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Italy announces deal to build migrant centers in Albania

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

Italy will build two migrant centers in northwest Albania to house migrants rescued at sea by Italian boats but not those who have made it to shore, the prime ministers of the two countries announced on Monday. “Mass illegal immigration is a phenomenon no EU member state can handle alone,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a joint news conference in Rome with her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama. Meloni, who heads the right-wing, nationalist Brothers of Italy party, came to power in 2022 promising to curb immigration but year-on-year, arrivals have nearly doubled. Brothers of Italy has long promised to crack down on undocumented migrants, including by building processing facilities outside the EU. Despite Meloni’s election promise to stop boat crossings from North Africa, more than 145,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea so far in 2023, compared to around 88,000 in the same period in 2022. Prior to becoming prime minister, Meloni said Italy should “repatriate migrants ...

CDC to expand disease surveillance at four major US airports, including Logan

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

(CNN) — The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding its infectious disease surveillance program at four major US airports to more than 30 pathogens, including flu, RSV and other respiratory viruses.The Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance program, led by CDC’s Travelers’ Health Branch, was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic to detect new SARS-CoV-2 variants and other pathogens through nasal swab and wastewater sample collection from arriving international travelers at US airports.“We have known that travelers are a very important population to consider for tracking new and emerging infections,” Dr. Cindy Friedman, who leads the CDC’s traveler genomic surveillance program and is the chief of the agency’s Travelers’ Health Branch, told CNN.The program currently operates Covid-19 surveillance at seven major international airports in the United States. For a pilot program, it’s now expanding to test for more than 30 bacteria, antimicrobial resistanc...

Harvard professor finishes cross-country run from San Francisco to New York City in record time

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

A Harvard University professor recently went the distance, running from San Francisco to New York City in record time.Jennifer Hoffman documented the entire run online. After finishing on Friday of last week, she spoke to 7NEWS about the experience. “This time, the luck was with me and I made it,” she said.“It’s what fit in my life and I feel like I had the opportunity to do this great run across the US and seize the day,” she continued.In addition to being a professor, Hoffman is also a marathon runner. Hoffman started her nearly 3,000-mile run in September with a plan to average 60 miles per day. She said her goal was not just to get to New York. Rather, she aimed to achieve the fastest time for a transcontinental run by a woman. “We have a beautiful country and I’m really grateful for the chance to see it at the pace of a foot on foot,” she said. “I really saw a lot of beautiful sights and have a great appreciation for the geographical diversity of our country...

East Boston boys stun Excel in OT

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

Senior midfielder Adriano Garcia Gomez finished with a pair of goals and netted an assist, while eighth-grader Ronaldo Palma Martinez buried the game-clinching tally in overtime as No. 27 East Boston overcame a three-goal deficit to stun No. 6 Excel, 4-3, in the Div. 4 Round of 32.“It even goes back to when we played (Excel) earlier in the season,” said East Boston coach Jayson Smith. “They beat us 5-0… then, just the continuous work that the kids have put in. Those guys show up everyday, and they make the decision that they’re going to work hard, that they’re going to get better everyday. That’s really our goal, is to just keep on getting better than we were the day before. They answered the call every day. I couldn’t be more proud of them. They’re fantastic kids, they really are.”For the majority of the game, East Boston (8-9-2) found itself chasing. The Jets got off to a rocky start, as Excel standout Mohamed Mehaya buried two consecutive goals in a three-minute span. Just moment...

Ticker: A processing glitch has held up a ‘small percentage’ of bank deposits since Thursday, overseer says; Nearly 1M chickens will be killed on a Minnesota farm because of bird flu

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

A processing glitch in the network that processes electronic transfers between nearly all U.S. bank accounts led to delays in settling deposits, some of which remain stalled, according to the private company that operates the system.The Clearing House Payments Co. said Monday that a technical error on Thursday resulted in some payment information sent to banks with account numbers and customer names masked, preventing them from being processed immediately. TCH, as the company is known, is owned by a group of 22 major banks, including Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase.Many customers have complained about the problem on social media, noting that delayed paycheck deposits have imperiled important automatic payments such as mortgage payments, rent and credit-card bills.Nearly 1M chickens will be killed on a Minnesota farm because of bird fluNearly 1 million chickens on a Minnesota egg farm will be slaughtered to help limit the spread of the highly contagious b...

