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Tech trade group ‘evaluating’ legal challenge to Legislature’s tax cap law reforms

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

The House approved a compromise tax relief bill Wednesday that lowers the state’s short-term capital gains tax and boosts several housing-related initiatives that top Democrats have said will help residents struggling with the cost of living.But as the bill advances to the Senate, where lawmakers are expected to take final votes Thursday, at least one group is weighing a potential legal challenge to a provision that requires refunds under a tax cap law known as Chapter 62F to be distributed in equal amounts to all residents regardless of how much they paid into the system.The Massachusetts High Technology Council argued the change to the distribution formula is unconstitutional. The voter-approved law has only been triggered twice, 1987 and 2022, and refunds were distributed based on personal income tax from the preceding tax year.The council is “evaluating” whether it will take the matter to court, said Elizabeth Mahoney, vice president of policy and government affairs at the Massa...

Red Sox notebook: Alex Cora says he’ll be back with Sox in 2024

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

When news first broke earlier this month that Chaim Bloom was being fired as chief baseball officer, Alex Cora was vague about his own future with the organization.Since then the Red Sox manager has been much more forthright, and Wednesday he unequivocally confirmed he’ll be back in 2024.“I’m good, I’ll be here next year,” Cora said when asked how secure he is in his future in Boston, repeating himself several times when asked if he’s been given a guarantee from ownership. “I’ll be here.”Later on Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy dispelled any remaining doubt, saying on NESN that Cora will be the team’s manager in 2024.“It’s a nonissue from where I sit, he’s under contract for next year so he’s our manager and he’s going to be here,” Kennedy told NESN’s Tom Caron during the pregame show.Given that Kennedy previously said the next head of baseball operations will be empowered to make whatever ...

CVS responds quickly after pharmacists frustrated with their workload don’t show up

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

By JOSH FUNK (Associated Press)CVS found the right prescription on Wednesday to keep its stores open in the Kansas City area and avoid a repeat a work stoppage last week by pharmacists: It promised to boost hiring to ease workloads that sometimes make it hard to take a bathroom break.But it won’t be easy to resolve the problems that have been growing as pharmacists at CVS and other drug stores in the U.S. took on more duties in recent years and are gearing up to deliver this year’s latest flu and COVID-19 vaccines.“It all relates to not enough dollars going in to hire the appropriate staff to be able to deliver the services,” said Ron Fitzwater, CEO of the Missouri Pharmacy Association.Pharmacists in at least a dozen Kansas City-area CVS pharmacies did not show up for work last Thursday and Friday and planned to be out again this Wednesday until the company sent its chief pharmacy officer with promises to fill open positions and increase staffing levels.I...

Boston City Council approves firefighters contract with 10.6% pay raise

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

The City Council voted to fund a $27.35 million collective bargaining agreement with the Boston firefighters union that includes a roughly 10.6% bump in pay over a three-year period.The two 12-0 votes taken by the body on Wednesday, to both fund the contract in the fiscal year 2024 budget and reduce the city’s collective bargaining coffers by that amount, represent the final step in a lengthy bargaining process.Boston Firefighters Local 718 had been working with an expired contract for two and a half years prior to the new agreement, which was tentatively reached with the city on Sept. 3 and ratified by the union’s roughly 1,600 members on Sept. 15.“Boston firefighters and their families deserve this contract,” Local 718 President Sam Dillon told the Herald Wednesday. “Boston firefighters go to work every single day and they put themselves on the line for this city. To see that recognized at the bargaining table is what we like to see.”Dillon said he was “very satisfied with the res...

Bank records show accused was in the same city on day a B.C. girl was killed

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

VANCOUVER — A bank account registered toIbrahim Ali shows transactions in Burnaby, B.C., on July 18, 2017, the same day a 13-year-old was murdered in a city park, a senior investigator at Vancouver City Savings Credit Union testified Wednesday.Rick Mihic told Ali’s first-degree murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court that there were three purchases made from the man’s account that day, including one from a Freshslice Pizza and two others from a Chevron.He testified he wasn’t able to tell the address of the businesses or the time of the purchases from the records.However, under cross-examination, Mihic told the court he believes there is a way, through a third-party platform, to obtain timing information of Interact transactions. Ali has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of the teen, whose body was found in Burnaby’s Central Park early on July 19, 2017, just hours after her mother reported her missing.Crown attorney Isobel Keeley said in her op...

