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Lucas: Biden in Middle East all talk, no action

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

If history is any judge, President Joe Biden’s warning to Iran on Israel will go the way of Barack Obama’s 2012 “red line” warning to Syria’s Bashar al-Asaad to stop using poison gas to kill his opponents.Nowhere.And his personal grandstand visit will make little difference.And that is too bad for the Americans held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, and too late for the Americans already killed by the terrorists who invaded Israel and launched a grisly killing spree.Like Obama before him, Joe Biden will fold. He will not punish the Iranian terrorist schemers behind it all.It is not in his nature. He is an appeaser, like Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and their ilk in the Democratic Party.Back then, Obama vowed that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, fighting forces seeking his ouster, would face military consequences if Assad used chemical weapons against them.Within a year Assad launched a deadly sarin gas attack on a suburb of Damascus he allegedly thought harbored rebels. Instead, he u...

‘Simply the Best’ concert pays tribute to Tina

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

In the ’80s, Tina Turner told her manager, “My dream is to be the first Black rock ‘n’ roll singer to pack places like the Stones.”Tina would go on to pack stadiums — she thrilled 180,000 fans at Rio’s Maracanã Stadium in Brazil in 1988 while setting the record for the largest ticketed concert by a solo artist. But look at the whole quote, she made it clear, she was a rock ‘n’ roll singer.“She’s one of the few women of color who declared that and was able to carry that through their career,,” Kameelah Benjamin-Fuller told the Herald. “It was a pioneering move for her to really claim that. The songs that she covered, the artists that she worked with, her approach to songs, even if they weren’t written as rock songs, they definitely had a rock infusion.”Paying honor to the icon, Benjamin-Fuller is co-producing “Simply the Best: A Tribute to Tina Turner” on Saturday at the Burren in Davis Square. The night will be co-produced by Christina Alexander, a fellow singer and Benjamin-Fuller’...

Editorial: Gun bill a great idea as long as criminals obey the law

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

When it comes to preventing crime and keeping communities safe, the new gun bill passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives is shooting blanks.As the Herald reported, the bill expands a list of banned firearms, adding most popular AR-15 styles to a list of “assault style weapons.” It would also require licensed concealed carry holders to secure permission before entering another’s home with a firearm and require additional training for license holders, among other points.For law-abiding gun owners, it adds layers of compliance on top of the state’s already-strict firearms regulations.For criminals, it means nothing.After a pair of fatal shootings in Boston last week, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden pointed out that the arrests of two repeat offenders on firearm charges are a “prime example” of how a core group of people drive the “illegal gun possession menace” in Boston.Those repeat offenders were arrested after traffic stops just days before two more men los...

‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ another Scorsese gem

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

Martin Scorsese and the makers of “Killers of the Flower Moon” have gotten ahead of the story about whether or not they have made a film in which the F.B.I. are the “white saviors” of the Osage people, who were decimated in the 1920s in a plot to steal their oil. They say they changed their film to accommodate a more indigenous point of view. I take them at their word. But you can almost hear the trumpets blowing when the feds finally arrive to investigate and arrest the perpetrators.Nevertheless, director Scorsese, who co-wrote the screenplay with the great Eric Roth (“Dune”) based on the 2017 book by David Grann, has concocted a mesmerizing and dense tale of Faustian dimensions. Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio in his 6th film with Scorsese) is a not particularly bright WWI army cook. returning from the front. Di Caprio wears a strange, almost goofy expression on his face and seems to have stuffed his cheeks with cotton balls a la Brando in “The Godfather.”Burkhart is headed to ...

Dear Abby: Distance, family hurdles for couple

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

Dear Abby: I’ve been separated and divorced for two years. A year ago, I met a man through a mutual friend. He was also going through a divorce. We started communicating, fell in love and have been traveling back and forth between Ohio, where he works and lives, and New Jersey, where I am.He wants me to quit my job and find a new one so we can make our relationship permanent in Ohio. I’m a sales support coordinator for a broker, and I have been with the company for some time. There’s no guarantee I could find a job that pays as well as this one does. He has his own business and also cares for his elderly aunt and uncle.I want to be with him, but at my age (60), I’m hesitant to start a new job. Also, I’d be leaving my adult kids behind and would miss them dearly. It’s a dilemma because I want to be able to see my kids as often as we can, but I also love this man and want to share my life with him. How do I figure this out? — Hard Decisions to...

