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Boston Public Schools students heading back to class on hot first day

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

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu greeted bus drivers as they headed out to collect students for the first day of school on Thursday amid a citywide heat emergency.“There’s always an unexpected challenge and today it is the heat but we are feeling very prepared,” Wu said before boarding an electric school bus to highlight the goal of switching over the city’s entire fleet of buses.Wu has declared a heat emergency through Friday as the feels-like temperature is expected to reach the high-90s in the city.Buses will be keeping their windows open and schools will be taking extra precautions over the next few days.Stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest updates.

High Heat & Humidity

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

The trend to the upside today will finally peak as the combination of air temps in the lower to middle 90s and dew points in the 60s to near 70, will send the heat index into the 95-100 range. That has prompted a heat advisory for inland locations today. At the coast, a sea breeze will kick in, allowing temps to fall just shy of 90. While we’ll be close a record high in Worcester, in Boston it wont be close to the 102, set back in 1881.The forecasted high today in Boston is 88, although if we do sneak up to 90, it would be the 130th time Boston has done it on or past September 1st. Below are some of the hottest September days on record for Boston.It’s another hot one tomorrow, although the temps won’t be quite as high with temps running near 90. The humidity stays high too. The showers and storm risk increases this weekend, with them more widespread Sunday vs. Saturday. It’ll likely remain unsettled into early next week. Meantime in the tropics, Lee is a hurr...

Driver slams into house in Somerville

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

Police are investigating after a driver careened into the side of a house in Somerville on Thursday.The crash on Powder House Boulevard left a hole in the porch of the home. Crews are now working to cover the hole and the vehicle was towed away with a smashed windshield.No additional information was immediately available.

Hurricane Lee charges through open Atlantic waters as it approaches northeast Caribbean

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

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Lee whirled through open waters on Thursday as forecasters warned it could become the first Category 5 storm of the Atlantic season.Lee was not expected to make landfall while on a projected path that will take it near the northeast Caribbean, although forecasters said tropical storm conditions are possible on some islands. Meteorologists said it was too early to provide details on potential rainfall and wind gusts.The storm was located some 965 miles (1,555 kilometers) from the northern Leeward Islands. It had winds of up to 80 miles per hour (130 kilometers per hour) and was moving west-northwest at 13 mph (20 kph).Lee was forecast to develop into an “extremely dangerous” major hurricane by early Friday, the .“The environment around the cyclone looks ideal for rapid intensification,” the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.Life-threatening surf was expected to hit the Lesser Antilles on Friday and reach the British and U.S. Virgin Is...

Animal Rescue League seeking hospice adoption for dog battling cancer

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

The Animal Rescue League of Boston is currently caring for an 8-year-old Shih Tzu who was left tied to a fence outside of the organization’s Boston Animal Care and Adoption Center, and ARL would like to not only find the dog, who’s facing an uncertain future, a home, but to also remind the public that if anyone is faced with the decision to surrender of animal, ARL is a resource and is here to help.In mid-August, Raggedy Ann was spotted by a trash collector around 5 a.m., tied to a fence outside of ARL’s shelter on the Tremont Street side, and notified staff a little while later when the Good Samaritan realized that the dog had likely been left by its owner. The animal had a collar but not tags, and was also left with a bowl of water. ARL surmises that the owner did not know what else to do, and left the dog in a moment of panic.Raggedy Ann was given a thorough veterinary exam which revealed a mammary mass, which was removed and biopsied – unfortunately the mass was malignant. And w...

