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Multiple students taken to hospital after refrigerant leak causes ‘strange odor’ at West Newbury school

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

A West Newbury school was evacuated and multiple students were taken to area hospitals Monday morning due to what officials later identified as a refrigerant leak.West Newbury Police and fire chief Michael Dwyer said an initial call came in around 9:40 a.m. reporting a strange smell coming from a science lab in the middle school area of the Pentucket Middle-High School. Speaking later Monday afternoon, Dwyer said a school resource officer ordered an evacuation after receiving information about the incident. Four students were transported to area hospitals after they started feeling dizzy and nauseous, according to Dwyer. About 42 others were checked out at the scene and released to their parents. Dwyer said all students impacted by this incident are expected to be okay.At one point, the situation was considered a hazardous materials incident, prompting a large emergency response. Pentucket Middle-High School is a new facility that was just built and opened last fall.W...

Hunter Biden must answer more questions about his finances and art sales, judge rules

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

(CNN) — An Arkansas judge on Monday ordered President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to answer additional written questions about his investments, his art sales and other financial transactions as part of a paternity-related case.Hunter Biden also will sit for a deposition in mid-June, where he’ll have to answer questions under oath, the judge said.Independence County Circuit Judge Holly Meyer also chided Hunter Biden’s lawyers for overly redacting their filings and hiding information that should be public.“The ability to redact is being somewhat abused,” Meyer said, ordering lawyers to re-file public versions of some of their previous filings, including some that had been “sealed” and fully blocked from public view.The filings likely included information about which financial records Hunter Biden might need to turn over to Lunden Roberts, an Arkansas woman who is the mother of one of his children.Monday’s hearing ...

Former US Marine killed in Ukraine

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

(CNN) — A former US Marine, Cooper “Harris” Andrews, 26, was killed on the outskirts of Bakhmut late last week, according to his mother and colleagues in Ukraine.Andrews, from Cleveland, Ohio, was hit by a mortar, his mother, Willow Andrews said, likely on April 19 on the so-called “Road of Life” — a rare access road into Bakhmut used by the Ukrainian military to resupply their forces but also evacuate civilians.Andrew’s body has yet to be recovered, she said, owing to the ongoing fighting around the city, whose outsized symbolic importance has led to intense fighting as Moscow desperately tries to seize it.Andrews worked for an activist group known as the Resistance Committee, according to their social media statements. They said he was killed assisting the evacuation of civilians from the city. Andrews left Cleveland, Ohio in November and joined the Foreign Legion in Ukraine, a group of foreign fighters helping the Ukrainian...

A record-breaking blob of smelly seaweed is arriving in Key West — and tourists aren’t happy about it

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

(CNN) — Ginny Matts and her boyfriend were excited to celebrate her 60th birthday in Key West. But their vacation was spoiled by an unexpected guest: a record-breaking amount of smelly seaweed known as sargassum that is coating the iconic Florida island’s popular beaches.What Matts and her boyfriend, Jason Hytreck, encountered was the Great Atlantic Sargassum Seaweed Belt, a floating mass of brown seaweed that spans more than 5,000 miles and forms yearly from the shores of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.The mass this year set a new record with scientists finding more seaweed from the blob present in the Caribbean Sea than any other April on record, according to a report from the University of South Florida. Scientists measured 3 million tons of seaweed, which emits a gas that can smell like rotten eggs, in the Caribbean, the report shows.The blob of smelly seaweed is hitting beach shores just as Florida’s tourist season hits its stride — a major ...

Acton PD: Officer placed on leave after being arrested in Stow over the weekend

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

A member of the Acton Police Department was placed on administrative leave after he was arrested over the weekend, according to authorities.Interim Police Chief James Cogan announced that Officer Steven Stalzer was placed on leave after the department learned he had been arrested over the weekend in neighboring Stow.A news release announcing the move described Stalzer as being a member of Acton PD since 2015.No details on the nature of his arrest were given, though Cogan noted that Stalzer’s license to carry was suspended and that his badge and service weapon were taken.“The Acton Police Department will release no further information at this time, as this is an ongoing personnel matter,” the release stated. “Further inquiries should be directed to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.”Stalzer was arraigned in Concord District Court sometime on Monday.

