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Revenue rebounds after steep drop in April

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

State tax revenues surpassed expectations in May after a steep nosedive in April, yet the total haul remains hundreds of millions of dollars short of projections with the budget year drawing to a close, officials said Monday.The Department of Revenue announced that Massachusetts collected $2.706 billion in May 2023, an increase of $236 million or 9.5% over May 2022 and $169 million or 6.7% above the most recent benchmark projection for the month.That’s a bounceback after April, when tax collections dropped more than $2 billion from the prior year, causing both supporters and opponents of tax relief bills to suggests plans be reevaluated.Healey administration officials signaled at the time they were optimistic they would not need to cut government spending to make up the potential year-end revenue shortfall, particularly given the sizable amounts of money in state savings accounts.Massachusetts has collected about $35.026 billion in taxes through the first 11 months of fiscal 2...

Historic day for Bishop Feehan girls golf

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

LONGMEADOW — When Carol Pignato and her friends won the South sectional girls golf title just last week, it was a dream scenario. In Bishop Feehan’s inaugural spring season as a program, the Shamrocks had already made history on a grand level.Now, she and her teammates can add one more piece of hardware to the trophy case at 70 Holcott Drive — a state championship. The senior led the way by shooting a 78 on the day (6-over-par), as the Shamrocks simply followed things up by winning it all in convincing fashion at Longmeadow Country Club.“It feels great,” said Pignato. “Kind of unreal at the moment, but we are all super excited. We put up some great scores today.”You can say that again. In addition to Pignato, the Shamrocks had two other individuals finish with scores under 90, with Nora Charnley (83) and Hanley Correia (84) also having sustained success. This all came in spite of the dramatic dips and dives that are generally associated with playing at Longmeadow.“Just (about) keepi...

Lawyer: Suspect in Natalee Holloway disappearance to challenge extradition from Peru to US

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

LIMA, Peru (AP) — The lawyer for the main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on Monday said his client has changed his mind and plans to challenge his extradition to the United States.Defense attorney Máximo Altéz announced the decision of Dutchman Joran van der Sloot just hours after the Peruvian government confirmed the extradition would take place Thursday. Altéz said van der Sloot reversed course following a meeting with Dutch diplomats.“He does not want to be extradited to the United States of America,” Altéz said, adding that he intended to file a writ of habeas corpus. “He was visited today by his embassy (representatives) who made him see the mistake he was making by being extradited without due process.”The attorney said van der Sloot was never notified of an open extradition process, and as a result, was not able to challenge it. Less than a week ago, Altéz had said his client explained in a letter he did not plan to challenge t...

Chinese ex-official’s wife says alleged repatriation pressure turned her life in US ‘upside-down’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A former Chinese official and his wife had left their homeland and kept their U.S. address private. Yet eight years later, two strangers were banging on their New Jersey front door and twisting the handle, the wife testified in a U.S. court Monday.When the men left and Liu Fang opened the door, she found an ominous note telling her husband that if he returned to China and served 10 years in prison, his wife and children would be OK.If the lock hadn’t held, “what happens if they were able to come in?” she wondered aloud, through a court interpreter, at the criminal trial of a man who helped post the note and two co-defendants. The co-defendants are charged with playing other roles in an alleged campaign to hound ex-official Xu Jin into returning to China. Prosecutors say the defendants and others subjected the couple, their adult daughter and various relatives to a spate of intimidating overtures at Beijing’s behest, as part of a repatriation initiative ca...

Permit-to-purchase: Oregon’s tough new gun law faces federal court test

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal trial over Oregon’s voter-approved gun control measure opened Monday in Portland, marking a critical next step for one of the toughest gun control laws in the nation after months of being tied up in the courts.The trial, which is being held before a judge and not a jury, will determine whether the law violates the U.S. Constitution. It comes after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment that has upended gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books. It changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions, telling judges that gun laws must be consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”The Oregon measure’s fate is being carefully watched as one of the first new gun restrictions passed since the Supreme Court ruling last June.The legal battle over in Oregon could well last beyond the trial. ...

