Home

Runoff looms for Miami Beach mayoral seat amid controversy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

After two Miami Beach mayoral candidates failed to secure the necessary threshold for the city’s top job, Tuesday’s decisive runoff election will determine the winner.Former Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Gongora aims to re-enter local government, while Miami Beach Commissioner Steven Meiner seeks to ascend to the mayoral role.“I’ve been so focused on residents’ quality of life, law, and order being number one,” Meiner said.“I wanna re-brand our city as one of arts and culture; I wanna make sure we have the police presence we need,” Gongora said.The vacancy arose when current mayor Dan Gelber reached his term limit.In the Nov. 7 election, only 242 votes separated the two candidates, each with multiple endorsements.Recently, Meiner lost the endorsement of the Miami Herald, withdrawing support due to allegations of unwanted advances reported by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The advancements, according to the Herald, incl...

Arrest made in assault on elderly man outside Lauderdale Lakes Walmart

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

Sunrise Police arrested a 34-year-old man in connection with the assault on an elderly man outside a Lauderdale Lakes Walmart. The attack occurred just before 10 a.m. on Oct. 11, and Joseph McFadden was taken into custody on Friday, Nov. 17, near the 3300 block of North University Drive in Sunrise, according to detectives from the Broward Sheriff’s Office Violent Crimes Unit.Surveillance video captured the disturbing incident as the elderly man exited the Walmart at 3001 N. State Road 7. McFadden, described as a tall and thin male wearing a navy sweater with grey lettering, black pants, and flip flops, punched the victim in the face without provocation. The attacker then fled on foot, heading north towards Oakland Park Boulevard.Detectives confirmed that the victim, who sustained minor injuries, did not know McFadden, and no altercation or theft occurred between them. The motive behind the assault remains unclear.Following an extensive investigation, detectives obtained a warrant fo...

A baby dies and a Florida mom is found stabbed to death, as firefighters rescue 2 kids from blaze

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Firefighters discovered a woman stabbed to death when they rushed to extinguish a blaze early Tuesday at an apartment in Daytona Beach, while her three young children were taken in critical condition to a hospital where the youngest, an infant, died.Authorities have not released the baby’s cause of death or the type of injuries and current conditions of the two surviving kids, ages 4 and 5.“This is a horrific incident two days out from a holiday that centers around family,” Daytona Beach police Chief Jakari Young told reporters at the scene.The mother’s name has not been released and police were investigating the fire as a homicide, Young said. Authorities have not named a suspect. The fire began around midnight Tuesday at the Countryside Apartments, Young said, and the infant was found in a crib near the mother.https://twitter.com/DaytonaBeachFD/status/1726892426651189383?s=20WKMG in Orlando...

British state ‘surprisingly bad’ at responding to COVID-19, inquiry hears

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

LONDON — The British government failed to take the coronavirus pandemic as seriously as a terror attack, a top government scientist told the country’s official COVID-19 inquiry Tuesday — even as he declined to take swipes at Boris Johnson.The government’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty — who became a household name in the U.K. during the crisis — avoided singling out individuals for the U.K. government’s mixed record as he faced the inquiry. Instead, he trained his fire on the machinery of the British state.Whitty was the main source of health advice to Johnson, then the prime minister, during the pandemic. He argued that Whitehall failed to become “electrified” in the way it should have done at the start of the pandemic — and that health threats were not taken as seriously as other national security threats would have been.Whitty said he warned Johnson in early February 2020 that the pandemic could lead to more than 100,000 deaths — a grim pre...

Italy-Albania migrant deal distinct from UK-Rwanda scheme, Italy’s FM says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday that the pact his country reached with the government of Albania to set up migrant centers in that country is not comparable with a controversial agreement between the United Kingdom and Rwanda.“The migrants will have exactly the same treatment as foreseen under Italian and European regulations,” Tajani said according to Italian news agency ANSA. “There is no outsourcing of the processing of asylum applications to a third country.”The foreign minister also said that only migrants rescued at sea by the Italian authorities would be taken to the centers in Albania ― not those picked up by NGO ships, or migrants who landed on Italian soil. “It will not be possible to tow the barges of the smugglers, nor will it be possible to direct boats run by nongovernmental organizations, to Albania,” Tajani said.Earlier Tuesday, the Guardian cited Italian authorities in reporting that a two-year-old girl had died and a...

