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The 5 Best Rock Albums of the year

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

This year the annual calls of “rock is dead” and “the album is dead” seem a bit muted. Sure, there will always be bozos claiming “Pet Sounds” was the last great LP. But the indie press, a big chunk of the mainstream, and many Grammy voters disagree. Here are the five best rock — yup, take a wide view of rock — 2023.“Guts,” Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo has great ears. She came up on her parents’ Weezer albums, has a Tori Amos obsession, and knows the coolest guitar tones (check out Smashing Pumpkins nod in “Pretty Isn’t Pretty”). But her voice is better. She outgrew Disney at 17. On “Guts,” made when she was 19, Rodrigo has outgrown pop. Not pop hooks (she’s a hook maestro) but pop pleasantries. She can do authentic rage and sardonic rants at once, scream like Joan Jett, strip it bare like Adele. The album opens with: “I’m a perfect all-American bitch/With perfect all-American lips/And perfect all-American hips/I know my place/I know my place and this is it.” It closes with: “W...

The 10 Best Films of 2023

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

Last January, “M3GAN” and “Cocaine Bear” were unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. In February, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” was a Marvel wake up call. Trouble ahead.The brilliant action-movie “John Wick: Chapter 4” rescued us from the fangs of “Renfield.” Modern day master of unease Ari Aster and his leading man Joaquin Phoenix faltered with “Beau Is Afraid,” although the film is a wonder.  In May, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” proved that Marvel fatigue was avoided if your writer-director was James Gunn. Netflix’s “The Mother” proved that people like watching Jennifer Lopez kick ass. The Disney magic disappeared with “The Little Mermaid,” the latest attempt to make a live-action version of a beloved Disney classic with Halle Bailey as Ariel. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” were not just two of the best animated films of the year, they were two of the best. Warner Bros. June release “The Flash” has becom...

Lueken: When students leave, the funding stays

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

With 10 states enacting universal or near-universal school choice programs since the pandemic, it’s no surprise many are wondering how public schools will be impacted in the future.A chief concern perpetually levied against these programs, which allow families to receive a portion of their child’s per-pupil funding for K-12 education to access schools and other educational services outside the public system, is that they “drain” resources from public schools when students leave.But a look at the data show this criticism defies fiscal sense. In fact, public schools are actually better off when choice policies enter the picture.Choice programs lead to smaller class sizes, better fits between teachers and students, and better matches between students and their learning environment. This translates into more manageable classrooms for teachers and better learning environments for students.Academic research also shows public schools, and outcomes for students who remain in them, improve a...

Pipes: How Obamacare tax credits spike premiums

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

For the health insurance industry, Obamacare open enrollment, which started last month, is the most wonderful time of the year. Millions of Americans are signing up for plans on the exchanges. Each click of the “submit” button adds a fistful more dollars to insurers’ bottom line.Open enrollment comes complete with tax credits for lower-income enrollees. They’re supposed to make monthly premiums more affordable. But their biggest effect is the risk-free enrichment of insurance companies.The pursuit of profit in a competitive market is the driver of economic growth and innovation. But when government dictates the specifications for the product that can be sold — in this case, the details of insurance coverage — and then effectively guarantees a profit for compliance, the result isn’t competition and better service but entrenched rent-seekers protecting their turf from competitors. The bigger the subsidies for “premiums,” the greate...

Editorial: New Year’s resolutions for the Boston City Council

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

Michelle Wu’s administration announced Wednesday that there will be a “strong” police presence at this weekend’s annual First Night festivities.It’s what you do when you want to keep the city safe.Thank goodness that move didn’t need City Council approval.This year the council has honed dysfunction to a fine art. And while a new council will be sworn in within days, the slate isn’t totally fresh. There are new faces mixed among the incumbents, progressive councilors amid the moderate and more conservative. There is a chance for more division, as well as for unity. Time will tell.But to start things off on the right foot, we have a few resolutions that the council should heed for 2024.Remember who you work forThat would be the residents of Boston, not special interest groups, not an agenda. If this ideal had been adhered to, it’s unlikely the council would have whiffed on a $13M counter-terrorism grant.The vote was deadlocked, and the possibility of losi...

