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New year could bring higher city council pay in CA as new law takes effect

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

(BCN) -- A new law authored by state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, that will take effect on Jan. 1 will increase pay caps for city councilmembers around the state in an effort to increase diversity among local lawmakers.Senate Bill 329, known as the Council Pay Caps bill, marks the first time that city council pay limits have changed since 1984. Inflation has gone up by more than 300% since then, according to Dodd's office.The law is one of 14 new laws authored by Dodd that will take effect sometime in 2024."No one runs for city council to get rich. But the low levels of pay make it much harder to balance careers and personal obligations with the calling to serve their community," Dodd said in a statement when the bill was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer. California police can no longer ask you this at a traffic stop starting in 2024 "It's especially hard for working people and those from diverse or disadvantaged backgrounds. By allowing councils to adjust their maximum pay to r...

Mexican officials clear border camp as US pressure mounts to limit migrant crossings

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

MATAMOROS, Mexico (AP) — A ragged migrant tent camp next to the Rio Grande is a long way from Mexico’s National Palace, where a U.S. delegation met this week with Mexico’s president seeking more action to curb the surge of migrants reaching the U.S. border.But as Mexican officials in Matamoros worked at the camp with bulldozers to clear out what they claimed were abandoned tents, it was a likely sign of things to come.The United States has given clear signs — temporarily closing key border rail crossings into Texas — that it wants Mexico to do more to stop migrants hopping freight cars, buses and trucks to the border.Mexico, desperate to get crossings reopened to its manufactured goods, is starting to give signs it will crack down a bit.That was on display in Matamoros as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City.Migrants set up the encampment across from Brownsville, Texas in late 2022. It once held as ma...

Dolphins RB Raheem Mostert was once overlooked. Now, he’s a huge part of Miami’s offense

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Raheem Mostert heard the talk all offseason.The Miami Dolphins were supposedly interested in adding Jonathan Taylor to their running back room before Taylor signed a contract extension with the Colts in October. Before that, the Dolphins reportedly made an exploratory call to the Las Vegas Raiders about Josh Jacobs. And Pro Bowl running back Dalvin Cook named Miami as a place he could see himself playing before he ultimately signed with the Jets in August.That offseason chatter didn’t faze Mostert. As an undrafted player who bounced around early in his career, he knows the feeling of being overlooked.Mostert played for four teams over his first two seasons before landing with San Francisco in 2016. After six seasons with the 49ers, including a trip to the Super Bowl after the 2019 season, Mostert followed coach Mike McDaniel to Miami, where he has had the two most productive years of his career.The 31-year-old currently leads the NFL with 18 rushing ...

Boston Council’s Voting Expansion Faces Long Road

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

A proposal to allow Boston residents who are not U.S. citizens to vote in municipal elections may be making its way up to Beacon Hill — where at least one supporter expects it would “essentially die with other home rule petitions.”The Boston City Council voted earlier this month to approve a petition for a special law to allow all legal residents of Boston, regardless of their citizenship status, to vote in city elections.“Immigrants with ‘legal status’ constitute over 28 percent of the city population, pay on average 2.3 billion dollars in taxes annually, hold roughly 6 billion dollars in collective spending power,” the petition reads. “The disenfranchisement of any tax-payer from the electoral process is inconsistent with the fundamental American principle of ‘No taxation without representation’ and undermines our City’s ideological foundation.”The petition would expand voting access to “non-citizens or ...

SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch X-37B plane, one of the US military’s most fascinating secrets

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

(CNN) — SpaceX’s hulking Falcon Heavy rocket will return to the skies Thursday evening, and this time it’s launching a mysterious spacecraft for the US military that will carry out cutting-edge research.The rocket is scheduled to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:07 p.m. ET, carrying the military’s X-37B space plane — which is uncrewed and operates autonomously — to unprecedented altitudes. The launch will stream live on SpaceX’s website.It is not clear, however, exactly where the space plane is going.The X-37B’s activities in space have long been the subject of fascination and speculation in the space community as amateur enthusiasts race to track its whereabouts and share theories about its activities.Resembling a miniature NASA space shuttle with the windows blacked out, the reusable and fully autonomous X-37B has been known to carry out research on concepts such as relaying solar energy from space for use back on Earth and studying the...