Hostage deal announcement between Israel and Hamas could come as soon as Tuesday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

(CNN) — Israel, Hamas and the US are on the cusp of reaching a deal that could be announced as soon as Tuesday for Hamas to release 50 women and children hostages that the militant group took during the October 7 terror attack on Israel, in exchange for a four-to-five day pause in fighting and three Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons for every hostage released, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.The deal could be announced as soon as Tuesday, two Israeli sources said. US officials close to the negotiations stressed that while the deal is not done, they are increasingly optimistic and believe the many weeks of difficult work is about to pay off with a hostage release.“It’s very close,” a senior US official told CNN.Israel’s war cabinet will meet Tuesday at 6 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET), followed by the security cabinet at 12 p.m. and the government an hour later, “in light of the developments on the issue of freeing the hostages,” Prime Min...

Hingham Police searching for 14-year-old runaway

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

Hingham Police posted to social media Tuesday seeking the public’s assistance in locating a teen runaway.Brody Karis, 14, left his family’s Hingham home in the Black Rock neighborhood Monday night around 11 p.m., according to police. He brought a blue sleeping bag with him, but did not bring a phone.Karis is 5’5″, weighs 120 pounds, and has brown hair with blonde highlights. When he departed his house authorities said he was wearing a yellow sweatshirt, black pants, and black shoes.https://twitter.com/HinghamPolice/status/1727004503550181603Police are actively searching for the teen, using both drones and K9 units.Anyone with information about Karis’ whereabouts is asked to contact the Hingham Police Department at 781-749-1212, option 2.

Bill Belichick helping to fill void in Patriots assistant coach’s absence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

FOXBORO — Patriots head coach Bill Belichick gave a brief update on offensive line coach Adrian Klemm on Tuesday morning, saying the team is still working without him.Klemm has been absent since Week 10 due to a health matter.Offensive line coach Bill O’Brien said the team has been in communication with Klemm and disclosed that Belichick is helping to fill the void on the offensive coaching staff.Related ArticlesNew England Patriots | Bill Belichick explains why Patriots QB Will Grier took first-team reps in practice New England Patriots | Bill Belichick suggests Patriots won’t name starting quarterback until Sunday New England Patriots | Callahan: Let Malik Cunningham compete for the Patriots’ starting QB job New England Patriots | Practice to determine Patriots’ Week 12 starting quarterback competition? New England Patriots | Patriots OC Bill O’Brien believes Mac Jones...

Inside the Ravens’ quarterback room: How Lamar Jackson has emerged as a more evolved and vocal leader

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

At the Ravens’ sprawling headquarters and practice facility in Owings Mills — 200,000 total square feet, with its indoor field and weight room accounting for about half of it — Lamar Jackson takes a seat at a long table inside one of the first-floor meeting rooms inside “The Castle,” as the massive complex is affectionally known. At the head of the table is first-year quarterbacks coach Tee Martin. Jackson sits to his immediate left, backup Tyler Huntley next to Jackson and No. 3 quarterback Josh Johnson to Martin’s right, while assistant quarterbacks coach Kerry Dixon mans the computer further down the table.While the stadium is where the magic happens for Jackson and the 8-3 Ravens, this is where much of the work takes place for the quarterback.“Lamar’s like any other student,” says Martin, who spent the previous two seasons as Baltimore’s wide receivers coach and 25 years ago was the quarterback for national champion Ten...

How a Stanford professor is organizing the hunt for alien life

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:24 GMT

On a cold December night in 1977 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, a mysterious hovering object was reported to be flying overhead. Then a luminous hot molten rock fell to earth.What was it? Where did it come from? No one knows.But Stanford University immunologist Garry Nolan suggests one possible theory: It was a discarded part of a UAP, or “unidentified aerial phenomena,” the formal government name for objects previously called UFOs.Undaunted by the risk of professional stigma, the biotech entrepreneur is urging the creation of a “Stardust Repository,” where this and other pieces of mysterious materials of unknown origin would be stored for analysis.At a first-of-its-kind symposium on Friday and Saturday, hosted by Stanford, Nolan unveiled plans to bring scientific rigor to a realm that has long been home to kooks and wackos.“We’re here to professionalize and normalize this,” Nolan told a standing-room-only crowd of physicists, data scientists, tech entrepreneurs and others, representing s...