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‘Varsity Blues’ college admission scandal redux: John Wilson gets only probation following successful appeal

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

John Wilson, a businessman and the only Massachusetts resident charged in the sweeping “Varsity Blues” college admissions federal fraud case, had his prison sentence yanked and replaced by a year of probation after he was sentenced on a single tax-related charge.“After almost five years of being falsely accused and then wrongly convicted, my family and I are relieved to see our nightmare end. I have spent years defending my innocence and the reputations of my children. Today, it’s clear to all that I was telling the truth, I did not violate any laws or school policies,” Wilson, of Lynnfield, said in a statement shared Friday with media outlets.“While I may have been the one on trial, my children were the true victims of this prosecutorial overreach. Contrary to the false narrative put forward by prosecutors and repeated in the media, my children were extraordinary students and athletes who worked hard for everything they earned,” he added.Wilson in February of last year ...

Battenfeld: Lame-duck councilors look for revenge against mayor and Mass and Cass plan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

There’s nothing more perilous in politics than defeated lame-duck elected officials with nothing to lose – and that’s what Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is facing right now.Two Boston city councilors bounced by voters in the preliminary election – and one who is about to leave on his own – are selfishly trying to torpedo Wu’s plan to clean up Mass and Cass.Scandal-scarred Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who Wu snubbed during the election, seems especially bent on getting revenge on the mayor who endorsed his opponent in the preliminary.Defeated Councilor Kendra Lara, who lost her job because of slamming her car into a house while driving an unregistered vehicle without a license, is also opposing Wu’s Mass and Cass ordinance, calling it a “drastic” solution.It’s not drastic. No one will be thrown onto the street. People at Mass and Cass would be offered shelter and transportation as well as a place to store their belongings before their camps would be removed. And it’s not really new because t...

Crime Briefs: $70k viola snatched from Allston, Boston Police retrieve stolen vest, Dorchester pimp gets 5 years

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

Maybe the music just spoke to him.Boston Police are looking for a man they said ran off with a viola valued at $70,000 — and its black BAM Black Panther High Tech case valued at $1,300 — from an Allston apartment building at 120 Glenville Ave. in the early afternoon of Aug. 27.The case is distinctive as it sports three Boston University stickers, two of them spelled out and the other with just “BU” and smaller writing underneath, a Lord of the Rings sticker and a “Warning! Don’t touch!” sticker, as seen on the images provided by police. A BPD statement adds that there is a sticker for Vivant Vintage, which is a shop at the corner Lincoln and Franklin streets right across from the Lower Allston side of the footbridge over the turnpike.The suspect is described as a white man between 30 and 40 years old, between 5-foot-9 and 6-feet tall, of stocky build, light or patchy facial hair, dark-colored curly hair and dark blue tattoos on his forearms. The suspect was last seen at 3 p.m. on Se...

Orioles’ Adley Rutschman, Ramón Urías ‘under the weather,’ scratched from lineup day after AL East clinch

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde put out a new-look lineup for Friday’s game, the first after Baltimore clinched the American League East. It received a couple of further alterations before first pitch against the Boston Red Sox.Hyde was already resting infielder Gunnar Henderson and outfielder Anthony Santander, but catcher Adley Rutschman and third baseman Ramón Urías joining them on the bench after the club said both players were “under the weather.” James McCann and Jordan Westburg, respectively, replaced them in the lineup.Thursday’s 2-0 victory secured the division and the top record in the AL for Baltimore, leading to a raucous clubhouse celebration. All that’s left for the Orioles to jockey for over their final three regular-season games is gaining home-field advantage in a potential World Series matchup with the Los Angeles Dodgers. But Hyde said before Friday’s game his priority is sorting out players’ workloads in pre...

Workers remain on the picket line in Mansfield as UAW strike intensifies

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

The United Auto Workers strike has shifted into high gear with 7,000 more workers walking off the job as nearly four dozen employees at the Stellantis facility in Mansfield hit the picket line.Union President Shawn Fain, speaking Friday via Facebook Live, ordered workers to strike in Illinois and Michigan to put more pressure on Ford and General Motors, while Jeep and Ram maker Stellantis was spared from the third round of strikes.Stellantis made significant progress, Fain said, moments before his appearance on Facebook Live by agreeing to unspecified cost-of-living raises, the right not to cross a picket line and the right to strike over plant closures.Patrick Lozeau, financial secretary for the local union in Mansfield, didn’t know exactly what changed for the strike not to expand even further at Stellantis. He and his colleagues walked off the job Sept. 22, when employees at 38 plants in 20 states joined the UAW strike, which commenced Sept. 15 after contracts expired.Lozeau and ...

