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More than $317,000 awarded to 90-plus groups for free beach events around Boston

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

A beach advocacy group awarded more than $317,000 to 92 organizations for free beach events and programs on public spaces up and down the Massachusetts coastline.Save the Harbor/Save the Bay plans to announce the grants at a Saturday morning event in Boston about a month after the group released a report focusing on how state officials can better care for local beaches.Save the Harbor/Save the Bay Executive Director Chris Mancini said the grants help highlight the racial and cultural diversity of the region and amplify a message of public safety, fun, and inclusion on local beaches.“Above all, we want our beaches to be safe and healthy places for everyone to enjoy. Diverse and welcoming programming is a key piece of that effort,” Mancini said in a statement.Of the events receiving money, $2,000 is being used to start the “Drag On Boats” series with the Ohana New England Dragon Boat Team. The event is billed as a performance and education series on historical and contemporary LGBTQIA...

Alleged MBTA bus creeper arrested, charged with indecent assault

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

A man accused of creepy and predatory behavior on public transportation in Boston now faces indecent assault and other charges.Rufus Sanders Jr., 63, of West Roxbury, was charged in municipal court in his home neighborhood on Tuesday with indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 and lewd, wanton and lascivious conduct. Judge Margaret Albertson set bail at $750 and ordered Sanders to stay away from the victims and from the Forest Hills MBTA station. She scheduled a pre-trial hearing for June 30.“This individual’s behavior is dangerous and disturbing and impacts the safety realities and perceptions of our many residents who rely on public transportation,” said Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden in a statement.Sanders appeared in an online edition of the Herald’s Crime Briefs on May 31, where he was seen on a bus in Jamaica Plain sporting a bucket hat while staring at an alleged victim with one hand holding what appeared to be an open nip-size liquor bottle and the other ha...

TD Garden office windows shattered by possible BB-gun fire, AGAIN!

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

Someone must not be happy about the Celtics’ or Bruins’ post-season performance.Two office employees at TD Garden, home to both teams, told police they heard “two loud smacks” Friday morning and found two windows with “glass shattered like a spiderweb.”They called police to report the incident and officers arrived at around 10:35 a.m. and looked at the windows. The police report notes that the two double-paned windows looked to be shot “possibly with a BB-gun or pellet gun and that the glass was shattered like a spiderweb.”And this wasn’t the first time.A very similar police report was written on June 1, when police responded to the building a little after 1:20 p.m. for a report “of a person that had shot the window on the second floor of the TD Garden possibly with a BB-Gun and the glass was shattered.”In both cases, the windows were ones that faced Zakim Bridge and the only real difference is that the first time the employee described the sound a little differently.“(Redacted) sta...

Gloria urges City Council to pass Unsafe Camping Ordinance

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Mayor Todd Gloria joined city park officials and community leaders Friday at Balboa Park's Mingei International Museum to highlight the impacts that homeless encampments are having on parks and open spaces across San Diego.“Park users and park employees regularly encounter makeshift camps with piles of garbage, damaged or destroyed restrooms, discarded hypodermic needles, feces and urine and other hazards created by people who should not be living in or near our parks,” Gloria said. “And we cannot help the people who are living in these encampments if they continue to say ‘no’ to services. The City Council must pass the Unsafe Camping Ordinance to protect our parks and the health and safety of all San Diegans.”   SDPD officer shot in Chollas Creek The Unsafe Camping Ordinance, proposed by Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, would prohibit tent encampments in all public spaces throughout the city if shelter beds are available and would ban tent encampments at all times in ...

North Kipling Community Centre, Rexdale Community Hub providing valued services in Toronto

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

If you head to the Mount Olive – Silverstone – Jamestown community in northwest Toronto, there are no shortage of spots to gather but two community centres off of Kipling Avenue are working to provide vital services and fill potential gaps.Built in 1987, the North Kipling Community Centre became the main municipal facility in this area. In the past decade, its footprint has grown as has the need to expand the diversity of its programming.“We definitely want to make sure that whoever walks through our front door feels welcomed and safe,” Annabella Ferrone, a recreation supervisor with the City of Toronto, told CityNews during a recent tour of the facility.The facility, which is located between Finch Avenue West and Steeles Avenue West has many amenities, multipurpose rooms, an indoor bocce court and kitchens. The activities for all age groups are as varied as the spaces.“We offer programs like hair braiding, henna, cricket, dominoes, and all the sport pr...

