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Editorial: The horrific cost of Biden’s $6B Iran deal

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

Once again, Joe Biden’s blunders have had deadly consequences.The president believed that unfreezing $6 billion in assets to Iran, a nation that funds terrorists, wouldn’t have any negative repercussions.The mounting death toll and tales of horror in Israel speak volumes to the contrary.Biden, the $6 Billion Man, approved the August deal to unfreeze the assets in exchange for the release of five American prisoners. Under the terms of the deal, the money can only be used for humanitarian-related purposes, including purchasing food or other goods outside Iran for import, U.S. officials said.As this administration has shown repeatedly, it doesn’t have a firm grasp of how money works.Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, pointed out that allowing Iran access to those funds under any circumstances improves its budget situation, freeing up money that would be used to use elsewhere, Reuters reported,“Let’s be h...

Foxx, Jones knock ’em dead in ‘The Burial’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

Shot a year before Jamie Foxx’s mysterious hospitalization, “The Burial” is a demonstration of that acting phenomenon known as chemistry. I am not only talking about the marvelous and amusing chemistry between fellow Texans Jamie Foxx, playing real-life wealthy lawyer Willie E. Gary; and Tommy Lee Jones as Mississippi funeral home owner and father of 13 children Jeremiah O’Keefe. Although Gary is a personal injury lawyer with the manner and vocabulary of a fundamentalist Baptist preacher, he is hired in 1995 by O’Keefe to be lead attorney in his lawsuit against a Canadian corporation run by the menacing Ray Loewen (Bill Camp).The chemistry spills all over the screen in this film, thanks to some brilliant casting. When Loewen’s legal team learns that O’Keefe has hired Gary and that the case will be heard in a small Mississippi county called Hinds, where the population is two-thirds African-American, Loewen hires Howard-and-Harvard-educated Mame Downes (J...

Find the Cause fights breast cancer before it starts

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month continues, I want to turn to a non-profit that’s approaching the disease in a completely different and critical way: Find The Cause. Based right here in Boston, I’ve worked with them for many years. And as a survivor myself, I can’t tell you how important their work is. The progress they’re making is incredible.While many other terrific organizations focus on finding a cure for breast cancer, their mission is to find the cause. In short, they fund scientific research on the environmental causes and then use that data to educate the public on prevention. And given that one in 18 women in the Unites States will be diagnosed with breast cancer—and that each year, 7,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer in Massachusetts alone—that effort couldn’t be more important. Billions of dollars have been put toward researching treatments, and yet the disease is still with us. We know that 90% of those diagnosed have no family history with the disease, making...

Violent Femmes head back to ’83 at MGM show

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

At 15, Gordon Gano knew he wanted to spend his life playing rock ‘n’ roll.Yes, yes, a ton of 15-year-olds dreaming of becoming rock stars. But most of them haven’t already written a song like “Kiss Off.”Violent Femmes singer-songwriter-guitarist Gano still plays a dozen or more of the songs he wrote in high school — and he still enjoys playing them; nobody has a healthier relationship with their back catalog. On Friday, Violent Femmes will perform its entire 1983 debut (and a bunch of other songs) at MGM Music Hall.“I started writing songs when I was 13,” Gano told the Herald. “I thought they were good at the time then later they would all make me cringe. But there’s a song, at least one song, that I wrote when I was 15 on each of the first four albums… And everything on the first album was written when I was 15 to 17. I think I might have been right around 18 when we recorded it.”The adolescent energy of the band, its punk sneer and experimental freedom, drives the Femmes 1983 debu...

Brem & Clauss: Accessory units will help solve housing crisis

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

Like much of the nation, Massachusetts has a housing crisis. Many other states are addressing theirs by taking bold action, and we should do the same.For instance, California is leading the way with a new state law called Build Housing Faster; efforts are also underway in Oregon and Maine. It is time for Massachusetts to stop discussing our housing problem and start implementing laws, regulations, standards and incentive programs to make a solution reality.We believe Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) – sometimes called “in-law apartments” – to be the low-hanging fruit in solving the housing crisis. This is allows for a second living unit to be created on an existing single-family residential lot, whether the ADU is attached to the existing home or detached. It is important to note that all of the typical rules and regulations for health, wetlands, setbacks and zoning would still apply.If allowed statewide by statute, these units would be automatically spread out across cities and town...

