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Newsom approves 'Melanie's Law' requiring fentanyl safety plans in California schools

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

(BCN) -- Middle and high school students across California will be protected by a new law requiring life-saving prevention and response resources for fentanyl overdoses under legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday. Newsom announced on Friday that he had signed Senate Bill 10 or Melanie's Law, introduced by Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, which aims to prevent and respond to youth fentanyl overdoses through mandated school safety plans requiring prevention, response, training, education and awareness. Senator Laphonza Butler tests positive for COVID According to Cortese's office, fentanyl is responsible for one in five youth deaths in California. It added that in Santa Clara County, fentanyl deaths spiked by 863 percent between 2018 and 2021.SB 10 mandates that every public school in California provide training to school employees on opioid prevention and life-saving response under a formal plan known as a Comprehensive School Safety Plan, or CSSP. Additionally, the bill ...

7 activists in Norway meet with the king to discuss a wind farm that is on land used by Sami herders

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Seven of the activists who repeatedly have demonstrated against a wind farm in central Norway that they say hinders the rights of the Sami Indigenous people to raise reindeer met with the Norwegian king on Monday and his son who is heir to the throne.”It was a very strong moment for us — emotionally charged,” activist Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen told the VG newspaper after the meeting with King Harald and Crown Prince Haakon at the royal palace in Oslo. “We experienced not only being believed, but a human meeting with someone who really meets people with compassion and sympathy.””It makes a world of difference in the face of this state, which is so strong and arrogant and difficult to talk to,” she told the daily.Before the meeting, another activist told Norwegian news agency NTB that “we have nowhere else to go.” “We hope his majesty will listen to us and remind the responsible state of its responsibility,” Elle Nystad said.At the center of the dispute are t...

A British man pleads guilty to Islamic State-related terrorism charges

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A British Muslim convert who was convicted in Turkey of being part of the Islamic State group pleaded guilty at a U.K. court Monday to having a firearm for terrorism purposes and two charges of funding terrorism.Aine Davis, 39, was deported to the U.K. in August 2022 after serving time in prison in Turkey. He was charged and detained by British counterterrorism police upon arriving at London’s Luton Airport.Davis on Monday pleaded guilty by video link from a southeast London prison to possessing a firearm for terrorism purposes and funding terrorism between 2013 and 2014.British authorities had long suspected that Davis was part of an Islamic State group cell known as “The Beatles” — so called because of the men’s British accents — that tortured and killed Western hostages in Syria a decade ago, when IS controlled a large swath of Syria and Iraq. Davis denies being connected to the cell. Two members of the “Beatles” cell, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elshei...

Hezbollah destroys Israeli surveillance cameras along the Lebanese border as tension soars

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said Monday it has started destroying surveillance cameras on several Israeli army posts along the border as tension rose following the Israel-Hamas war that began Oct.7.Hezbollah’s military media arm released a video showing snipers shooting at and destroying surveillance cameras placed on five points along the Lebanon-Israel border including one outside the Israeli town of Metula.The militant group appears to want to prevent the Israeli army from monitoring movements on the Lebanese side of the border after days of fire exchange that left at least seven people dead, including four Hezbollah fighters, on the Lebanese side.Since the Oct. 7, attack by the Palestinian militant Hamas group on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and troops, tension has been on the rise along the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah fighters fired anti-tank missiles on Israeli army positions and Israeli troops shelled border areas on ...

Madonna’s Celebration Tour kicks off in London after health scare

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Madonna kicked off her career-spanning Celebration Tour at London’s O2 Arena on Saturday night, marking her first performance since suffering what her manager called a “serious bacterial infection” that led to hospitalization in an intensive care unit for several days back in June.“I’m on the road to recovery and incredibly grateful for all the blessings in my life,” the pop superstar wrote on Instagram this summer, shortly after news of the ICU stay broke. “My focus now is on my health and getting stronger and I assure you, I’ll be back with you as soon as I can.”On stage, Madonna, 65, said she’d had a “crazy year” that neither she nor her doctors thought she’d make it through. She said her children spurred her on and that she had to “survive for them.” The opening night of the tour also marked the 27th birthday of daughter Lourdes Leon, who appeared on stage with her mother.After a brief technical hitch, the opening night of the tour was indee...

