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What’s in a name? Hagerstown seeks help branding its baseball team | COMMENTARY

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

In professional sports, team names mean everything. Just look at the Baltimore Orioles and Ravens franchises — beautifully paired ornithologically, historically and literarily (the latter as a nod to Edgar Allan Poe). We’re not claiming the teams’ successes this year have been driven by their well-chosen monikers. Or that the names were even, in retrospect, tough calls to make, given the dearth of species called “Baltimore something-or-other” or giant literary figures who wrote about a raven and are now buried in Baltimore. But, hey, the names obviously didn’t hurt. Just take a look 50 miles south at the Washington, D.C., area, where baseball and football fans are stuck with, respectively, “Nationals” (way, way too obvious) and “Commanders,” a post-Redskins, post-WFT (Washington Football Team) title so bland and borrowed that the NFL team (in the process of being sold) was recently denied a trademark for it.This brings us t...

Police identify Haverhill man with deep Boston roots as victim of Dorchester shooting

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

The Boston Police Department has identified Daniel Mayers, 33, of Haverhill, as the victim of a broad-daylight shooting in Dorchester.Police responded just before 5 p.m. Monday to the area of 264 Columbia Road for reports of shots fired. There they found Mayers, who was in a vehicle near Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School, suffering from gunshot wounds. He was transported to an area hospital and pronounced deceased.Mayers has deep roots in Boston.His “extremely devastated” family said in a statement: “This loss is unfathomable as we try to understand the details of this tragedy and find who took the life of someone who impacted so many others in nothing but the most positive ways.”Mayers grew up in the neighborhood where he was gunned down on Monday. His father, Rev. Dr. Thomas W. O. Mayers, served as the Reverend at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Columbia Road in Dorchester for nearly 20 years, according to the family.Danny Mayers, as he was known ...

Prosecutors widen case against polygamous sect leader, adding child pornography charges

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Prosecutors have widened their case against the leader of a small polygamous group that resides near the Utah-Arizona border, adding child pornography charges and detailing his sexual encounters with children he took as wives in new charges filed earlier this month.Sam Bateman is accused of making child pornography in a superseding indictment filed recently. The May 18 document also provides new details about how he took wives as young as 9 years old as he worked to win followers in at least four states to start his own small offshoot group of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.The FLDS is itself a breakaway sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream church, but it abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it.The indictment adds to a raft of charges filed against Bateman last year. In December, prosecutors ch...

Dudamel in surprise move resigns from Paris Opéra 2 years into 6-year contract

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

Gustavo Dudamel announced his resignation as music director of the Paris Opéra on Thursday, a surprise decision two seasons into a six-year contract scheduled to run through the 2026-27 season.A 42-year-old Venezuelan who lives in Madrid, Dudamel was hired in February by the New York Philharmonic as its music director starting with the 2026-27 season. He has been music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2009, a tenure that will end after 17 seasons when Dudamel starts in New York.“It is with a heavy heart, and after long consideration, that I announce my resignation as music director of the Paris Opéra in order to spend more time with my family,” Dudamel said in a statement Thursday.His early exit from Paris at the end of the current season in August could free the conductor for additional engagements in New York, where Jaap van Zweden leaves after the 2023-24 season, his sixth as music director.“I have no plans other than to be with my loved ones, to whom I am deeply gr...

US senator hopes Serbia adopts Russia sanctions as Serb spy chief travels to Moscow

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A U.S. senator on Thursday said he hopes Serbia would adopt Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, telling the Balkan country that “there is no future” in an alliance with Moscow. “Russia’s invasion has been an absolute disaster and my belief is that Russia is ultimately going to lose this conflict,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) told reporters in the Serbian capital Belgrade. Serbia is the only country in Europe that has not imposed any sanctions on Russia.“The future for Serbia is with the European Union and with the United States not with Russia,” Murphy said. “There is no future with Russia. They (Russia) are going to be devastated, a permanent pariah internationally after this invasion.”Though Serbia is formally seeking EU membership and has condemned the invasion at the United Nations, Belgrade has maintained its historically friendly relations with Moscow. Murphy’s visit to Belgrade came as Serbia’s staunchly pro-Russian inte...

