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Biden to mark Good Friday peace deal in five-day Irish trip

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

DUBLIN — U.S. President Joe Biden will pay a five-day visit to both parts of Ireland next month to mark the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord, according to a provisional Irish government itinerary seen by POLITICO.The plans, still being finalized with the White House, have the president arriving in Northern Ireland on April 11. That’s one day after the official quarter-century mark for the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal designed to end decades of conflict that claimed more than 3,600 lives.With Irish roots on both sides of his family tree, Biden has long taken an interest in brokering and maintaining peace in Northern Ireland. He has welcomed the recent U.K.-EU agreement on making post-Brexit trade rules work in the region — a breakthrough that has yet to revive local power-sharing at the heart of the 1998 accord.According to two Irish government officials involved in planning the Biden visit itinerary, the president will start his stay overnigh...

EU’s Vestager: Biden’s green subsidies could face probes in Brussels

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

WASHINGTON — Companies benefitting from the United States’ $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act may be required to notify their subsidies to the European Union’s antitrust enforcers under new EU rules, the bloc’s competition boss Margrethe Vestager said Thursday.Speaking to reporters in Washington, Vestager said that with the EU’s new foreign subsidies regulation, “it is conceivable that subsidies that are given in the United States will be relevant to notify in the EU,” as part of Washington’s huge green subsidy package.  The foreign subsidies regulation gives Brussels powers to screen investments, takeovers or bids funded by foreign states. The European Commission will be able to potentially block firms from dealmaking with governments or public tenders, should they present threats to competition in the European Union.“Once a subsidy is notified, we will have to do a balancing test: Is this overall good or bad for c...

Suspect accused of kicking teen into T station pit, stabbing man in Whitman appears in court

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

23-year-old Kedrian Perry Marshall appeared in court Thursday in connection with accusations that he kicked a 16-year-old boy into the pit of the State Street T station on Tuesday. Marshall has been charged with attempted murder for the incident on the T platform. On Thursday, investigators said he also allegedly stabbed a man in Whitman hours later. Speaking with 7NEWS, the mother of the teen who was kicked said she can’t believe what happened. â€œWhat that person did to my son is horrible,” the mother said. https://twitter.com/MBTATransitPD/status/1641438251281170432The teen escaped injury after being pushed off the platform, somehow missing coming in contact with the third rail. Officials said Marshall took off. Court proceedings revealed Marshall was separately wanted in connection with the stabbing in Whitman, where a man was stabbed in the face and head in a Myrtle Avenue apartment complex. Police s...

Maine’s youngest baby born at 22 weeks goes home

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (WMTW) — A baby girl, born at 22 weeks, is the youngest baby ever born in Maine.Today, Winner looks like an average little one, a tiny pout of an eight-month-old baby, wearing a flowered onesie.However, Winner’s story is anything but average. Winner was born at 22 weeks gestation and weighed just over one pound.The challenges of taking care of a baby that tiny are many, including raspatory issues and feeding problems.Sandy Fournier was Winner’s primary nurse.“Oh, she was so fun. Of course, she was tiny,” Fournier said.Fournier has been a NICU nurse at Maine Medical Center for 46 years. In that time, so much has changed in medical care.“When I first started, we wouldn’t save babies if they were under 750 grams and didn’t cry. It’s wonderful to be able to see the babies that survive now,” Fournier said.Neonatologist Dr. Alan Picarillo was her doctor. He says a turning point seems to be when doctors started thi...

Kevin Durant: Nets ‘Did amazing by me the whole time I was there’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

Kevin Durant still “wants the best for” the Nets.In an interview with The Athletic, Durant — who forced a trade from Brooklyn to the Phoenix Suns at the trade deadline following Kyrie Irving’s unexpected trade from the Nets to the Dallas Mavericks — suggested there is no bad blood between himself and the Nets front office, even though his tumultuous time in Brooklyn ended without a deep playoff run.“I hated it had to go down like that. I wasn’t trying to prove the Nets is a s—ty organization. I was trying to prove that the Nets are a great organization, that they care about their players, want the best for their players,” the Suns star said as he returned to the court after an ankle injury on Wednesday. “Certain sh— just didn’t work out. I understand that. I’m not here trying to prove that the Nets was wrong, I think they did amazing by me the whole time I was there, not just with the trade.“Coming o...

