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Suspended pot Chair Shannon O’Brien granted restraining order against boss

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

A Suffolk Superior Court judge has granted the state’s suspended cannabis chief’s request to delay a meeting with her boss which could have ended in her firing.According to court records, a meeting scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday between Cannabis Control Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien and Treasurer Deb Goldberg will have to wait until the results of an ongoing investigation are made available to O’Brien’s attorneys and investigators are made available for cross-examination.“Having carefully considered the information before me, the motion for a temporary restraining order is allowed,” Associate Justice of the Superior Court Debra Squires-Lee wrote in her ruling. “Goldberg, in her official capacity as Treasurer and Receiver General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is hereby enjoined from holding the hearing scheduled for Dec. 5.”O’Brien was unceremoniously removed from her post in September and suspended, with pay, at Goldberg’s direction and with no reason offered to the public....

P!nk returning to Petco Park in 2024 with new tour dates

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

SAN DIEGO — Pop superstar P!nk is returning to San Diego in 2024 after a sold-out show at Snapdragon Stadium earlier this year.LiveNation announced on Tuesday that the three-time Grammy Award winner will be making a stop at Petco Park on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024 as part of a 17-city extension of her "Summer Carnival Tour." The performance will feature all the vibrant touches of the 2023 shows, including incredible aerial acrobatics, exciting dance routines and multiple costume changes. As with this year's performances, P!nk will also have appearances by other renowned musicians on select dates like 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Sheryl Crow. The Script and KidCutUp will support the tour across all dates, according to LiveNation.Pre-sale tickets are available for Citi cardholders on Thursday, Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. and will run until Dec. 10 at 10 p.m. through the Citi Entertainment program. Verizon customers will also have access to a presale during this time through "Verizon...

Open Society Foundations commit $50M to women and youth groups’ work on democracy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Open Society Foundations, the major philanthropy now led by Alex Soros, said Tuesday it will commit $50 million to increase civic engagement among women and young people over the next three years as part of its strategy to support democracy in the U.S. Alex Soros, chair of the Open Society Foundations and son of its founder billionaire investor George Soros, said advocacy from women and younger generations is essential to stopping the advancement of authoritarianism. “In the early stages of the Trump administration, philanthropic support for organizations seeking to protect and defend progressive policy wins and to counter democratic suppression efforts surged,” Alex Soros said in a statement. “But groups dedicated to the civic engagement of women and young people did not see similar increases in levels of support.”The new Open Society commitment will support nonprofits working on a wide range of issues impacting these groups, including reproductive justice, cl...

Tom Hanks draws on his love of space for immersive documentary ‘The Moonwalkers’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

LONDON (AP) — You won’t see Tom Hanks on one of those space tourism flights that whisk celebrities and millionaires on a suborbital jaunt for a few hours. He says it wouldn’t be enough time out of this world.“I don’t need to go up and down,” Hanks said Tuesday. “I think I’d need a little bit longer in paradise.”Going to the moon is another matter – and the subject of “The Moonwalkers,” an immersive documentary co-written and narrated by Hanks.“I’d do that in a second,” Hanks said. “I don’t have the math. I do not have those abilities, but I’m sure there’s something I could do in order to help the program.”The two-time Academy Award-winning actor is a lifelong space buff, and he has channeled his passion into “The Moonwalkers,” which opens Wednesday at the Lightroom, a London venue specializing in interactive art and film experiences.Visitors sit on benches surrounded by imagery as the 50-minute film brings NASA’s Apollo space missions to life. The focus is on the 12 men who walked o...

FBI chief makes fresh pitch for spy program renewal and says it’d be ‘devastating’ if it lapsed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Christopher Wray called Tuesday for the reauthorization of a U.S. government surveillance tool set to expire at the end of the year, warning Senate lawmakers that there would be “devastating” consequences for public safety if the program is allowed to lapse.At issue is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the U.S. government to collect without a warrant the communications of targeted foreigners outside the United States.The program, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is due to expire at the end of this month unless Congress votes to reauthorize it. But Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have balked at renewing the program in its current form, recommending a slew of reforms through competing legislative proposals that are jockeying for support in the coming weeks.The fact that Wray devoted a significant portion of his prepared remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee to the issue underscore...

