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German ruling parties finalize deal on controversial heating law

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

BERLIN — Germany’s three ruling parties agreed late Monday on final details of a green energy law to phase out gas and oil heating, paving the way for the bill to be adopted next week ahead of the German Bundestag’s summer recess. Senior lawmakers from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) agreed on the fine print of the heating law, a cornerstone of Germany’s efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions, a spokesperson for the SPD confirmed to POLITICO.The spokesperson could not immediately provide details of the agreement but said it is based on broader guidelines agreed by the parties earlier this month and that link key deadlines to municipal heating planning.Disputes over the law almost caused a government crisis last month. The Greens and their Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck had pushed for an ambitious rollout but faced fierce criticism not only from the opposition but also the liberal FDP. Habeck, once...

DA: Suspect arrested on murder charge in horrific Newton triple homicide

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

A man has been arrested on a murder charge in connection with the gruesome deaths of three elderly people in Newton over the weekend as the community prepares to come together to mourn the victims at a vigil on Tuesday.Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan announced Monday that 41-year-old Christopher Ferguson, of Newton, is expected to be arraigned on a slew of charges, including murder, in connection with the apparently random triple homicide on Broadway Street that sent shockwaves through Newton’s quiet Nonantum neighborhood.Authorities initially responded on Sunday morning around 10 a.m. after a friend found the victims inside the home. They were pronounced dead at the scene.A day later, Ryan said evidence gathered at the crime scene led them to Ferguson. Ryan said Ferguson lives nearby and allegedly broke into the home on Broadway Street for reasons still unknown. An email circulated by the victims’ parish on Monday identified the three as Jill and Bruno D’Amore...

Fire crews battle multi-alarm East Boston blaze

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

Fire crews extinguished a multi-alarm fire that broke out in a residential building in East Boston early Tuesday morning.Crews responding to a reported structure fire on Meridian Street around 2:30 a.m. found smoke showing from a three-story attached building.Using ladder trucks, firefighters braved humid conditions to knock down the flames in about an hour.There were no reported injuries.The cause of the fire remains under investigation.https://twitter.com/BostonFire/status/1673588198017040384https://twitter.com/BostonFire/status/1673590825991716865https://twitter.com/BostonFire/status/1673592610500345858This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

More June Gloom

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

Does this June seem a little gloomy? It’s not your imagination. This is one of the cloudiest Junes on record for the city of Boston. Unlike temperature records that go back to the 1800s, cloud cover data isn’t as deep, only going back to 1952. But still, 2023 is tied for second place for cloudiest June since 1952. And with our unsettled pattern lasting for much of this week, we’ll have a good shot at maybe taking second place all alone.Today will once again feature a lot of cloud cover with a few sunny breaks from time to time. Temperatures will be pretty typical for late June in the upper 70s but that humidity will be back in full force again today. With the warmth and humidity, we’ll keep a few showers or a thunderstorm in the forecast for the afternoon, but they don’t look to be as widespread or as robust as yesterday’s storms or what some of us woke up to this morning.Once these morning storms move out, we’ll dry out for a few hours with...

Red Sox notebook: Sox have been picture of mediocrity through season’s first half

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

It seems like every time the Red Sox have turned a corner, they’ve found a way to stumble back to square one.When they won eight straight to move a season-high seven games over .500, they then lost six of their next seven, including a three-game sweep at the hands of the last-place St. Louis Cardinals at Fenway Park.When they bounced back with four straight wins and a pair of series victories over Seattle and San Diego, they face-planted again and went 5-12 over the next two-plus weeks.Now, since winning six straight to move back into the playoff picture, the Red Sox have dropped four of five to a pair of unremarkable AL Central clubs, including this weekend’s series against a bad Chicago White Sox team that seems destined to sell off its entire starting rotation ahead of the trade deadline.As a result, the Red Sox come into the week 40-39, last in the AL East and three games back of the last Wild Card spot with three teams to jump.They haven’t been bad, per se. Th...

Robbins: GOP censure of Schiff perfect

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

In his 2021 book “Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy And Still Could,” Congressman Adam Schiff recounts Donald Trump’s attempts to sell out American interests for his own personal benefit while president, supported at every turn by a Republican Party too corrupt and too terrified to stand up to an obvious crook.“There is now a dangerous vein of autocratic thought running through one of America’s great parties, and it poses an existential danger to our country,” Schiff writes. “The experience of the last four years will require constant vigilance on our part so that it does not gain another foothold in the highest office in our land.”As Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff oversaw the inquiry into Trump’s gambit to extort a contrived announcement of a phony investigation into political rival Joe Biden in exchange for the release of desperately needed assistance that Congress had authorized for Ukraine’s self-defense against Russia. Tr...

The FBI and Homeland Security had ‘a massive amount’ of warnings about Jan. 6, a Senate report finds

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday is releasing a new report on the intelligence failures ahead of the insurrection. The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online.Among the multitude of intelligence that was overlooked was a December 2020 tip to the FBI that members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys planned to be in Washington, D.C., for the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and their “plan is to literally kill people,” the report said. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the agencies were also aware of many social media posts that foreshadowed violence, some cal...

North Macedonia prosecutor says inmates, psychiatric patients subjected to degrading treatment

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — A report by the ombudsman in North Macedonia says inmates in the country’s overcrowded prisons and patients at poorly staffed psychiatric hospitals are frequently subjected to inhumane and degrading conditions.The country’s ombudsman, appointed by the parliament, is an independent public prosecutor with the power to investigate public complaints, including alleged human rights violations by state-run institutions.In the document investigating human rights conditions in 2022, Ombudsman Naser Ziberi reported that indications of severe mistreatment and neglect were found at two of the country’s main psychiatric institutions.There was no immediate reaction from government officials Tuesday after the report was published late Monday. “Leather straps for tying up patients, a metal chain with a padlock and a one-meter-long cable” were found at one psychiatric facility, the report said. At a second facility in the capital Skopje, it cited poor hygiene an...

Thousands of unauthorized vapes are pouring into the US despite the FDA crackdown on fruity flavors

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of different electronic cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has nearly tripled to over 9,000 since 2020, driven almost entirely by a wave of unauthorized disposable vapes from China, according to tightly controlled sales data obtained by The Associated Press.The surge stands in stark contrast to regulators’ own figures, which tout the rejection of some 99% of company requests to sell new e-cigarettes while authorizing only a few meant for adult smokers. The numbers demonstrate the Food and Drug Administration’s inability to control the tumultuous vaping market more than three years after declaring a crackdown on kid-friendly flavors. Most of the disposable e-cigarettes, which are thrown away after they’re used up, come in sweet and fruity flavors like pink lemonade, gummy bear and watermelon that have made them the favorite tobacco product among teenagers.They are all technically illegal, but their influx has turned FDA’s regulatory model on its head. Ins...

Germany saw at least 2,480 antisemitic incidents in 2022, monitoring group says

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:25:59 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A group tracking antisemitism in Germany said Tuesday that it documented 2,480 incidents in the country last year — just under seven incidents per day on average.In its annual report, the Department for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism, or RIAS, said that while it registered a slight decrease in antisemitic incidents in 2022, compared to the year before, there were nine incidents of extreme violence — the highest number of such cases since nationwide record keeping began in 2017.Those extremely violent crimes include a shooting at a former rabbi’s house next to an old synagogue in the western city of Essen last November. Germany’s federal prosecutor is now investigating the case along with two other violent antisemitic crimes on suspicion that they may have been carried out in cooperation with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.More often, however, “it is everyday situations in which Jews are confronted with antisemitism,” Benjamin Steinitz, t...