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Andover teachers reach tentative contract deal with town after five-day strike

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

Andover teachers are heading back to school Wednesday and classes will resume after they reached a tentative contract agreement with the School Committee.The five-day strike that closed school for three days since last Friday came to an end around 5 p.m. Tuesday, the Andover Education Association and School Committee announced in separate posts.“We cannot begin to thank the Andover community enough for their support,” the union stated. “We cannot wait to see our students in school tomorrow!”The tentative agreement, according to the School Committee, “boosts contractual increases for teachers by 15.5% and for instructional assistants by 34%, each over four years.”Union leaders negotiated with the School Committee for more than 60 hours across five days, with sessions led by a state-appointed mediator.“We are pleased that students can get back into the classroom tomorrow morning to continue learning,” said Tracey Spruce, chair of the School Committee.  “With this deal, the administrat...

Blue Jays’ Chapman declines qualifying offer, stays on open market

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

Third baseman Matt Chapman has declined the Toronto Blue Jays’ qualifying offer and remains a free agent.Chapman was one of seven players who turned down $20.325-million qualifying offers from their former teams Tuesday.The Jays extended the offer on Nov. 6. Chapman had until Tuesday to accept it.Toronto will receive an additional selection in next year’s Major League Baseball draft in compensation if Chapman signs elsewhere.Chapman signed a two-year, $25-million contract with Toronto before the 2022 season after spending his first five Major League Baseball seasons in Oakland.He hit .234 with 44 home runs and 130 runs batted in over two seasons with the Jays and was named a Gold Glove Award winner this season.

US Army to overturn century-old convictions of 110 Black soldiers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. Army is overturning the convictions of 110 Black soldiers — 19 of whom were executed — for a mutiny at a Houston military camp a century ago, an effort to atone for imposing harsh punishments linked to Jim Crow-era racism.U.S. Army officials announced the historic reversal Monday during a ceremony posthumously honoring the regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers, who had been sent to Houston in 1917, during World War I, to guard a military training facility. Clashes arose between the regiment and white police officers and civilians, and 19 people were killed.“We cannot change the past; however, this decision provides the Army and the American people an opportunity to learn from this difficult moment in our history,” Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said in a statement.The South Texas College of Law first requested that the Army look into the cases in October 2020, and again in December 2021. The Army then received clemency petitions from retired gene...

B.C. man ordered to pay $450,000 over 2019 wildfire triggered by debris burn

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

VICTORIA — The B.C. Forest Appeals Commission says a man who lit a large debris pile on fire that eventually caused a wildfire should pay the provincial government nearly $450,000 for firefighting costs and lost timber resources.In an appeal decision released last week, the commission says Clarke Matthiesen tried to blame an arsonist for the blaze that investigators say started on his property west of Quesnel, B.C., in the province’s interior. The decision says Matthiesen lit the debris fire on a property he owns with his brother in February 2019, thinking snow around the blaze would work as a “fuel break.” But it says that more than two months later, Matthiesen and his brother came upon a grass fire nearby, which they couldn’t put out with shovels. It says Matthiesen then drove to a neighbouring property to report the fire, and the BC Wildfire Service responded that evening.The commission rejected Matthiesen’s claims that his neighbour’s grandson...

Suspicious mail prompts Kansas to evacuate secretary of state’s building

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The office of Kansas’ top elections official received suspicious mail Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of its building near the Statehouse for the rest of the day.The incident occurred less than a week after election offices in at least five states states received threatening mail, some containing the potentially dangerous opioid fentanyl. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, taking the lead in the case, did not provide further details about the mail sent to the Kansas secretary of state’s office.The KBI is working with the Kansas Highway Patrol, the state fire marshal’s office and the state Department of Health and Environment, spokesperson Melissa Underwood said in an emailed statement. She said authorities evacuated the building, which also houses the Kansas attorney general’s office, “out of an abundance of caution.”“The investigation is ongoing,” Underwood said, adding that it was the only such incident reported in Kansas so far.An of...

