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Red Sox notebook: How Fenway Park will commemorate 9/11 with Yankees in town

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

For the first time in half a decade, the New York Yankees aren’t playing at home on Sept. 11.Instead, they’re spending the week playing four games at Fenway Park against their greatest rivals.Of course, some things are much bigger than a rivalry, bigger than baseball.For Monday’s series opener, the Red Sox will honor and pay tribute to 9/11 victims, survivors, and their loved ones in several ways. They’re holding a “Moment of Remembrance” before the game, and the Boston Fire Department A Capella group will be on hand to perform the national anthem.There will also be a ceremony for the 9-11 First Responder’s Children’s Foundation, during which Olivia Rizzo, a University of Massachusetts Amherst student, will receive a scholarship. She will be joined by her grandfather, retired police officer Joe Westwell, and her father, Christopher, a retired NYC firefighter who was a responder on 9/11. The foundation’s founder, Al Kahn, will deliver the ceremonial First Pitch.For the customar...

Tonight’s Chicago White Sox-Kansas City Royals game is postponed because of rain, with a doubleheader set for Tuesday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

Monday’s Chicago White Sox game against the Kansas City Royals at Guaranteed Rate Field was postponed because of rain.It will be made up as part of a straight doubleheader beginning at 3:40 p.m. Tuesday. The second game will start about 30 to 45 minutes after the opener concludes but not before 6:40 p.m.The Sox will start Dylan Cease in Game 1 of the doubleheader against the Royals’ Brady Singer. Touki Toussaint will start the nightcap against the Royals’ Jordan Lyles. ()

Voters will narrow down 4 Boston City Council races in Tuesday preliminary

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

Voters will be tasked with narrowing down four Boston City Council races to two candidates apiece when they head to the polls Tuesday.The contested preliminary races are in Districts 3, 5, 6 and 7.Seven candidates — John FitzGerald, Jennifer Johnson, Barry Lawton, Matthew Patton, Joel Richards, Ann Walsh, and Rosalind Wornum — are vying for an open District 3 seat left vacant when longtime Councilor Frank Baker opted not to run for re-election.In District 5, three candidates, Enrique Pepén, Jose Ruiz, and Jean Claude-Sanon, are looking to unseat the embattled incumbent, Ricardo Arroyo, who is seeking a third term.City Councilor Kendra Lara, another embattled incumbent, is looking to fend off a challenge from William King and Benjamin Weber, as she vies for a second term.“Turnout is frequently lower in these City-Council-only election years,” Mayor Michelle Wu told the Herald in a prior interview. “These are critical roles in city government and in the work to make sure that Boston i...

Feds approve new COVID vaccines

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

WASHINGTON — The U.S. approved updated COVID-19 vaccines Monday, hoping to rev up protection against the latest coronavirus strains and blunt any surge this fall and winter.The Food and Drug Administration decision opens the newest shots from Moderna and Pfizer and its partner BioNTech to most Americans even if they’ve never had a coronavirus vaccination. It’s part of a shift to treat fall updates of the COVID-19 vaccine much like getting a yearly flu shot.There’s still another step: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must sign off. A CDC advisory panel is set to issue recommendations Tuesday on who most needs the updated shots.Vaccinations could begin later this week, and both the COVID-19 and flu shot can be given at the same visit.A third vaccine maker, Novavax, said its updated shot is still being reviewed by the FDA.COVID-19 hospitalizations have been rising since late summer although –- thanks to lasting immunity from prior vaccinations and infect...

Texas AG Ken Paxton’s affair took a toll on office, a former staffer says at impeachment trial

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — One of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ‘s former staffers testified Monday that the Republican’s extramarital affair took a toll on employees who had to work long and odd hours because of the secret relationship that is now a factor in his impeachment trial.“I told General Paxton quite bluntly it wasn’t my business who he was sleeping with, but when things bleed over into the office and into the state work, it becomes my business,” said Katherine Cary, the former chief of staff in Paxton’s office. The affair is part of the abuse of power and bribery charges that Texas House Republicans have made against Paxton after years of alleged scandal and corruption. If convicted, he could be banned from holding office again in Texas. His fate is in the hands of the Republican-controlled Texas Senate, where a verdict could happen as soon as this week.His wife, Angela Paxton, is a senator but is barred from voting in the proceedings. She sat at her desk ...

