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      Millions in US north-east brace for ‘once-in-a-generation’ Arctic blast

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      Millions in US north-east brace for ‘once-in-a-generation’ Arctic blastMeteorologists warn frigid weather could bring record-breaking low temperatures to New York, New Jersey and New England More than 15 million people in the US north-east were bracing for “once-in-a-generation” Arctic blast on Friday and Saturday, as meteorologists warned frigid weather could bring record-breaking low temperatures.An Arctic cold front is expected to bring wind chills of -50F (-45C) in parts of northern New England, and the National Weather Service (NWS) warned dangerous wind chills were likely in an area stretching from northern Pennsylvania to Maine.Trump campaign promised to ‘fan the flame’ of 2020 election lie, audio reveals – liveRead moreThe frigid weather will continue through Saturday evening, the NWS said. The icy blast in the north-east comes after a winter storm left hundreds of thousands of Texans without power on Thursday, after ice storms killed at least 10.“The wind chills have the potential to be once-in-a-generation cold,” the NWS said, urging people to either stay indoors or take precautions against swiftly striking frostbite and hypothermia. The wind chill factor describes the combined effect of wind and cold temperatures on exposed skin.In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu declared a cold emergency for Friday through Sunday and has opened warming centers so people can get out of the cold.In an advisory, the city suggested people wear several layers of loose-fitting lightweight, warm clothing.“Wear mittens over gloves; layering works for your hands as well,” the advisory said. “Always wear a hat and cover your mouth with a scarf to protect your lungs.”Record low temperatures could be set in the city, as well as in New York City, where wind gusts of 50mph were expected, and Providence, the NWS suggested in a tweet. It described the cold front as “a short-lived but impressive Arctic blast”.In New Hampshire’s Mount Washington state park, atop the north-east’s highest peak, record-breaking wind chills of -110F (-79C) and wind speeds topping 100mph were expected.“It’s definitely wicked cold, you can say that,” Frances Tarasiewicz, a weather observer for the park, told Reuters.“Today it’s a seasonal 5F, but it’s coming at us quick,” he said of the cold blast headed for the Mount Washington observatory, where staff members live on the mountain in eight-day shifts.Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, said the state could be facing “the coldest air that we’ve seen in years”. He advised people to stay indoors as much as possible, and to check on neighbors, relatives and the elderly.The state warned that frostbite is possible within 15 minutes at the expected temperatures, and said hypothermia can occur within 10 minutes at -30F (-34C).“This is an epic, generational Arctic outbreak,” said the National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine. It said the weather front will create a wind chill “rarely seen in northern and eastern Maine”.“Temperatures this weekend will be extremely – and dangerously – cold across the state,” said Maine’s governor, Janet Mills.“Please take extra precautions, be careful if you go outside, and be sure to check on your family, friends, and neighbors to make sure they are OK.”Maine will open warming and charging centers across communities across the state, the governor’s office said.In better news, the icy weather is expected to depart swiftly.“T​his is about as short-lived a cold snap as you can get this time of year. The cold will already start to ease Saturday night,” the Weather Channel said.As people in the north-east braced themselves for the cold, in the south temperatures began to rise on Friday after freezing weather left 430,000 people without power on Thursday.The failures were most widespread in Austin, where impatience was rising among 150,000 customers nearly two days after the electricity first went out, which for many also means no heat. Power failures have affected about 30% of customers in the city of nearly a million at any given time since Wednesday.Unlike the 2021 blackouts in Texas, when hundreds of people died after the state’s electricity grid was pushed to the brink of total failure, the outages in Austin this time were largely the result of frozen equipment and ice-burdened trees and limbs falling on power lines.The freeze has been blamed for at least 10 traffic deaths on slick roads this week in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.TopicsUS newsUS politicsUS weatherMassachusettsNew YorknewsReuse this content More

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      Massachusetts recount flips state house election to Democrat by one vote