Tennessee’s transgender care exclusions are discriminatory, a federal lawsuit alleges

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s decision to exclude gender-affirming care for its employees is unconstitutional and discriminatory, according to a federal lawsuit brought by two people who were denied such services while working for the state.Attorneys representing Gerda Zinner, 30, and Story VanNess, 38, say the two were denied even though their medical teams deemed the services medically necessary. Zinner still works for the state as an academic adviser but VanNess has since left her position as a special education teacher after unsuccessfully appealing her case.“Tennessee’s public employee health benefits program has unlawfully deprived plaintiffs of coverage for essential medical services because of the plaintiffs’ sex and because they are transgender,” stated the 50-page complaint filed Tuesday. Zinner “feels that her life is on hold” because she now must live with “unmet healthcare needs,” her lawyers wrote. Meanwhile, VanNess’ attorneys said she spent all her ...

Tina Turner created a career on her terms, not defined by her trauma

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In 1976, a young Tina Turner, bloodied and beaten by her husband and musical partner Ike Turner, fled in the dark across a Dallas freeway dodging trucks and cars with only pennies in her pocket.That moment when she decided she’d had enough of the physical, sexual and emotional abuse was a turning point for the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” who would go on to have a musical renaissance in the 1980s. After the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and worldwide star died Wednesday at 83, tributes often remarked on her courage in the face of horrifying violence. But her story of surviving and thriving was so much more than a comeback, cultural and domestic abuse experts say. Turner’s reclaiming of her career and her humanity on her own terms made her a pioneering Black woman who refused to be defined by abuse. Turner detailed that night in her 2021 documentary, “Tina,” describing the euphoria she felt: “I was very proud. I felt strong. I had never done this.” Sh...

Cannes turns up the glamour as Queen Latifah hosts the amfAR gala. Watch the red carpet

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

ANTIBES, France (AP) — The attention at the Cannes Film Festival turns Thursday to the glitzy amfAR gala to raise money for AIDS research.Queen Latifah is hosting the lavish bash that will collect millions through its auction of one-of-a-kind items and experiences. The evening’s co-chairs include Angela Bassett, Robert De Niro and Scarlett Johansson. Halsey, Gladys Knight, Adam Lambert and Bebe Rexha are expected to perform at the 29th edition.The nearly two weeks of Cannes red carpets provide numerous standout fashion moments. This year’s edition hasn’t disappointed, with Helen Mirren sporting blue hair on opening night, Johansson and other stars of Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” looking glamorous and Adriana Lima, Karlie Kloss and other celebrities getting decked out for the “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” premiere.The Associated Press is livestreaming the arrivals at amfAR on YouTube beginning at 1 p.m. EDT.Stars attending the nearby Cannes festiva...

Ontario program to pay smart thermostat owners for summer temperature control

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

Ontario is rolling out an energy conservation program that will pay residents with smart thermostats to lower their air conditioning during certain periods in the summer.Residential customers who sign up for the Peak Perks program will receive a $75 prepaid credit card in exchange for giving their smart thermostat manufacturer secure access to the device.There would be up to 10 times during peak periods of electricity consumption between June and September during which their thermostat would be adjusted two to four degrees.The government says the adjustment would typically last for no more than three hours, wouldn’t be on weekends or holidays, and participants can opt out of any temperature change.Related: Ontario introduces ‘ultra low’ overnight hydro rate. What you need to knowThe Progressive Conservatives cancelled a number of energy conservation programs early in their first term in government, and critics have said their new $342-million suite of programs does...

Threat of US credit downgrade looms over debt ceiling talks

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:30:58 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — With one of three major rating agencies warning that America’s AAA credit is at risk, the stakes are growing in the standoff in Washington over raising the nation’s debt limit.On Wednesday night, the rating agency Fitch put the nation’s credit on “Rating Watch Negative,” which amounts to a warning that it might downgrade the U.S. credit as a result of the impasse. The government reached the $31.4 trillion debt limit in January, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has resorted to “extraordinary measures’’ since then to keep paying the bills. But Yellen has warned that Treasury will likely run out of money to meet all its obligations as soon as June 1, which is being described as the “X-date.”In a statement, Fitch said, “We believe risks have risen that the debt limit will not be raised or suspended before the X-date and consequently that the government could begin to miss payments on some of its obligations.”At the same time, Fitch characterized the likelihood...