Cybersecurity issue prompts computer shutdowns at MGM Resorts properties across US

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A “cybersecurity issue” led to the shutdown of some casino and hotel computer systems at MGM Resorts International properties across the U.S., a company official reported Monday.The incident began Sunday. The extent of its effect was not immediately known on reservation systems and casino floors in Las Vegas and states including Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York and Ohio, company spokesman Brian Ahern said.The FBI is “aware of the incident,” the bureau said in a statement from its national press office. It characterized the event as “still ongoing” and did not disclose details. MGM Resorts said in a statement it identified a “cybersecurity issue affecting some of the company’s systems” and that its investigation involved external cybersecurity experts.The nature of the issue was not described, but the statement said efforts to protect data included “shutting down certain systems.” It said the investigation was continuing.A po...

Elon Musk’s refusal to have Starlink support Ukraine attack in Crimea raises questions for Pentagon

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (AP) — SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use Starlink internet services to launch a surprise attack on Russian forces in Crimea last September has raised questions as to whether the U.S. military needs to be more explicit in future contracts that services or products it purchases could be used in war, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday. Excerpts of a new biography of Musk published by The Washington Post last week revealed that the Ukrainians in September 2022 had asked for the Starlink support to attack Russian naval vessels based at the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Musk had refused due to concerns that Russia would launch a nuclear attack in response. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and claims it as its territory.Musk was not on a military contract when he refused the Crimea request; he’d been providing terminals to Ukraine for free in response to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. However, in the months since...

B.C. premier announces task force on climate emergencies on tour of wildfire disaster

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

KAMLOOPS, B.C. — British Columbia will form an expert disaster task force providing rapid response and support for people and communities facing climate emergencies amid a historic wildfire season that has destroyed about 400 structures, mostly homes, said Premier David Eby.Eby made the announcement Monday as he visited the North Shuswap Lake area, located about one hour east of Kamloops, where the Bush Creek East wildfire destroyed almost 200 structures, including the firehall at Scotch Creek. “The goal here is that the task force will be working with the public service in partnership with the hard-working people from emergency response from the wildfire service to ensure we’re deploying additional resources, we’re deploying solutions as they’re recommended to us,” he said at a news conference in Kamloops.Some local residents in the Shuswap area ignored evacuation orders to stay behind and protect homes from the fast-moving fire.Hundreds of properties ...

Indigenous tribes urge federal officials to deny loan request for Superior natural gas plant

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Indigenous tribes in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin have asked federal officials to deny a utility’s request for a loan to help build a natural gas-fired power plant on the shores of Lake Superior, calling the project unthinkable in the face of climate change.Chippewa tribes located across the northern third of the three states sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials on Sunday asking them to deny Dairyland Power Cooperative’s request for a $350 million public loan. The request is intended to cover the utility’s share of the cost of building the Nemadji Trail Energy Center power plant. “As our shared climate rapidly continues to destabilize, it is unconscionable that Dairyland Power Cooperative has not canceled its request for a $350 million public loan and permits to build Nemadji Trail Energy Center,” the tribes said in the letter. It added later, “In short, this location was never the place, and now is obvious...

Jill Biden calls swearing in of the 1st woman national archivist ‘momentous’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:48 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — First Lady Jill Biden saluted Colleen Shogan, the first woman to be sworn in as national archivist, saying on Monday that democracy’s power is “made real with access to history, unfiltered and uncensored.” Shogan, a former government and politics professor at George Mason University, heads the National Archives and Records Administration, which maintains billions of documents — including the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Louisiana Purchase, Harriet Tubman’s Civil War pension claims and Thomas Edison’s patent for the lightbulb.During a formal swearing-in ceremony, Biden noted that the nation’s historic documents were once held by George Washington and later by the State Department, before being entrusted to the National Archives, founded by Congress in 1934. “The history of a democracy belongs to its people, and we must preserve it with care for future generations,” the first lady said. “As far back as the Constitutional Conven...