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Mercedes adds a new car light color: Blue for self-driving

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

(CNN) — Most cars in America have three colors of lights on the outside. There’s white for headlights and reverse lights, red for brake lights and rear lights and amber for turn signals, at least in the front. Mercedes-Benz has just received approval to add a fourth color: turquoise blue lights that indicate when a Mercedes car is driving itself.Only California and Nevada have approved the new light color. Those are the only states where Mercedes’ “conditionally autonomous” Drive Pilot technology is legal.Mercedes Drive Pilot can be used in traffic jams on selected major highways when vehicles are traveling at less than 40 miles an hour. Under those conditions, the driver can take their feet off the pedals, let go of the steering wheel and — this is where is it differs from any other driver assistance system — completely take their eyes off the road.All other driving assistance systems, including Tesla’s so-called Full Self Driving and General Motor’s Super Cruise, require the ...

Israeli airstrikes kill dozens more Palestinians across the Gaza Strip

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli army has raided and detained staff at two of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza’s north, where the defense minister said Tuesday that troops were working to completely clear out Hamas militants.Israel bombarded towns across southern Gaza Tuesday with airstrikes, killing at least 45 Palestinians and pressing ahead with its offensive with renewed backing from the United States, despite rising international alarm. The Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, warned the campaign in Gaza’s south will persist for months.In a hospital in the southern town of Rafah, Mahmoud Zoarab bid farewell to his two children — a 2-year-old boy, and a girl born two weeks ago — killed in a predawn strike on their home.Wounded in the strike, he winced as he peeled back the shrouds to look at their faces as his wife and mother stood by his bed.“Just two weeks old. Her name hadn’t even been registered,” said the children’s grandmother, Suzan Zoarab. Addressing I...

Macron’s migration crisis deepens as PM admits bill is unconstitutional

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

PARIS — France’s Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Wednesday that parts of her government’s own draft law on immigration were unconstitutional, a day after a nail-biting vote in favor of the bill which has left Emmanuel Macron’s coalition badly battered.Late on Tuesday, the National Assembly passed Macron’s flagship immigration bill that was much toughened during negotiations in recent days to get the support of the conservative Les Républicains party. It was also approved with the support of the far right National Rally, which has sparked accusations the centrists are capitulating to xenophobia.Macron’s government has since been sending mixed messages on the legislation, lauding its success while condemning parts of it as potentially unconstitutional. Borne said Wednesday that she “felt she had fulfilled her duty” but that the bill would have to “evolve.”Asked during an interview with radio France Inter if parts of the bi...

Power returning to South Shore, thousands still in dark Wednesday morning

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

Nearly 23,000 in Massaschusetts were still without power Wednesday morning, two days after the area was hit with a wet and windy storm.The South Shore bore the brunt of the storm’s power outages. More than 25 percent of Norwell was still in the dark Wednesday morning. Neighboring Pembroke remained 19 percent unpowered, better than its neighbor, Duxbury, where 14 percent of residents were left waiting.Norwell resident Alison Demong said her husband described the scene around Norwell as “Treemageddon.”“There’s just trees down and branches everywhere,” she said. “Most people in our town have generators at this point, not everyone, but it’s more and more common that we lose power. Norwell has so many big trees and the power lines come down so fast.”Scituate, which suffered widespread outages through Tuesday, was mostly back online Wednesday; just 5 percent of residents there were still without power, down from nearly 100 percent during the height of the storm.Nat...

Police investigating East Boston stabbing

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

A victim was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after being stabbed in East Boston Tuesday. Around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Boston Police were called to Maverick Square in East Boston following report of the attack. Part of the Maverick MBTA stop could be seen cordoned off with police tape. The stabbing remains under investigation and the victim’s identity has not yet been released. This is a developing story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest updates.

Judge orders Rep. Scott Perry to turn over cell phone records to federal prosecutors in election subversion case

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

(CNN) — The special counsel’s office can access more than 1,600 communications found on Rep. Scott Perry’s cell phone, including some about his interest in assisting former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a new court decision on Tuesday.The development comes months after special counsel Jack Smith’s office indicted Trump for leading a conspiracy to obstruct the vote, and following a protracted, often-secretive, court battle over which of Perry’s cell phone messages could be accessible to investigators.The court decision releases the bulk of Perry’s messages to investigators after months of delays because of legal appeals around investigative access to congressional records, which provide special constitutional protections for the work of members of Congress.It’s not yet clear how the court decision might affect the special counsel’s ongoing effort, including preparing for the upcoming criminal ...

String of car break-ins in Waltham under investigation by police

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

Waltham Police are warning residents about a string of car break-ins across the city.According to authorities, recent incidents have been reported on Edwin, Ellery, Cleveland and Clements Roads and Livingston Lane.Police posted a surveillance video of the individual believed to be responsible for the break-ins to Facebook. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Waltham Police Department at 781-314-3600.

Military secrets leak case: Jack Teixeira hearing rescheduled

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

A scheduled hearing in the federal criminal case of alleged military secrets leaker Jack Teixeira has been canceled for the second week in a row.Federal prosecutors say that Teixeira, either 21 or 22, abused his security clearance as a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman to share more than 40 images of classified documents largely regarding the war in Ukraine to the roughly 50 members of a Discord server he led. A “server” is what the gaming-dominated social media platform Discord calls individual groups or forums.His case was scheduled for a hearing on Dec. 11, which was canceled as a joint report from prosecutors and defense attorneys was entered in its stead. Another hearing scheduled for this week has been continued to Feb. 9.“Since the last pretrial conference, the government has made an additional production of classified discovery and is preparing to produce additional classified discovery this week,” prosecutors in the case wrote in a motion for the continuance, which was a...

Baby’s body found in New Bedford park

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

A woman walking through a New Bedford waterfront park made a grisly discovery.The woman was walking along the path at Fort Taber Park about midday on Dec. 9 when, she told New Bedford Police, she saw a blanket near a thicket of bushes next to the path and smelled “an odor of decay,” according to the Bristol District Attorney’s office. Inside was a white plastic bag containing the body of a baby who had been dead for some time.“This is a terrible tragedy, especially when it occurs during the Christmas season. We should all keep the infant in our prayers,” Bristol DA Thomas Quinn III said in a statement. “If you have any information about this case, it is imperative that you come forward. No piece of information is insignificant.”Investigators determined through DNA testing that the body was that of a boy and that he had been dead “for one to four weeks prior to the discovery,” according to the DA statement. The cause of the baby boy’s death is pending an autopsy.DA Quinn said that in...

Boston mayor will formally apologize to Black men wrongly accused in 1989 Carol Stuart murder

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:30:03 GMT

By STEVE LeBLANC (Associated Press)BOSTON (AP) — It was a notorious murder that rattled Boston to its core, coarsened divisions in a city long riven along racial lines, and renewed suspicion and anger directed at the Boston Police Department by the city’s Black community.On Wednesday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu plans to formally apologize on behalf of the city to two Black men, Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett, for their wrongful arrests following the 1989 death of Carol Stuart, whose husband, Charles Stuart, had orchestrated her killing. The Stuarts were white.Stuart blamed his wife’s killing — and his own shooting during what he portrayed as an attempted carjacking — on an unidentified Black gunman, leading to a crackdown by police in one of the city’s traditionally Black neighborhoods in pursuit of a phantom assailant.Charles Stuart said a Black man forced his way into their car as the couple left a birthing class at a city hospital on Oct. 23. Th...