Democratic states stockpile abortion pills as legal fight for access looms

US supreme court has preserved access to mifepristone for now, but blue states announce plans to safeguard abortion rights

Despite a reprieve by the US supreme court, a growing number of Democratic states are stockpiling abortion pills as the legal fight for access to the abortion drug mifepristone is set to continue.

On Friday, the supreme court decided to temporarily block a lower court ruling that would have significantly restricted the availability of mifepristone, an FDA-approved abortion medication.

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Jack Teixeira, suspect in Pentagon leaks, charged under Espionage Act

Government to seek 10 years on each of two charges, says prosecutor in Boston court

Jack Teixeira, the air national guardsman arrested on suspicion of leaking hundreds of secret defence documents, has been charged in a Boston court on two counts under the Espionage Act as Washington reeled from the fallout of the worst leaks of US intelligence in at least a decade.

The clean-cut 21-year-old was brought into court in a beige jumpsuit, and his handcuffs were removed by a bailiff. He sat quietly, turning only once to three family members to smile weakly.

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Wellesley College students vote to admit trans men and non-binary people

Proposal also calls for gender neutral language at women’s college whose alumni include Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright

Students at the famed Wellesley College for women voted this week to extend admission to trans men and non-binary students, though campus administrators have said there is “no plan” to immediately change school policy.

In a non-binding election on Tuesday, students at the liberal arts college in Massachusetts voted to open admission to all non-binary and transgender students, including trans men, reported Wellesley News, the college’s student newspaper.

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Authorities identify Massachusetts ‘Granby girl’ 45 years after she was shot

Advanced genetic testing revealed the murder victim as Patricia Ann Tucker, who was found dead on the side of a logging road

For nearly 45 years, authorities did not know the name or life story of a woman who was shot dead and left off the side of a logging road in western Massachusetts.

But authorities ultimately turned to advanced genetic testing to help them solve the mystery, and they recently figured out the murder victim was Patricia Ann Tucker, who was 28 and had a 5-year-old son when she was killed without her loved ones knowing for decades.

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JetBlue pilot’s ‘evasive action’ averts crash at Boston’s Logan airport

A Learjet on Monday was directed to wait for passenger plane to land but began to take off, forcing JetBlue craft to ‘climb out’

US aviation authorities are investigating a near miss at Boston’s Logan international airport after a JetBlue pilot had to take “evasive action” while landing when another aircraft crossed an intersecting runway.

The close call occurred at about 7pm on Monday when the pilot of a Learjet 60 took off without clearance as a JetBlue flight was preparing to land on an intersecting runway, according to a preliminary review from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

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Haunting new footage of Titanic wreckage to be released

More than 80 minutes of rare and mostly unseen video was taken during pioneering 1986 expedition

Haunting new footage of the wreck of the RMS Titanic was set to be released on Wednesday, taken during the pioneering 1986 expedition that gave the first glimpses of the doomed ocean liner since its notorious sinking on its maiden voyage more than seven decades before.

The cache of more than 80 minutes of the rare and mostly unseen video comes from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) of Massachusetts, which partnered with French explorers in the discovery of the ship’s remains.

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North-east arctic blast sets record -108F wind chill on New Hampshire summit

Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills dropped as low as -45 to -50F across the rest of the region

Arctic air in the US north-east on Saturday brought dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills including a record-setting -108F (-78C) on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

Authorities in Massachusetts took the unusual step of keeping the South Station transit hub open so homeless people had a place to sleep. High winds brought down a tree branch on a car in western Massachusetts, killing an infant.

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Massachusetts recount flips state house election to Democrat by one vote

Kristin Kassner won against Republican opponent Lenny Mirra after a recount shrunk candidates’ narrow vote deficit to one

A recount in a political race in Massachusetts has flipped a state house of representatives election from Republican to Democrat by a single vote.

Democrat Kristin Kassner won against her Republican opponent and five-term incumbent Lenny Mirra earlier this week after a recount that shrunk the candidates’ narrow vote deficit to one. The candidates were all vying for a seat based in the North Shore area, which is a coastal region between Boston and New Hampshire.

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Man charged with threatening doctor for providing care to trans patients

Matthew Jordan Lindner of Texas is alleged to have harassed and threatened to kill a doctor at Fenway Institute center in Boston

A Texas man has been charged with threatening a Boston doctor for providing medical care to transgender patients and gender-nonconforming children.

On Friday, the US attorney’s office in Massachusetts said Matthew Jordan Lindner, 38 and from Comfort, Texas, was arrested and charged with one count of transmitting interstate threats.

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Ex-US army medic allegedly lured migrants on to flights to Martha’s Vineyard

Perla Huerta was reportedly sent to Texas from Florida to fill planes chartered by DeSantis, offering gift cards to asylum seekers

A former US army combat medic and counterintelligence agent allegedly solicited asylum seekers to join flights out of Texas to Martha’s Vineyard that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, chartered.

Perla Huerta was sent to Texas from Tampa to fill the planes at the center of the trips, which many have argued could amount to illegal human trafficking, a person briefed on an investigation into the case told the New York Times.