3 still critical a day after knife attack that shocked students at Louisiana Tech University

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

RUSTON, La. (AP) — Three women remained in critical condition Tuesday after what officials say was a random knife attack on a college campus in north Louisiana. The suspect in the case, Jacoby Johnson, was taken into custody soon after the Monday morning attack outside a recreation center at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. Johnson, a senior at the university, was being held on four charges of attempted second-degree murder. Neither the court clerk nor the district attorney’s office in Louisiana’s Lincoln Parish had information on whether Johnson had an attorney who could comment.Four people were wounded in Monday’s attack. Three were hospitalized in Shreveport. A fourth, Debby Hollimon of Ruston, was grazed by the attacker’s knife, according to The Ruston Daily Leader. She told the newspaper she heard screams and saw a man attacking another woman. “I just ran up screaming, ‘Get off her! Get away from her!’” Hollimon said. “He stands up and looks at me wi...

Jury convicts Wisconsin woman of fatally poisoning her friend’s water with eye drops

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — A jury on Tuesday convicted a Wisconsin woman of fatally poisoning her beautician friend ‘s water with eye drops and stealing nearly $300,000 from her.Jessy Kurczewski, 39, of Franklin, told investigators she gave Lynn Hernan a water bottle filled with six bottles of Visine in 2018, according to a criminal complaint. A Waukesha County jury found her guilty Tuesday of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of theft in connection with Hernan’s death, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.Kurczewski’s attorneys did not speak with reporters following the verdict.Hernan was found dead in her Pewaukee condo in October 2018 with crushed medication on her chest. According to a criminal complaint, Kurczewski called police and said her friend wasn’t conscious or breathing. Kurczewski said she was a family friend and had been checking on Hernan daily. She had said there was a possibility Hernan was suicidal.The Waukesha County medical e...

New TTC Line 3 Scarborough RT bus replacement plan begins on Sunday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

It’s been three-and-a-half months since the TTC quickly rolled out a premature shuttle bus plan after a Line 3 Scarborough RT train derailment forced an early closure, but a previously approved long-term plan is about to be rolled out.Included in the new plan are changes to the express route alignments, frequency on routes, and rearranging bus route assignments at station platforms.Ever since the derailment on July 24, a combination of Line 3 replacement buses (eventually rebranded as 903 Kennedy-Scarborough Centre Express buses) have been operating on Progress Avenue, Midland Avenue, Eglinton Avenue East and Kennedy Road.RELATED: Goodbye party held for Scarborough RT two months after derailmentThroughout this period, City of Toronto and TTC staff have been scrambling to put in place dedicated traffic lanes, build a new bus platform at Kennedy station and renovate platforms at Scarborough Centre station.Beginning on Sunday, 903 shuttle buses will be taking on a new routing. In...

Authorities in El Salvador dismantle smuggling ring, arrest 10 including 2 police officers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Police in El Salvador on Tuesday arrested 10 people accused of operating a migrant smuggling ring that charged migrants up to $15,000 for the promise of safe travel to the U.S.Two of the alleged smugglers, or “coyotes,” arrested were active members of the Salvadoran national police, the Attorney General’s Office said. Another was an ex-officer.The raid was coordinated between police in the capital, San Salvador, and two other cities, Santa Ana in the west and San Miguel in the east of the country, respectively. Police also seized four vehicles and more than a dozen cellphones.According to an investigation opened in July 2022, the smugglers trafficked migrants through blind spots on the Guatemalan border, then through Mexico and the U.S., charging between $12,000 and $15,000 per person.The attorney general’s office said they began investigating after at least 33 migrants reported they had paid for transport, but were not taken to the U.S.E...

Ohio business owner sues Norfolk Southern for February derailment that closed his companies

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:55 GMT

A business owner with companies near where a Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire in February has sued the railroad for $500 million, saying most of his eastern Ohio companies have remained closed and he hasn’t been able to reach a financial settlement with the railroad.Edwin Wang filed his federal lawsuit Tuesday. It comes amid government lawsuits against Norfolk Southern and a class action case on behalf of residents who have complained about the derailment’s impact on East Palestine, Ohio.Wang’s companies make specialized ceramic fiber insulation products for steel mills. The wholesale part of his business, CeramSource, was able to reopen last month in a new location just over the nearby Pennsylvania border. But contamination concerns and the costly equipment Wang can’t afford to replace have kept his other companies closed. Before the derailment spilled chemicals on his property, Wang’s companies employed close to 50 people and had plans to expand.No...