Illinois adopts new LGBTQ+ protections for community deemed ‘under attack’ in the US

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday signed into law two measures aimed at safeguarding the rights of LGBTQ+ people as other states move to restrict the community, just days after the Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans.One of the new laws will update language in existing acts to be more gender inclusive in order to affirm LGBTQ+ youth in foster care, and the other will make it easier for LGBTQ+ couples to marry. The laws will be effective on Aug. 8 and on Jan. 1, 2024, respectively.Illinois is one of several U.S. states with Democratic-majority legislatures that has worked to reinforce LGBTQ+ rights, as Republican-led legislatures in other states advance bills that target the community, including restrictions on gender-affirming care, bans on transgender youth participation in sports, and ” bathroom bills.” The two new pro-LGBTQ+ Illinois laws were signed about a week into Pride month, a season intended to celebrate t...

Guatemala snubs human rights court, orders release of prisoners convicted of crimes against humanity

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A Guatemalan appeals court on Friday disobeyed a ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights by ordering the release of three former high-ranking military officers convicted of crimes against humanity. In March, the regional human rights court halted the release of the prisoners “to prevent irreparable damage to the right of access to justice for the victims.”It’s not the first time that Guatemala authorities have disregarded rulings by the court – they’ve been condemned for it 14 times before. The original 2018 sentencing of the men actually came about as a result of a 2004 condemnation by the rights court, which rebuked decades of impunity in a case centered around the forced disappearance and aggravated rape of members of the Molina Theissen family.But it’s the first case Guatemala authorities have done so in a situation that involves releasing prisoners already convicted of serious crimes. It also comes as watchdogs warn of ...

Federal judge who presided over rare Michigan death penalty trial dies at 79

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

Robert Holmes Bell, a federal judge for 30 years whose trials included one that led to a rare death sentence in Michigan, has died. He was 79.Bell died Thursday, Michelle Benham, the court’s chief deputy clerk, said Friday. A cause was not disclosed.He was “one of the giants” on the federal bench, said Chris Yates, a judge on the state appeals court who often appeared in Bell’s courtroom as a defense lawyer.Bell was a judge in the Lansing area when President Ronald Reagan in 1987 appointed him to the U.S. District Court in western Michigan, based in Grand Rapids. He retired in 2017.Bell presided over many significant cases, but none was bigger than the 2002 trial of Marvin Gabrion, who was convicted of drowning a woman in a remote lake in a national forest in Newaygo County. Michigan outlawed the death penalty in 1847, but it is available under federal law. Federal prosecutors had the ability to charge Gabrion because Rachel Timmerman’s murder occurred on government property. ...

Former Supreme Court justice Louis LeBel remembered for eloquence, humour, intellect

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

OTTAWA — Former colleagues of a long-time Supreme Court justice are remembering Louis LeBel as a strong legal mind who was kind with sharing his insights.The former justice died Thursday at the age of 83. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien appointed LeBel to the country’s highest bench in 2000, where he served until his retirement in 2014.Justice Minister David Lametti said LeBel was an accomplished jurist who was dedicated to advancing the law.“I salute his service, which changed our country for the better,” he said on Twitter. “He will be missed.”Former justice minister Allan Rock, who worked with LeBel at the University of Ottawa, said the former justice “embodied every virtue we prize in our independent and impartial judiciary.”“Justice Lebel was a favourite among counsel because his humility and gentle sense of humour meant that lawyers would receive a thorough hearing, rigorously testing their arguments, but always one marked by...

Natalee Holloway disappearance suspect in court, charged with extorting victim’s mother

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:30:50 GMT

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance on the island of Aruba, walked shackled into an Alabama courtroom on Friday as her parents looked on. He pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to extort money from the missing teen’s mother in exchange for revealing where to find her daughter’s remains.Although he’s not on trial for harming Holloway, the extortion and wire fraud charges are the only alleged crimes that link the Dutch citizen to her disappearance on the final night of high school graduation trip with classmates. The 18-year-old was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who was a student at an international school on the island where he grew up.Van der Sloot, now 35, was extradited Thursday from Peru where he’s serving a 28-year sentence after confessing to killing a Peruvian woman in 2010 — five years to the day after Holloway went missing.Natalee’s mother, father and brother were in the courtroom...