Baltimore Archdiocese files for bankruptcy before new law on abuse lawsuits takes effect

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

By LEA SKENE (Associated Press)BALTIMORE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Baltimore on Friday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization days before a new state law goes into effect removing the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims and allowing victims to sue their abusers decades after the fact.The step will allow the oldest diocese in the United States “to equitably compensate victim-survivors of child sexual abuse” while the local Catholic church continues its mission and ministries, Archbishop William E. Lori said in a statement posted on the archdiocese website.But attorneys and advocates said the church is simply trying to protect its assets and silence abuse victims by halting all civil claims against the archdiocese and shifting the process to bankruptcy court, a less transparent forum.Michael McDonnell, interim executive director of the national group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the Baltimore archdiocese is following in t...

Airline industry claims traveller safety at risk with proposed passenger rights rules

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

MONTREAL — Aviation companies are making the pitch to Ottawa that stricter rules designed to boost customer compensation and improve service could put passenger safety at risk — an argument consumer advocates reject as “ridiculous.”The push, made in regulatory submissions and meetings on Parliament Hill, comes on the heels of sweeping reforms to the passenger rights charter announced in April and currently being hashed out by Canada’s transport regulator before going into effect next year.The changes appear to scrap a loophole through which airlines have denied customers compensation for flight delays or cancellations when they were required for safety purposes. The sector wants that exemption restored, and says pilots shouldn’t feel pressured to choose between flying defective planes and costing their employer money.“We want our pilots to be entirely free from any financial consideration when they take a safety-related decision,” WestJet chief ex...

Trump animates California Republicans with calls to shoot people who rob stores

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — In an occasionally dark and profane speech, Donald Trump on Friday sought to win over Republicans in California by complaining that rich people in Beverly Hills smell bad because they’re denied water, reiterating lies about widespread election fraud and calling on police to shoot people robbing stores.While many of his remarks at the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim were familiar retreads of Trump’s attacks and grievances, his encouragement of violent retribution against criminals marked an escalation of his longstanding tough-on-crime message.“We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store,” he said, drawing loud applause. “Shot!” he added for emphasis. Trump was one of several Republican presidential contenders appearing at the event in this Democratic stronghold. While there’s little hope for any of them to defeat Presi...

Nisga’a Nation in B.C. welcomes ‘dear ancestor’ totem home after century away

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

LAXGALTS’AP, B.C. — The Nisga’a Nation has finally brought its family history home, almost 100 years after a totem pole was stolen and sold to Scotland’s National Museum. The memorial totem was carved to honour one of Amy Parent’s relatives more than 160 years ago. The Simon Fraser University anthropologist was the driving force behind its return to their homeland. “Welcome home, dear ancestor,” she said during a ceremony Friday in the remote community in British Columbia’s Nass Valley. “My heart is so happy to be here with you today.” The 11-metre, red-cedar pole was taken in 1929 by an ethnographer researching life in the Nisga’a Village and sold a year later to the museum in Scotland. Parent said they asked for the pole two decades ago, but the museum said then that it was in rough shape and couldn’t be moved. But they persisted, and last year, the museum agreed to allow them to bring their history home, she said. “...

Endangered red wolf can make it in the wild, but not without `significant’ help, study says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:12 GMT

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (AP) — The endangered red wolf can survive in the wild, but only with “significant additional management intervention,” according to a long-awaited population viability analysis released Friday.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also released an updated recovery plan Friday for “Canis rufus” — the only wolf species unique to the United States. It calls for spending nearly $328 million over the next 50 years to get the red wolf off the endangered species list.“This final revised recovery plan will help the conservation and survival of the Red Wolf, ensuring these endangered canids endure in the wild for future generations,” Interior Department Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz said in a news release. But the announcement comes with a lot of caveats. The viability analysis says it will take drastic reductions in gunshot and vehicle deaths, stepped-up efforts to prevent wolf-coyote mixing, and creative methods to increase reprod...