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Gaskin: Environmental justice $$ needs better priorities

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

At the federal level, billions of dollars have been budgeted to fight climate change in the Infrastructure Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and others with funding from the Departments of the Environment, Energy, and Labor among others. With billions of dollars available, why isn’t the money making it to environmental justice communities such as Grove Hall in Boston?One reason is a large portion of the state (53%) has been designated an environmental justice community or designated as EJ Group Blocks. It is easy for the funds to flow to municipalities with more resources and capacity. Towns with more resources can get even more resources and those without, go without.  The second is that the current Massachusetts definition of an Environmental Justice (EJ) Community has nothing to do with the level of environmental damage or harm that has been inflicted upon certain communities. That’s right, the definition of an environmental justice community has nothing to do environmental harm ...

Bernstein: Will third-party candidates hurt Biden or Trump?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

With former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney’s comments that she’s considering an independent bid for president against Donald Trump, experts are beginning to game out how she and other third-party candidates could affect next year’s election.A political action committee backing independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign announced that it’s planning to spend at least $10 million to get his name on that ballot in 10 states. And the quasi-party No Labels has threatened to recruit a big-name candidate, with retiring Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and retiring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin getting plenty of buzz.Then you have independent candidate Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who also ran in 2012 and 2016.There’s still time for more to join the field, with filing deadlines a ways off. As long as President Joe Biden’s approval ratings remain below 40% and similarly unpopular Trump remains the Republican front-runner, the race will seem tempting to many.Significant third-party...

Girls indoor track preview: Departures open door for new champions

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

The graduation of two of the state’s all-time track greats should figure greatly into the 1000 and mile events this winter.Gone are Newton South’s Amelia Everett in the 1000 and Brookline’s Camille Jordan in the mile, but still on the scene is a huge middle-distance presence.The 1000 is still top-heavy with talent with Plymouth North’s Macey Shriner, Weymouth’s Gracie Richard and Carmen Luisi of Holliston. Add Delaney Dyer of Wellesley, Marshfield’s Ava LoVuolo and Audrey Adam of Needham to the mix and the 1000 should be a can’t miss event for fans.Ditto in the mile.Oliver Ames’ Katie Sobieraj had a big cross country season and that base should carry over to the winter season. Ciara Evans of Newton North, Charlotte Tuxbury of Wellesley and Holliston’s Maggie Kuchman are enormously competitive, as are Eliza Dickie of Cambridge, Woburn’s Sinead Butler, Paige McInerney of Acton Boxboro, Lilly DeDecko of Barnstable and North Qu...

Editorial: Universities selective when it comes to free speech

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

Apologists for the three college presidents who embarrassed themselves at a congressional hearing earlier this month on antisemitism are now attempting to portray them as brave defenders of free speech. That’s utter garbage.The leaders of Harvard, Penn and MIT appeared before a congressional committee and couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge that “calling for the genocide of Jews” amounts to bullying and harassment on campus and would be a violation of their codes of student conduct. “It depends on the context,” one of them said.In the ensuing firestorm, two of the presidents apologized. The third, Penn’s Elizabeth Magill, resigned.Since then, some leftist defenders of these academics have said that, while their testimony was unfortunate, they were simply trying to acknowledge First Amendment concerns regarding the regulation of offensive speech. If so, that would be entirely out of character. These university presidents — and others across the country — have a track record of s...

Russell: Why is everyone expecting a tip these days?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

If you’ve ordered a coffee and been asked to tip your barista at Starbucks and hesitated, you’re not alone: If you don’t tip, will your chipper barista be let down? What does everyone else do?This was the subject of a fascinating new study by the Pew Research Center, which created an interactive fictional American town, “Tipping Point,” that asks users how they’d tip in various situations and then lets you see how your answers compare to others.The survey is timely: Establishments requiring or asking for tips has increased. If I’m at a business and an employee hands me an iPad, I know I’m about to be asked to tip them on something that I’ve probably never paid a tip for before.According to Pew, 72% of U.S. adults say that tipping is expected in more places today than it was five years ago. Some have dubbed this new era “tipflation” because it seems so excessive.High-tech electronics are not the only cause. It seems like a trickle-down effect of participation trophies, the trend that...

