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Preparations underway for First Night festivities on City Hall Plaza

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

Crews were hard at work preparing City Hall Plaza to host Boston’s First Night festivities.This year’s celebration has been moved to City Hall Plaza due to ongoing construction at Copley Square.The free and family-friendly event will feature performances, ice sculptures, fireworks, and more. The City is a partner of the New Year’s Eve event, which is formally run by Boston Celebrations, Inc, and managed by Conventures, Inc. All parties are taking steps to ensure public safety as Boston celebrates the New Year. “First Night is a beloved tradition in Boston and beyond, having created delightful experiences for neighborhood residents and visitors from around the world,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement. “Our newly renovated City Hall Plaza is the perfect venue to welcome families from all over to ring in the New Year. I encourage all our residents to celebrate safely as we welcome 2024.”New this year, there will be programming inside Boston City Hall, comedy at ...

Fire officials investigating cause of deadly Braintree blaze

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

Fire crews are investigating a house fire in Braintree late Friday night that left a man dead, officials said.A passerby reported the fire on Hobart Avenue just after 4 a.m. and fire crews located an older man inside and pronounced him dead at the scene, officials said. “On behalf of the Braintree Fire Department, I want to express our heartfelt condolences to the victim’s family and loved ones,” said Chief O’Brien. “I also want to point out that we found no working smoke alarms at the scene. Please, take a moment today to be sure you have working smoke alarms on every level of your home. Don’t start the new year without them.”The fire spread rapidly and caused major damage to the home but firefighters were able to contain it to the building of origin. A second alarm was struck shortly after arrival and firefighters battled the blaze for almost an hour before bringing it under control.The fire is being investigated by the Braintree Fire Department, Braintree Police Department, and S...

Woman dies in shooting at Mississauga nightclub

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

A woman has died after a shooting at a Mississauga nightclub.Peel police say they responded to the shooting in the area of Dixie Road and Eglinton Avenue East just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning. The victim was transported to hospital with life-threatening injuries where she was pronounced dead. No further details, including whether the shooting happened inside or outside the nightclub, have been released.There is no suspect description at this time.Police have said there is no threat to public safety. The investigation is ongoing.POLICE INVESTIGATION: – Dixie Rd/Eglinton Av E #Mississauga – heavy police presence– no threat to public safety – TRAFFIC DISRUPTION: both east & west bound Eglinton Ave E closed between Dixie Rd & Burgoyne St– C/R at 1:36 am – PR23-0417964— Peel Regional Police (@PeelPolice) December 31, 2023

Israeli strikes in central Gaza kill at least 35 as Netanyahu says war will continue for months

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

Israeli strikes in central Gaza killed at least 35 people Sunday, hospital officials said, as the military targeted areas in several parts of the territory a day after the country’s prime minister said the war will continue for “many more months,” resisting international calls for a cease-fire.The military said Israeli forces were operating in Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, and residents reported strikes in the central part of the tiny enclave, after Israel this week made that region the new focus of its war.The war has raised fears of a broader regional conflagration. The U.S. military on Sunday said it shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles fired toward a container ship by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. Hours later, four boats tried to attack the same ship, but U.S. forces opened fire, killing several of the armed crews, the U.S. Central Command said.Israel says it wants to destroy Hamas’ governing and military capabilities in Gaza, from where it launche...

While some Montreal streets boom, downtown is dotted with vacant storefronts

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

MONTREAL — Wellington Street in Montreal’s Verdun borough is booming, with cheerful shop facades lining a district bustling with pedestrians.With a commercial vacancy rate the local business association pegs at about six per cent, the street, named “coolest in the world” by Time Out magazine in 2022, is a success story in the city’s battle against the empty storefronts that plague many of Montreal’s main arteries. Marie-Ève Girard, spokeswoman for the local business association, said Wellington Street benefited not only from a surge of tourists after the Time Out rankings but also from aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led Verdun residents to explore their local streets. “Because people were at home, they rediscovered their neighbourhoods,” she said in a phone interview. “There was also a huge enthusiasm for buying local.” To spur even more demand, Girard’s group rents out a formerly vacant storefront one month at a t...

