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Massachusetts winner of Daniel Pearl scholarship wants to change society through music

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A student who said he got goosebumps the first time he played the violin in an orchestra is this year’s recipient of a college scholarship given in honor of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in January 2002 while investigating a story on terrorism.Geivens Dextra, who is scheduled to graduate from Pittsfield High School on Sunday, will use the $2,000 Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship to study music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.The scholarship has been awarded annually since 2003 to a high school student from the Berkshire Hills region of western Massachusetts who plans to major in journalism or music, Pearl’s passions. Pearl’s journalism career began in the region.“It’s really an honor to receive this scholarship for music, a subject that meant so much to Daniel Pearl,” Dextra said Wednesday.Dextra’s first formal introduction to music came in the second grade when his mother put him in the after...

9 new food vendors making their San Diego County Fair debut

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- From deep fried ravioli and funnel cakes to classic lemon shake-ups, the San Diego County Fair has more than 100 food vendors serving up an array of tasty options.Scattered across this year's fortress of flavors will be nine new peddlers of bites and drinks. That's according to the Del Mar Fairgrounds, which recently announced the event's newest stands. Enjoy the great outdoors, snap a photo and win San Diego County Fair tickets Some fare fairgoers can expect includes "ooey, gooey" cinnamon rolls, deep-fried chicken pot stickers rolled in Cheetos and deep-fried s'mores, just to name a few. Here are nine new food vendors making their debut at the San Diego County Fair this season. Boba King will be serving up Boba Drinks and RedBull Infusions.  In Your Face Pies will be featuring sweet and savory Hand Pies and Pie Cones. Cheesy Chef will be serving gourmet Grilled Cheese and a 1 pound block of mozzarella. Hawaiian Honey Cone will...

Ukraine says inspections found nearly a quarter of its air-raid shelters locked or unusable

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Concerns around civilian safety spiked in Ukraine on Saturday, as officials announced that an inspection had found nearly a quarter of the country’s air-raid shelters locked or unusable, just days after a woman in Kyiv allegedly died waiting outside a shuttered shelter during a Russian missile barrage. The Ukrainian interior ministry said through its press service Saturday that of the “over 4,800” shelters it had inspected, 252 were locked and a further 893 “unfit for use.”That same day, the Kyiv regional prosecutor’s office reported that four people were detained in a criminal probe into the 33-year-old’s death on Thursday outside the locked shelter. The prosecutor’s office said that one person, a security guard who had failed to unlock the doors, remained under arrest, while three others, including a local official, had been put under house arrest.According to the prosecutor’s office, the suspects face up to eight years in prison for official negligence that l...

Hong Kong detains 8 people on eve of Tiananmen Square anniversary

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police detained eight people, including activists and artists, on the eve of the 34th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, a move that signals the city’s shrinking freedom of expression.Police said in a statement late Saturday that four people have been arrested for allegedly disrupting order in public spaces or carrying out acts with seditious intent. Four others were taken away for investigation on suspicion of breaching public peace. Authorities did not immediately responded to an email seeking comment late Saturday.For decades, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers held a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park on June 4 to commemorate the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, in which tanks rolled into the heart of Beijing and hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed.During the pandemic, protests in Hong Kong were rare due to COVID-19 restrictions. In addition, many activists there have been silenced or jailed after Beijing impos...

Key suspect in Natalee Holloway’s case moved to new prison ahead of extradition tot US

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

LIMA, Peru (AP) — The chief suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway is being transferred to a prison near Peru’s capital ahead of his pending extradition to the United States to face charges linked to her vanishing, officials said Saturday. The government of Peru, where Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot was serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of a Peruvian woman, authorized his extradition to the U.S. in May. Máximo Altez, van del Sloot’s lawyer, said his client was being taken by land from the Challapalca prison in Peru’s southern Andes to the Piedras Gordas prison on the outskirts of Lima.“In the coming days, the INPE (National Penitentiary Institute) will hand over the condemned man to Interpol Peru with the goal of handing him over to U.S. authorities from the FBI,” said a statement from the INPE released Saturday. Altez said that once the bureaucratic procedures are completed and van der Sloot is given a medical exam, hi...

