prison after he was deported by the Biden administration as part of an attempt to discourage asylum-seekers from the turbulent South American country.“We never had a plan B,” the older Naranjo said in a phone interview from Houston. He was released after 10 days in U.S. custody and is now awaiting the outcome of his own asylum request. “It never crossed our mind that the U.S., as an ally of the Venezuelan opposition and democracies over the world, a defender ...

Burning Man survived a muddy quagmire. Will the experiment last 30 more years?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:19 GMT

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The blank canvass of desert wilderness in northern Nevada seemed the perfect place in 1992 for artistic anarchists to relocate their annual burning of a towering, anonymous effigy. It was goodbye to San Francisco’s Baker Beach, hello to the Nevada playa, the long-ago floor of an inland sea.The tiny gathering became Burning Man’s surrealistic circus, fueled by acts of kindness and avant-garde theatrics, sometimes with a dose of hallucinogens or nudity. The spectacle flourished as the festival ballooned over the next three decades.Some say it grew too much, too fast.Things came to a head in 2011 when tickets sold out for the first time. Organizers responded with a short-lived lottery system that left people out of what was supposed to be a radically inclusive event. As Burning Man matured, luxurious accommodations proliferated, as did the population of billionaires and celebrities.Katherine Chen, a sociology professor in New York City who wrote a 2009 book abou...