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Boston-area COVID wastewater data spikes before the holidays, variant JN.1 on the rise: ‘A worrisome situation’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

Here comes the holiday spike yet again.Like clockwork, just as we approach Christmas and New Year’s gatherings, the local COVID wastewater data is surging and a new variant is on the rise.Both the south-of-Boston and north-of-Boston virus wastewater levels have jumped in recent weeks. The COVID wastewater data is the first sign of virus cases in the community.The south-of-Boston virus wastewater weekly average is now up to 1,435 copies per milliliter, which is double the amount from late November in the days after Thanksgiving. The north-of-Boston average is now 1,123 copies per milliliter — also about double from last month.Meanwhile, the total number of reported COVID cases have been climbing in Massachusetts during recent weeks, and a new variant is quickly spreading.“This is a worrisome situation,” said Davidson Hamer, a Boston University School of Public Health infectious diseases specialist, adding, “The rise of the new variant, JN.1, which has be...

Boston man sentenced for 3 shootings in Cambridge and Somerville

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

A Boston man will spend at least five years in state prison for three attempted shootings in Cambridge and Somerville.Lennox Pierre-Louis, 22, of Boston, pleaded guilty in Middlesex Superior Court to three attempted shootings: a Dec. 27, 2021, shooting on Marshall Street in Somerville; another on Windsor Street in Cambridge on March 11, 2022; and another in Cambridge on June 18, 2022.Middlesex Superior Court Judge James Budrea sentenced Lennox Pierre-Louis, 22, of Boston, to five to six years in state prison for the June 2022 and the December 2021 shootings, which are to be served concurrently, as well as two and a half years for the March 2022 shooting.“Over the course of the past year we have seen an alarming increase in the frequency of random gun violence, especially among young people. These bullets are striking homes and vehicles indiscriminately,” Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement following the sentencing. “Clearly, it is only a matter of time before...

Signing day: Georgia has top class after 5-star flip; Ohio State igh of relief on No. 1 player

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

The early signing period in college football opened Wednesday with some five-star drama.Georgia likely locked up the top recruiting class by flipping an in-state blue-chip player away from Florida State. The consensus No. 1 recruit in the country had Ohio State coach Ryan Day literally sighing with relief, and then still waiting to make it official. Florida managed to hold on to a couple of five-stars amid a flurry of late de-commits.Meanwhile, the long and winding recruitment of Dylan Raiola ended bright and early with the highly touted quarterback signing a national letter of intent with Nebraska, the school where his father was an All-American offensive lineman.College football’s early signing period, jammed into what has become an overloaded December calendar with postseason games and players transferring, has become the signing period.“The schedule is not good. It’s chaotic,” Penn State coach James Franklin told reporters.The big schools sign the bulk of their recru...

Numerals ‘2024’ arrive in Times Square in preparation for New Year’s Eve

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s beginning to look a lot like New Year’s Eve in New York.The numerals “2024” were delivered Wednesday to Times Square for its famous street party to ring in the New Year.Organizers said the lighted display arrived in the famous square following a coast-to-coast road trip covering more than 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers).After being tested out Wednesday, they’ll remain on display through Friday for people to see and photograph up close.“Like every good Broadway show, we have dress rehearsals, so we want to get them out,” explained Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance. “We want to test them out, make sure that they work.”The numerals will then be raised atop One Times Square, where they’ll light up when the ball drops to mark the beginning of 2024.Teresa Hui, a Brooklyn resident who was among those on hand for Wednesday’s ceremonial arrival, said she comes out every year despite her general aversion for the tourist mecca.“This is one of my favorite da...

Singer David Daniels no longer in singers’ union following guilty plea to sexual assault

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Countertenor David Daniels is no longer a member of the union for singers following his guilty plea to a charge of sexual assault.The 57-year-old and his husband, Scott Walters, pleaded guilty to sexual assault of an adult, a second-degree felony, in Houston’s Harris County District Court on Aug. 4. They both were sentenced to eight years’ probation and required to register as sex offenders.“David Daniels is no longer a member of AGMA. In light of an ongoing internal disciplinary proceeding, AGMA cannot comment further at this time.,” American Guild of Musical Artists spokeswoman Alicia Cook wrote in an email to The Associated Press.Matt Hennessy, a Houston-based lawyer for Daniels, did not immediately respond to an email from the AP seeking comment.Daniels was fired as a University of Michigan professor and was removed by the San Francisco Opera from a production of Handel’s “Orlando” following sexual assault allegations by a student at the university in...

