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Boston health officials urge residents to update MassHealth information to keep benefits

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

The Boston Public Health Commission is urging residents to update their MassHealth information to keep their coverage, as the MassHealth redetermination period for renewing benefits is now in effect.Redetermination took place each year before the COVID-19 pandemic to verify MassHealth eligibility. However, federal law waived this requirement starting in March 2020 to ensure continuous coverage for residents.But now, the continuous coverage policy ended on April 1, requiring state Medicaid programs like MassHealth to bring back the redetermination period.The Boston Public Health Commission is now reminding residents to ensure that MassHealth has their most up-to-date contact information and report any changes in their household — such as a new job, changes to income, disability status, or pregnancy.Boston is currently home to more than 300,000 MassHealth members, and some may no longer be eligible for MassHealth coverage.“Ensuring our residents maintain their MassHealth c...

Knicks may become the next loser of Kyrie Irving’s disastrous season

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

The Knicks may not be able to avoid Kyrie Irving’s destruction.With the Mavericks in a freefall ever since acquiring the point guard, the team is “seriously considering” shutting down Irving and Luka Doncic for the remainder of the season to assure an ideal spot in the draft lottery, according to The Athletic.Such a move would hurt the Knicks because they own Dallas’ first-round pick and it’s top-10 protected. The Mavericks (37-42) currently own the NBA’s 10th-worst record and losing the rest of the games likely means the pick wouldn’t convey this year to New York. If the Mavericks stay in the 10th-worst spot, for instance, there’s an 80% chance the pick falls in the top-10. If the Mavericks move to ninth-worst spot (which is certainly possible if they’re tanking games), there’s a 96% chance the pick falls in the top-10.The Knicks have no other first-round picks in the 2023 draft.Since acquiring Irving from the Nets in Febr...

Revere hotel sues Boston health commission over Mass and Cass agreement

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

The Revere hotel where Boston was considering putting up the homeless of Mass and Cass is suing the Hub, saying the city’s health commission stiffed it out of $645,000.The suit comes from Sudguru Hotel, a limited-liability corporation that owns the Quality Inn at 100 Morris St. in Revere, and the company alleges that the Boston Public Health Commission “has relied on its status as a city agency to stonewall Sudguru and has failed to pay anything.”Back in 2021, as Boston’s troubled Mass and Cass area of the South End was at its worst, with a thriving open-air drug trade and blocks-long tent city, one of the steps the city took was trying to rent out rooms in the Quality Inn to put up homeless in an effort to get people off of the streets. This ultimately never panned out, as the mayor of Revere and locals pushed back on the plan.BPHC signed an agreement with the hotel to rent out all of its rooms, but it didn’t put anyone up there — and, according to the...

Trump returns to New York to face historic criminal charges

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

By JILL COLVIN, MICHAEL R. SISAK, TERRY SPENCER and WILL WEISSERT (Associated Press)NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump returned to New York from his Florida estate Monday to face historic booking and arraignment on hush money charges related to allegations of sexual encounters. The nation’s largest city bolstered security and warned potential protesters it was “not a playground for your misplaced anger.”Trump’s long day started with a motorcade ride from his Mar-a-Lago club to his red, white and blue Boeing 757, emblazoned with his name in gold letters — all carried live on television. The mini-parade took him past supporters waving banners and cheering, decrying the case against him that stems from payments made during his 2016 campaign — as politically motivated. Already months into a third campaign to reclaim the White House he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump and his advisers seemed to relish the attention. Cable net...

Adam Duvall’s historic debut series earns him American League Player of the Week

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

A tremendous debut series earned Adam Duvall American League Player of the Week honors.“Duvie’s got about 1,800 hits already,” Alex Verdugo joked after Sunday’s win.“We all knew that he was gonna love Fenway Park,” Kiké Hernández said.In his first three regular-season games with the Red Sox, Duvall went 8-for-14 with three doubles, a triple, two home runs (in the same game), six runs scored, and eight RBI. He leads or ties for the MLB lead in runs, doubles, RBI, and total bases (19). He had at least one hit, run, and RBI in each game.On Saturday evening, Duvall needed a single to hit for the cycle, but used his last at-bat to hit a walk-off two-run homer to the Green Monster, instead, capping a stunning comeback. At one point, the Red Sox trailed the Baltimore Orioles by six runs; the largest deficit they overcame in 2022 was five.“It seems like he always came up with a big hit throughout the series,” Cora said after the Red Sox won their opening ...

