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Tax revenue will likely fall short of forecasts by more than half a billion

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

After tax takings for 2023 came in $2 billion under the previous year and with the global economy nowhere closer to stability, policymakers did not seem the least bit surprised to learn Massachusetts will likely experience a further revenue downturn this fiscal year.Secretary of Administration and Finance Matthew Gorzkowicz, Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz held a Fiscal Year 2025 Consensus Revenue Hearing on Monday, when they were told they should expect to begin the next fiscal year with far less cash on hand than originally forecast.“Counting usable millionaire’s tax revenue, we expect the state to close FY24 with roughly $40.7 billion in total tax collection, roughly $700 million below the current benchmark,” Evan Horowitz, the executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts, told the committee.That’s actually a conservative number. According to revenue forecasts prepared by the no...

Teenagers in Boston attack disabled man: ‘Punching and kicking him for no reason’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

Boston Police are asking for the public’s help to ID teenagers accused of randomly attacking a man who’s disabled and robbing another victim in Mission Hill.Police have posted photos of the suspected teens who allegedly assaulted several people in the Mission Hill area and stole a phone from one of the victims.The group of juveniles wearing masks are accused of injuring a man who suffers from a “severe learning disability,” according to the Boston Police report.The man was reportedly sitting on a stone outside the TGI Friday’s at 1626 Tremont St., as he waited for his mother, when the pack of teens started punching him and kicking him in the head. He was bleeding from his ear when police officers arrived at the One Brigham Circle mall on Friday morning.The man had “large welts on his head and visible shoe impressions on his face and forehead areas,” the police report reads. He was complaining of head pain and had a tough time recalling what ...

Robbins: Left’s bigotry unmasked in support of Hamas

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

In the eight weeks since 3,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and mutilated 5,800 others, it’s become clear that Hamas’ purpose was not merely genocidal. As interrogated Hamas gunmen have admitted, and as video from the gunmen themselves demonstrates, Hamas had the specific purpose of raping Israeli women before killing them, and doing it en masse.And Hamas went about it gleefully. Here is what one survivor of the music festival at which Hamas murdered hundreds of young Israelis recounted. “I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her,” he says. “She was screaming ‘Stop it! — already I’m going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!’ When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head.”One might hope that progressives, especially feminists, who rightly unequivocally condemn sexual violence on an individual basis would do so when it is inflicted in larg...

Red Sox plan to make internal hire to fill third base coach vacancy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

NASHVILLE — The Red Sox major league coaching staff is nearly set in stone, and on Monday chief baseball officer Craig Breslow indicated that the club’s final vacancy at third base coach will be filled internally.“At this point we’re talking with (Alex Cora) a bunch and we feel really good about the group that we have such that the third base coach is going to come internally, so not looking to make any external additions at this point,” Breslow said. “I think it’s an opportunity to increase accountability across our major league staff to give the group a chance to step up and take additional responsibility.”After a season in which the Red Sox pitching staff and defense consistently underperformed, the club fired pitching coach Dave Bush and third base coach/infield instructor Carlos Febles. The Red Sox have since hired Andrew Bailey to succeed Bush as pitching coach, and while they seem to have an idea of who will take over as third base co...

World carbon dioxide emissions increase again, driven by China, India and aviation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP Science Writer)DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The world this year pumped 1.1% more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than last year because of increased pollution from China and India, a team of scientists reported.The increase was reported early Tuesday at international climate talks, where global officials are trying to cut emissions by 43% by 2030. Instead, carbon pollution keeps rising, with 36.8 billion metric tons poured into the air in 2023, twice the annual amount of 40 years ago, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of international scientists who produce the gold standard of emissions counting.“It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5 (degree Celsius, 2.7 degree Fahrenheit) target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2 (degree Celsius, 3.6 degree Fahrenheit) target alive,’’ study lead author Pierre Friedlingstein...

Alaska Airlines is buying Hawaiian Airlines. Will the Biden administration let the merger fly?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

Another proposed airline buyout is renewing debate over whether there has been too much consolidation in the industry — and whether consumers are paying the price.The Biden administration has taken a tough stance against mergers, and it is certain to take a close look at Alaska Air Group’s proposed acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines for $1 billion in cash.The deal is smaller than the mergers that reshaped the airline industry more than a decade ago. But the Justice Department is already fighting another smallish deal — JetBlue’s proposal to buy Spirit Airlines.Alaska Airlines parent Alaska Air Group announced Sunday that it will pay $18 per share for Hawaiian — a huge premium over Hawaiian’s closing stock price on Friday. Hawaiian has struggled to recover from the pandemic and new competition from Southwest on intra-islands flights. It has lost $159 million so far this year. Alaska says Hawaiian will continue to operate as a stand-alone brand, an unusual step. Here&#...

Clarification to Dec. 2 obituary about Chad Allan

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

An obituary that originally moved Dec. 2 may have left the impression that musician Chad Allan was a co-founding member of Bachman-Turner Overdrive. In fact, he was a co-founding member of the band that later became Bachman-Turner Overdrive.The Canadian Press

Arkansas rules online news personality Cenk Uygur won’t qualify for Democratic presidential primary

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas election officials on Monday said online news personality Cenk Uygur, who was born in Turkey, can’t appear on the state’s Democratic presidential primary ballot next year.The determination comes weeks after Uygur proclaimed that he had become the first naturalized citizen on a presidential ballot after filing paperwork with the state and the Arkansas Democratic Party. Uygur’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey when he was 8.“My office has received your candidate filing paperwork,” Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston said in a letter to Uygur. “However, based on your own proclamation, your are not qualified to hold the elected office for which you filed. Therefore, I cannot, in good faith, certify your name to the ballot.”The Constitution sets simple requirements for president: A candidate must be at least 35 years old and “a natural born citizen.”Several other states, including the early primary states of New Ha...

Regulators begin hearings on how much customers should pay for Georgia nuclear reactors

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Power Co. is urging the state’s utility regulators to approve a deal to pay for the company’s new nuclear reactors as a few holdout opponents keep fighting to try to get the Public Service Commission to keep the utility from collecting any cost overruns for the two reactors at Plant Vogtle.Commissioners began hearings Monday on the proposed deal, which would add $8.95 a month to a typical residential customer’s monthly bill, atop the $5.42 that Georgia Power is already collecting. The five elected commissioners, all Republicans, are scheduled to vote on the $7.56 billion proposal on Dec. 19.The increase would raise the current typical monthly residential bill of nearly $157 by almost 6%. The increase would begin in the month after Unit 4 begins commercial operation. Georgia Power says that will happen next spring.The largest unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co., Georgia Power announced the deal in August, agreeing with commission staff and some...

Heisman finalists: LSU QB Daniels, Oregon QB Nix, Washington QB Penix Jr., Ohio St WR Harrison Jr.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:24 GMT

LSU’s Jayden Daniels, Oregon’s Bo Nix and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., transfer quarterbacks who have all played at least five college seasons, and Ohio State receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. were announced as the Heisman Trophy finalists on Monday night.The Heisman has been given to the nation’s most outstanding college football player since 1935. This year’s winner will be announced Saturday in New York. The top four vote-getters determined by more than 870 voters, which include members of the media and former Heisman winners, are selected as finalists.With Nix and Penix, the Pac-12 has two Heisman finalists for the first time since 2010 when Stanford’s Andrew Luck was the runner-up to Auburn’s Cam Newton, and Oregon running back LaMichael James finished third in the balloting.The Pac-12 is in its final season with its current membership before 10 schools depart, including Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten. A look at each finalist’...