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Refresh your home decor with bright spring touches

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

Without a doubt, the outdoors is coming alive. Now to bring all that freshness inside.Here are a few ideas for easy, budget-friendly touches around your home that will make it feel like spring has truly sprung.A pretty spring wreath. Now’s the time to put up a welcoming and flower-festooned wreath to let guests and neighbors know that, yes, you do indeed know what time of year it is. In the interest of reducing waste and saving money every spring, I recommend buying a high-quality faux (but realistic-looking) fabric version that you should plan on using again and again for the next five years or so. For that functionality, I like designs such as Monique Lhuillier’s Faux Lemon Wreath & Garland ($126 on potterybarn.com), which looks completely real and  brightens up any entryway.Bring the outside in. While I absolutely love having fresh blooms around my house, it can get expensive and a little annoying to have to constantly replace flowers after they die. Here’s something that las...

Lucas: The wrong Kennedy is running for president

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

It should have been the younger Joe Kennedy III, 42, the former Congressman from Newton, challenging President Joe Biden and not the controversial Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 69, of New York.He would have been a natural given the slim bench of Democrats willing to take on tottering Biden, who nobody wants to run again, in a Democratic primary.But Joe Kennedy lost his way when, in a huge political mistake, the four term Congressman ran against fellow Democrat Sen. Eddie Markey in the 2020 Democrat primary. He was defeated, becoming the first Kennedy to lose an election in Massachusetts.He has since been appointed by Biden as Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic AffairsHad he remained in the House and easily been reelected in 2020 and 2022, Democrats concerned with Biden’s age and bumbling leadership would have been begging Kennedy to challenge him.Joe Kennedy running for president would have been about the same age Massachusetts Sen. John F.  Kennedy, his great uncle, was when h...

Solomon: Can Kanye’s Donda Academy survive new lawsuits?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

Ye’s Donda Academy has recently been hit with multiple lawsuits. Two former teachers have sued the school founded by the artist formerly known as Kanye West, claiming they were unfairly fired after raising numerous code violations, including violations of education, health, and safety codes.Another lawsuit claims that students who attended the academy were exposed to unsafe, unregulated, and unsanitary conditions. Additionally, two former employees have sued the school and its directors for racial discrimination and wrongful termination.The lawsuits against Donda Academy are ongoing, and it remains to be seen how they will be resolved or whether the school can survive.This is a real fall from grace for Ye, who founded Donda Academy last year as a private Christian school, named after his late mother.The academy, located in Simi Valley, California, offers education for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students. The school is unaccredited (though it has applied for accreditation fr...

Tepid spoof ‘Renfield’ big on violence & gore

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

MOVIE REVIEW“Renfield”Rated R. At the AMC Boston Common, AMC South Bay and suburban theaters.Grade: C+An infrequently clever parody of “Dracula” films, “Renfield” is set in modern-day New Orleans where Robert Montagu Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), the long-suffering servant of Dracula (Nicolas Cage), has been holed up with his master, who was almost incinerated in the manner of Hammer’s 1958 reboot “Horror of Dracula.” In an attempt to revive his master, Renfield has the ravaged vampire hidden away in a subterranean lair full of used, hanging blood bags and the drained bodies of victims Renfield has lured to their deaths.The comedy is very broad – Dracula biting off a finger and sucking it like a straw – very violent and needless to say gory. The city is run by a gang of – uh – bloodthirsty criminals led by the godmother Bellafrancesca Lobo (a fun, underused Shohreh Aghdashloo), whose ne’er-do-well son Tedward Lobo (Ben Schwartz, TV’s “Parks and...

Monica Bellucci goes for a hit in ‘Mafia Mamma’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

Monica Bellucci ranks among the world’s great beauties, an icon of Italian pulchritude, an international symbol of glamour.But “Mafia Mamma”?!An intentionally outrageous farce mocking Mafioso tropes – and especially the “Godfather” saga – Bellucci plays Bianca, a key boss in the most powerful Mafia family in Calabria.The boss of bosses has died and his will demands that his American granddaughter Kristen (Toni Collette) replace him.  Kristen is a frazzled housewife. With her son off to college, there’s her philandering husband and, at work, a sexist boss.  Needless to say, she knows zip about Italy where she’s flown in for the funeral, much less about running her newly met mob family.“I read the script and laughed out loud — the film was so funny! I was so happy to be part of this because I’m a huge fan of Toni Collette. I knew her, of course, as an actress. But I didn’t know this amazing energy she has in real life,” Bellucci, 58 and in a black Valentino jacket, b...