Cardinal performs rite to restore Vatican altar desecrated by man’s naked protest

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The head of St. Peter’s Basilica performed a special rite Saturday after a man stripped naked and hopped on the main altar with the words “Save children of Ukraina” written on his back.Cardinal Mauro Gambetti performed the penitential rite following the desecration of the altar with other priests and members of the faithful.According to Vatican News, a Polish man approached the basilica’s high altar on Thursday at closing time, undressed and jumped up on the marble altar. Photos of the incident showed the bald man in just black socks and sneakers with his back to the pews.The man didn’t resist when gendarmes approached and took him to the Vatican police station. He was handed over to Italian police, who issued an expulsion order requiring him to leave Italy, Vatican News reported.It was the latest incident of disturbances at the Vatican in recent months. Last summer, climate activists glued their hands to a statue in the Vatican Museums to draw attention to...

Official: 1 dead, 14 rescued after overloaded boat capsizes near southern Haiti

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — One person died and 14 others were rescued after an overloaded boat traveling without authorization capsized near Haiti’s southern coast, authorities said Saturday.Among the survivors is a person who was hospitalized in critical condition, according to Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency. It said authorities are still looking for an undetermined number of people.The boat departed late Friday from the town of Anse-a-Pitres near the border that Haiti and the Dominican Republic share. It capsized as it traveled west to the southern coastal town of Marigot, said Auguste Sony, an inspector with Haiti’s Maritime and Navigation Service.He told The Associated Press that the boat was laden with 600 sacks of flour and more than 15 people, so he did not authorize it to leave the port given its heavy load and reported the situation to his superiors.Sony said the captain ignored his orders and set off, insisting that he ferry people to Marigot.“It’s very sad that t...

Does Medicare cover Ozempic?

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

(NerdWallet) - Ozempic, a medication used to treat Type 2 diabetes, has gone viral as a weight loss drug.The #ozempic hashtag has over a billion views on TikTok, and more people are searching the web for Ozempic than for insulin, Viagra or Tylenol, according to Google Trends data for May 2023.Medicare beneficiaries interested in the drug might be surprised to see that it’s often covered by Medicare Part D. It’s one of the prescription drugs on which Medicare, the federal health care program for people age 65 and older and for younger people with certain disabilities, spends the most money each year.But Medicare doesn’t cover Ozempic for weight loss — only for diabetes. Nor does Medicare cover Wegovy, a weight loss drug that uses the same active ingredient as Ozempic.In fact, Medicare doesn’t cover any prescription drugs for weight loss. And because of legal barriers and cost concerns, that might not change any time soon.Here’s what to know about Medicare coverage of Ozempic and othe...

Cement-filled toilets and dead fish: NC school district bars more than 80 seniors from graduation over 'pranks'

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

(WGHP) – Some students call it a senior prank. Law enforcement officials call it vandalism.   In North Carolina, the school districts are filing charges.Over the last month, multiple school districts in the state have filed charges against students in connection with so-called pranks that, they say, are anything but harmless.The Burlington Police Department, for instance, recently announced that charges had been filed against seven students who were reportedly involved in an incident at Walter M. Williams High School, during which they poured cement mix into eight toilets and six urinals after breaking in. The incident, which made national headlines, was extremely destructive, school officials said.“That alone was the cost of around $4,000,” said Les Atkins, spokesperson for the Alamance-Burlington School System (ABSS).That’s not counting labor.  “We had about 17 maintenance workers here."It wasn’t just the cement. Baby powder was all over the gym, inappropriate signs...

Costco shoppers shifting away from specific item; CFO says it's indicator of recession

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:11:54 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – Costco’s shoppers were less often choosing to purchase beef or steaks from the stores’ meat departments in recent months — a trend indicative of a recession or at least “concern” for a recession, according to CFO Richard Galanti.Galanti, speaking with investors in a third-quarter earnings call last week, said more shoppers were choosing less expensive cuts of meat instead.“Historically, we've always seen, like within fresh protein, we've always seen when there's a recession, whether it was '99, '00 or '08, '09, '10, we would see some sales penetration shift from beef to poultry and pork,” Galanti said in a third-quarter earnings call last week. “We've seen some of that now.” Costco CFO addresses future of $1.50 hot dog-and-soda deal on earnings call He also said he had heard from a fellow executive that Costco was seeing “some switch even to some canned products, like canned chicken and canned tuna and things like that.”Products from Kirkland Signature — Costco’s priva...