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It’s official: Rachael Rollins resigns [+see letter]

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

The whirlwind week has ended with a thud for Rachael Rollins.The once-rising star of the progressive ranks has resigned as U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, the office announced.The press release states: “Rachael S. Rollins resigned today as United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. In accordance with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy has assumed the role of Acting U.S. Attorney.“Mr. Levy joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office with over 25 years of legal experience and has served as First Assistant United States Attorney since January 2022. Mr. Levy was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, from 1997 to 2004, serving in the Criminal Division’s Economic Crimes Unit. There, he prosecuted a wide range of white-collar crimes including health care fraud, securities and investor fraud, terrorism financing and environmental crimes.”It all started in July when a Herald reporter asked Rollins if ...

Hull officials receiving heat for extending voting hours due to massive fire; judge says election not valid

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

A massive fire in the small South Shore town of Hull that destroyed a home has the results of the annual election up in smoke.A Brockton Superior Court justice has ruled town officials did not have the permission to extend voting hours during Monday’s election of town officers from 8 to 10 p.m., invalidating the 80 ballots cast during the additional hours.Town officials extended voting hours to give residents, who couldn’t access a main road to get to the polls during a road closure due to the fire, the opportunity to cast ballots once the road reopened.“In the view of the Court, a new election is the only just remedy for the unfortunate circumstances of May 15, 2023,” Justice Brian S. Glenny wrote in the decision he issued Wednesday.A notice posted on the Hull town website Thursday alerts residents that the court denied the town’s verified emergency motion to extend voting hours and to permit the counting of ballots in the extended hours.“The Town is reviewing the decision and dete...

Patriots sign UDFA DL Justus Tavai to fill vacant roster spot

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

The Patriots have signed undrafted rookie defensive lineman Justus Tavai, the team announced Friday.Related ArticlesNew England Patriots | Jim Brown, all-time NFL great and social activist, dead at 87 New England Patriots | Patriots waive backup O-lineman, clear $2.7 million in cap space New England Patriots | Patriots O-linemen high on new position coach Adrian Klemm New England Patriots | Patriots reportedly hire first woman scouting assistant from college ranks New England Patriots | Patriots CB Jonathan Jones offers surprising take on Christian Gonzalez draft pick Tavai, who played at San Diego State last season, recently participated in the Patriots’ rookie minicamp on a tryout basis. The 24-year-old is the younger brother of Pats linebacker Jahlani Tavai. He stands at 6-foot-3 and 290 pounds and fills the roster spot vacated by offensive tackle Yodny Cajuste, who was released Thursday.Tavai p...

Nebraska lawmakers pass 12-week abortion ban, restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Legislature on Friday approved a 12-week abortion ban and restrictions on gender-affirming care for children in a move so contentious that lawmakers on both sides have said they may be unable to work together in the future.Conservative lawmakers wrangled just enough votes to end a filibuster and pass a bill with both measures. Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, who pushed for the bill and met with various lawmakers to shore up support, has promised to sign it into law.The mood in the Nebraska Capitol has been volatile since lawmakers on Tuesday advanced by a single vote the hybrid measure that ties together restrictions that Republicans across the U.S. have been pushing. Nebraska’s lawmakers have traded insults and promises of retribution, while protesters have loudly voiced their displeasure. Friday’s debate was briefly stopped when protesters in a chamber balcony stood and yelled obscenities at conservative lawmakers while throwing what appea...

Famed R&B group The Spinners donate performance outfits to Motown Museum in Detroit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Henry Fambrough had a musical homecoming of sorts Friday at “Hitsville U.S.A.”Fambrough, one of the founding members of the iconic R&B group The Spinners, took a tour of Motown’s Studio A in Detroit as part of a ceremony that included the donation to the Motown Museum of 375 outfits worn by the group during performances.It “was a long time ago,” Fambrough said of the 1960s, when he first walked into the studio. “I used to dream about this place.”He told reporters that he had to convince his wife that the studio was where he was going for 3 a.m. rehearsals and recording sessions with other members of the group. Their first big hit for Motown was “It’s A Shame,” which peaked at No. 14 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in 1970.The Spinners would later sign with Atlantic Records and turn out a string of hits that included “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love,” “Then Came You,” “The Rubberband Man” and “Mighty Love.”“Then Came You,” which featured singer Dionn...

