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Will Colorado voters support property tax, TABOR measure? It’s a “toss up,” pollster says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

Colorado voters appear to favor a far-reaching ballot initiative aimed at property taxes, education funding, and TABOR tax refunds but, a recent poll found, they could be swayed.Voters will decide on Proposition HH this November. If it passes, it would change how property tax is calculated — potentially saving property owners hundreds of dollars a year they’d owe otherwise, though overall property taxes would likely still increase — while also upping how much money the state can keep under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, for the next decade.Its other provisions include an expansion of the homestead exemption, and set aside money for the state education fund and a rental assistance program. It would also trigger a one-year flattening of TABOR refunds for the next year, sending lower-income Coloradans about an extra $160 or more by cutting into higher-income Coloradans’ refunds, according to state forecasts.Most voters — nearly two-thirds, ...

Crimea Bridge: Why it is important and what happened to it

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

Traffic on the road-and-rail bridge linking Russia and the Crimean peninsula was stopped early on Monday (17 July) due to an "emergency situation," the Russian-backed head of Crimea's administration, Sergei Aksyonov said.The RBC-Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were heard on the bridge, with Russian military bloggers reporting two strikes. The bridge is a crucial supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine.Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.In October, the bridge was damaged in a powerful blast, with Russian officials saying the explosion was caused by a truck that blew up while crossing the bridge, killing three people.President Vladimir Putin has branded the October blast a "terrorist attack" orchestrated by Ukrainian security services and ordered a wave of retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv afterwards.Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy months later claimed only indir...

Four-bedroom home in Palo Alto sells for $3.2 million

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

3530 Arbutus Avenue – Google Street ViewThe spacious property located in the 3500 block of Arbutus Avenue in Palo Alto was sold on June 27, 2023 for $3,200,000, or $1,441 per square foot. The house, built in 1957, has an interior space of 2,221 square feet. This single-story house offers a roomy layout with four bedrooms and two baths. The home’s outer structure has built-up roofing. Inside, there is a fireplace. Additionally, the house includes a two-car garage, offering generous space for vehicles and storage requirements. Nestled on a generous 8,034-square-foot lot, the property provides abundant outdoor space including a pool.Additional houses have recently changed hands nearby:On Lupine Avenue, Palo Alto, in April 2023, a 1,412-square-foot home was sold for $3,100,000, a price per square foot of $2,195. The home has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.In April 2023, a 2,548-square-foot home on Arbutus Avenue in Palo Alto sold for $4,150,000, a price per square foot of $1,629. The home h...

Russian missiles damage Odesa port, Ukraine says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

The port of Odesa, one of the main export points for Ukrainian grain on the Black Sea, was hit by a barrage of six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles overnight, Kyiv said Tuesday — hours after Moscow pulled out of a U.N.-backed deal designed to allow Ukraine to continue feeding the world.Ukrainian air defense shot down all the Russian rockets, but “the fragments of the downed missiles and the blast wave damaged port infrastructure and several private homes” in Odesa, Ukraine’s Operational Command South said in a statement. One person was injured.Twenty-one Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones were shot down by air defense forces over the Odesa region, the statement said. Russia also targeted other areas in Ukraine’s south, including Mykolaiv, where an industrial facility was hit, according to the statement.The barrage came after the strategic Kerch bridge that connects occupied Crimea with Russia was struck in the early hours of Monday morning, with Moscow saying the c...

Boys lacrosse All-Scholastics and all-stars

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

BOYS LACROSSE ALL-SCHOLASTICSJustin Alexander (Franklin)Jimmy Ayers (St. John’s Prep)Andrew Berardi (Nauset)Ryan Blagg (Chelmsford)James Carroll (BC High)Ryan Cho (Acton-Boxboro)Tyler Clayton (Acton-Boxboro)Jayden Consigli (Franklin)Connor Cronin (Marblehead)Jack Curran (Needham)Ryan Daly (Norwell)Luke Davis (Franklin)Brock Desmarais (Dracut)Scott Einarson (Billerica)Gabriel Elkin (Natick)Will Emsing (BC High)Chris Esposito (St. John’s Prep)Tyler Fay (North Andover)Wyatt Glass (Duxbury)Finn Granara (Reading)Robbie Granara (Reading)Will Harrop (Old Colony)Henry Hasselbeck (Xaverian)Joe Hennessey (Hingham)James Kenney (Needham)Patrick Maroney (BC High)Camden Matthews (Acton-Boxboro)Matt Morrow (St. John’s Prep)John Mullen (Norwell)Charlie Packard (Hingham)Jack Pyne (BC High)Tyler Sacchetti (Franklin)Parker Villarin (Duxbury)Ryan Winters (Lincoln-Sudbury) JUSTIN ALEXANDERFRANKLINThe UMass-Lowell commit won 305-of-386 possible faceoffs his senior season, as the Panthers made a run ...