T.3 tenors ride viral TikTok wave to fame

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

If you haven’t heard of the vocal group T.3, you probably didn’t spend a lot of time sharing TikTok videos of Disney songs during the pandemic.Tenors Jim Hogan, Brendan Jacob Smith and Liam Fennecken started posting a cappella versions of favorite tunes online just a few weeks before the pandemic hit. Once it did, the viral videos became a full-time occupation and a runaway hit, earning them hundreds of thousands of TikTok subscribers. They even got some thumbs-up from artists they covered, including CSN’s Stephen Stills and R&B star Ginuwine.“People told us it was their lifeline, but I can honestly say it was ours,” Fennecken said in a group interview this week. “The truth is that all three of us have been performers our entire lives, we are all musical theater professionals — so there we were with no work whatsoever,” Adds Hogan, “We basically asked Brendan to shoot us one video on his parents stairwell. That was the only plan.” And Smith adds, “We definitely got creativ...

Dear Abby: ‘For better, for worse’ – but not this

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

Dear Abby: Is it normal to be disgusted by your wife’s lack of concern about her appearance and her belongings? My wife drives a $50,000 car that never gets washed and is so filled with “stuff” that seldom can she take even one passenger.Her side of the bedroom is just as bad. She never makes the bed and can no longer get to her dresser because there are so many clothes piled in front of it. It’s the same down the hall. In addition to plowing things aside or piling them in a spare room, her messes take over the house.She also doesn’t take care of herself. She often doesn’t shower for days. Her clothes are frumpy, and I can no longer count how many pounds she keeps adding. It is embarrassing for me, especially when she proclaims she “will never be concerned about her weight again.” I feel it’s disrespectful to me when she says those things, and I can’t let this continue. I am supposed to get used to it? It doesn’t seem...

‘Insurance godmothers’ sign up Latinos for Obamacare in pro-Trump areas as he threatens to repeal it

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — Salsa music blares from the food court in a rundown Miami shopping center as Latinos head to a kiosk and an office showing signs for “Obamacare,” where they hope to renew their health coverage plans before the year ends.It’s areas near this mall where former President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul is more popular than anywhere in the country, according to federal data. The region has also shifted away from Democrats to Republicans in recent years, with former President Donald Trump hosting several rallies here as part of his outreach to Latino voters. Trump has vowed to renew efforts to repeal and replace the 2010 law — something that would be felt heavily in the region and could possibly reverse some of the GOP shift among South Florida’s Latinos, experts here say. President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has already seized on Trump’s statements about “Obamacare,” enacted when Biden was vice president, as part of its broader efforts...

A cardinal and 9 others will learn their fate in a Vatican financial trial after 2 years of hearings

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A once-powerful cardinal and nine other people are to learn their fate Saturday when a Vatican tribunal hands down verdicts in a complicated financial trial that has aired the tiny city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.Judge Giuseppe Pignatone will read out the verdicts of the three-judge panel in the converted courtroom in the Vatican Museums, where prosecutors and defense attorneys have sparred for 2 1/2 years over the details of a money-losing investment in a luxury London property.Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first-ever cardinal to be prosecuted in the Vatican’s criminal court, is accused of embezzlement-related charges in two tangents of the London deal and faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. He has denied any wrongdoing.Unlike most defendants, Becciu attended nearly all of the 86 hearings, saying Pope Francis clearly wanted him to face court judgment after Francis himself forced his resignation and removed his privi...

Latino Democrats in the Senate decry Biden’s concessions in border and Ukraine talks

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:10:30 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Prominent Latinos in Congress looked on quietly, at first, privately raising concerns with the Biden administration over the direction of border security talks.Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California was on the phone constantly with administration officials questioning why the Senate negotiations did not include any meaningful consideration of providing pathways to citizenship for longtime undocumented immigrants.New Mexico Democrat Sen. Ben Ray Luján made similar arguments as he tried to get meetings with top-level White House officials.But when the talks didn’t seem to make enough difference, the influential lawmakers started leading the open opposition.“A return to Trump-era policies is not the fix,” Padilla said. “In fact, it will make the problem worse.”Padilla even pulled President Joe Biden aside at a fundraiser last weekend in California to warn him “to be careful” of being dragged into “harmful policy.”The Latino senators have found themselves on ...