Brian Daboll’s accountability for blowout Eagles playoff loss a good start to Year 2

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

Brian Daboll has walked the red carpets and given all the speeches as the NFL’s reigning coach of the year, but he’s done patting himself on the back.When a reporter listed Daboll’s rookie year accomplishments in Phoenix last week, the Giants’ head coach cut off the praise.“Yeah, got smoked in the playoffs,” Daboll said. “Yeah.”In seven words, Daboll demonstrated the kind of personal accountability that is imperative for his Giants to take another step in Year 2.Daboll’s team didn’t just lose to the divisional rival Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC’s divisional round. They got embarrassed, with Daboll front and center making critical mistakes.“We got outcoached. We got outplayed. And that all starts with me,” Daboll said in January.His decision to go for it on 4th and 8 at the Eagles’ 40-yard line down 7-0 after a Haason Reddick sack of Daniel Jones was a panic move. It accelerated a 38-7 beatdown in t...

Carlos Carrasco allows 5 ER in first outing this season as Mets lose 10-0

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

MILWAUKEE — Buck Showalter was confident that Carlos Carrasco would have a strong showing in his first outing of the 2023 season but that premonition didn’t quite come to fruition.The Mets arrived in Milwaukee riding high after a 3-1 series win in Miami to start the 2023 campaign. But an implosion in the fifth inning ultimately doomed them against the Brewers and they were blown out 10-0 on Monday afternoon at American Family Field.Carrasco (0-1) ran into trouble in the fourth inning with the Brewers rallying for two runs with two outs and the struggles continued in the fifth, with Milwaukee scoring seven runs and batting around. Brice Turang, a 23-year-old rookie infielder, hit a grand slam off Tommy Hunter for his first career home run, which cued up a chorus of cowbells from a sellout crowd of 42,017.The Mets’ bats went quiet as Freddy Peralta (1-0) blanked them through six two-hit innings. He walked three but the Mets only had two baserunners get past first wit...

DiCaprio testifies in money-laundering case of Fugees rapper

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Movie star Leonardo DiCaprio testified in federal court Monday morning as part of a trial involving international money laundering, bribery and a prominent rap artist. Prakazrel “Pras” Michel — a founding member of the iconic 1990s hip-hop group, The Fugees — is accused of funneling money from a fugitive Malaysian financer through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Five years later, prosecutors say he tried to squelch an investigation into that same financer under former President Donald Trump’s administration.At the heart of the case is Low Taek Jho, usually known as Jho Low. He is accused of masterminding an international money laundering and bribery scheme that stole billions from the Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB. DiCaprio’s connection with the case comes from his years-long relationship with Low, who was one of the primary financers of the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Low is currently a fugitive but has maintaine...

Russia rejects US claims its UN council presidency is a joke

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia’s U.N. ambassador on Monday dismissed U.S. and European Union descriptions of its presidency of the Security Council this month as an April Fool’s joke and announced a meeting to be chaired by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on defending the principles of the U.N. Charter, which Moscow is widely accused of breaking by invading Ukraine.U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters earlier Monday that the U.S. expects the Russians will use their presiding seat “to spread disinformation and promote their own agenda as it relates to Ukraine, and we will stand ready to call them out at every single moment that they attempt to do that.”She and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell both called Russia’s takeover of the council presidency an April Fool’s joke. Under Security Council rules, the presidency rotates monthly in alphabetical order among its 15 members. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters there will be no c...

Second autopsy done in unsolved South Carolina death probe

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:00 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A second autopsy was completed this weekend on the exhumed body of a teenager found dead nearly eight years ago on a South Carolina road, according to the family’s lawyer, after the public attention surrounding Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial boosted a mother’s search for answers in the unsolved case.The mother’s lawyers have said there is no evidence linking Stephen Smith’s death to the Murdaugh family, and state investigators have remained tight-lipped since taking the case around the same time police said Murdaugh killed his wife and son.But speculation following the since-disbarred lawyer’s recent life sentence for those killings helped Sandy Smith raise more than $87,000 to have her son’s body re-examined in an investigation that South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has said was never closed since the agency opened it in June 2021.Attorney Eric Bland, who is representing the family, said in a Sunday statement that ...