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‘Recovery is fully underway:’ MCAS testing scores resurface from pandemic plunge

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

For the first time since the pre-pandemic 2019 results, MCAS scores are ticking up, according to state education data released Tuesday.“We are pleased to see both the 2023 English Language Arts and Mathematics results indicate that the achievement slide caused by the pandemic appears to have halted, and recovery is fully underway,” said Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeffrey Riley at an embargoed briefing Monday. “In both ELA and math all grades, three to eight, maintained or increased the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations from 2022.”While results remained below 2019 levels, all districtwide ELA and math from third to eighth grade increased or remained level.The test was administered fully for the first time since pandemic closures in 2022, following two years of cancelled and mitigated MCAS testing. 2022’s results reported a mixed bag of gains and losses — with particularly hard hit to younger students E...

Some RMV driving-related info could again become public under proposed regulations

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

Some information found on driving records could again see the light of day under proposed regulations from Attorney General Andrea Campbell that attempt to clarify what documents are considered public records after the implementation of an immigrant driver’s license law this summer.But it is unclear if entire driving records will be accessible to the public as they once were before the so-called Work and Family Mobility Act took effect on July 1, a law that has given the Registry of Motor Vehicles cover to deny records requests for the documents over the last two months.“We have sought to strike the right balance between transparency in the public interest and the protection of personal information for all applicants for licenses and learners permits in the commonwealth,” Attorney General Andrea Campbell said in a statement to the Herald. “We look forward to hearing more from the public on the proposed regulations at a public hearing later this week.”A hybrid public hearing on the p...

Top House Democrat wants ‘hard numbers’ on emergency shelters as Healey’s funding request idles

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

House Speaker Ronald Mariano wants “hard numbers” on the emergency shelter crisis and migrant influx in Massachusetts before moving forward with a $250 million funding request from Gov. Maura Healey for the shelter system.Less than a week after Healey submitted a multi-billion spending bill to close the books on fiscal 2023 that included the shelter dollars, Mariano said Tuesday that House lawmakers are still “searching for some answers on the total potential expenditures that we’ll be dealing with.”“There’s a lot of questions around the number that needs to be tightened up and we’re dealing with a problem with getting information from people coming in and the organizations that are servicing it,” Mariano said. “The administration is doing the best that they can do to gather all this information and give us some hard numbers. And it’s not an easy thing to do.”The Healey administration’s housing department estimates the state could see 1,000 families — local h...

Suspect in University of North Carolina shooting is not competent for trial, his attorneys say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) — Attorneys for a University of North Carolina graduate student accused of killing his academic advisor said in court on Tuesday that a doctor has found their client not competent to proceed with trial. Defense attorneys for Tailei Qi told Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour they plan to file a motion challenging Qi’s capacity to proceed. Meanwhile, the judge granted a request from prosecutors to get a separate competency evaluation. Qi is charged with killing Dr. Zijie Yan inside a campus laboratory on Aug. 28. Police were alerted when a 911 caller reported gunfire at Caudill Labs. Qi was not at the building when officers arrived soon after. Police arrested the Chapel Hill resident without force off campus less than two hours after the shooting. He is being held without bond on charges of first-degree murder and having a gun on educational property. The attack and hourslong lockdown terrified students and faculty who had just returned to campus fo...

Acting Temple University president JoAnne A. Epps dies after falling ill on stage

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

By RON TODT (Associated Press)PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Temple University acting president JoAnne A. Epps died Tuesday shortly after becoming ill on stage during a memorial service, officials said, describing her loss as a gut punch and struggling through emotion as they recalled her nearly four decades of service.Epps was attending a memorial service at the university for Charles L. Blockson, a curator of a collection of African American artifacts, when she suffered what a doctor speaking at a news conference described as a “sudden episode.” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Epps, who was scheduled to speak at the service, slumped in her chair shortly after the event began and was carried out in the arms of a uniformed officer after the announcer asked if there was a doctor in the house.Epps was taken to Temple University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead around 3:15 p.m. Tuesday, the university said. She was 72.Ken Kaiser, senior vice president and chief op...