Boys gymnastics All-Scholastics

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

Noyal Benny (Burlington)Nathan Bunten (Burlington)Devin Hazen (Burlington)Christian Katende (Burlington)Lorenzo Leary (Lowell)Ryan Lin (Newton)NOYAL BENNYBURLINGTONAfter taking a fifth in the pommel horse at the state championships a year ago, Benny capped off his senior year in style by winning the event as Burlington captured the team title. A high honor roll student, Benny plans on majoring in kinesiology in college.NATHAN BUNTENBURLINGTONThe sophomore earned a pair of perfect scores in the regular season, registering a 10.0 in both the floor exercise and still rings. Bunten scored a 10 to win the floor exercise at the States and followed that up with a 9.4 to win the parallel bars. A Level 10 gymnast, Bunten trains at Brestyan’s in Burlington.DEVIN HAZENBURLINGTONThe junior won the All-Around at the State Championships with a score of 47.2. Hazen also won the high bar (7.5) and rings (8.0). Hazen also plays football and trains in boxing. His longterm goal is to attend Norw...

Editorial: Buying an EV? You may not have a choice

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

President Biden really, really wants you to buy an electric vehicle.He’s doing his best to make sure you don’t have a choice.As Rollcall reported, the Biden administration’s latest move is designed to put the squeeze on automakers in the form of much tougher standards for greenhouse gas emissions.The standards proposed Wednesday by the EPA for light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles are by far the strictest ever proposed by the agency.In green terms, it sounds good: for light-duty vehicles, the EPA will require an increasingly stringent greenhouse gas standard. By model year 2032 it would result in an industry-wide average target of 82 grams of carbon dioxide created per mile traveled. That would be 56% lower than the model year 2026 standard set in 2021.For medium-duty vehicles it is proposing to increase stringency to a target of 275 grams of carbon dioxide per mile by model year 2032, a 44% reduction compared to model year 2026 standard. In 2018 the agency estimat...

Dear Abby: Gay couple struggles with estranged mom

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

Dear Abby: I’m a gay man. My husband and I have been together almost nine years, married less than one. Seven years ago, my mother-in-law decided I was no longer “allowed” to speak to her or her family. When my husband asked her why, she was unable to give him a clear answer but insists it has nothing to do with us being gay. Anytime my husband mentions my name or the life we have together, she changes the subject. I offered to write her a letter, but my husband doesn’t think it would be a good idea. He used to be close to his family, but with each passing year the relationship becomes more strained.My mother-in-law followed a similar pattern when my brother-in-law married his wife. When they had their first child, my MIL’s behavior did a 180 and she welcomed them into the family. Now that we’re married, my husband and I have begun the process of adopting from the foster care system. I assume my in-laws will want a relationship with their grandchi...

Local organization fights back against City of San Diego housing plan with lawsuit

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

SAN DIEGO - A local organization is fighting back against a housing plan passed by the San Diego City Council last month. That ordinance would add more housing within a mile of transit stations. “It spreads density around, it’s not a responsible approach to urban planning," said Tom Mullaney with Livable San Diego, who is spearheading the newly filed lawsuit against the City of San Diego. He claims the city is pursuing high density housing without proper planning. “When I say it's adding density everywhere, it’s really adding density everywhere," Mullaney shared. The challenge comes after council's five to four vote of an ordinance back in February of "Sustainable Development Areas," otherwise known as "SDA's." It allows for multi-unit construction up to one mile from transits, instead of half a mile. Mullaney worries the move could have adverse consequences.“This is going to result in fewer people using mass transit because the developers would build farther away. They will build ...

Fire at garment factory in Pakistan kills 4 firefighters

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:08:11 GMT

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Four firefighters died and nearly a dozen others were injured after a massive fire broke out in a garment factory in the southern Pakistan port city of Karachi, rescue officials and police said Thursday.The cause of the blaze, which ripped through the factory Wednesday night and eventually caused it to collapse, was not immediately known, police said. Earlier, heavy gray smoke suddenly rose from the factory. Firefighters had almost extinguished the blaze when the collapse occurred.Rescuers have retrieved the bodies of the firefighters from the rubble of the factory.Several firefighting vehicles were dispatched to the scene in an industrial area of the city, where many factories are located, officials said. Officers were also assessing the impact of the fire at an adjacent building.Karachi is the capital of southern Sindh province, where such incidents are common. In August 2021, at least 10 people were killed in a massive fire at a chemical factory in Karach...