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SNP unity rocked in race to replace Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

LONDON — Divided parties don’t win elections, or so the saying goes. The Scottish National Party may soon have to put that one to the test.The brightest lights of Scotland’s dominant pro-independence party have been tearing chunks out of each other in a deeply acrimonious leadership contest to replace leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who resigned after eight years at the helm in February. TV debates this week have seen the contest reach boiling point, and there are fears it may be hard to let bygones be bygones when it’s all over.Finance Secretary Kate Forbes — who has bounced back from a torrid first week to remain a serious contender — is pitching herself as the change candidate. And that means heaping scorn on Sturgeon’s government, as well as the competence of her main contender Humza Yousaf. “When you were transport minister, the trains were never on time,” she said Tuesday night, in a highly-charged attack mixing the personal and the political. ...

Mental health test ordered for man who disrupted flight

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge ordered a mental health evaluation Thursday for the man charged with attempting to open an airliner’s emergency door on a cross-country flight last weekend and trying to stab a flight attendant in the neck with a broken metal spoon.The judge said another detention hearing for Francisco Severo Torres, 33, of Leominster, Massachusetts would take place after the mental health evaluation was completed. Torres was arrested Sunday when United Flight 2609 from Los Angeles landed in Boston. He is charged with a felony related to interfering with flight crew members using a dangerous weapon. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.As a handcuffed Torres left the courtroom, he said “My name is still Balthazar” which is a name he referred to himself as during the rant on the plane.The plane was about 45 minutes from Boston when the crew received an alarm that a side door on the aircraft was disarmed, according to court documents. One flight...

What’s in Biden’s budget

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

(CNN) — President Joe Biden released his annual budget Thursday, outlining his policy priorities for the year ahead.Make no mistake, the proposed budget has no chance of making it through the Republican-controlled House. But Biden’s plan will frame upcoming political battles on Capitol Hill, where the GOP has yet to unveil its own spending plan.Biden’s budget comes out after the US hit the debt ceiling, a cap set by Congress, earlier this year. The Treasury Department is now taking extraordinary measures to allow the government to keep paying its bills. But the country could start to default on its obligations over the summer if Congress doesn’t address the debt ceiling before then. Republicans are calling for some spending cuts in exchange for voting to raise the cap, while the White House does not want to negotiate on resolving the debt limit drama.Many of the provisions in the budget rehash the president’s earlier propos...

Ex-Trump attorney admits statements about 2020 election were false and is censured by judge

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

(CNN) — Jenna Ellis was censured by a disciplinary judge in Colorado Wednesday, in the latest effort to hold accountable attorneys who boosted former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election reversal gambits.Ellis signed a stipulation stating that several comments she made about the 2020 election violated professional ethics rules barring reckless, knowing or intentional misrepresentations by attorneys, according to documents posted by Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. As part of the stipulation, Ellis agrees to pay $224.Among the false statements highlighted in the stipulation were comments by Ellis on social media and in TV appearances claiming that the Trump campaign had evidence the election was “stolen.”“The public censure in this matter reinforces that even if engaged in political speech, there is a line attorneys cannot cross, particularly when they are speaking in a representative capacity,” Jessica ...

Bees learn waggle dance moves with a little help from their coworkers

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

(CNN) — Booty-shaking worker bees guide their fellow workers to pollen by a form of communication known as “waggle dancing” — performing steps that map out where food is located and how far it is from the hive.And now scientists have discovered that bees hone these moves when they’re young, by touching their antennae to the bodies of dancing elder bees; if they miss that chance, their dances have more mistakes, and their maps are less accurate.Waggle dances are tricky to execute, and missteps can send foraging bees flying off in the wrong direction. But there’s a critical learning phase in a young worker bee’s life when she’s about 8 days old — right before she becomes a full-fledged forager — which helps her to perfect her dance.When older workers return to the hive and waggle dance, novice workers observe them closely. By doing so, less-experienced bees learn to perform dances that generate more accurate maps to the next meal. Worker bees ...