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      Massachusetts recount flips state house election to Democrat by one voteKristin 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.Prior to the recount, Mirra led Kassner by 10 votes out of over 23,000 ballots that were cast in that region during the 8 November midterm election.The 10-vote deficit was within the legal threshold of a recount. On 30 November, Massachusetts secretary of state Bill Galvin ordered hand recounts in a general area where Mirra held a slim advantage.After officials recounted the votes in question Thursday, the results emerged as 11,763 to 11,762.Kassner was ahead by the slightest of margins.In response to that outcome, Mirra said that he will “absolutely” challenge the result, the Boston Globe reports.“Some [ballots] were filled out in pencil, some were filled out with different colored ink, some had stray marks. Some had a name written in the write-in and then an oval filled out,” the outlet reported him saying.Meanwhile, Kassner believes that there was no foul-play in the voting process, saying, “I feel the process unfolded like it should. We’ll see what comes when it comes,” the Boston Globe reports.“We are not suspicious of anything that ever happened. [The recount] was just really just to ensure that, between humans and machines, we really caught every vote that was counted,” Kassner told CBS.“We thank the tremendous outpouring of people that really got involved and mobilized to go through this process this weekend. It’s really a true test of democracy.”The new results will now go to governor Charlie Baker and a gubernatorial council for review.Should the recount go unchanged, Democrats will hold 133 of the 160 house districts come next January – a gain in four more seats compared to what they started the last session with at the beginning of 2021.In 2020, Massachusetts offered temporary mail-in voting for the first time as a result of pandemic precautions. Earlier this year, lawmakers voted to make permanent mail-in voting and expanded early voting, two measures which Mirra and the rest of the Republican house caucus voted against.The measures were nevertheless signed into law by Baker this summer.TopicsMassachusettsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Samuel Alito assured Ted Kennedy in 2005 of respect for Roe, diary reveals

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      Samuel Alito assured Ted Kennedy in 2005 of respect for Roe, diary revealsExcerpts reported by biographer show Alito, who wrote June ruling that outlawed abortion, said he was ‘big believer in precedents’ In a private meeting in 2005, Samuel Alito, who would become the US supreme court justice who wrote the ruling removing the federal right to abortion, assured Ted Kennedy of his respect for Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 court decision which made the procedure legal in the US.“I am a believer in precedents,” Alito said, according to diary excerpts reported by the Massachusetts senator’s biographer, John A Farrell, on Monday. “People would find I adhere to that.”Alito and Kennedy met regarding Alito’s nomination by George W Bush. The nominee also said: “I recognise there is a right to privacy. I think it’s settled.”Seventeen years later, in his ruling removing the right to abortion, via the Mississippi case Dobbs v Jackson, Alito said the entitlement had wrongly been held to be protected as part of the right to privacy.“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” he wrote this June.The late Kennedy, a younger brother of US president John F Kennedy, who spent 47 years in the Senate, also questioned Alito about a memo he wrote as a justice department clerk in 1985, outlining his opposition to Roe. Alito told Kennedy he had been trying to impress his bosses.“I was a younger person,” Alito said. “I’ve matured a lot.”According to Farrell, Alito told Kennedy his views on abortion were “personal” but said: “I’ve got constitutional responsibilities and those are going to be the determining views”.Alito was confirmed to the supreme court by the senate, 58 votes to 42. Kennedy voted no.Farrell reported the excerpts from Kennedy’s diary in the New York Times. A spokesperson for Alito “said he had no comment on the conversation”.Kennedy died in 2009, aged 77. His Senate seat was filled by a Republican, Scott Brown, who was subsequently defeated by Elizabeth Warren, who quickly emerged as a leading progressive. In June, after Alito’s ruling removed the right to abortion, Warren was a leading voice of liberal anger.“After decades of scheming,” she said, “Republican politicians have finally forced their unpopular agenda on the rest of America.”01:54Susan Collins, a Maine Republican but a supporter of abortion rights, said she had been misled in a meeting similar to that between Kennedy and Alito.Collins said that in the 2018 meeting, when asked about Roe, Brett Kavanaugh told her to “start with my record, my respect for precedent, my belief that it is rooted in the constitution and my commitment to the rule of law” and added: “I understand precedent and I understand the importance of overturning it.”In 2022, Kavanaugh sided with Alito and three other conservatives in removing the right to abortion.Collins said: “I feel misled.”Discussing Alito’s meeting with Kennedy, Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and legal ethics specialist, told the Times: “No serious court watcher can doubt that what Alito said in Dobbs he deeply believed in 2005. And long before then.”Farrell’s previous books include a biography of Richard Nixon. On Monday, reviewing Ted Kennedy: A Life, the Associated Press wrote: “Teddy lived long enough for his flaws to be fully exposed. All are laid bare in this book – the drinking, the infidelity, the selfishness, the casual cruelty, the emotional isolation.“The central riddle of Kennedy is how these weaknesses existed alongside the benevolence, loyalty, perseverance and wisdom that made him one of the most influential senators in modern American history.”The AP review noted Kennedy’s silence during another supreme court nomination, that of Clarence Thomas in 1991, writing: “When Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment, Kennedy was in no position to help lead the fight against him. He passed his time at the confirmation hearings by doodling sailboats, and Thomas was confirmed.”In June this year, Thomas joined with Alito to overturn Roe v Wade. In a concurring opinion, he suggested other privacy based rights could be next, including the rights to contraception and same-sex marriage.TopicsRoe v WadeAbortionUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US politicsEdward KennedynewsReuse this content More