Witness said man was punched before he died at a New England Patriots game

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Police are investigating the death of a New Hampshire man at a New England Patriots home game, after a witness said he saw a Miami Dolphins fan punching the man in the head.Police and personnel responded to the upper deck at Gillette Stadium shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday against the Dolphins. Dale Mooney, 53, of Newmarket, New Hampshire, “was in apparent need of medical attention,” the Norfolk County district attorney’s office said in a news release Monday. Mooney was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the news release said.“Numb. I just feel numb. I just can’t even believe this is for real,” his wife, Lisa Mooney, told WCVB-TV. “I want to know what happened. What caused this?”In an interview with several local media outlets, Joey Kilmartin said he saw Mooney confront a rival Dolphins fan who he had been arguing with during most of the game.“He (Mooney) went over to Section 311 and he basically engaged in mutual combat with another fan,R...

Argentina’s former detention and torture site added to UNESCO World Heritage list

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina on Tuesday welcomed a decision by a United Nations conference to include a former clandestine detention and torture center as a World Heritage site.A UNESCO conference in Saudi Arabia agreed to include the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory in the list of sites “considered to be of outstanding value to humanity,” marking a rare instance in which a museum of memory related to recent history is designated to the list.The former Navy School of Mechanics, known as ESMA, housed the most infamous illegal detention center that operated during Argentina’s last brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 through 1983. It now operates as a museum and a larger site of memory, including offices for government agencies and human rights organizations.“The Navy School of Mechanics conveyed the absolute worst aspects of state-sponsored terrorism,” Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández said in a video message thanking UNESCO for the designation. “Memory m...

Escalating tensions between India and Canada spark trade worries: experts

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s already lagging trade with India could suffer setbacks as relations become increasingly tense, experts say.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed on Monday that Canada has “credible” information about a potential link between India’s government and the death of British Columbia Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an assertion that New Delhi blasted as “absurd and motivated.”The serious allegations prompted the countries to expel one other’s diplomats, while talks over a trade deal and a planned Canadian trade mission in October have been put on hold.The rift means further disruption to a trade relationship that has seen Canada lose ground to other countries. Right now, the world’s most populous country isn’t on Canada’s Top 10 for exports or imports.Canada’s trade relationship with India has so far failed to reach its potential, said Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada president Jeff Nankivell. This rif...

Colombia announces cease-fire with a group that split off from the FARC rebels

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s government and one of the nation’s last remaining rebel groups announced Tuesday that they will start peace talks next month, and enter a 10-month cease-fire that is expected to decrease violence against civilians.The agreement between the Colombian government and the rebel group known as FARC-EMC comes as President Gustavo Petro tries to bolster his plans to pacify rural areas of Colombia by negotiating simultaneously with all of the nation’s remaining rebel factions, under his “total peace” strategy. In August the Petro administration brokered a six-month cease-fire with the National Liberation Army, the nation’s largest remaining rebel group, and also set up a committee that will decide how community groups will participate in peace talks with that group.The FARC-EMC are a splinter group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The splinter group refused to join a 2016 peace deal between the main FARC group and the governmen...

Canada signs $3B nuclear deal with Romania, as Europe aims to wean off Russian energy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:33:15 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada and Romania signed a $3-billion export development deal Tuesday that will see two new nuclear reactors built in the eastern European country, in a move that both governments’ energy ministers say will make it harder for Russia to use its energy exports as a weapon.“This is first and foremost about energy security,” said Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja at a press conference in Ottawa Tuesday. “Indeed not just for Romania but the whole region.”Burduja said Romania already has an agreement with neighbouring Moldova to share some of the power from the two new Candu reactors, which are expected to go online by 2032.The country is in talks with Ukraine, Hungary and Austria as well.The two new reactors will join two existing Candu reactors that have been delivering electricity from a nuclear power centre in the southeastern Romanian town of Cernavoda since 1996 and 2007, respectively.Burduja said those supply about one-fifth of Roman...