Ticker: Jobless claims rise; Wall Street bonuses fall 

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

U.S. applications for jobless benefits rose last week but remain at historically low levels despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to cool the economy and the job market in its fight against inflation.Jobless claims in the U.S. for the week ending March 25 rose by 7,000 to 198,000 from theprevious week, the Labor Department said Thursday.The four-week moving average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week fluctuations, rose by 2,000 to 198,250, remaining below the 200,000 threshold for the tenth straight week.In its latest quarterly projections, the Federal Reserve predicts that the unemployment rate will rise from its current 3.6% to 4.5% by year’s end, a sizable increase historically associated with recessions.Wall Street bonuses fallFile this one under: Must be nice.Average Wall Street bonuses dropped sharply last year to $176,700 amid lagging profits and recession fears, New York state’s comptroller reported Thursday.The bonuses for employees in New York ...

Bruins notebook: Oskar Steen hopes to get more games down stretch

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

A little more than a year ago, Oskar Steen came up from Providence and showed some real promise that he could be a hard-nosed, middle-six winger who could provide the requisite amount of scoring. He showed enough to earn the 2016 sixth-round pick a two-year extension that came with a reasonable expectation that he had a good shot at making the opening night roster.It didn’t happen. While Steen did not have a great camp, other players, namely A.J. Greer and Jakob Lauko, popped. Steen was sent back to Providence after clearing waivers before the regular season began. With the B’s putting together the best regular season in their nearly century-long history, there was not a lot of need for many call-ups and, until last Sunday, Steen had to rebuild his game and his hopes back in Providence.Finally, with the B’s looking to rest some of their veteran players down the stretch before the playoffs, Steen got the nod to play against the Carolina Hurricanes last Sunday – and ...

Fatal pedestrian crashes rise across Massachusetts: Report

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

Fatal crashes into pedestrians are on the rise in Massachusetts, a WalkBoston report released Thursday detailed, reaching 101 pedestrian deaths in 2022.“We haven’t seen a number over 100 in well over 20 years — that’s as far back as the reports on MassDOT’s website go back,” said Brendan Kearney, Deputy Director of WalkBoston. “That was stunning.”The report records a 35% jump in crashes resulting in pedestrian fatalities in 2022 compared to 2021 and shows significant trends in who is being killed and where.Of the total fatalities, 71% occurred in “environmental justice neighborhoods” — neighborhoods meeting state criteria related to lower household income, higher minority populations and higher populations for whom English is a second language — and 65% of victims were over age 50.The neighborhoods face a heightened risk for a number of reasons, Kearney said, from proximity to high-speed, busy roads to a larger ...

Used car prices back on the upswing 

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

Well, it was nice while it lasted.For nearly a year, the average used vehicle in the United States had been edging toward affordable again for millions of people. The relief felt belated and relatively slight, but it was welcome nonetheless.From an eye-watering peak of $31,400 in April of last year, the average price had dropped 14% to $27,125 early this month.Now, with the supply of used vehicles failing to keep up with robust demand, prices are creeping up again, with signs pointing to further increases ahead. So many buyers have been priced out of the new-car market that fewer trade-ins are landing on dealer lots. Deepening the shortage, fewer used vehicles are coming off leases or being off-loaded by rental car companies.Average list prices for used car have edged up by about $700 in the past month, and Alex Yurchenko, chief data officer for Black Book, which tracks prices, expects them to keep rising at least into summer.“If you have to buy a used vehicle,” he sugge...

Column: Partisan lawmakers snipe over gun violence. Does latest child massacre change anything?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:52 GMT

South and southwest suburban residents might see the White Sox win another World Series sooner than America enacts any meaningful federal laws to address gun violence.That’s the sense in the Southland and elsewhere this week as the nation reacted along partisan lines to another horrific mass shooting that left innocent children dead. Heroic police officers killed an assailant who slaughtered three 9-year-olds and three adults Monday at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.Congressional Republicans immediately defended gun rights.“We’re not going to fix it,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told a reporter. “Criminals are going to be criminals.”“It’s just premature to talk about it,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said of reforming federal gun laws.“There’s no such thing as gun violence,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., adding that unborn fetuses aborted from wombs was a far greater tragedy than bullets fired from AK-4...