What ever happened to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s most important relationship?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

OTTAWA — The first mandate letters Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave his cabinet ministers in 2015 said no relationship was more important to him, and to the country, than the one with Indigenous Peoples. He called for a new nation-to-nation relationship — one based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership.He promised to end boil-water advisories in First Nations communities within five years. He said constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations are a sacred obligation.“I know that renewing our relationship is an ambitious goal. But I am equally certain that it is one we can, and will, achieve if we work together,” Trudeau told the Assembly of First Nations in December 2015.“This is a responsibility I take seriously, and I have instructed my government to do the same.”Eight years later, the shiny election-style promises about advancing reconciliation and forging a new path forward seem to have dulled for First Nations, Métis...

Witness of B.C. Sikh leader’s shooting says the gunshots sounded like fireworks

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

VANCOUVER — The B.C. gurdwara where a Sikh separatist leader was gunned down has launched an investigation into how an American newspaper was able to view security camera footage of the June killing. Gurkeerat Singh, who said he is a spokesman for the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, said it’s unclear how The Washington Post was able to see the video of Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s death. “We’ve been told by the temple that the video is not for the media, the public, because it’s an ongoing investigation. That video won’t be released to anyone.”It’s an “ongoing investigation,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. While Singh said The Canadian Press could not review video captured at the temple of the shooting, he confirmed the reporting of The Washington Post. He has seen the 90-second video several times, he said. Singh said the video shows Nijjar leaving the temple’s parking lot in his grey pickup truck. A white car d...

University of Nevada basketball could have a new home in 3 years under a major casino expansion plan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The University of Nevada’s basketball team could have a new off-campus home by 2026 under an ambitious 10-year expansion plan that Reno’s largest hotel-casino announced Wednesday. The estimated $1 billion private capital investment will be the biggest in the city’s history, according to officials of the Grand Sierra Resort and Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve.In addition to the new 10,000-seat sports, concert and special events arena, the expansion plans for the 140-acre (57-hectare) property include a new 800-room hotel tower, 300 riverfront residential units to help address workforce housing shortages and Las Vegas-like water shows, the company said. “The vision is to transform GSR into a destination where community, sports and entertainment come together,” resort owner Alex Mereulo said during a news conference at the property on Wednesday. Mereulo and University of Nevada President Brian Sandoval confirmed they’ve entered into “the exploration of a partne...

10-year-old girl struck and killed in Vaughan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

A 10-year-old girl is dead after being struck by a vehicle in Vaughan.Police say the incident occurred on Mullen Drive in the area of Clark Avenue and Bathurst Street just after 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. Photos from the scene show a delivery van on the residential street surrounded by police tape. Police say the driver remained on the scene for the investigation.Police are expected to provide an update later this evening. More to come

Mayor Chow looking to extend deadline for new housing waitlist system

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:27 GMT

With the City facing backlash, Toronto’s mayor is making last-minute moves to ensure people already waiting years for subsidized housing aren’t booted off the waitlist.They were required to move their applications online by this coming Saturday — a deadline that is fast approaching and had advocates sounding the alarm about the possibility of thousands losing their spot in the queue.Although two years have passed since the launch of the new online system, outreach worker Lorraine Lam said this weekend’s cut-off date was announced out of the blue.“This is a community that has no access to phones or emails,” said Lam, who has been trying to help notify applicants and transfer them. “My sense is that this is [the City’s] attempt to try and remove inactive applications but this was a very ablest and classicist way of going about it.”There are still about 33,600 households on the rent-geared-to-income housing waiting list who have not registered online...