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Downtown effort: Wu launches office-to-residential conversion program

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

The city is looking to solve at least some of the region’s housing crunch by converting empty downtown office space into residential units.Mayor Michelle Wu’s office office on Monday announced the initiative that will offer tax breaks of up to 75% to building owners who jump on the chance to convert.“We must take every possible action to create more housing and more affordability so that Boston’s growth meets the needs of current and future residents,” said Wu in a release announcing the push. “This program will help us take advantage of the opportunity we have to rethink Downtown as a space where people from all over come together to collaborate, create, live, and play.”Post-pandemic vacancies are running about 20%, according to a study released last fall and cited in Monday’s announcement.The tax discount is intended to offset the high cost associated with converting office space, which is designed and engineered differently, to residential uses.According to a study conducte...

Bruins avoid arbitration with Ian Mitchell, sign defenseman to one-year deal

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

The Bruins settled one outstanding arbitration before it went to a hearing. They have two more to go.The B’s inked recently acquired defenseman Ian Mitchell, obtained in the Taylor Hall trade with the Chicago Blackhawks, to a one-year deal worth $775,000. The 24-year-old had an NHL salary of $1.05 million last season, but played only 35 games in Chicago. As it appears now, the right-shot Mitchell will be in direct competition for playing time with veteran Kevin Shattenkirk, who was signed as a free agent on July 1.The B’s have just under $5.5 million in salary cap space according to puckpedia.com, with two more outstanding arbitration cases that promise to chew up significantly more cap space than Mitchell’s deal. Goaltender Jeremy Swayman’s last deal carried an average annual value of $1.05 million and Trent Frederic just finished a deal with $1.137.5 million AAV.Both players should get decent raises. Frederic is coming off a 17-goal season while Swayman, af...

Shooting at apartment complex wounds 1

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Officers arrested a 25-year-old suspect Monday after a shooting in El Cajon left one person wounded, police said.Shortly after 11 a.m., police received a call about multiple gunshots at an apartment complex in the 200 block of Van Houten, El Cajon police said in a news release. When officers arrived, they found one victim who had been shot in the leg. Paramedics took the victim to a hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Brothers found dead inside East County home Officers then found and arrested the suspect, 25-year-old Quinton Darensbourg, about one block away in the 200 block of El Cajon Boulevard.Police say the suspect and the victim knew each other and were in an argument before the shooting.

Pennsylvania police searching for escaped homicide suspect find possible campsites near jail

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

WARREN, Pa. (AP) — A homicide suspect who used bed sheets to escape from a northwestern Pennsylvania jail is likely still in the area and someone may be helping him to evade capture, police said after discovering possible campsites in nearby woods.Michael Burham, 34, fled the Warren County Prison late Thursday by climbing on exercise equipment, climbing through a window and down a rope fashioned from jail bedding, authorities said. Burham was being held on $1 million bail and was charged with kidnapping, burglary and other counts.“We have located small stockpiles or campsites in wooded areas in the general vicinity of Warren, and we believe that at least some of those may be associated with Burham,” Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police told reporters Sunday afternoon at Youngsville Fire Hall.Bivens said Monday that the stockpiles consisted of “supplies that would assist him with a prolonged stay in a wooded area.” He declined to be more specific but said investiga...

Sex charges dismissed against reality TV doctor and girlfriend

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A California judge has dismissed sex charges against a reality TV show doctor and his girlfriend who had been accused of drugging and raping women in a case that drew international attention.Court records show that charges of assault with the intent to commit a sexual offense were dismissed Friday against Dr. Grant Robicheaux, a surgeon who previously appeared on a Bravo TV show called “Online Dating Rituals of the American Male,” and girlfriend Cerissa Riley. The decision came after a preliminary hearing before Superior Court Judge Michael Leversen, who determined there was not sufficient evidence on the sex charges to proceed to trial, the Orange County Register reported. The pair also faces drug charges and is due to appear in court July 19. Robicheaux is also charged with possession of an assault weapon. They previously pleaded not guilty.The state attorney general’s office, which has been prosecuting the case, said the agency is reviewing the ...