SMU will face Boston College in the Fenway Bowl for its first taste of ACC play

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — No. 17 SMU gets an Atlantic Coast Conference prequel when it plays Boston College in the Fenway Bowl on Thursday.After winning the American Athletic Conference championship in their final season there, the Mustangs get a head start on their ACC membership when they face BC at the home of the Boston Red Sox in a preview of a new league rivalry set to begin next season.“It’s a neat way to kind of start to welcome you guys into the ACC,” BC coach Jeff Hafley said Wednesday at the Fenway Bowl media day. “It’s not only a future conference opponent. It’s one of the top teams in the entire country who won their conference and would have had a very successful season in the ACC if they were already in the ACC.”Conference realignment has shaken up college football, and perhaps nowhere is the shuffling weirder than in SMU’s jump to the ACC. The decidedly not Atlantic coast Dallas school is joining along with California and Stanford to create a — for now — 17-team ...

Anti-corruption authorities to investigate Zambia’s finance minister over cash-counting video

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Anti-corruption authorities in Zambia say they would investigate after a video posted on social media allegedly showed the country’s finance minister receiving piles of cash from a Chinese businessman.Finance Minister Stanley Kakubo resigned Tuesday but denied wrongdoing and said he had stepped down because he didn’t want to cause a distraction for the government. He did not deny he was one of the people seen in the video but said there had been “malicious claims over a business transaction between my private family business and our business partner.”“In due course, we will provide the accurate context,” he said.Kakubo said he would keep his position as a parliament member, while the Zambian Anti-Corruption Commission said it would investigate the circumstances surrounding the video.The video shows at least three men counting piles of money neatly stacked on a table, some of it in U.S. dollars and some of it in Zambian kwacha. None of the men&...

New weight loss drugs are out of reach for millions of older Americans because Medicare won’t pay

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — New obesity drugs are showing promising results in helping some people shed pounds but the injections will remain out of reach for millions of older Americans because Medicare is forbidden to cover such medications. Drugmakers and a wide-ranging and growing bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up to push for that to change next year. As obesity rates rise among older adults, some lawmakers say the United States cannot afford to keep a decades-old law that prohibits Medicare from paying for new weight loss drugs, including Wegovy and Zepbound. But research shows the initial price tag of covering those drugs is so steep it could drain Medicare’s already shaky bank account. A look at the debate around if — and how — Medicare should cover obesity drugs: WHAT OBESITY DRUGS ARE ON THE MARKET AND HOW DO THEY WORK? The Food and Drug Administration has in recent years approved a new class of weekly injectables, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’...

Recall of nearly 5 million portable blenders under way for unsafe blades and dozens of burn injuries

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

BlendJet is recalling about 4.8 million of its portable blenders over laceration and fire hazards after receiving dozens of reports of injuries, federal regulators said Thursday.BlendJet 2 Portable Blenders can overheat or catch fire, according to a notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and their blender blades can break off during use.There have been 329 reports of blades breaking during use to date, the CPSC said, as well as 17 additional reports of overheating or fires that resulted in about $150,000 of property damage claims. The company has also received 49 reports of minor burn injuries and one reported laceration injury.Regulators urged consumers to stop using the recalled blenders immediately and contact BlendJet for a free base unit replacement. To receive the replacement part, customers will need to remove and cut up the base’s rubber seal and email or upload a photo using BlendJet’s website.BlendJet said in a prepared statement that the reca...

CP NewsAlert: Last Canadian kidnapped by Hamas, Judih Weinstein Haggai, declared dead

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:13 GMT

OTTAWA — Judih Weinstein Haggai, the only Canadian citizen who was still missing amid the Israel-Hamas conflict and believed to be held in the Gaza Strip, has been confirmed dead. Her family says she died on Oct. 7, the day that Hamas militants conducted a brutal assault on Israel. More to come.The Canadian Press