Column: Chicago Cubs observations, from a mic’d up Cody Bellinger to Carlos Zambrano’s tears

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

Riding a wave that has yet to crest, the Chicago Cubs swept the San Francisco Giants to solidify their spot in the wild-card chase while moving up on the Milwaukee Brewers.Every game matters, and every moment is magnified from here on out.Here are four observations from the Cubs scene.Talk-show debate“This is good,” Cody Bellinger said. “This is a lot going on. A lot going on.”Bellinger was mic’d up by Marquee Sports Network in the top of the third inning of Tuesday’s 11-8 Cubs win over the Giants. The wind was blowing out and Bellinger was playing center field and talking to Boog Sciambi and Joe Girardi on the broadcast.Then came a technology malfunction during a question from Taylor McGregor on his friendship with Joc Pederson. Bellinger said he couldn’t hear anything, just as Pederson launched a line shot toward him in center.“Right at ya,” Sciambi told Bellinger, who fielded the ball after it bounced near the base of the wall...

The death toll from flooding in Greece rises to four and more than 800 rescued from rising water

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

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek firefighters recovered the body of a man from a stream in central Greece on Thursday, bringing the country’s death toll from floods to four after severe rainstorms turned streets into raging torrents, hurled cars into the sea and washing away roads and bridges. Another six people were missing.Authorities deployed divers and swift water rescue specialists as residents in some of the worst-hit areas took refuge on the roofs of their homes to escape floodwaters that rose to more than 2 meters (6 feet). Vassilis Kikilias, Greece’s minister for climate crisis and civil protection, said more than 885 people had been rescued so far and six were reported missing. Flooding triggered by severe rainstorms also hit neighboring Bulgaria and Turkey, leaving a total of 15 people dead in the three countries.“Our country finds itself, for the third day, dealing with a phenomenon the likes of which we have not seen in the past,” Greek government spokesman Pavlo...

Foreign interference public inquiry to be led by Quebec judge: sources

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

The federal government has chosen a Quebec judge to head a public inquiry into allegations of foreign interference in Canada’s affairs.Two government sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters not yet made public, confirmed that Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Marie-Josee Hogue will lead the probe.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who is also the minister for democratic institutions, is set to announce the public inquiry on Thursday.Opposition parties have been demanding a public inquiry for months over allegations the Liberals failed to properly monitor and respond to attempts by foreign states, especially China, to meddle in Canada’s affairs.The Liberals initially named former governor general David Johnston as a special rapporteur to examine the issue and promised to follow his recommendations, including if he called for a public inquiry.Johnston recommended against an inquiry, saying the fact that so ma...

The president of a Japanese boy band company resigns and apologizes for founder’s sex abuse

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

TOKYO (AP) — The head of a powerful Japanese talent agency resigned Thursday and made an apology punctuated by repeated, lengthy bows, nine days after an internal investigation concluded that its founder had sexually abused hundreds of young performers over decades.Julie Keiko Fujishima announced she was stepping down as president of Johnny & Associates, the agency founded by her late uncle Johnny Kitagawa, and promised to contribute to a compensation fund from her own fortune. “This is what my uncle committed, and as a niece, I want to take responsibility,” Fujishima said solemnly.Fujishima said the alleged sex abuse had really happened and that she would stay on the company’s board to see through a victim compensation program.A group of men who accused Kitagawa of raping them as children said they were pleased the company apologized, but some had reservations.“The wounds in my heart will not heal,” Yukihiro Oshima told reporters. “But I feel a little better.”Fujishima remains ...

Lebanese premier warns Syrian refugees pose a danger to the small nation’s balance

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

BEIRUT (AP) — Over a thousand Syrian refugees each week fleeing to Lebanon from their country’s worsening economic and financial conditions “could create harsh imbalances” in the small Mediterranean nation, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati warned Thursday.Over the past months, thousands of Syrian citizens made it to Lebanon through illegal crossing points seeking a better life. But Lebanon is going through its own four-year meltdown, with a drowning economy pinning its hopes on tourism and crumbling infrastructure where electricity and water cuts are widespread.In the early years after conflict broke out in Syria in March 2011, Lebanon received hundreds of thousands of refugees. That changed in later years, especially after Lebanon’s economic crisis broke out in October 2019. The Syrian conflict has killed half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, including more than 5 million Syrians who fled the country, mostly to neighbori...