App company Amp Me to pay fine in settlement agreement with Competition Bureau

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

GATINEAU, Que. — The Competition Bureau says Amp Me Inc. has agreed to pay a fine to settle the regulator’s concerns about false or misleading claims by the mobile application and the purchase of positive reviews.Amp Me offers a mobile application in Canada and the U.S. that synchronizes multiple devices to amplify the sound of music. The regulator says an investigation found Amp Me allegedly bought positive reviews from third parties between 2019 and 2022 to promote its application and concluded these reviews created a false or misleading general impression.The bureau also said some claims made outside of Quebec gave the impression that the application was available free of charge when it was a limited free trial.Under the agreement, the regulator imposed a penalty of $1.5 million, but because of Amp Me’s limited ability to pay, it will pay a partial penalty of $310,000. If it turns out that Amp Me’s financial statements were inaccurate or incomplete, the bureau h...

6 held in Belgium and the Netherlands on suspicion of links to Russia sanction violations

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Six people have been taken into custody in Belgium and the Netherlands in connection with an inquiry into suspected exports of “sensitive” products and technology that might be banned under sanctions against Russia, Belgian prosecutors said Tuesday.The investigation was launched following a tipoff and information provided by unidentified U.S. “government agencies,” prosecutors said in a statement. They said the agencies were investigating illegal exports of dual-use goods and money laundering in the United States.The six were detained during searches of private homes and company headquarters in Knokke-Heist and Eeklo in Belgium, and just over the border in Sluis and Rotterdam, Netherlands, the statement said. No names of suspects or companies were provided.The 27-nation European Union has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Part of the aim is to stop high-tech and other products with possible military uses from...

2 suspects sought in assault outside Oshawa bar

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

Police are looking to identify two suspects sought in connection with an assault outside a bar in Oshawa back in October that left the victim with serious facial injuries.The alleged assault happened in the parking lot of Chasers Bar and Grill located on King Street East near Townline Road North around 3 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 15.According to Durham Regional Police Service, the victim was in the lot when they were allegedly assaulted by two females.“Investigators have been unable to locate or identify the suspects and are reaching out to the public for assistance,” police say in a release.Police are also seeking security camera or dash-cam footage of the incident and looking to speaking with anyone who has additional information.

S&P/TSX composite flat in late-morning trading, U.S. stock markets mixed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index was flat in late-morning trading as losses in the base metal stocks were offset by gains in the technology and telecommunication sectors and U.S. stock markets were mixed.The S&P/TSX composite index was up 1.56 points at 20,411.77.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 140.92 points at 36,063.52. The S&P 500 index was down 6.03 points at 4,563.75, while the Nasdaq composite was up 33.78 points at 14,219.27.The Canadian dollar traded for 73.67 cents US compared with 73.85 cents US on Monday.The January crude oil contract was up 54 cents at US$73.58 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was up six cents at US$2.76 per mmBTU.The February gold contract was down US$5.90 at US$2,036.30 an ounce and the March copper contract was down five cents at US$3.79 a pound.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD) The Canadian Press

Former president of Mauritania gets 5-year prison sentence for corruption

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:52:00 GMT

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — A Mauritanian court handed down a five-year prison sentence to the country’s former President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz after finding him guilty of money laundering and self-enrichment, his attorneys said Tuesday.The Monday verdict wraps up a rare corruption trial in west Africa and closes a chapter in the long trajectory of a strongman who helped lead two coups before serving two terms as president and becoming a counterterrorism partner to Western nations including the U.S.In the landmark 11-month trial, Aziz and other top Mauritanian officials were accused of siphoning money from the country to enrich themselves. It marked a rare instance in which an African leader was tried for corruption, though Aziz’s lawyers long framed the trial as a matter of score-settling between him and current President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani.“This is a political verdict whose ultimate objective is to deprive the president of civic rights,” defense lawyer T...