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Free opioid test kits and research into safe use sites in refiled Markey bill

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

To go along with his announcement he would refile legislation to make fentanyl testing kits more readily available and look into safe injection sites, the state’s junior senator was himself trained in the use of the overdose drug naloxone.According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the past decade the synthetic opioid fentanyl has gone from being a rarely seen chemical additive to heroin to being present in most illicit drugs sold on today’s black market.From 2013 to 2021, the CDC reports, fentanyl involvement in overdose deaths rose from one death for every 100,000 Americans to 22 deaths per 100,000.“A single life lost to the opioid epidemic is one life too many. The drug overdose crisis is devastating communities across the country. It knows no bounds — crossing state lines and harming Americans no matter their identity or ideology. And we are losing the fight. Tens of thousands of lives taken in a single year is an absolute and avoidable tragedy,” Sen. Ed Markey said in a mo...

MIAA Field Hockey meeting: Power rankings working

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

Seeds matter when it comes to the new MIAA statewide tournament system.Field hockey is no different.At Monday’s virtual MIAA Field Hockey Committee meeting, MIAA associate director Sherry Bryant said the power rankings have resulted in great matchups and the top teams have been getting through to the latter stages of the tournament.“As we are seeing, the accuracy of the power ratings is working well for the sport of field hockey,” Bryant said. “In Div. 1, the top four seeds reached the semifinals with No. 2 Andover winning. In Div. 2 and 3, it was No. 1, 2, 4 and 6 with No. 4 (Longmeadow) winning in Div. 2 and No. 1 Watertown winning in Div. 3. In Div. 4, the top four seeds were in the semifinals and No. 1 Uxbridge went on to win.”While the MIAA is relatively pleased with the venues in general, there is the hope that more options are better. Bryant, echoing the sentiments of the Tournament Management Committee, is hoping that each of the nine districts can come up with at leas...

Banks crank up credit standards amid failures

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

WASHINGTON — A Federal Reserve report Monday showed that banks raised their lending standards for business and consumer loans in the aftermath of three large bank failures and expect to lift them more this year, a trend that could slow the economy in coming months and increases the risk of a recession.The report, known as the senior loan officers survey, asked banks if they have tightened their lending standards by taking steps such as demanding higher credit scores, charging higher interest rates, or requiring more collateral, among other steps, that altogether would make it harder for businesses and consumers to obtain loans.About 46% of all banks said they had raised standards for business loans known as commercial and industrial loans, up from just under 45% in the previous quarter. That increase was not as dramatic as in previous quarters, but banks were tightening credit before the bank failures. A year ago, slightly more banks were easing credit standards than raising them. N...

Lawsuit claims debt limit on spending already authorized by Congress unconstitutional 

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

A lawsuit filed a day before a high stakes meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders claims the debt limit set by Congress is unconstitutional when applied to spending already authorized by lawmakers.The legal action, filed in Federal Court in Boston by a union of government employees, targets Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Biden to try to stop them from complying with the law that limits the government’s total debt.The suit, filed by the National Association of Government Employees, says that if Yellen abides by the debt limit once it becomes binding, possibly next month, she would have to choose which federal obligations to actually pay.But under the Constitution, the lawsuit argues, the president and Treasury secretary have no authority to decide which payments to make because the Constitution grants spending power to Congress. Doing so, it contends, would violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.“Nothing in the Constitution or any ju...

New taco 'playground' coming to Ocean Beach this summer

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Tacos are about as fundamental to San Diego culture as the beach is. But this summer, beloved Mexican food spot City Tacos is about to take the region's taco craze to the next level: with a taco "playground."The new 10,000 square-foot City Tacos playground concept in Ocean Beach will be a place that combines delicious tacos with a space designed for laid-back fun, in true San Diego fashion.This will be the seventh San Diego County location for the award-winning Mexican eatery. The first location opened in North Park on May 5, 2014."Extending my footprint into OB really is a testament to the great people of San Diego," founder Gerry Torres said in a release. "Their passion for City Tacos means more City Tacos.”The new location will be right in the heart of Ocean Beach, situated only a few blocks from the Dusty Rhodes Park. The playground will feature a courtyard with a variety of seating options, as well as a gated dog park with tables.Murals from a dozen local artists w...

