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North End restaurant owners drop lawsuit against Boston mayor

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

Four North End restaurant owners dropped their lawsuit against Mayor Michelle Wu, retracting claims that she showed anti-Italian discrimination when singling out their neighborhood for last year’s $7,500 outdoor dining fee.The owners, who collectively represent five restaurants, requested that the May 2022 lawsuit be dismissed “without prejudice,” according to their attorney, Richard Chambers, who filed the motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court Wednesday.“We have a hearing coming up and at this point, my client instructed me to dismiss the complaint,” Chambers said Friday, referring to Jorge Mendoza-Iturralde of Vinoteca di Monica. “I got him to the second level and for whatever reasons he doesn’t want to go forward.”Chambers added that his client did not provide specifics on why he chose not to pursue the case, but said it was likely because “he was the only one fighting.”“Nobody else is rallying around him,” Chambers said. “It’s just him. You know that old say...

Lies, complaints and Larry Nassar: Takeaways from the records detailing Jeffrey Epstein’s final days

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly four years after Jeffrey Epstein’s death, thousands of pages of records obtained by The Associated Press are shedding new light on the financier’s time behind bars and a frantic response by federal corrections officials to his death.The documents, including emails between jail officials and psychological evaluations, offer a fuller picture of Epstein as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges at the now-shuttered Metropolitan Correctionalnassar Center.Epstein killed himself at the federal jail in 2019. In the days and weeks that followed, corrections officials struggled to explain how such a high-profile detainee had managed to take his own life.The records show how he was moved from the jail’s general population to specialized housing and how he was briefly on suicide watch before being downgraded to psychiatric observation — his status when he killed himself.Here are takeaways from the more than 4,000 pages of documents:AN AGITATED INMATEEpstein wa...

Things to know about the case of a Missouri doctor found dead in Arkansas

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A doctor in the Missouri Ozarks went missing for over a week until his body was found in an Arkansas lake. But the case remains shrouded in mystery as investigators have released few details to his family or the public.WHAT’S KNOWN SO FARDr. John Forsyth, 49, was last seen alive on May 21, when security cameras in the parking lot of a public pool in Cassville show him getting into a vehicle, after leaving his own car unlocked with his wallet, two phones, a laptop and other items inside. That’s according to his brother, Richard Forsyth, who said the doctor had texted his new fiancee that morning saying he would see her soon. His car was found later that day. Investigators haven’t said who was driving the other vehicle.A search began after the emergency room physician didn’t show up for his May 21 shift at Mercy Hospital in Cassville. There was no sign of Forsyth until a kayaker noticed his body in Arkansas on May 30, at a spot on Beaver Lake ...

A Massachusetts man struck and killed his 82-year-old mother with her truck, police say

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts man physically assaulted his 82-year-old mother in a hotel parking lot, then struck and killed her with her truck, police said. He was charged with murder. Daniel Uhlman, 53, of Westborough, was also charged with armed assault to murder a person over 60 in connection to Nancy Ulhman’s death Thursday, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. Other charges include two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a person over 60.Uhlman was arraigned in Marlborough District Court on Friday. He pleaded not guilty plea and was ordered to undergo a mental competency evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital.Authorities say it was not the first time Uhlman had attacked his mother. In 2014, when she was 72, he used four kitchen knives to repeatedly stab her in the head and torso in the home they shared, police said. The woman called po...

Biden orders 20-year ban on oil, gas drilling to protect tribal sites outside New Mexico’s Chaco

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Hundreds of square miles in New Mexico will be withdrawn from further oil and gas production for the next 20 years on the outskirts of Chaco Culture National Historical Park that tribal communities consider sacred, the Biden administration ordered Friday.The new order from Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland applies to public lands and associated mineral rights within a 10-mile (16-kilometer) radius of the park. It does not apply to entities that are privately, state- or tribal-owned. Existing leases won’t be impacted either. A World Heritage site, Chaco Culture National Historical Park is thought to be the center of what was once a hub of Indigenous civilization, with many tribes from the Southwest tracing their roots to the high desert outpost.After extensive studies and consultations, the plan has pitted the Navajo Nation against other tribes in the region amid concerns about economic impacts and that individual Navajo allotment owners may be left landlock...