Dear Abby: Unhappy wife tempted by new man

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

Dear Abby: I have been married to my husband for 12 years. We have had our ups and downs. I was unfaithful at one point, and he left for eight months, but we worked through it all.We are now coming out of another really rough patch involving a lot of arguing and talk of divorce. I’m having a hard time because around the time he left, I started falling out of love with him. I tried my best to be a good wife and do what I am supposed to, but this last bout of unpleasantness has left me feeling empty and no longer in love.There is now someone in my life I have developed strong feelings for. I imagine a life with him and the thought of being with him excites me. My husband is a good person, but he’s an alcohol and drug addict. He has done EVERYTHING he can and is willing to do things he can’t to ensure I love him as much as he loves me, and that our marriage doesn’t end. He has been sober now for seven years, but habits and tendencies still remain.The problems in...

FBI helping in hunt for Colorado Springs mother suspected of killing her 2 children, wounding third

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

COLORADO SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — A Colorado Springs woman was being sought Thursday on suspicion of killing her two young children and wounding a third, authorities said.Kimberlee Singler, 35, of Colorado Springs is wanted on an arrest warrant alleging murder, attempted murder and child abuse, according to a statement from the city.Police answered a 911 call reporting a burglary at an apartment complex at around 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 19 and found the bodies of Singler’s 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, the statement said.Singler was found injured along with her 11-year-old daughter. They were taken to local hospitals for treatment, the statement said.“As the investigation into this case unfolded, it was determined the initial report of a burglary was unfounded,” the statement said.Singler was last seen on Dec. 24. An arrest warrant was issued Dec. 26.The FBI is assisting in the search for Singler, said Vikki Migoya of the agency’s Denver office. The Associated Press

The Air Force said its nuclear missile capsules were safe. But toxins lurked, documents show

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A large pool of dark liquid festering on the floor. No fresh air. Computer displays that would overheat and ooze out a fishy-smelling gel that nauseated the crew. Asbestos readings 50 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety standards. These are just some of the past toxic risks that were in the underground capsules and silos where Air Force nuclear missile crews have worked since the 1960s. Now many of those service members have cancer. The toxins were recorded in hundreds of pages of documents dating back to the 1980s that were obtained by The Associated Press through Freedom of Information Act requests. They tell a far different story from what Air Force leadership told the nuclear missile community decades ago, when the first reports of cancer among service members began to surface: “The workplace is free of health hazards,” a Dec. 30, 2001, Air Force investigation found.“Sometimes, illnesses tend to occur by chance alone,” a follow-up 200...

Ex-student found competent to stand trial for stabbing deaths near University of California, Davis

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

DAVIS, Calif. (AP) — A former college student accused of stabbing two people to death and wounding a third in Northern California was found competent to stand trial, a prosecutor said Thursday.Carlos Reales Dominguez will return to court on Jan. 5 and criminal proceedings will be reinstated if there isn’t any challenge to his mental state, according to Yolo County assistant chief deputy district attorney Melinda Aiello, the Sacramento Bee reported. Dominguez had been a third-year student at the University of California, Davis majoring in biological sciences until April 25, when he was expelled for academic reasons. Stabbings near campus began shortly after. He is charged in the deaths of a 50-year-old homeless man and a 20-year-old UC Davis student. A homeless woman who was attacked in her tent survived. The attacks terrified the community. Businesses closed early and some students were too scared to attend even daytime classes as their parents pleaded with them to return home...

For transgender youth in crisis, hospitals sometimes compound the trauma

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:17:48 GMT

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Four days of waiting in UNC Hospitals’ psychiatric emergency room left Callum Bradford desperate for an answer to one key question.With knots in his stomach, the transgender teen asked: “Will I be placed in a girls’ unit?”Yes.The answer provoked one of the worst anxiety attacks Callum had ever experienced. Sobbing into the hospital phone, he informed his parents, who fought to reverse the decision they warned would cause their son greater harm.Although they succeeded in blocking the transfer, the family had few options when a second overdose landed Callum back in UNC’s emergency room a few months later. When the 17-year-old learned he was again scheduled to be sent to a girls’ inpatient ward, he told doctors the urge to hurt himself was becoming uncontrollable. The exchange is documented in hospital records given by the family to The Associated Press.“I had an immense amount of regret that I had even come to that hospital, because I knew that I wasn’t ...