Kim Ng, MLB’s 1st female GM, is leaving the Miami Marlins after making the playoffs in 3rd season

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — Kim Ng is leaving the Miami Marlins after three seasons as general manager, Marlins chairman and principal owner Bruce Sherman announced Monday.Ng, 54, became the majors’ highest-ranking woman in baseball operations and the first female GM in the four major North American professional sports leagues in a groundbreaking hire in November 2020.The Marlins exercised their team option for her to return for the 2024 season, Sherman said in a statement, but Ng declined her mutual option.“We thank Kim for her contributions during her time with our organization and wish her and her family well,” Sherman said.Ng was the fifth GM in the Marlins’ history. Sherman said the club will immediately begin its search for new leadership.Ng brought in Marlins coach Skip Schumaker ahead of the 2023 season, and he led Miami to its first postseason berth since the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. They lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in the Wild Card Series. The last full season in whi...

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s whirlwind week caps off with ‘SNL’ cameos – and some hand-holding

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

(CNN) — Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are in it to win it.The pair spent their Saturday night together in New York City, where they made surprise cameos on the new episode of “SNL” before engaging in some G-rated PDA.In separate cameos on “Saturday Night Live,” Swift and Kelce winked at the fervor around their coupling.In one sketch, Kenan Thompson, Mikey Day, Molly Kearney, James Austin Johnson, Devon Walker and host Pete Davidson parodied the NFL’s media coverage of Swift attending Kelce’s games in recent weeks.The Chiefs’ tight end appeared at the end of the sketch when Thompson, playing Fox NFL Sunday broadcaster Curt Menefee, was frustrated with his co-host’s Swift references and he wanted to speak to “someone who actually wants to talk football.”The camera then cut to Kelce, who said, “Yes, please!” He flashed a smile as the crowd whistled and cheered.Swift’s appearance was less of a direct response to the buzz, but her cameo on the same episode as Kelce was acknowle...

Mariano: No End In Sight As Migrant Crisis Costs Pile Up

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

House Speaker Ron Mariano has been advised that colder weather is not likely to stem the ongoing tide of asylum-seeking migrants into Massachusetts and says Gov. Maura Healey’s request for $250 million to help manage the crisis might not be enough to last even until the end of October.During an appearance Sunday morning on WCVB’s “On The Record” program, Mariano said he still has “tons of questions” about the crisis, suggested that state officials are still in the dark on many fronts, and issued a call for congregate housing, with hotels and shelters at capacity and fall’s lower temperatures kicking in.“We have people coming in daily, different times of the day, from different regions, entering our state from different locations,” the Quincy Democrat said. “We’re trying to get them all organized and we have no idea how many we’re going to get, when they’re coming, and what they need to survive here.”...

Justice Department opens federal hate crime investigation into fatal stabbing of 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

(CNN) — The US Justice Department has opened a federal hate crime investigation after an Illinois landlord allegedly stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy to death and seriously wounded his mother because the family is Muslim.Joseph M. Czuba, 71, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.The sheriff’s office said Czuba did not make a statement to detectives, but investigators determined the victims were “targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”The Justice Department “will use every legal authority at our disposal to bring to justice those who perpetrate illegal acts of hate,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.“This incident cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian co...

Potential Red Sox candidate Kim Ng not returning as Marlins GM

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:48:40 GMT

One of the more intriguing possibilities for the Red Sox head of baseball operations position has just hit the open market.The Miami Marlins announced Monday morning that Kim Ng will not return as general manager, with principal owner Bruce Sherman saying the decision to leave was her’s.“Although the club exercised its team option for her to return for the 2024 season, Kim has declined her mutual option,” Sherman said in a statement. “We thank Kim for her contributions during her time with our organization and wish her and her family well.”Ng made history when she was hired in late 2020 as the first woman to lead an MLB club’s baseball operations department, and over the past three seasons the Marlins have steadily improved under her leadership. This year the Marlins finished 84-78 and reached the postseason for the first time in a full 162-game season since 2003.Though it’s not known why Ng made the decision to leave, her departure will fue...