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Every state offers victim compensation. For the Longs and other Black families, it often isn’t fair

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

By CLAUDIA LAUER and MIKE CATALINI (Associated Press)The cold formality of the letter is seared in Debra Long’s memory.It began “Dear Claimant,” and said her 24-year-old son, Randy, who was fatally shot in April 2006, was not an “innocent” victim. Without further explanation, the New York state agency that assists violent-crime victims and their families refused to help pay for his funeral.Randy was a father, engaged to be married and studying to become a juvenile probation officer when his life was cut short during a visit to Brooklyn with friends. His mother, angry and bewildered by the letter, wondered: What did authorities see — or fail to see — in Randy?“It felt racial. It felt like they saw a young African American man who was shot and killed and assumed he must have been doing something wrong,” Long said of the decision from what was known as the New York Crime Victims Board. “But believe me when I say, not my son.&#...

Man who killed 8 in NYC terrorist attack gets 10 life sentences plus 260 years

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)NEW YORK (AP) — An unrepentant and defiant Islamic extremist received 10 life sentences and another 260 years in prison on Wednesday for killing eight people with a truck on a bike path in Manhattan on Halloween in 2017, as a judge decried his “callous and cowardly” crimes.“The conduct in this case is among the worst, if not the worst I’ve ever seen,” said U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick, as he announced a sentence designed to underscore the severity of the terrorist attack Sayfullo Saipov claimed he carried out on behalf of the Islamic State group.A life sentence was mandatory after a jury rejected the death penalty in March, but prosecutors had asked Broderick to impose eight consecutive life sentences and two concurrent life sentences. They also wanted an extra 260 years to send a stern message to other like-minded terrorists. And that’s what the judge did.Broderick cited the defiance of Saipo...

Chicago Bears call latest state plan to aid Arlington Heights move an ‘excellent foundation,’ but talks will continue

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

Negotiations over proposed state assistance for the Chicago Bears’ move to northwest suburban Arlington Heights will continue into the summer as the team on Wednesday weighed in publicly for the first time on a plan before lawmakers that would offer the property tax “certainty” sought by club owners.The team and a coalition of business and labor groups said in a statement read during an Illinois House committee hearing that a proposal from Democratic state Rep. Marty Moylan of Des Plaines “provides an excellent foundation for the Chicago Bears to work closely with its coalition partners, including business and labor leaders, and with all the concerned municipalities to develop legislation over the summer that meets the needs of the Chicagoland region and powers one of the biggest construction projects in the state’s history.”Moylan told the committee that he plans to continue negotiating with the team and representatives from Chicago, Arlington He...

Three-way duel over app-based drivers’ classification returns to Beacon Hill

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

A three-way duel over benefits, union representation, and employment classifications for app-based drivers is heating up again on Beacon Hill after a failed ballot question campaign last year.Massachusetts for Independent Work Coalition, backed by some of the largest gig companies, is advocating for legislation that would classify app-based rideshare and delivery drivers as independent contractors with some benefits like an earnings guarantee of $18 an hour.An opposing group says the proposal offers no protections to drivers and keeps them working for long hours with little pay. The Drivers Demand Justice Coalition wants state lawmakers to pass legislation that would give rideshare drivers the right to unionize.Some drivers with the Massachusetts Independent Work Coalition say unionization is a bad move that pigeonholes gig workers.Oscar Rendon said he has driven with Uber and Lyft for more than two years, which has allowed him the flexibility to take care of his mother and take her...

Study: Baltimore children moved from high-poverty to low-poverty areas saw their asthma improve

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

Angela Roberts | The Baltimore SunChildren with asthma whose families participated in a Baltimore program that helped move them from high-poverty neighborhoods to low-poverty ones saw their disease get significantly better, according to a study published Tuesday.The children experienced fewer asthma attacks after moving and struggled with symptoms on fewer days — improvements on par with medication used to treat the chronic condition, said Dr. Craig Pollack, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Hopkins School of Nursing and one of the study’s lead authors.Between 2016 and 2020, Pollack and a team of about a dozen other researchers followed a group of children whose families were working with the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership — a housing program established as a result of a legal settlement that seeks to combat housing segregation by providing housing vouchers and support to help families move to better resourced neighborhoods.Before mov...

Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm was playing with a broken foot

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

So now we have a clue as to why Bruins’ defenseman Hampus Lindholm’s game dropped off so dramatically in the playoffs.In a communication with the Swedish publication Aftonbladet last week in explaining why he could not represent Sweden in the World Championships, Lindholm revealed that he’d just found out that he’d been playing with a fractured foot “for the past month,” he wrote in a text.Lindholm blocked a shot in the Bruins’ March 11 win over the Red Wings and did not play in the second half of the weekend back-to-back the next day. He was also given the March 26 game in Carolina off to take care of a nagging injury, coach Jim Montgomery said at the time.Those were the only two games he missed all season. Whether the fracture occurred in that March 11 game or there was subsequent trauma that caused the break is not clear.In the first year of an eight-year, $52 million deal, the big Swede enjoyed a breakout season in which he set a career high in poin...

Mississauga, Brampton set to become independent cities, government sources say

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

Senior Ontario government sources say the province will announce Thursday that it is dissolving the Region of Peel, which includes the municipalities of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon.Mississauga and Brampton are set to become independent cities, but the sources did not say what would happen with the smaller municipality of Caledon.More to come

Rudy Giuliani sued for defamation by supermarket employee he accused of assault

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

New York (AP) — A man who spent a night in jail for smacking Rudy Giuliani on the back and calling him a “scumbag” is suing him and several New York City police officers for false arrest and defamation.Daniel Gill brought the federal lawsuit in Manhattan court on Wednesday, accusing Giuliani of spinning a tale of political violence from an act of harmless heckling. He says members of the NYPD went along with the deception despite video clearly disproving the account.Giuliani made headlines last June after claiming he was attacked by a supermarket employee in Staten Island during a campaign stop for his son, Andrew, who was running for New York governor.He said an irate man accused him of wanting to kill women, then hit him in the back so hard he felt “like somebody shot me.” Gill, who had no criminal record, was arrested on charges of felony assault.Surveillance video of the incident soon appeared to undercut Giuliani’s story. It showed Gill briskly walking by Giuliani and smacking ...

Animal rights group says chickens were abused, but Tyson Foods cut ties with the farm on its own

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

An animal rights group said Wednesday that a Virginia farm that raised chickens for Tyson Foods mistreated the animals, allowing some of them to go without feed and water at times. But Tyson says it cut ties with the farm in January after it uncovered animal welfare issues there on its own. The group, Animal Outlook, said it had an investigator working undercover at Jannat Farm from August to November of last year observing as 150,000 birds were raised from chicks until they were ready for slaughter. In addition to seeing chickens go without feed for up to 52 hours, the group said it documented instances of physical abuse and filthy conditions at the farm.The Associated Press could not immediately locate a contact at the farm itself. A spokesman for Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson, which processes 20% of U.S. beef, chicken and pork, denounced the conditions Animal Outlook documented in video and pictures shot at the farm and said the company ended its contract with the farm because...

EPA rule would force clean-up of toxic coal ash dumped in landfills, ponds near power plants

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:56 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is strengthening a rule aimed at controlling and cleaning up toxic waste from coal-fired power plants. A proposal announced Wednesday would for the first time require safe management of so-called coal ash dumped in hundreds of older landfills, “legacy” ponds and other inactive sites that currently are unregulated at the federal level. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the plan would hold polluters accountable for controlling and cleaning up coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal in that can pollute waterways, groundwater, drinking water and the air. Coal ash contains contaminants such as mercury, chromium and arsenic associated with cancer and other health problems.“Ensuring the health and safety of all people is EPA’s top priority, and this proposed rule represents a crucial step toward safeguarding the air, groundwater, streams and drinking water that communities depend on,” Regan said in a statement.If finalized, the r...