Robbins: Left’s Hamas lobby holds Biden support hostage

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

In the stiff competition to produce the least credible members of Congress,  the Republican Party’s leading entrants are George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the Democrats’ top contender has to be Rashida Tlaib. The Michigan Congresswoman has worked tirelessly to burnish her reputation for mendacity, doing so on a nearly 24/7 basis since Oct. 7, when several thousand Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli communities and slaughtered 1,400 civilians in their homes and while they were at a music festival, blowing some to pieces and burning others alive.When Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired a rocket from Gaza hoping to murder Israeli civilians and instead hit a Gazan hospital, Tlaib dutifully and angrily repeated Hamas’ falsehood that Israel was to blame, and continued to repeat the false claim even after international intelligence agencies and a battery of independent experts confirmed that what Hamas and Tlaib were claiming was actually a lie. Tlaib doesn’t merely defend Hamas’ “Ki...

Legislature will look at extra shelter funding as migrant crisis nears max

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

The Legislature will consider providing extra funding to help cover the cost of housing thousands of local and immigrant families, according to the Speaker, just as the state’s shelter system is set to reach capacity.During a brief press conference held at the State House Monday afternoon, House Speaker Ron Mariano said that lower chamber lawmakers, on Wednesday, will discuss sending the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities more money to pay for housing the nearly 7,500 families currently living in state-provided shelters.Mariano was not incredibly forthcoming with details regarding the House’s plans, only saying “yes” when asked if the lawmakers would consider some measure impacting the Emergency Assistance shelter system and that the proposal “includes money” but that the amount is “yet to be determined.”Senate President Karen Spilka said the upper chamber is “taking a look at” the problem.“We’ll get the bill from the House, and take it up in short...

Galvin’s Election Day warning and advice: Don’t mail ballots, but do please vote

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

Tuesday is election day for cities across the commonwealth, and the secretary of state has some words of warning and advice for voters.Secretary of State Bill Galvin held a press conference at the Massachusetts State Library on Monday to warn voters against mailing ballots back, since local elections have different rules than statewide contents.“I am greatly concerned however, that there is some misunderstanding about the return of vote by mail ballots. In the case of municipal elections, the way the statute was passed, there is no grace period, so ballots must be received not later than the close of polls tomorrow,” Galvin said.Along with a number of other provisions, the VOTES Act, signed into law by former Gov. Charlie Baker, allows all voters in Massachusetts to vote by mail with no excuse required. However a large number of voters who elected to receive a mail ballot, Galvin said, are still holding onto them, despite there being different rules.“At this present moment, literall...

Insurer to pay nearly $5M to 3 of the 4 Alaska men whose convictions in a 1997 killing were vacated

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

Three of the four Indigenous men who served 18 years in prison for a murder conviction that was ultimately vacated will receive a total of nearly $5 million in a settlement confirmed by the city of Fairbanks on Monday.The convictions of the so-called Fairbanks Four in the 1997 death of Fairbanks teenager John Hartman were vacated in 2015 after a key state witness recanted testimony and following a weeks-long hearing reexamining the case that raised the possibility others had killed Hartman. The men — George Frese, Eugene Vent, Marvin Roberts and Kevin Pease — argued that an agreement that led to their release in which they agreed not to sue was not legally binding because they were coerced. The men also maintained there was a history of discrimination against Alaska Natives by local police. Pease is Native American; Frese, Vent and Roberts are Athabascan Alaska Natives.The legal fight over whether the men could sue the city despite the agreement has gone on for years. In 2021, the U...

Captain found guilty of ‘seaman’s manslaughter’ in boat fire that killed 34 off California coast

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:47 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal jury on Monday found a scuba dive boat captain was criminally negligent in the deaths of 34 people killed in a fire aboard the vessel in 2019, the deadliest maritime disaster in recent U.S. history.The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles confirmed Jerry Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer, a pre-Civil War statute colloquially known as seaman’s manslaughter that was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters. Boylan was the only person to face criminal charges connected to the fire.He could get 10 years behind bars. The verdict comes more than four years after the Sept. 2, 2019, tragedy, which prompted changes to maritime regulations, congressional reform and civil lawsuits. The Conception was anchored off the Channel Islands, 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day excursion, sinking less than 100...