Loss of oxygen in cabin may have led to Virginia plane crash, experts say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A loss of oxygen is a leading theory for why an unresponsive business jet flew off course and over the nation’s capital Sunday before it crashed in rural Virginia. But federal investigators are just beginning to look for answers, and experts cautioned against jumping to conclusions. The Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, headed for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. Once over Long Island, it inexplicably turned around and headed south, flying straight over Washington, D.C. before crashing in Virginia, k illing the pilot and three passengers.“By far the most likely suspect is some sort of a pressurization issue,” said William Waldock, a professor of safety science who teaches aircraft accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. “It went up to 34,000 feet and basically stayed there — all the way up, all the way back,” Waldock said. “The turn (away from New York and back south) is a little perplexing....

Rogers sends framework for TTC service deal to federal industry minister

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

TORONTO — Rogers Communications Inc. in May sent federal Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne a framework for reaching a deal with other telecom providers over wireless service in Toronto’s subway system, the company said Monday.In a post on its website Monday evening, the telecom company said it proposed a framework to reach agreements with all carriers to join the network under “commercially reasonable terms” in a timely manner. The company said it’s confident it will be able to reach deals with the other carriers. However, Rogers said it also proposed a dispute resolution process in case it’s unable to reach deals with the other carriers. It did not share details of the framework or of the dispute resolution process. In April, Champagne asked the executives of Rogers, Bell Canada, Telus Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc. to respond within 30 days detailing their status on the issue of wireless service on the Toronto subway. Rogers is buyi...

Blast of air, dust during implosion damaged some homes; repairs vowed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

SPRINGDALE, Pa. (AP) — A blast of air and dust from the implosion of two smokestacks at a shuttered coal-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania last week felled power poles and caused damage to nearby homes. But the demolition company is vowing full repairs.The implosion at the Cheswick Generating Station in Springdale, a borough just northeast of Pittsburgh, occurred shortly after 8 a.m. Friday, bringing the stacks down with a loud crash and a huge cloud of dust. One tower stood about 550 feet (170 meters) tall and the other 750 feet (230 meters).Controlled Demolition said in a statement that the chimneys fell “exactly where they were supposed to” and noise and vibration levels were “well below” allowable state environmental protection limits, KDKA-TV reported. But, the company said, the larger chimney’s steel liner “focused air pressure as it collapsed upon impact.” Bruno Moretti, Allegheny County’s emergency management coordinator, said the air blast broke wi...

US judge yanks approval for Idaho mine after finding that federal agency violated environmental laws

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

A federal judge has yanked approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho, saying federal land managers in the Trump administration didn’t in part properly consider the mine’s impact on sage grouse, a bird species that has seen an 80% decline in population since 1965.U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s Friday decision came five months after he found fault with the way the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved the Caldwell Canyon Mine in 2019.The mine has been proposed by P4 Production LLC, a subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG. Three environmental groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians — sued.In January, Winmill agreed with the conservation groups that the federal agency violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws on several counts when it approved the mine, including failing to consider the indirect effects of processing ore at a nearby plant and the cumulative impacts on s...

Louisiana Senate passes bill banning gender-affirming car for transgender youths

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:56 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A controversial bill — that at one point had been presumed dead — banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths in Louisiana was passed by the Senate on Monday and is likely to reach the governor’s desk in the coming days.The bill, which passed in the Senate mainly along party lines, 29-10, would prohibit hormone treatments, gender-affirming surgery and puberty-blocking drugs for transgender minors in Louisiana. The measure will go back to the House, which has already overwhelmingly passed the legislation, to approve of minor amendments, including pushing back the effective date of the law to Jan. 1, 2024.If the House concurs, the legislation would be sent to the desk of Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who opposes it. Edwards has not said whether he would veto the bill. If he does, lawmakers could convene a veto session to try to override his decision. Last session, Edwards chose not to block a law banning transgender athletes from part...