AFD: 10 people 'narrowly escape' east Austin house fire

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Fire Department said a 10-person family escaped a home fire early Sunday morning. Firefighters said 10 family members "narrowly" escaped their heavily involved home on Adina Street in east Austin, AFD said on social media at 5:43 a.m. The fire is out, and the cause was ruled as improperly discarded smoking material. AFD estimated damages at $150,000 for the structure and $50,000 for the home's contents. Crews said eight adults and two children were displaced. Austin Police Department's Victim Services and Central Texas Red Cross are helping the family.

AFD investigating series of ‘suspicious’ fires in SE Austin

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Fire officials said a series of fires that occurred over the weekend in southeast Austin were being investigated as suspicious.According to the Austin Fire Department, four fires near the 5400 block of Jimmy Clay Drive were ruled to be incendiary and suspicious.AFD said while working a second fire at the Jimmy Clay Golf Course, additional fire crews responded to an apartment next door for a mattress and trash fire near a garage.Earlier Saturday, crews also responded to the golf course for a shed fire with four lawnmowers involved. An early estimate of equipment damage was at $400,000 in connection to the incident.AFD said multiple investigators responded to the scenes, and the investigation into the fires remained open. Officials said there was currently no suspect information available.

15 world records set in Texas during 2023

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Throughout 2023 many in Texas were able to accomplish new goals, and in the process, even broke some Guinness World Records.As the year comes to an end, here are 15 world records that were made in Texas during 2023.Largest collection of Care Bears memorabiliaOn Jan. 23, Nicholas Cherrywood achieved the largest collection of Care Bears memorabilia.At 1,234 items, Cherrywood's collection in Dallas, Texas, is comprised of Care Bear books, DVDs, clothing and stationery. The collection also includes multiple versions of the classic teddy bears. Unique Guinness World Records done by Texans in Texas Farthest basketball shot made backwardsOn Jan. 29, Jeremy Ware accomplished the farthest basketball shot made backwards at 85 feet 5 inches. The famous shot was achieved in San Antonio, Texas.“Jeremy was lucky enough to attempt this record in the AT&T Center, home of the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA,” Guinness said. “He was happy to have achieved this record in front of th...

Harry Boyte: ‘Rustin’ and the lessons of citizenship — ‘some-bodiness’ — we need today

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

”Rustin,” the new film about Bayard Rustin, brings Rustin out of the shadows. He was an indefatigable nonviolent educator and Martin Luther King’s mentor. He was organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. He was gay and kept out of sight. In producing the film “Rustin,” Barack and Michelle Obama seek to make his contributions visible.In 2013, Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the movie’s trailer, the former president says, the film “is not only about him. It’s about the thousands of ordinary folks from all walks who showed the world what America looks like at our best.”Obama highlights a little-noted aspect of the March on Washington: it made Black citizenship visible. Dignified, disciplined, and nonviolent, the marchers were civic examples needed in our time of bitter polarization and Washington dysfunction.At age 18, I participated in the March. My father, Harry George Boyte, urged me to come. After directing the Atlanta Red ...

Jason Opal: Even as American colonists defied the British, they understood the importance of the rule of law

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:32 GMT

The dominant storyline of our American Revolution is about patriotic defiance — refusing to pay taxes, dumping tea into the Boston Harbor and shooting redcoats once we saw the whites of their eyes. It’s about virtuous lawbreaking in the name of freedom.There is plenty of evidence to support this narrative. Yet like all triumphant tales, this one tends to crowd out other important truths about our past and ourselves. For the revolutionaries not only rejected royal and imperial authority but also embraced what we now call the “rule of law,” first as a national privilege and then as an egalitarian ideal.The roots of that ideal stretched from Boston to India and converged in 1776 into a powerful call for a new moral and legal order for America and the world.Colonial protests began in the mid-1760s because the British Parliament’s new taxes violated the ” principles and spirit of the British constitution,” according to colonial delegates, meaning...