Group accused of making up story about homeless vets being evicted to make room for migrants

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The founder of a nonprofit group has been accused of fabricating a story about homeless military veterans being evicted from a New York hotel to make room for migrants, a tale that stoked days of outrage on cable news networks.One Republican lawmaker in New York who helped spread the story is now calling for an investigation, saying he and others were duped.The uproar began after New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, bused a small group of asylum seekers to a suburban hotel as the city’s homeless shelter system struggled to accommodate an influx of migrants from the U.S. border with Mexico.The group’s transfer prompted a political backlash from Republican county officials, who accused the mayor of trying to offload his problems on unprepared communities. Then, the founder of a small charity in the area added an explosive claim: To make way for the migrants, a hotel in Newburgh, New York, evicted nearly two dozen homeless veterans.That story, told by...

Wisconsin man charged with hacking sports betting accounts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man has been charged in a plot to hack and steal from thousands of sports betting accounts, court documents show.Joseph Garrison, 18, and others allegedly stole roughly $600,000 from 1,600 accounts on an unnamed sports betting site. Garrison surrendered to authorities in New York on Thursday and faces six charges including unauthorized access to computers and wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced.If convicted of all the charges against him, Garrison could be sentenced to up to 57 years in prison.Prosecutors alleged that Garrison and others used credential stuffing attacks, which entail using stolen usernames and passwords from previous data breaches, to access accounts on other platforms. According to the criminal complaint against Garrison, hackers accessed roughly 60,000 accounts on the sports betting website.About five months before the sports betting website was hacked, Garrison told investig...

Shooting that killed OPP officer near Ottawa was not an ambush: suspect’s lawyers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

The lawyers for a man accused of killing an Ontario Provincial Police officer and injuring two others are disputing the characterization of the shooting in Bourget, Ont., as an ambush.Lawyers John Hale and Cassandra Richards say in a statement that the officers were not ambushed, as OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique has said.OPP Sgt. Eric Mueller died in hospital after a shooting at a home in Bourget in the early morning hours of May 11.He and two other officers had been responding to a disturbance call when they were shot at, police have said.RELATED:OPP officer dead, two others injured in ‘ambush’ shooting east of Ottawa: policeFamily man, exemplary officer: thousands pay tribute to murdered OPP officerAlain Bellefeuille, 39, is charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder in the case.Bellefeuille’s lawyers say he neither requested nor expected the police to come to his home in the middle of the night, and that he was in his bed...

Example of a rewritten Parks Canada plaque at N.L. historic site

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

Parks Canada is in the process of rewriting many of historic plaques and markers to reflect new scholarship and changing interpretations of Canada’s history. Here is one example of original and rewritten text from the L’Anse Amour National Historic site in Newfoundland and Labrador:1984 text:L’ANSE AMOUR BURIALThis mound of rocks is the earliest known funeral monument in the New World and marks the burial place of an Indian child who died about 7,500 years ago. The Maritime Archaic people, to whom the child belonged, occupied this area between 9,000 and 3,500 years ago. The body was covered with red ochre, wrapped in skins or birch bark, and placed in a large pit 1.5 metres deep. Fires were lit on either side of the body, and several spearheads of stone and bone placed beside the head. A walrus tusk, harpoon head, paint stones and a bone whistle were also placed with the body.2022 text: L’ANSE AMOURThis is the site of the oldest known First Nations funerary monumen...

Bolivian Catholic priest accused of abusing seminary students

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:53 GMT

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — A Bolivian priest has been detained on suspicion of abusing seminary students a decade ago in a case that emerged after news broke earlier this month of a pedophilia scandal involving a late Jesuit priest in the Andean country.Milton Murillo, a Catholic parish priest at the Church of San Roque in the southern region of Tarija, was sent to pre-trial detention for three months during a hearing late Thursday, regional prosecutor Sandra Gutiérrez Salazar said.“With this, we want to express that the Public Prosecutor’s Office is taking stern action to ensure these crimes are punished,” she told reporters Friday.The Murillo case came to a head in part because of the scandal that erupted earlier this month over Spanish Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas. Pedrajas died of cancer in 2009 and left behind a personal diary in which he confessed to having abused around 85 minors in Bolivia during the 1970s and 1980s in Catholic boarding schools, as reported by the Spanish newspaper E...