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Rep. George Santos charged with embezzling from his campaign, lying to Congress about his income

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — U.S. Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican infamous for fabricating key parts of his life story, has been indicted on charges that he embezzled money from his campaign, lied to Congress about his income and cheated his way into undeserved unemployment benefits, prosecutors said Wednesday.The indictment says Santos induced supporters to donate to a company under the false pretense that the money would be used to support his campaign. Instead, it says, he used it for personal expenses, including to buy designer clothes and to pay his credit cards and car payments.Santos also is accused of lying about his finances on congressional disclosure forms and applying for and receiving unemployment benefits while he was employed as regional director of an investment firm that the government shut down in 2021 over allegations that it was a Ponzi scheme.U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the indictment “seeks to hold Santos accountable for various alleged fraudulent ...

First 2023 sighting of blue whale off California coast

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

A blue whale was spotted off the coast of California and according to experts, this is the first official sighting of 2023The mammal is believed to be migrating north along the coast from Costa Rica. It’s more than 75 feet long and weighs at least 360,000 pounds. The whale was seen feeding in the area.

UK ditches deadline for Brexit bonfire of EU laws after business backlash

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

LONDON — The U.K. will water down its timetable for replacing or removing thousands of EU laws post-Brexit, scrapping a self-imposed December 2023 deadline.The government climbdown — announced Wednesday — comes amid pushback to the Retained EU Law Bill from Conservative Party MPs and members of the House of Lords. Lawmakers have called for the timetable to be slowed and for parliament to have more scrutiny over the major regulatory overhaul. The approach also drew flak from British businesses who warned it created serious regulatory uncertainty.The bill, championed by former Business Secretary and arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, originally contained a “sunset clause” which would have automatically deleted every EU law which hadn’t already been reviewed by the government.But Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has now amended the bill so that only several hundred laws, which will be publicly announced by the government ahead of time, will be subject to the 20...

NFL schedules lopsided Giants-Eagles rivalry for Christmas Day 2023 in Philadelphia

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

The Giants played away games on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve last season. This winter, they’ll hit the road on Christmas Day.The Philadelphia Eagles announced on Wednesday that they will host the Giants at Lincoln Financial Field on Monday, Dec. 25 at 4:30 p.m.The league scheduled the Eagles and Giants on the holiday despite the Eagles winning 12 of the last 14 games head-to-head, including all three of last year’s meetings capped by a 38-7 NFC divisional playoff blowout in South Philadelphia.Part of the reason is that these games produce good ratings even when they’re lopsided. Last season’s Jan. 21 playoff beatdown still averaged 28.6 million viewers, which made it the most-watched prime telecast that evening.The NFL’s three Christmas Day broadcasts last season also averaged 22.9 million viewers, which dwarfed the NBA’s 4.27 million average for its five-game Christmas Day slate.So if the Giants can make the rivalry competitive again, this year...

Column: Willson Contreras has a lot to learn about being a true villain with the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

It’s not hard to become a villain at Wrigley Field, especially when you’re wearing a St. Louis Cardinals uniform.The formula is pretty simple.Be a star player. Have some big moments against the Cubs in Chicago. Rub it in their faces. Bonus points if you’ve ever been suspected of cheating.Former Cubs catcher Willson Contreras happily accepted the challenge this week in his return to his old home, waving his arms in the air after getting on base Monday to coax Cubs fans into booing him louder.It was entertaining to watch, unless perhaps you were the Cubs manager.“Every team has a different celebration — that could be to his teammates,” a grumpy David Ross said after the game. “I don’t know who that’s for, so that’d be stupid to comment on.”Baseball is entertainment, so kudos to Contreras for playing along and trying to breathe some life into a rivalry that has seen better days. Since Ryan Braun retired from the Milwauke...