Jury dismisses lawsuit claiming LSU officials retaliated against a former athletics administrator

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A jury on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing top Louisiana State University officials of retaliating against an athletics administrator for reporting alleged inappropriate sexual behavior by a head football coach.After six days of testimony, a panel of five women and three men rejected the defense claims, The Advocate reported. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan of New Orleans presided over the trial after all of the federal judges in Baton Rouge recused themselves.Then-athletics administrator Sharon Lewis filed the federal lawsuit in 2021. She was fired the following year.Coach Les Miles guided the 2007 LSU football team to a national title but was fired by the university in 2016. He lost his coaching job at Kansas in 2021, after LSU released a report that revealed school officials there considered firing him in 2013 because of his alleged behavior with female student workers. Miles has denied allegations of improper behavior.The university had hired the H...

Mexico’s president predicts full recovery for Acapulco, but resort residents see difficulties

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke ebulliently Wednesday about the recovery of Acapulco after Hurricane Otis smashed into the resort on Oct. 25, killing 52 people. But some residents still don’t have running water, sewage treatment is still deficient, tons of garbage and debris remain in the streets, and few hotels are fully open. López Obrador predicted the once-glamorous Pacific coast city would be 100% recovered by March, and claimed many residents’ homes are now in better shape than before the Category 5 hurricane hit. “Without doubt, in March, 100 (percent),” the president said at a news briefing in Acapulco. “The majority of people’s houses in Acapulco are now better than they were before the hurricane.”While hundreds of tons of debris have been removed, and some of the shattered, looted stores have re-opened, things are far from close to normal.Acapulco’s economy depends almost completely on tourism, and there were fe...

A white couple who burned a cross in their yard facing Black neighbors’ home is investigated by FBI

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

The FBI is investigating a white South Carolina couple for racial discrimination after they set a cross on fire in their yard last month facing toward their Black neighbors’ home.Federal civil rights investigators searched the white couple’s home in Conway on Wednesday, according to FBI spokesperson Kevin Wheeler. The retired Black couple also recorded video of the cross being burned on Thanksgiving weekend and described days of repeated threats from their neighbors. The next week, Worden Evander Butler, 28, and Alexis Paige Hartnett, 27, were arrested on state charges of harassment and later released on bond.Cross burnings in the U.S. are “symbols of hate” that are “inextricably intertwined with the history of the Ku Klux Klan,” according to a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision written by the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The justices ruled that the First Amendment allows bans on cross burnings only when they are intended to intimidate because the action “is a particu...

North Korea’s Kim again threatens use of nukes as he praises troops for long-range missile launch

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country has a policy of not hesitating to launch a nuclear strike on a rival if provoked, as he praised troops involved in its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, state media reported Thursday. Since adopting an escalatory nuclear doctrine last year, Kim has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons preemptively. But many foreign experts say North Korea has yet to obtain functioning nuclear missiles and is also unlikely to use its nukes first because it’s outgunned by the U.S. and its allied forces.North Korea on Monday conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in five months, calling the drill a warning over confrontational U.S. and South Korean moves. North Korea cited a recent U.S.-South Korean meeting on boosting their nuclear deterrence plans.The North’s Korean Central News Agency said Kim met troops at the General Missile Bureau on Wednesday to congratulate them on the launch of...

In federal challenge to Mississippi law, arguments focus on racial discrimination and public safety

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge will consider arguments over racial discrimination, public safety and local democracy as he decides whether to block appointments to a state-run court set to be created on Jan. 1 in part of Mississippi’s majority-Black capital city. Attorneys for Mississippi and the NAACP, who represent Jackson residents suing the state, each laid out their arguments Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate. The federal judge will decide whether to grant the NAACP’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the appointment of judges and prosecutors to the new court in part of Jackson. Brenden Cline, an attorney representing the NAACP, said the court was created by a discriminatory law that violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The appointment rather than election of judges and prosecutors deprives Hinds County residents of exercising local control over the criminal justice system that other communities enjoy, he said. “The 14th ...