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Advocates for migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard sue Ron DeSantis

Suit says Venezuelans were ‘used as political pawns’ in a ‘fraudulent and discriminatory’ scheme

Attorneys representing the Venezuelan migrants and refugees allegedly duped into flying to the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts have filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit against the Florida governor and other state officials.

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based legal advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday challenging what it called the “fraudulent and discriminatory” scheme to charter private planes to transport almost 50 vulnerable people, including children as young as two, from San Antonio, Texas, via Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard last week without liaising to arrange shelter and other resources.

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Attorneys for ‘duped’ migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard call for criminal investigation

Republican governors made ‘false promises to migrants in order to induce them to travel’, lawyers say

Attorneys representing Venezuelan asylum-seekers flown thousands of miles to an affluent holiday island in Massachusetts at the behest of Republican governors have formally requested authorities open a criminal investigation, claiming the victims were “induced to board airplanes and cross state lines under false pretences”.

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based group representing 30 of the 48 people flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday, said: “Individuals, working in concert with state officials, including the Florida governor, made numerous false promises [to the migrants] – including of work opportunities, schooling for their children, and immigration assistance – in order to induce them to travel.”

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Woman fatally shoots three male relatives before killing herself

Facebook post accused father, brother-in-law and his father, of either physically abusing woman’s sister or ignoring it

A Massachusetts woman shot her brother-in-law, his father, her own dad and herself to death after she publicly accused the first man of physically abusing her sister for years while the other two – along with additional relatives – stood idly by, according to authorities and a chilling social media post that offers an apparent motive for the violence.

The gruesome saga began with a Facebook post published on the afternoon of 23 August in which Khosay Sharifi recounted how her sister has been choked, slapped, kicked, punched in the face and cursed out by her husband of 14 years.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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Moderna sues Pfizer and BioNTech over coronavirus vaccine

Company is suing pharmaceutical rival and its German partner for patent infringement

Moderna is suing its US pharmaceutical rival Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine approved in the United States, alleging they copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic.

The lawsuit, which seeks undetermined monetary damages, was being filed in US district court in Massachusetts and the regional court of Düsseldorf in Germany, Moderna said in a news release on Friday.

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North-eastern US braces for record-breaking heat

One heat-related death reported in New York while authorities in Philadelphia extend health emergency declaration

Residents in the north-east US braced for potentially record-breaking temperatures on Sunday as a near-week-long hot spell continued, prompting officials to warn of dangerous heat.

At least one heat-related death, in New York, was reported. Around the region, athletic events were shortened or postponed and cities opened cooling centers and even turned to buses to offer relief from the heat.

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Blow to Uber as top Massachusetts court blocks ballot question

Justices reject planned ballot measure, citing proposal limiting companies’ liability for accidents

Massachusetts’ top court on Tuesday blocked an effort to ask voters whether app-based ride-share and delivery drivers should be treated as independent contractors rather than employees, in a setback for companies such as Uber and Lyft.

The unanimous decision by the Massachusetts supreme judicial court marked a victory for labor activists who sued and argued the ballot measure proposal contained loopholes that would create a sub-minimum wage for drivers for the companies.

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Last Salem ‘witch’ pardoned 329 years after she was wrongly convicted

Massachusetts lawmakers formally exonerate Elizabeth Johnson Jr, who was sentenced to death in 1693

It took more than three centuries, but the last Salem “witch” has been officially pardoned.

Massachusetts lawmakers on Thursday formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr, clearing her name 329 years after she was wrongly convicted of witchcraft in 1693 and sentenced to death at the height of the Salem witch trials.

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US reports rare case of monkeypox amid small outbreaks in Europe

Man who recently traveled to Canada has first case in US this year, but officials are preparing for more

Massachusetts officials on Wednesday reported a rare case of monkeypox in a man who recently traveled to Canada, and health officials are looking into whether it is connected to small outbreaks in Europe.

Monkeypox is typically limited to Africa, and rare cases in the US and elsewhere are usually linked to travel there. A small number of confirmed or suspected cases have been reported this month in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Spain.

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Deep freeze for US east coast after nor’easter brings thick snow

Massachusetts sees power outages in worst of storm, with dangerous wind chills following in its wake

The US east coast fell into a deep freeze on Sunday, after a powerful nor’easter dumped mounds of snow, flooded coastlines and knocked out power to tens of thousands.

Dangerous wind chills were expected after the storm dumped snow from Virginia to Maine. The weather may have contributed to at least four deaths in New York, all on Long Island.

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Nor’easter lashes eastern US with snow and wind gusts near hurricane force

  • Philadelphia, New York and Boston in path of storm
  • Flooding, high winds and cold weather expected

A nor’easter with hurricane-force wind gusts battered much of the US east coast on Saturday, flinging heavy snow that made travel treacherous or impossible, flooding coastlines and threatening to leave bitter cold in its wake.

The storm thrashed parts of 10 states, with blizzard warnings from Virginia to Maine. Philadelphia and New York saw plenty of wind and snow, but Boston was in the crosshairs. The city could get more than 2ft of snow by early Sunday.

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