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US to lift most federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates next week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will end most of the last remaining federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements next week when the national public health emergency for the coronavirus ends, the White House said Monday.Vaccine requirements for federal workers and federal contractors, as well as foreign air travelers to the U.S., will end May 11. The government is also beginning the process of lifting shot requirements for Head Start educators, healthcare workers, and noncitizens at U.S. land borders.The requirements are among the last vestiges of some of the more coercive measures taken by the federal government to promote vaccination as the deadly virus raged, and their end marks the latest display of how President Joe Biden’s administration is moving to treat COVID-19 as a routine, endemic illness.“While I believe that these vaccine mandates had a tremendous beneficial impact, we are now at a point where we think that it makes a lot of sense to pull these requirements do...

Police search for 30-year-old woman missing from Miramar

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

Miramar Police need your help locating 30-year-old Courtney Babb.Last week was her birthday and her family has not heard from her, which is rare as her birthday as come and gone. Family and friends said they haven’t seen or heard from her since April 10.She stands 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds.If you have any information please call police at 954-602-4000.

Crews respond to serious crash in Concord

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

One person was flown to a Boston area hospital Monday after a vehicle crashed off Lowell Road in town into a nearby river, officials said. SKY7-HD showed rescue crews surrounding a red Jeep in a wooded area near the road between its intersections with Barretts Mill Road and Liberty Street. Lowell Road was closed Monday and is expected to remain closed until further noticed, officials said.“We apologize for the inconvenience and will give an update when [the] road is reopened,” Concord police said in a statement around 3:15 p.m.In a separate joint statement Concord Police Chief Thomas Mulcahey and Fire Chief Judge said crews responded around 2:30 p.m. after officials received multiple calls reporting that a vehicle had crashed into the Assabet River near Lowell Road. Officials said an off-duty police officer and another bystander tried to help the driver but couldn’t get the person out of the vehicle, which came to a stop in about three feet of water. Fire crews were later able ...

Hudson man found guilty in deadly 2021 road rage case

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

A man from Hudson was convicted Monday on charges linked to a deadly road rage incident in 2021 that prosecutors said was motivated by race, the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office announced.Prosecutors said Dean Kapsalis used racial slurs before hitting and dragging 35-year-old Henry Tapia with his pickup truck in Belmont in January of 2021. In previous comments, Middlesex County DA Marian Ryan and Belmont Police Chief James MacIsaac said Tapia died at Massachusetts General Hospital after the incident.Tapia, a Black father of three, was reportedly visiting Belmont at the time of the incident.Tapia’s death sparked outrage and protests throughout Kapsalis’ trial. There was no word as of Monday afternoon on when Kapsalis will be sentenced.This is a developing story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest updates.

Two hospitalized men arrested in connection with deadly house party shooting in Lawrence

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

Two men who had been hospitalized with gunshot wounds have now been charged in connection with a fatal house party shooting in Lawrence, according to officials.The Essex County District Attorney’s Office announced that Saul Enrique Morales Espinosa, 22, and Joshual Ramirez, 20, both of Lawrence, had been charged with felony counts of carrying a firearm without a license and carrying a loaded firearm.The two were charged as police continue to investigate a shooting at a house party in Lawrence on Sunday that killed one victim and left five people wounded.Both Espinosa and Ramirez pleaded not guilty during remote arraignments on Monday, held before a Lawrence District Court judge. According to the DA’s office, Espinosa is still hospitalized in Boston while Ramirez is receiving treatment “locally.”The arraignments came a day after officers were originally called to Royal Street for a disturbance around 3 a.m. on Sunday, April 30. Police found six victims, who we...