Former NBA star Shawn Kemp being released following arrest

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — No charges are immediately being filed against former NBA star Shawn Kemp following his arrest in a drive-by shooting in Washington, prosecutors said Thursday.Kemp, 53, was booked for investigation of felony drive-by shooting shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday in Tacoma, online jail records show. No one was injured in the shooting Wednesday afternoon.Adam Faber, a spokesman for the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office, said in an emailed statement Thursday afternoon that that no charges were immediately being filed against Kemp and that he was being released from jail pending further investigation.Kemp, who has two licensed cannabis stores in Seattle, was a six-time NBA all-star and played for the Seattle SuperSonics from 1989 to 1997. He also played for Cleveland, Portland and Orlando. Kemp debuted in the NBA during the 1989-90 season as a 20-year-old who had never played college basketball. He became known for his high-flying, athletic dunks.Tacoma polic...

Hot Property: Cambridge condo checks all boxes

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

Real estate trends in the greater Boston area have been… all over the place. There isn’t a ton of inventory, interest rates are making buyers more hesitant, and there’s always the push-pull of suburban space vs. urban amenities.So buyers are looking for the unicorn-iest unicorn — a home that makes sense today and that’s flexible enough for families as they change or expand. Does Unit 1 at 24 Camp Street in Cambridge fit that profile? It just might.The four-bedroom condo boasts more than 2,000 square feet across two floors, plus the Cambridge holy grails — private patio space and off-street parking. After undergoing a top-to-bottom gut renovation, the condo development’s sole remaining unit is sleek and bright.An open floor plan extends the stylish, Thermador-decked kitchen into a living and dining space that’s capped with a wall of bay windows overlooking the quiet streetside. Two bedrooms on the main floor include a large primary suite with double closets and an en-suite bath...

Ex-Goldman Sachs banker gets 10-year sentence for fraud

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN (Associated Press)NEW YORK (AP) — A former Goldman Sachs banker was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in looting a Malaysian development fund of billions of dollars used to finance lavish parties, a superyacht, premium real estate and even the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”Roger Ng was convicted last April by a U.S. District Court jury in Brooklyn, but he continues to deny charges that he conspired to launder money and violated two anti-bribery laws.Prosecutors said Ng and his co-conspirators helped the Malaysian fund, known as 1MDB, raise $6.5 billion through bond sales — only to participate in a scheme that siphoned off more than two-thirds of the money, some of which went to pay bribes and kickbacks.Reading from a prepared statement, Ng pleaded for mercy from U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie.“I’m embarrassed. I’m ashamed,” he told the judge.“I don’t want to live in resentment,” he said. “I want to redeem myself.”The judge admonished...

ChatGPT wrote a bogus newsletter reporting a fictitious fight at a Connecticut middle school

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

A middle school in South Windsor, Conn. has advised parents that someone was circulating a fictitious school newsletter evidently written by the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.The phony newsletter described a fictitious conflict between students, and listed names and penalties they sustained, according to the school system.Administrators were not taking questions this week, and police said they had received no complaint related to the incident.“It has come to our attention that a fictitious newsletter was shared among some students and families that closely resembled the formatting of the TEMS monthly communication to families,” Principal Candice Irwin of the Timothy Edwards Middle School said in a letter to parents Feb. 27.“This writing was generated using ChatGPT (open AI) and reported false information about a fabricated altercation that occurred between TEMS students.”Irwin’s letter did not state whether the phony newsletter was distributed electronically or in print, h...

Ontario bans TikTok app from government-issued mobile devices

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:53:55 GMT

The Doug Ford government is banning the use of the social media app TikTok from government-owned mobile devices, following the lead of the federal government and other Canadian provinces.Last month, the federal government banned the app from such devices days after federal and provincial privacy watchdogs launched an investigation into the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform, delving into how the app collects, uses, and discloses personal information.On Thursday, Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria, President of the Treasury Board, issued the following statement:“Effective immediately, the Ontario government has started the removal of the social media application TikTok from all Ontario government-issued devices. Also effective immediately, all Ontario PC party caucus members will begin the removal of the application from all personal mobile devices. As part of this ban, government advertising campaigns will also be removed from TikTok.“The decision to block the TikTok application from governm...