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Scholz gets Orbán out the room to open Ukraine’s membership talks

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

BRUSSELS — About three hours into deadlocked discussions among EU leaders on Ukraine’s accession to the bloc, the German chancellor made a sudden proposal to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán: Go grab a coffee outside, perhaps.If Orbán really wasn’t willing to agree to opening enlargement talks with Kyiv, Chancellor Olaf Scholz suggested, he should consider leaving the room briefly. Scholz addressed the recommendation to the Hungarian leader in front of his EU counterparts gathered around the circular negotiation table at Thursday’s leaders’ summit.The idea, Scholz said, would allow the 26 EU leaders who remained to approve Ukraine’s road to accession with the required unanimity — which EU rules say is also fulfilled if one leader is absent — while Orbán could still say he hadn’t voted in favor.After the two men spoke on the sidelines, Orbán left the room, paving the way for the EU’s historic decision to open accession negotiations with ...

Two people injured in multi-vehicle crash involving school bus in front of Hyde Park school

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

School officials said a multi-vehicle crash by the Henry Grew School in Hyde Park left two people injured and multiple cars damaged Thursday, including a school bus.According to Boston police, only the driver was onboard the school bus when it allegedly struck multiple vehicles as well as a pedestrian by 40 Gordon Ave around 8:15 a.m.Police said two people were taken to a hospital, describing their injuries as non-life-threatening.One of the injured people was a child who had been near the crash site. 7NEWS learned the other injured person was a parent who had been dropping her child off at the school when the crash occurred. The woman’s mother-in-law, Michelle Legette, said it appeared a malfunction on the bus led to the crash, and that the driver had tried to lessen the impact before the pileup.Legette described the moment of impact in an interview, saying her daughter had just dropped her granddaughter off and was coming back to her car when she was hit.“[The driver] couldn...

Emanuel Lopes’ new trial for 2018 Weymouth killings set for next month

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

The retrial of the man authorities say shot and killed a Weymouth Police officer and a septuagenarian bystander five years ago is slated to begin on Jan. 8.Emanuel Lopes appeared again in Norfolk Superior Court Thursday afternoon with his attorneys to argue out some motions in a hearing lasting more than an hour and a half ahead of a fresh trial date to begin next month.Lopes already faced trial in that same court for the shooting murders of Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna, 42, and bystander Vera Adams, 77, in the early hours of July 15, 2018, among 11 total related charges. That ended up being declared a mistrial on July 10, following weeks of jury deliberations that never amounted to a verdict.Lopes has remained without bail as attorneys battle out behind the scenes with a flurry of motions.Attorney Larry Tipton at the Thursday hearing argued for a continuance of the January court date to allow more time to get another expert to weigh in on Lopes’ criminal culpability on that ...

Joe Mazzulla hopes new Celtics signing can follow similar path to a current player

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

The Celtics officially signed a rookie player on Thursday who coach Joe Mazzulla hopes can follow a similar trajectory as a current player on Boston’s roster.The C’s signed Drew Peterson to a two-way contract. He’s an athletic wing who played five college seasons – two at Rice before transferring for three at Southern California – before signing as an undrafted rookie free agent with the Miami Heat. He was a standout for the Heat’s summer league team, which included a 13-point performance against the Celtics that caught Boston’s eye.The 6-foot-8 Peterson – who was a two-time All-Pac 12 selection at USC – played in 13 games for G-League Sioux Falls, where he averaged 15.2 points per game, shot 40.7 percent from 3-point range and dished out 4.2 assists per game before he signed with the Celtics.Mazzulla thinks Peterson can take a similar path to a player like Sam Hauser, who was also undrafted in 2021 before developing in the G-League and now becoming a key player in the Celtics’ rota...

Accused Cohasset murderer Brian Walshe found indigent, gets court-appointed attorney

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

Brian Walshe, the Cohasset man accused of murdering his wife Ana Walshe on the first day of this year, has lost his private attorney and has been assigned a court-appointed one.Walshe was the subject of a brief hearing conducted by Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly J. Cannone over Zoom Thursday afternoon. It was the first hearing in the once very active case held in several months.In the hearing, Cannone found Walshe indigent and approved his attorney Tracy Miner’s motion to withdraw. Attorney Larry Tipton will now take on the role on the taxpayer dime.It was a quick fall to indigency status. In March of 2022, he and his wife pocketed nearly $1.4 million from the sale of their oceanside home on Cohasset’s Jerusalem Road. That home mysteriously caught fire just days after Ana Walshe went missing on New Year’s Day 2023 — though authorities have said that it’s merely a coincidence and the fire has nothing to do with her disappearance.Just a day before that fire, on Jan. 5, Cohasset ...