1 adult injured in shooting at Las Vegas middle school

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — An adult was shot and injured Monday afternoon at a middle school in suburban Las Vegas, but law enforcement officials said they did not believe there was any further threat to the school as their search for the shooter continued.The shooting was reported just before 12:40 p.m. at Ed Von Tobel Middle School, according to a statement from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. No students were injured in the shooting.In a letter sent to parents shortly after the shooting, the school’s principal said all students were safe in their classrooms after one person was struck by gunfire on campus but outside the school building.The middle school located about a 15-minute drive northeast of the Las Vegas Strip was placed on lockdown for about an hour while police cleared the campus. The person who was shot was taken to a hospital, although police did not describe the extent of their injuries. Police also have not said whether the person who was shot was a school...

Rangers search for two overdue mountain climbers in Alaska

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, Alaska (AP) — Aerial and limited ground searches were underway Monday in Alaska for two overdue mountain climbers whose last known tracks disappeared at the site of an avalanche, officials said.Eli Michel, 34, of Columbia City, Indiana, and Nafiun Awal, 32, of Seattle, were last known to be near Moose’s Tooth, a 10,300-foot (3,140-meter) mountain in Ruth Gorge, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) southeast of Denali, North America’s tallest mountain, officials said in a statement.The two last checked with friends via a satellite communication device on Friday morning, when they said they were planning to climb the West Ridge route along Moose’s Tooth.Their friends contacted park mountaineering rangers in nearby Talkeetna on Sunday when they hadn’t heard again from the climbers.Rangers on Sunday found the climbers’ unattended tent and ski tracks heading to the base of the route. There, they found the climbers’ skis, left behind when they apparently...

‘Risk it all’: Migration rises ahead of end to asylum rules

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Under a set of white tents at the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas, dozens of Venezuelan men waited. Some sat on curbs and others leaned on metal barricades. When the gates eventually opened, the long line of men filed slowly up the pedestrian pathway to the bridge and across the Rio Grande River to Mexico.In the past few weeks, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have been facilitating these expulsions three times a day as roughly 30,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have entered the U.S. in this region since mid-April. That’s compared with 1,700 migrants Border Patrol agents encountered in the first two weeks of April.In the other end of the state, in El Paso, officials are dealing with another increase of migrants and worry that thousands more are waiting to cross.All this comes as the U.S. is preparing for the end of a policy linked to the coronavirus pandemic that allowed it to quickly expel many migrants, and it spotlights co...

As Trump probes intensify, foes of ex-president see opening

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — An investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents has intensified in recent weeks, with prosecutors summoning a broad range of witnesses before a federal grand jury and zeroing in on questions of whether the former president or others obstructed government efforts to recover the records.It remains unclear when the investigation led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith might end or whether Trump might face charges over documents found at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. But as probes in Washington and Atlanta proceed, Republican critics of Trump see an opportunity for intensifying legal woes to knock him off his frontrunner mantle in the 2024 presidential race in a way that an earlier indictment in New York failed to do.The ongoing investigations “are the ones that have the meat,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a longtime Republican donor who has become a vocal Trump critic. ”It’s very, very serious,” she said. “It ought to hav...

Jury hears final arguments in writer’s claims against Trump

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:30 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump should be held accountable for sexually attacking an advice columnist in 1996 because even a former president is not above the law, a lawyer for the columnist told a jury Monday in closing arguments in the lawsuit that accuses Trump of rape.A lawyer for Trump responded by calling the accuser’s account “unbelievable” and “outrageous.”Once the final arguments were complete, the judge sent the jury home with instructions to return Tuesday to hear about an hour of instructions before beginning deliberations. Jurors will be asked to decide whether Trump committed battery and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll and whether damages should be awarded.In recapping Carroll’s case, attorney Roberta Kaplan showed jurors video clips of Trump from his October deposition and replayed the “Access Hollywood” video from 2005 in which Trump said into a hot mic that celebrities can grab women’s genitals without asking.Kaplan recalled Trump’s c...