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

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      Ex-US army medic allegedly lured migrants on to flights to Martha’s VineyardPerla 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.In September, dozens of asylum seekers were transported to Martha’s Vineyard, an affluent community in Massachusetts, and were promised cash assistance, help with housing and other resources if they traveled to the state. DeSantis claimed responsibility for the flights, portraying it as a protest against the Joe Biden White House’s immigration policy.The flights – one of which made a stop in Florida – departed from San Antonio and therefore have drawn scrutiny from the sheriff’s office there.Huerta was discharged from the US army in August after serving the military branch for two decades. A migrant told CNN that a woman named “Perla” offered him clothes, food, and money in exchange to help find other migrants, mostly from Venezuela, to board the flights to Massachusetts. She gave him $10 McDonald’s gift cards to be handed out to the asylum seekers who agreed to join the flights.Florida officials confirmed a payment to the airline charter company, Vertol Systems, for $615,000 on 8 September. The money comes from a state budget signed earlier this year giving DeSantis $12m for a program to deport migrants.Vertol Systems offers aviation maintenance and training services and performs work for the US government. The company has networked with Florida’s Republican power brokers over the years.The charter has contributed money to some of DeSantis’s top allies, including the Congress member Matt Gaetz and Florida’s public safety director in charge of immigration policy, Larry Keefe, according to NBC News.Attorneys representing the asylum seekers have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against DeSantis and others, contending that the plaintiffs were misled into thinking they would receive benefits upon arrival to Martha’s Vineyard.However, those benefits are only available for refugees, a specific status that the asylum seekers do not currently fall under.Some legal experts have deemed DeSantis’s acts as human trafficking or smuggling. The group Lawyers for Civil Rights labeled the move as an “appalling” political stunt.In the San Antonio area, the Bexar county sheriff, Javier Salazar, launched an investigation examining the flights that took off from there.Upon the asylum seekers’ arrival, aid group workers quickly gathered food as well as supplies and set up shelter. Island residents set up a church to house the migrants and provided translation services.The asylum seekers were also receiving clothing from community thrift shops, and people were increasingly calling to volunteer to help them and donate to them.Many of the asylum seekers ended up at a military base in Cape Cod with little knowledge of what would happen next.The flights are an escalation of Republican officials sending hundreds of asylum seekers to predominantly Democratic areas. The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has sent more than 100 migrants from Colombia, Cuba, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela by bus from Texas to the Washington DC home of Vice-President Kamala Harris.Abbot has also sent buses to New York City.TopicsUS immigrationUS politicsFloridaUS militaryTexasRon DeSantisMassachusettsnewsReuse this content More

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      Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flights

