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An expanded deer hunt is coming to a Massachusetts park where the deer population has jumped

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

The state will be shutting down a park for an expanded deer hunt in a part of the Bay State where the deer population has ballooned in recent years.The Department of Conservation and Recreation will close Quabbin Park in western Massachusetts for the expanded two-day controlled deer hunt next week. DCR said it’s shutting down the park “in the interest of public safety” on Monday and Tuesday (Dec. 4 and 5).Two-day controlled hunting began in the Quabbin Reservation more than 30 years ago — with the goal of cutting the deer population in the area, and then population maintenance. An overpopulation of deer can negatively impact the long-term health of the forest and watershed.Then in 2019, DCR proposed expanding the hunt into Quabbin Park, where the deer population had jumped. As part of this program, hunters received permits in 2019 through a lottery process.But due to the COVID pandemic, plans for this expansion of the Quabbin hunt were put on hold. Meanwhile,...

Boston vandal caused more than $10,000 in damage to historic sites during alleged rampage

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

The rampage a Boston man went on overnight Saturday at historic and religious sites across the city that included damage to graves has left officials facing a $10,000-plus bill for repairs.A historic masonry company will start work on the Paul Revere monument at the Granary Burying Ground this week, with work expected to be completed by the end of next week, a city spokesperson told the Herald on Tuesday.The spokesperson expects the cost to fix the grave to be just under $10,000 which the city will cover with capital improvement funding. For now, the capstone and stone slab have been picked up and replaced on their respective bases while the monument’s three grave markers await repairs.Down the road on Tremont Street, damaged headstones in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground will need to wait longer to be repaired due to the cold temperatures, the spokesperson said. A stone conservator will reset them next spring when the “weather breaks,” with the cost estimated to be in the “several ...

SDSU to hire ex-Colorado offensive coordinator Sean Lewis as head coach, AP source says

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Sean Lewis, who was stripped of his play-calling duties as Colorado's offensive coordinator late in the season, is being hired as head coach at San Diego State, a person with knowledge of the situation said Tuesday.The person spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the hiring hasn't been made official. Lewis, who was head coach at Kent State from 2018-2022, is expected to be introduced at a news conference Wednesday, the person said.Lewis replaces Brady Hoke, who was allowed to finish the season after the school announced his retirement with two games to go. The Aztecs (4-8) finished tied for last in the Mountain West and played in front of thousands of empty seats in their new 35,000-seat stadium. Hoke had three seasons left on his contract when the school announced his retirement.The defensive-minded Hoke failed to develop potent offenses, even when the Aztecs won a school-record 12 games in 2021.Lewis was demoted into a co-offe...

Judge dismisses liberal watchdog’s claims that Wisconsin impeachment panel violated open meeting law

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge dismissed on Tuesday a liberal watchdog group’s claims that a panel researching the possible impeachment of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice violated the state’s open meeting laws.Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington wrote in his ruling that American Oversight filed its claims prematurely and should have given District Attorney Ismael Ozanne more time to decide whether to launch his own lawsuit. Remington allowed the group to continue seeking records from the panel, however.Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos asked former state Supreme Court justices David Prosser, Pat Roggensack and Jon Wilcox in September to advise on whether impeaching current Justice Janet Protasiewicz would be justified.Protasiewicz is a member of the court’s four-justice liberal majority. Republicans are furious with her after she declared on the campaign trail last year that the Legislature’s GOP-drawn district boundaries are “rigged.” The high cour...

US gas prices have fallen or remained steady for 10 weeks straight. Here’s why

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not just you. Across the U.S., prices at the pump have felt milder in recent months.Gas prices have fallen or remained steady since Sep. 19 — marking about a 70-day trajectory of decline, Andrew Gross, spokesperson for motor club AAA, said Tuesday.As of Tuesday, the national average for gas prices stood just below $3.25, according to AAA. That’s down 25 cents from a month ago and 30 cents less than this time last year. Experts point to a recent decline in oil prices and a seasonal dip in demand, as well as easing inflation.Each penny decline in the national average saves motorists close to $3.8 million, according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “If you amplify that times 30 cents, we’re talking about Americans that are spending hundreds of millions less on gasoline today than they were a year ago.”Despite the drop, the global energy market can be volatile and lower gas prices down the road aren’t promised. Here’...

Tortoise Frank the Tank, found wandering bok choy field, gets a new home in B.C.