Medford City Council considering a 141% pay hike for School Committee

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

Some Medford School Committee members say a proposal from the City Council to raise their annual salaries by more than double came as a surprise and that they don’t do the job for the money.Council President Nicole Morell, in the last month of her tenure, is seeking to increase School Committee member pay from $12,000 to more than $29,000, aligning the annual earnings with that of city councilors.“The ideal of equal pay for equal work is a long-established and accepted principle in our nation,” Morell’s resolution states. “This ordinance would establish pay parity for all members of duly elected legislative bodies in the city.”School Committee members, speaking during a council meeting Tuesday, however, said they were unaware their compensation was an issue and that it’s gotten the attention of councilors.“I wanted to kind of set something clear: The first time, as a School Committee member, that I heard about this raise was by reading it on the City Council agenda,” said Kathy Krea...

Ticker: Average long-term US mortgage rate dips below 7%; Retail sales rise 0.3% in November

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate dropped below 7% to its lowest level since early August, another boost for prospective homebuyers who have largely been held back by sharply higher borrowing costs and heightened competition for relatively few homes for sale.The average rate on a 30-year mortgage dropped to 6.95% from 7.03% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.31%.Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loan, edged up this week, lifting the average rate to 6.38% from 6.29% last week. A year ago, it averaged 5.54%, Freddie Mac said.The latest drop in rates is the seventh in as many weeks. Mortgage rates have been easing since late October, when they reached 7.79%, the highest level since late 2000.Retail sales rise 0.3% in NovemberAmericans picked up their spending from October to November unexpectedly as the unofficial holiday season kicked off, underscoring the power of sh...

In-house leadership at Convention Center

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

Former Massachusetts Convention Center Authority board chair Gloria Cordes Larson will take over running the agency on a temporary basis after its previous executive director left amidst controversy with its board.The MCCA board approved Larson for the interim executive director role during a late-afternoon meeting on Thursday. She will serve in the role for six months, board chair Emme Handy said.Larson’s salary will be “along the same parameters” as past director Gibbons, Handy said. Gibbons made $316,000 in 2022.Larson will have to right the ship after former Executive Director David Gibbons stepped down last month more than a year before his contract was set to end and shortly after a series of apparent missteps. An investigation this fall found the agency fell short on diversity and inclusion efforts, and drama escalated surrounding an allegedly opaque process to choose a developer for a valuable piece of state-owned land in South Boston.Larson is a lawyer who...

Biden hosts four NASA astronauts, the first crew aiming to fly around the moon in a half-century

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

By COLLEEN LONG (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — The four astronauts assigned to fly around the moon for the first time in 50 years met with President Joe Biden on Thursday at the White House, where he showed off an moon rock on display in the Oval Office that was collected in the Apollo era. The Artemis II crew — three Americans and one Canadian — said the president was making good on a promise to host them at the White House after they were named to the mission earlier this year. They also met with Vice President Kamala Harris. “It’s been really nice to shake their hands and tell them thank you for their leadership and making it possible for us to have this amazing journey,” said pilot Victor Glover. The four astronauts will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land or even go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the mo...

Shohei Ohtani reveals dog’s name at Dodgers’ introduction: Decoy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:12:48 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nearly all the mystery around Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented free agency was revealed over the last week, yet baseball fans kept sniffing around on a most fuzzy question.Just who was the pup sitting on Ohtani’s lap when he was voted AL MVP for the second time last month?Fans speculated the dog’s name could have been a hint at his intentions — What if the pooch was named Dodger? Or Giant? Or Blue Jay?All a Decoy, turns out.Introduced by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday after agreeing to a $700 million, 10-year deal, Ohtani revealed that the brown and white dog who joined him on television last month is named Dekopin or Decopin in Japanese, depending on the transliteration — but he suggests Americans call him Decoy. “I figured it would be hard for American people to pronounce it, so he has an American name,” Ohtani said via translator Ippei Mizuhara.Ohtani didn’t speak to reporters after winning his MVP award, and the dog’s name never...