Lucas: Biden tries to play border wall both ways

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

Joe Biden’s double-crossed open border supporters should not be so upset with the president’s flipflop in resuming construction of Donald Trump’s border wall.It has nothing to do with him.It is true that candidate Biden did promise that there would not be “another foot” of the wall built if he became president.“There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration,” he said in August 2020.And on his first day in office, he halted all construction of the wall being built under Trump, which was to stretch along much of the country’s 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico.Subsequently, the country has been deluged with millions of  illegal immigrants, along with the fentanyl that some smuggle.Under Biden’s grudging administration, though, some 20 miles of new wall will go up in the “high illegal entry” area in Rio Grande Valley sector of Southeast Texas where thousands of illegal immigrants have been crossing weekly.If you look at it Joe Biden’s way, though, he is right. ...

Dear Abby: Hubby volunteers wife to care for sick in-laws

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

Dear Abby: I have been married to my husband for 38 years. It has been a happy marriage for the most part; we rarely disagree or argue. The problem is, his parents are both very sick. His mom has Alzheimer’s, and his father was just diagnosed with stage-4 cancer — he’ll probably die within six months.My husband wants us to sell our home and move in with his parents. He says that way we can take care of them both with the caregivers who are there most of the day. He works full time and says the burden will mostly fall on me. Should I agree to this?We are empty nesters, so this will affect no one but my husband and me. I’m leaning toward yes. But my husband has two sisters and a brother, and I’ll be doing something these others won’t do for their parents. I have already taken care of my parents as well as a sick brother and buried them all. I have no family left. Please, give me some advice. — Done This Before in TexasDear Done This:  A LOT mo...

D-backs slug 4 homers in record-setting barrage, sweep Dodgers with 4-2 win in Game 3 of NLDS

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — The hard-hitting Arizona Diamondbacks rode a record-setting barrage of solo homers in the third inning to a 4-2 win in Game 3 of the NL Division Series on Wednesday night, sweeping the 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers out of the playoffs.The D-backs return to the NL Championship Series for the first time since 2007, where they’ll face either the Phillies or Braves.Arizona — the No. 6 seed after squeezing into the NL playoff bracket with an 84-78 record — has won all five of its games during the postseason, sweeping aside both the Brewers in a best-of-three series and the Dodgers in a best-of-five.“It was a team effort,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “It’s about people caring about people in this organization, and that’s what stood out to me today.”The wild-card Diamondbacks won with brawn in this one, slugging a postseason-record four homers in the third off veteran righty Lance Lynn, all solo shots from Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte, Christian ...

$1.73 billion Powerball jackpot goes to lucky lottery player in California

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A player in California won a $1.73 billion Powerball jackpot Wednesday night, ending a long stretch without a winner of the top prize.The winning numbers were: 22, 24, 40, 52, 64 and the Powerball 10.Before someone won the giant prize, there had been 35 consecutive drawings without a big winner, stretching back to July 19 when a player in California matched all six numbers and won $1.08 billion.The jackpot is the world’s second-largest lottery prize after rolling over for 36 consecutive drawings, since the last time someone won the top prize on July 19. That streak trails the record of 41 draws set in 2021 and 2022.The only top prize that was ever bigger was the $2.04 billion Powerball won by a player in California last November. Powerball’s terrible odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes becoming ever larger as they repeatedly roll over when no one wins. And wins in recent months have been few and far between.That didn’t bothe...

Nominated to be House speaker, Steve Scalise is left searching for Republican votes to win the gavel

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:24:50 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Having won the nomination to be the next House speaker, Rep. Steve Scalise is heading straight into a familiar Republican problem — skeptical GOP colleagues are reluctant to give their support, denying him the majority vote needed to win the gavel.On Thursday, the House will open at midday in anticipation of floor action to elect the speaker. But it’s requiring Scalise to peel off more than 100 votes mostly from his chief rival, Rep. Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman favored by hardliners as they dig in for a fight to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy after his historic ouster from the job. “We have a lot of work to do,” Scalise said after Wednesday’s internal party election.A steady stream of some of the Republicans filed into Scalise’s office late into the evening, bringing their complaints, criticisms and demands as he worked to shore up support. The scene is not fully different to the start of the year when McCarthy faced a similar backla...