Military college’s chief of diversity quits amid debate over DEI

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

The chief diversity officer of the nation’s oldest state-supported military college, Virginia Military Institute, has turned in her resignation amid a debate among alumni over the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Jamica Love took on the new role in July 2021 — a month after a state-sanctioned report found VMI failed to address institutional racism and sexism and must be held accountable for making changes. Love’s resignation was announced Thursday by VMI’s first Black superintendent, retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, and was first reported by The Washington Post.Love, who is the only Black woman to report to VMI’s superintendent, declined to comment in an email to The Associated Press Friday. Shah Rahman, a 1997 VMI graduate, told the AP that Love was an asset to the school and that her leaving is “a terrible thing.”Love’s hiring has been part of recent diversity efforts at the school, which was founded in Lexington in 1839 and carries the pres...

Rights upheld, lawsuit revived against teacher accused of cutting Native American student’s hair

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — An appeals court ruling has revived an anti-discrimination lawsuit accusing an Albuquerque teacher of cutting off one Native American girl’s hair and asking another if she was dressed as a “bloody Indian” during class on Halloween.Outrage over the girls’ treatment propelled legislation in New Mexico and beyond that prohibits discrimination based upon hairstyle and religious head garments.The American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit accused Albuquerque Public Schools and a teacher of discrimination and fostering a hostile learning environment. ACLU of New Mexico Deputy Director Leon Howard said the ruling affirms that public schools are subject to antidiscrimination protections in the New Mexico Human Rights Act. The appellate ruling validates that all “students must feel safe at school and confident that their culture, history, and personal dignity are valued and respected by the public schools they attend,” Howard said in a statement.A lower ...

Donald Trump’s lawyers ask judge to exit criminal case, echoing claims of political bias

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Within hours of his historic arraignment this spring, Donald Trump fixed his ire on the judge, complaining that he’s “a Trump hating-judge” with a family full of “Trump haters.”On Friday, the former president’s lawyers doubled down on that criticism, demanding Judge Juan Manuel Merchan step aside from his New York City criminal case because of what they say is anti-Trump bias and a conflict of interest arising from his daughter’s work for some of Trump’s Democratic rivals.Trump’s lawyers allege that Merchan, a respected jurist in Manhattan’s criminal court, tipped the scales in two other Trump-related cases by involving himself in plea negotiations for Trump’s longtime finance chief and requiring him to testify against Trump’s company in exchange for a five-month jail sentence.Trump’s lawyers, Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche, also asked Merchan to explain three political donations totaling $35 that were made to Democratic causes in his name during the 2020 elec...

Toronto screening of Sean Penn’s Ukraine film to help launch global non-profit

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

TORONTO — The global launch of a new non-profit group against authoritarianism will include an invitation-only Toronto screening of Sean Penn’s documentary about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy next week. “Superpower,” co-directed by Penn and Aaron Kaufman, focuses on Zelenskyy’s leadership amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his country’s battle for survival. Organizers say the June 6 screening in Toronto will be the first of several around the world as part of the launch of U.S.-based Humanity for Freedom, which is led by Kaufman and Dane Waters, an American political strategist and writer.Organizers say the Toronto portion of the “72 Hours for Freedom” event was planned in partnership with Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada Yuliya Kovaliv and Canadian entrepreneur Jay Rosenzweig, who is also executive producer of “Superpower” and the board chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.Penn previously told The Associated Press that he had his first on-camera me...

After loss, couple's love story blooms in suburban garden

Published Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:56:00 GMT

Just as buds are beginning to blossom, a special home garden in the North Suburbs is fueling new life for both animals and the woman who tends it.Gardens have the power to nourish our souls and in the case of Jane Fulton Alt, it turned out to be the one thing that brought hers back after losing her beloved husband.Five years ago, Howard Alt, decided to build a garden. Not just any garden, but one packed full of native plants, flowers and shrubs that would nourish insects, birds and everything in between."He was here in the garden nonstop. He loved it,” Fulton Alt said. “He loved it."She said he plotted, planted and poured everything he had into it. And as his passion for native gardens grew, so did his wife's concern about the project which grew to wrap two streets in an eclectic array of native flora and fauna"I said, ‘Howard, who's going take care of this garden when you're gone?’ And he just smiled at me,” she said. More from Erin: ‘Faces of Parkinson’s’: Mother, daughter highl...