James Lewis, the suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed 7 in the Chicago area, has died

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people in the Chicago area, triggered a nationwide panic, and led to an overhaul in the safety of over-the-counter medication packaging, has died, police said on Monday.Officers, firefighters and EMTs responding to a report of an unresponsive person at about 4 p.m. Sunday found James W. Lewis dead in his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, Cambridge Police Superintendent Frederick Cabral said in a statement. He was 76, police said.“Following an investigation, Lewis’ death was determined to be not suspicious,” the statement says. No one was ever charged in the deaths of seven people who took the over-the-counter painkillers laced with cyanide. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.” He and his wife moved to Massachusetts in 1995 following his release. Listed numbers for his wife were not in servi...

Stock market today: Wall Street ticks higher ahead of updates on inflation, profits

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks ticked higher on Wall Street Monday ahead of a week with updates on where inflation and corporate profits are heading.The S&P 500 rose 10.58, or 0.2%, to 4,409.53, coming off just its second losing week in the last eight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 209.52, or 0.6%, to 33,944.40, and the Nasdaq composite added 24.77, or 0.2%, to 13,685.48..FMC, which sells herbicides, insecticides and other products to the agricultural industry, tumbled 11.1% for the biggest loss in the S&P 500 after it warned of a sudden drop in business around much of the world toward the end of May as partners burned through inventory levels. It said the “unforeseen and unprecedented” declines would hurt its results for the spring and full year.On the winning side of Wall Street was Helen of Troy, which said profit and revenue fell by less last quarter than analysts expected. The company behind OXO, Hydro Flask and other brands jumped 18.5%. But it also warned of expect...

Sheriff’s deputy dies following assault by jail inmate after hospital visit in Indianapolis

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An sheriff’s deputy died Monday after being assaulted in a transport van by a jail inmate whom he had just taken to a hospital visit in Indianapolis, authorities said.Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy John Durm, 61, died at Eskenazi Hospital, following the attack, Sheriff Kerry Forestal said.The inmate, Orlando Mitchell, 34, assaulted Durm while the van was inside the sally port, or fortified entrance, of the Adult Detention Center on the city’s south side, police said.Mitchell then stole the van and crashed into a utility pole before other deputies returned him to custody. Mitchell was reported in stable condition at Eskenazi Hospital. Indianapolis police are investigating the incident as an “intentional act of homicide,” Officer Shane Foley said.Mitchell has been jailed since September 2022 awaiting trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Krystal Walton. A telephone message seeking comment was left for an attorney representing Mitchell.Durm wa...

Insurer Intact Financial reports $421 million in catastrophe losses in second quarter

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

TORONTO — Intact Financial Corp. estimates its catastrophe losses for the second quarter were around $421 million on a pre-tax basis.The property and casualty insurer says in a news release the loss amounted to $1.79 per share after tax. Intact says nearly half of the $252 million losses from Canada were attributable to wildfires, with the biggest financial impact coming from Atlantic Canada. Intact says other notable losses included an ice storm and a flood in Quebec. CEO Charles Brindamour says in a news release that Intact’s teams are working to get customers back on track amid a “very active season for catastrophes.”He says this season is a reminder of the growing impact of climate change on forest fires and severe weather events. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 10, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:IFC)The Canadian Press

Ukraine war proves value of LNG Canada, CEO tells global gas conference in Vancouver

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:30 GMT

VANCOUVER — The head of the LNG Canada export facility in British Columbia says price and supply volatility worldwide since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows the value of his company’s project as a source of “affordable, reliable” and “responsibly produced” liquefied natural gas.Project CEO Jason Klein has told the LNG 2023 conference in Vancouver that the project is close to 85-per-cent complete and will aim to compete globally, not only on price but also its environmental and social track record.He says the best example of the value of Canadian energy can be seen in the conference itself, which was originally planned to place in St. Petersburg in Russia, but was moved to B.C. because of the war in Ukraine.Klein says the event offers an “amazing opportunity to reflect” on the upheaval in global natural gas markets since the invasion, which caused Russia, the world’s largest exporter of the commodity, to vanish from global suppl...