Divisions over the Ukraine war cause a rift at the EU-LatAm summit that was supposed to be a love-in

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — High anxiety set in on the closing day of a summit between European Union and Latin American leaders that was supposed to be a love-in but turned into a diplomatic fracas over the war in Ukraine. Ambassadors worked through much of the night and into Tuesday morning to find even the blandest text to condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, with talks hung up over the reservations of some Central and South American nations like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. “It would be a shame that we are not able to to say that there is Russian aggression in Ukraine. It’s a fact. And I’m not here to rewrite history,” an exasperated Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar pushed it even further. “Sometimes it’s better to have no conclusions at all than to have language that doesn’t mean anything,” he said.The long-anticipated summit, eight years after the previous one, descended into a standoff over who would blink first over an issue ...

Capelin conservation concerns and Inflation numbers get an update: In The News today

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today. Experts call for pause in N.L. capelin fisheryMarine scientists and conservationists are calling on officials to pause Newfoundland and Labrador’s commercial capelin fishery.The tiny shimmering fish are an important staple in the diets of the whales and puffins that dazzle tourists and residents each summer off the province’s coastlines. Leaving the struggling capelin stock alone to rebuild would only serve the province’s hallmark ocean ecosystem, said marine behavioural ecologist Bill Montevecchi, who is a professor at Memorial University in St. John’s.According to the Fisheries Department’s classification system, the capelin stock is in the “critical zone,” which, according to the department’s definition, means removals should be minimal and stock growth should be prioritized. With the exception of 2013 and 2014, it ...

Russia targets key Ukraine Black Sea port of Odesa, a day after halting grain export deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces shot down scores of exploding drones and six cruise missiles from a pre-dawn Russian attack on the port of Odesa on Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities said, a day after Moscow broke off a deal that had allowed Kyiv to ship vital grain supplies from the Black Sea city during the war.The Russians first sought to wear down Ukraine’s air defenses with the drones and then targeted Odesa with six Kalibr cruise missiles, the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said.All six missiles and 25 drones were shot down by air defenses in the Odesa region and other areas in the south but their debris and shock waves damaged some port facilities and a few residential buildings, injuring an elderly man at his home, officials said.Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said the attack showed the Kremlin is ready to endanger the lives of millions of people around the world who need Ukrainian grain exports. Hunger is a growing threat in Africa, the M...

Scientists head to Nunavut island to help solve Mars methane mystery

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

AXEL HEIBERG ISLAND, NUNAVUT — A team of researchers has travelled to a remote Arctic island in the hopes of better understanding the possibility of life on Mars. Astrobiologist Haley Sapers, an adjunct professor at York University in the Lassonde School of Engineering, is leading the team at the McGill Arctic Research Station, or MARS, on Axel Heiberg Island. The uninhabited island is in Nunavut’s Qikiqtaaluk region and has conditions similar to the red planet. Under the 24-hour midnight sun, they plan to study super-salty cold springs that release methane on Gypsum Hill, about a 45-minute hike from the research station. They also plan to take methane readings from the atmosphere and carry out a simulated Mars Rover mission. “Methane is a really important atmospheric gas here on Earth because it contributes significantly to global warming,” said Sapers, a visiting scientist with the California Institute of Technology. “It’s also a really interesting ga...

B.C. expected to surpass record 2018 wildfire season for most area burned

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:45:09 GMT

VANCOUVER — British Columbia is encroaching on its worst wildfire season on record as more than 370 fires burn in the province. BC Wildfire Service figures show wildfires have consumed more than 12,900 square kilometres of land so far this year, with many weeks left in the season, compared with 13,500 square kilometres burned in 2018. Sophie Wilkinson, an assistant professor in environmental management at Simon Fraser University, says the season is on track to be the worst on record, aggravated by the severe drought in many areas of the province. Her comments come after Canada’s Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair announced last week that federal assistance, including military resources, were being mobilized to help B.C. in its wildfire fight. As troops arrive in the province, a working group comprised of members of Public Safety Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces and B.C. emergency management and wildfire officials met to focus on deploying the federal resources.The ...