Heat preparing for all scenarios with Jimmy Butler (ankle) questionable for Game 2

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

Erik Spoelstra looks tired. Pink eyes, body hunched.It’s less than 24 hours after his Miami Heat stole Game 1 at Madison Square Garden with a 108-101 victory over the Knicks on Sunday. Forty-three minutes into the victory, Spoelstra’s best player, Jimmy Butler, came up limping after turning his ankle on a drive to the rim.Butler played through the pain, limping up and down the court in intermittent spurts. The limp grew more significant in the locker room postgame, and by the time the star forward began to get dressed, his ankle had swollen to the size of a baseball. His teammate, Kyle Lowry, joked Butler went down with the injury as if he’d been shot.The Heat star responded as a trainer taped his ankle: He hadn’t turned it this bad in quite some time.Butler’s status remains uncertain for Game 2, a must-win for a Knicks team that wants to retain some semblance of home-court advantage this series, and make no mistake: he is the engine that gives the eigh...

Anna Wintour defends honoring Karl Lagerfeld at 2023 Met Gala, despite controversial remarks

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

By Karu F. Daniels, New York Daily NewsWhen it comes to this year’s Met Gala, Anna Wintour prefers to focus more on the art than the artist.The longtime Vogue magazine editor said that despite Karl Lagerfeld’s controversial commentary, his work deserves to be honored at the annual event she’s presided over since 1995.The theme for this year’s star-studded fete, which benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, pays tribute to the late German designer, who died in 2019 at 85.“Karl was provocative, and he was full of paradoxes,” Wintour told Gayle King on CBS Mornings Monday. “And I think sometimes he would say things … to shock, and not necessarily things that he believed in.”English magazine editor Anna Wintour and Swiss tennis player Roger Federer, look at items of Karl Lagerfeld on display during the press preview of The Costume Institute’s exhibition titled Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on May 1, 2023. ...

Mets edged by Braves in Game 1 of doubleheader

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

Pitching help is on the way for the Mets, but it can’t come soon enough.Calling up Denyi Reyes to make a start was always a gamble. There have always been questions about whether or not his stuff could play at the big league level and the Mets thought he possessed the traits to be able to start.Reyes (0-1) was used as an opener Monday in the first game of a doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves and he put the Mets in a hole right away. The Mets were nearly able to overcome it, coming within one run of tying the game in the sixth inning. But Sean Murphy hit his second home run of the game in the seventh inning off right-hander Jeff Brigham to doom the Mets in a 9-8 loss at Citi Field.Weather postponements left the Mets’ bullpen in a good spot and they were able to lean on Stephen Nogosek, who was activated from the injured list before the game, to pitch the Mets back into the game after Reyes gave up five earned runs over the first and second innings. He recorded only t...

Ticker: Another sign of the high price of housing; Galvin levies $2.5M fine in securities case

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

The average mortgage payment being offered to buyers in Massachusetts is the third highest in the nation, according to data compiled by LendingTree.The analysis looked at mortgage offers on the company’s platform across all fifty states. The national average came in at $2,317. The average in Massachusetts was $3,021, behind only Hawaii and California at $3,696, and $3,399 respectively.“Unfortunately even as the housing market cools and prices fall in some areas, mortgage payments are likely to remain steep for most new buyers, at least compared to where they were over the pandemic,” LendingTree’s Senior Economist and report author, Jacob Channel.  “This is because mortgage rates are poised to remain relatively high for some time while prices aren’t likely to drop drastically in most parts of the country.”Galvin levies $2.5M fine in securities caseA Missouri broker-dealer will be required to pay a $2.5 million fine and more than $700,000 in restitution after allegedly fai...

Florida was the most prized swing state for decades. That won’t be true in 2024

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:10 GMT

For decades, Florida was an essential element of every candidate’s strategy for winning the presidency.Its status as a swing state — with victory within reach for either party — and the enormous trove of electoral votes for the winner often made it the nation’s most hotly contested election battleground.Candidates, for whom time is their most valuable commodity, lavished attention on Florida. Celebrity surrogates poured in to court pockets of voters from the state’s diverse communities. And enormous sums of money were spent on TV ads and field organizers.In 2024, much of that time, energy and money will be traveling to other states — not Florida, whose voters aren’t likely to be sought after as they’ve been in most of the presidential elections since the ultra-close 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.Florida just isn’t as competitive as it once was.“The path to the White House for Democrats now goes through Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and not Florida,...