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      Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flightsTexas county sheriff says it seems evident that asylum seekers had been ‘lured’ to travel to Martha’s Vineyard ‘under false pretenses’ A criminal investigation has been launched in Texas into whether dozens of asylum seekers were illegally flown from the state to Martha’s Vineyard, as new evidence continues to emerge suggesting they were misled.Attorneys for ‘duped’ migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard call for criminal investigationRead moreThe Bexar county sheriff, Javier Salazar, said on Monday that his office was investigating the flights, chartered on behalf of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, which brought dozens of migrants to the island in Massachusetts.While Salazar did not name possible subjects in the inquiry, he said: “Everybody on this call knows who those names are already,” according to NBC News.Salazar did not discuss what specific laws might have been broken, but said it seemed evident that asylum seekers had been “lured under false pretenses”, with a recruiter given a “bird dog fee” to gather dozens of people who were outside a San Antonio migrant resource center.“They were promised work,” said Salazar. “They were promised the solution to several of their problems.”Many of the asylum seekers were given pamphlets advertising cash assistance, help with housing, job training and other resources if they came to Massachusetts.But the promised benefits are only available for refugees, a specific categorization under US immigration law that the asylum seekers do not currently fall under.Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group representing 30 of the recent arrivals, shared links and images of the brochures on Twitter.“This is additional evidence that shows in writing that those false representations were made in order to induce our clients to travel,” said Oren Sellstrom, the group’s litigation director, to NBC News.The group has also called for a federal and state criminal investigation into the chartered flights.A spokesperson from DeSantis’s office defended the flights and the brochures, saying that migrants were sent to “greener pastures” and to places that had more resources than Bexar county.The flights are just one instance of a broader pattern of Republican officials sending thousands of asylum seekers to predominantly Democratic-voting areas, a stunt that Democrats have slammed as illegal and wrong.“There is a process that is in place. And what they are doing is an illegal stunt, is a political stunt,” said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.TopicsUS immigrationRon DeSantisFloridaMassachusettsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Massachusetts set to elect first female, gay governor over Trumpist opponent

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      Massachusetts set to elect first female, gay governor over Trumpist opponentMaura Healey cruises to Democratic primary victory and will face Republican Geoff Diehl, a supporter of Trump’s election lie Massachusetts is on course to elect its first woman and first gay governor after Maura Healey won the Democratic primary on Tuesday and a Trump-backed candidate, Geoff Diehl, won the Republican contest to face her.Healey, the state attorney general, said: “I am honored to receive the Democratic nomination … Together, we’re going to win in November and build a Massachusetts that works for everyone.”Massachusetts has a long record of electing moderate Republicans. Only one Democrat – Deval Patrick, from 2007 to 2015 – having been governor since 1991.Healey, a former college and professional basketball player, has been attorney general since 2015. Polls give her huge leads over Diehl.The Republican backs Trump’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election was the result of electoral fraud, opposed the extension of mail-in voting, opposed public health mandates in the Covid pandemic and supports the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion.The abortion issue alone has driven electoral successes that have Democrats hoping they can prosper in the midterm elections.On Monday, Trump – the de facto leader of a party dominated by supporters Biden has called “semi-fascist” – told Massachusetts Republicans that Diehl would push back against “ultraliberal extremists” and “rule your state with an iron fist”.In Dorchester the next day, Healey told supporters “the choice in this election could not be more clear” and said Republicans wanted to “bring Trumpism to Massachusetts”. She promised to be “a governor as tough as the state she serves”.The current governor, Charlie Baker, worked to protect abortion rights and combat the climate crisis and backed Donald Trump’s impeachment over the Capitol attack. He faced defeat in a party dominated by Trump and chose not to run for a third term.Healey seems all but assured of victory. The polling website fivethirtyeight.com rates Massachusetts as the state most likely to swap a Republican governor for a Democrat, “just [ahead of] Maryland, another blue state where a moderate Republican is retiring and Republicans have nominated a diehard Trump supporter to replace him”.Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts US senator who beat Diehl for re-election in 2018, said on Tuesday: “Woo-hoo! I’ve seen firsthand how Maura Healey has the experience, keen policy knowledge, and steadfast commitment to deliver results for Massachusetts – and now she’s one step closer to shattering a glass ceiling as our next governor.”Healey is set to be the second woman to govern Massachusetts but the first elected to the office. In 2001, Jane Swift, a Republican, took over from Paul Cellucci when he became US ambassador to Greece. Swift was succeeded by Mitt Romney, who became the 2012 Republican nominee for president and is now a senator from Utah.The Democratic candidate for governor in Oregon, Tina Kotek, is also gay. If elected, she and Healey will be the first gay women to govern US states.TopicsMassachusettsUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More