Woman struck by falling utility box on Boston’s MBTA to file lawsuit

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

A woman who was injured at Harvard station earlier this month when an out-of-service utility box fell on her plans to file a lawsuit against the MBTA, her lawyers announced Wednesday morning.Video footage from the May 1 safety failure shows the box, which T officials said had served no purpose since 2013, fall from a column as other commuters stood nearby. The impact, attorneys for the woman said, led to a detached clavicle from her shoulder that “will require ongoing and long term medical treatment.”“The injuries also impacted her rigorous academic schedule during a crucial time for students,” a statement said. “… The aging Red Line platform where the incident occurred has additional reported structural deficiencies including a leaking ceiling that resulted in a panel falling on a woman in March.”https://www.bostonherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MBTA-video-May.mp4Lawyers said the woman is a 28-year-old PhD student at Harvard University.MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said t...

Long popular in Asia, floating solar catches on in US

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

When Joe Seaman-Graves, the city planner for the working class town of Cohoes, New York, Googled the term “floating solar,” he didn’t even know it was a thing. What he did know is that his tiny town needed an affordable way to get electricity and had no extra land. But looking at a map, one feature stood out, he said. “We have this 14-acre water reservoir.” Seaman-Graves soon found the reservoir could hold enough solar panels to power all the municipal buildings and streetlights, saving the city more than $500,000 each year. He had stumbled upon a form of clean energy that is steeply ramping up. Floating solar panel systems are beginning to boom in the United States after rapid growth in Asia. They’re attractive not just for their clean power and lack of a land footprint, but because they also conserve water by preventing evaporation.A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability in March found that thousands of cities — more than 6,000 in 124 countries — c...

Groff, Lethem excerpts featured in free e-book compilation

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Fiction from such prize-winning authors as Jonathan Lethem, Lauren Groff, and Sigrid Nunez and a biography of the late Rep. John Lewis are among the upcoming works excerpted in a free e-book compilation published Wednesday. “Buzz Books 2023: Fall/Winter,” released by the industry newsletter Publishers Lunch, includes dozens of fiction and nonfiction books scheduled for later this year. Novels include Groff’s “The Vaster Wilds,” Lethem’s “Brooklyn Crime Novel,” Nunez’s “The Vulnerables” and Naomi Alderman’s “The Future.”The e-book release also features excerpts from Raymond Arsenault’s “John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community,” the young adult books “The Spirit Glass,” by Roshani Chokshi, and “The Spells We Cast,” by Jason June, and a novel by Cedric the Entertainer, “Flipping Boxcars.”The Associated Press

‘BlackBerry’ film taps into device that ruled pre-iPhone era

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

Almost everyone knows Steve Jobs’ uncanny vision, relentless drive and technological wizardry hatched the iPhone, a breakthrough that continues to reshape culture 16 years after the late Apple co-founder introduced the device to the world.But when Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007, another smartphone was the must-have gadget. It was the BlackBerry, a device so addictive that it became known as the “CrackBerry” among tech nerds and power brokers hunched over a tiny keyboard that was best operated with both thumbs clickety-clacking.Now the BlackBerry is “that phone people had before they bought an iPhone,” a relic so irrelevant that the Canadian company that made it is now valued at $3 billion — down from $85 billion at its 2008 peak when it still controlled nearly half of the smartphone market.But its legacy is worth remembering — and audiences will get a chance to learn more about its origins in the new film, “BlackBerry.” It’s the latest movie or TV ser...

Oprah teams with Arthur C. Brooks on book about happiness

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:47:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Oprah Winfrey’s latest book project is one she helped write. Winfrey has teamed with the author, educator and Atlantic columnist Arthur C. Brooks on “Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier,” to be published Sept. 12 by Portfolio Books.“I started reading Arthur Brooks’ column ‘How to Build a Life’ during the early days of the pandemic,” Winfrey said in a statement released Wednesday by Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. “I found myself happily anticipating each week’s lesson, which turned out to be a recipe for growing forward. When I discovered he taught happiness at Harvard, I wanted to extend that to the rest of us.”Brooks, who teaches a “Leadership and Happiness” class at Harvard, said in a statement that he had long admired Winfrey, who last year praised his bestseller “From Strength to Strength” and interviewed him for her “Super Soul” podcast.“As a social scientist, I look at the data and evidence on what leads to th...