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

VANCOUVER — Adoption requests came from as far away as New Zealand, but Frank the Tank, a 17-kilogram tortoise found wandering in a Richmond bok choy field last month, will be staying in British Columbia.Kahlee Demers, manager at the Maple Ridge Community Animal Centre, says the shelter received an “enormous amount” of emails from people seeking to adopt Frank.She says the sulcata tortoise was taken by ferry to his new home on Monday although his new family didn’t want to be identified for privacy reasons.Despite being surrounded by leafy greens, Frank was in poor shape when he was found in early October, suffering shell rot and respiratory problems due to being out in the cold. Demers says veterinarian Adrian Walton of Dewdney Animal Hospital worked to get Frank back in shape, with the tortoise gaining some weight and showing off his “great personality.”Walton said last month that sulcata tortoises are endangered in their native Africa, but can be bought as pets i...

Writer John Nichols, author of ‘The Milagro Beanfield War’ with a social justice streak, dies at 83

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Writer John Nichols, best known for his populist novel “The Milagro Beanfield War,” has died. He was 83.Nichols died Monday at home in Taos, New Mexico, amid declining health linked to a long-term heart condition, said daughter Tania Harris of Albuquerque.Nichols won early recognition with the 1965 publication of his offbeat love story “The Sterile Cuckoo,” later made into a movie starring Liza Minnelli. The coming-of-age book and subsequent movie were set amid private Northeastern colleges that were a familiar milieu to Nichols, who attended boarding school in Connecticut and private college in upstate New York.He moved in 1969 with his first wife from New York City to northern New Mexico, where he found inspiration for a trilogy of novels anchored in the success of “The Milagro Beanfield War.”That novel — about a fictional Hispanic agricultural community in the mountains of northern New Mexico, a scheme by business interests to usurp the town̵...

Memorial event to honour Quebec singer Karl Tremblay of Les Cowboys Fringants

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

MONTREAL — Thousands of Quebecers are gathering at Montreal’s Bell Centre to pay tribute to folk-rock singer Karl Tremblay, whose band Les Cowboys Fringants has been a beloved fixture of the province’s music scene for more than two decades.Tremblay died earlier this month at age 47 after a long bout with prostate cancer, prompting an outpouring of grief and affection from across the province.Premier François Legault offered a national funeral to Tremblay’s family, which includes his partner and bandmate Marie-Annick Lépine as well as two daughters.  Legault told reporters outside the Bell Centre today that Tremblay’s music united Quebecers, who recognized themselves in Les Cowboys Fringants’ songs.He said the lead singer’s death created an incredible “wave of love and sadness” from fans, many of whom felt like they’d lost a member of their own family.The flag at the Quebec legislature was lowered to half-mast today, and legislatu...

Former Ontario doctor sentenced to 9 years in prison, found guilty of sexually assaulting patients

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

A former doctor from Schomberg, Ont. was sentenced to nine years in jail after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting multiple female patients at his King Township clinic.The allegations against 52-year-old Wameed Ateyah stem from sexual assaults that happened at the Schomberg Medical Centre, located at 17250 Highway 27, sometime between 2008 and 2017. At the time, Ateyah was the only practicing physician offering walk-in clinic services in Schomberg. The York Regional Police investigation began in August 2020, when two victims, a 49-year-old and a 28-year-old woman, came forward alleging that Ateyah had sexually assaulted them during visits to the medical clinic. This led to several additional victims coming forward, claiming their doctor sexually assaulted them. One of the female victims was 17 years old at the time of the alleged incident.In September 2023, Ateyah was found guilty of 15 counts of sexual assault and sexual exploitation. A judge at the Newmarket Superior Court ...

Alaska landslide survivor says force of impact threw her around ‘like a piece of weightless popcorn’

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:00:24 GMT

WRANGELL, Alaska (AP) — Christina Florschutz was dressing after stepping out of the shower of her upstairs bathroom when she heard “a horrible noise, a very loud noise.”Florschutz, who had heard both a tornado and a mudslide before, knew exactly what this noise was — a landslide.The force of the mountainside slammed into the home she shared with her husband near the southeast Alaska island community of Wrangell, tossing her around “like a piece of weightless popcorn” before she lost consciousness, she told the Wrangell Sentinel and KSTV radio in a recent interview as she still waited to hear the fate of her husband, who remains missing from last week’s disaster. The Nov. 20 landslide came down into the path of three homes, one unoccupied, after a storm brought heavy rain. She is the only person so far found alive. Four people have been confirmed killed in the landslide: Timothy and Beth Heller and two of their children, Kara, 11, and Mara, 16. Two other people remain missing: ...