Evidence shows Hamas militants likely used some North Korean weapons in attack on Israel

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Hamas fighters likely fired North Korean weapons during their Oct. 7 assault on Israel, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyang’s denials that it sells arms to the militant group. The video was analyzed by two experts on North Korean arms. Along with an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield and South Korean military intelligence, the video indicates that Hamas used the F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armored vehicles.The evidence shines a light on the murky world of the illicit arms shipments that sanction-battered North Korea uses as a way to fund its arms programs. Rocket-propelled grenade launchers fire a single warhead and can be quickly reloaded, making them valuable weapons for guerrilla forces in running skirmishes with heavy vehicles. The F-7 has been documented in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, a...

Man who killed 2 South Carolina officers and wounded 5 others in ambush prepares for sentencing

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

A 79-year-old South Carolina man is set to be sentenced Thursday for killing two police officers and wounding five more in an October 2018 ambush he set up after detectives told him they were coming to serve a search warrant on his son.When the three Florence County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, Frederick Hopkins was waiting in a sniper’s nest he made in a second story room in his upscale Florence neighborhood. He didn’t stop shooting for 30 minutes.Hopkins pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder last week in an unannounced hearing more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from where the shootings took place. His attorney said prosecutors agreed to take the possibility of the death penalty off the table in exchange for the plea.When Hopkins is sentenced at noon Thursday, he is almost certain to get life in prison without parole.Deputies investigating Hopkins’ adult son for possible sexual abuse called ahead on Oct. 3, 2018, to let ...

Spain’s leader mulls granting amnesty to thousands of Catalan separatists in order to stay in power

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Barcelona accountant Oriol Calvo ran afoul of the law when he was arrested in 2019 during a mass protest by supporters of Catalonia’s independence from Spain that turned violent. A court found him guilty of public disorder and of aggressive behavior toward a police officer — offenses he denies. The 25-year-old is among several thousand ordinary citizens who faced legal trouble for their often tiny part in Catalonia’s illegal secession bid that brought Spain to the brink of rupture six years ago.Now Calvo hopes his conviction and those of many others will be wiped clean if Spain’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, follows through and issues a sweeping amnesty for the separatists in exchange for their movement’s political parties helping him form a new government in Madrid.Calvo’s sentence of 18 months was suspended since it was his first offense, but it is still a stain on his record and has affected his willingness to participate in poli...

The trees arrived with Polynesian voyagers. After Maui wildfire, there’s a chance to restore them

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — For people around the world, the green leaves that sprouted from a scorched, 150-year-old banyan tree in the heart of devastated Lahaina symbolized hope following Maui’s deadly wildfire this summer. Teams rushed to flood its roots with water, hoping to save a magnificent tree that had provided shade for community events, a picturesque wedding venue and a popular backdrop for posing tourists.But the fire also nearly wiped out another set of trees, one with a much longer history in Lahaina and a greater significance in Hawaiian culture: breadfruit, or ulu, which had given sustenance since Polynesian voyagers introduced it to the islands many centuries ago. Before colonialism, commercial agriculture and tourism, thousands of breadfruit trees dotted Lahaina; the fire charred all but two of the dozen or so that remained.Now, as Maui recovers from the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, one that left at least 98 people dead, a band of arborists, farmers ...

The House speaker’s race hits an impasse as defeated GOP Rep. Jim Jordan wants to try again

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:00:18 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Refusing to drop out, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan has brought the House speaker’s race to a stalemate — the hard-fighting ally of Donald Trump has been unable to win the gavel but he and his far-right allies won’t step aside for a more viable GOP nominee.The House is tentatively set to convene sometime Thursday afternoon for Jordan to try again. But there’s a sinking realization that the House could remain endlessly stuck, out of service and without a leader for the foreseeable future as the Republican majority spirals deeper into dysfunction. The impasse has left some Republican lawmakers settling in for a protracted stretch without a House speaker. “I think clearly Nov. 17 is a real date,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., who leads a large conservative caucus, referring to the next deadline for Congress to approve funding or risk a federal government shutdown.Next steps were highly uncertain as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options....