Have a Health Savings Account? Here’s how you can invest with it

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

More and more people are using health savings accounts, or HSAs, to help save for future medical expenses or even give a boost to their retirement funds. Almost one-third of covered workers were enrolled in health insurance plans with a savings option in 2021, up from 17% in 2011, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.These accounts come with many benefits, including the opportunity to invest and grow your funds tax-free.Here are tips for how to invest your HSA and some other things you should know about these increasingly popular savings vehicles.What is an HSA and how do the tax breaks work?An HSA is a health savings account that is available if you have a high-deductible health insurance plan, and it helps pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses. In 2023, the minimum deductible for a HDHP is $1,500 for an individual and $3,000 for a family.HSAs come with a triple tax benefit that make them attractive savings options:• Contributions to HSAs are tax deductible, wit...

New pediatric guidelines aim to treat obesity without stigma. Critics say they’ll make bias worse.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

From the time Alexandra Slick was little, she knew that when she went to the doctor’s office, at least one person was probably going to tell her that she needed to lose weight.She remembers sitting in an examination room as a middle schooler, watching her mother cry as a nurse practitioner asked her if she wanted her daughter to die. At that point, while Slick’s weight was considered obese by the body mass index, she already had been dieting for about four years and practiced karate every week.“It used to be that if I had a doctor’s appointment in the day, I wouldn’t eat or drink anything until I had gone to the doctor — whether or not that appointment was at 10 a.m. or if that appointment was at 3 p.m.,” she said. “I just wanted to be as small as I could going into the doctor’s office.”When Slick, a 31-year-old Baltimore resident, heard about the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new guidelines for treating childhood and adolescent obesity, she shuddered.The guidelines, released in J...

New Mexico mom sentenced for tossing baby in trash bin

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

A New Mexico teenage mother was sentenced Monday to a mandatory 18 years in prison for tossing her newborn son into a trash bin behind a shopping center, but a state district judge cited mental health concerns and the defendant’s age in suspending two years of the punishment.Jurors convicted Alexis Avila, 19, of child abuse involving great bodily harm following a days-long trial last month in which her public defender argued her actions were not premeditated and that a previously undiagnosed mental health disorder played a role.Judge William Shoobridge told Avila that had it not been for luck and the grace of God he would have been deliberating a sentence in a murder case as there was a high probability the child would have died had it not been found that winter day in Hobbs, near the Texas border.Avila told the judge she wants to learn how to deal with stress and anxiety and said she regrets missing out on her son’s first milestones.“I regret his first hours of life wer...

US borrowing increases as standoff over debt continues

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department said Monday it plans to increase its borrowing during the April to June quarter of this year, even as the federal government is close to breaching the $31.4 trillion limit on its legal borrowing authority.The U.S. plans to borrow $726 billion during the quarter. That’s $449 billion more than projected in January, due to a lower beginning-of-quarter cash balance and projections of lower-than-expected income tax receipts and higher spending.While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains a burden on U.S. economic growth, Treasury officials say the debate over the debt ceiling poses the greatest risk to the U.S. financial position. Eric Van Nostrand, acting assistant secretary for economy policy, said in a statement that “even if Congress ultimately raises the debt limit before a default occurs, the ensuing uncertainty could raise borrowing costs and induce other financial stress that would weaken our labor market and our standing in the world...

Texas college ballplayer stable after struck by stray bullet

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:28 GMT

TEXARKANA, Texas (AP) — A baseball player for a small college in Texas was in stable condition Monday after he was struck by a stray bullet during a game over the weekend.Matthew DeLaney, who was not in uniform for Texas A&M-Texarkana, was standing near the bullpen and batting cages near the southwest corner of George Dobson Field on Sunday when he was hit by a bullet fired from an adjacent neighborhood, police said.DeLaney, 18, of Princeton, Texas, was struck in the chest and taken to a Texarkana hospital, where he remained in intensive care.“The official status we have for him from the hospital is that he is in stable condition,” university communications manager John Bunch said in an email, “but we think it’s important to note that he has a number of serious injuries, as would be expected with this type of trauma. He has made slight improvements daily but still has significant injuries and complications to overcome.”The game between Texas A&M-Texarkana and Houston-Victori...