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What We’re Reading and Watching

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

Fiction“Nights of Plague,” Orhan PamukLike many other people during the pandemic, I searched for books that could help me understand the impact of a mass disease outbreak on society. Above any book of epidemiology or history, however, I found that this novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk about an outbreak of plague on a fictional Mediterranean island to be the most enlightening about how disease can sap the human spirit and break open divisions within a society. His writing is darkly humorous and full of pathos — highly recommended for anyone looking for a novel to immerse themselves in this summer. – Murtaza Hussain“Cuatro Manos,” Paco Ignacio Taibo II The novel “Cuatro Manos” was published in 1997 and features major historical characters and events from 20th century Latin America. Taibo, a renowned author and activist in Mexico, guides us through a story of two journalists in the 1980s. They begin to investigate unpublished and undiscovered works by Russian revolutionary Leon Tro...

Grilling out this Memorial Day weekend? The do’s and don’ts

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

At Virginia Tech University’s real test food kitchen, the director has one looming goal.“My first priority is to safety,” said Melissa Wright, who heads up the university’s Food Producer Technical Assistance Network.Every year, the unofficial start to summer grilling season comes with a few warnings. The first: avoid cross-contamination, by separating raw meat and fresh produce and toppings, Wright said.“That ground meat is probably going to have E-coli in it, which is a natural organism,” she said. “Think about your wooden cutting boards. You cut it and there’s a groove in there, that bacteria loves to live in that groove. Have separate meat and produce cutting boards.”Also, pay close attention to cooking temperatures, especially for beef-alternative products. Wright said many people tend to overlook the cooking labels when cooking soy, pea or chickpea proteins.Although those proteins don’t have animal products, they still have ingredients that need to reach a certain temperature b...

Overall Nice and Hot Memorial Day Weekend

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

Well if you enjoyed Saturday’s weather, which featuring considerably fewer showers along with more sunshine, then you should enjoy the remainder of the long, Memorial Day holiday weekend.Similar as yesterday, Sunday will begin with lots of sunshine and building clouds by the late-morning. Some of those clouds clouds eventually turn into isolated showers and storms along the east coast sea breeze but moisture levels are not terribly high, keeping rain chances low at a 30% chance. There will also be a westerly wind in place through at least the first half of the day which will drive highs quickly up and into the upper 80s to low 90s at most locations.Then on Memorial Day on Monday, the forecast will be fairly similar with dry conditions to start, then there will be the risk for seeing an afternoon shower or two. The only difference is that there will be filtered sunshine in place, keeping skies partly sunny and hazy-looking.By Tuesday, moisture levels begin to gradually ramp bac...

Churchill Downs ‘troubled’ after 12th horse death in past 2 months

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

(CNN) — Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, says it is “troubled” by the recent spate of horse deaths after racetrack officials on Saturday announced two more horses were put down.The euthanizations of Lost in Limbo on Friday and Kimberley Dream on Saturday at the track mean a dozen horses have died at Churchill Downs in the past two months.Kimberley Dream suffered a “significant injury” to her left front leg in Saturday’s first race, according to the company that owns the track.A similar injury impacted Lost in Limbo during Friday’s seventh race, and veterinarians deemed the injuries “inoperable and unrecoverable” in both cases, Churchill Downs Inc. said in a news release.The 12 horse deaths have occurred since the track’s stable area reopened for training on March 30, the release stated.The company said it reported the “highly unusual statistic” with “absolute dismay and sorrow.”“We do not accept this as suitable or tolerable and share the frustrations of t...

Howie Carr: Boston City Hall arrest opens position for other desperate folks ready for the Reparations Task Force

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

Try not to let the recent after-hours arrest at City Hall of the coordinator of the totally on-the-level Boston Task Force on Reparations destroy your faith in the integrity of this vitally important grift, er, restorative justice initiative.Surely there must be some mistake here!How dare the cops assume that a distinguished scholar like George Washington Williams IV “appeared to be under the influence of some narcotic” just because he got into a scuffle with the local constabulary late at night in an abandoned upper-floor office.The world-renowned “social demographer,” who has beaten numerous minor raps over the years, has since been fired by The Man, in this case Mayor Michelle Wu.That’s the bad news. The good news is, there are plenty of good candidates of color ready, willing and desperate to pick up the burden of this vitally important mission.Two names immediately come to mind: Rachael Rollins and Monica Cannon-Grant.Those two are certainly experts on reparations. Until recent...

Where have Cubs players lived over the years? The suburbs were a popular choice for decades. And many have rented.

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

The Chicago Cubs have played on Chicago’s North Side for 116 years, since the team moved north from West Side Park.And although many Cubs players have owned homes in the Chicago area over the years, a review of the locations where players have owned shows a distinct trend: Throughout much of the 1960s through the ‘80s, most Cubs players were loath to own homes anywhere in the city, and instead favored the north, northwest and western suburbs as places to hang their ball caps.However, since the 1980s, far more of the homeowning Cubs have bought places in the city than in the suburbs. Also striking: In the past few years, only a select few Cubs have bought Chicago-area homes of any kind.Many rentersMost major league baseball players rent homes in their teams’ cities. Many lead an itinerant lifestyle, as they are subject to the whims of team owners who can trade or release them at any time, and the advent of free agency has made long careers with any one team rare.Als...

Divided MassGOP plays blame game for $600K party debt

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

Who’s to blame for the precarious financial position of the Massachusetts Republican Party will be hashed out at an upcoming committee meeting.Two factions of a divided state committee have put forth competing agenda items, which would seek votes for the removal of the party’s top two financial officers, and bring last year’s gubernatorial candidate in for questioning about “campaign finance irregularities” that led to roughly half of the party’s $600,000 debt.“Basically, of all the debt that I inherited as party chair, nearly half we’ve attributed to the Diehl campaign,” said MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale, referring to losing Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl. “Then about a quarter we believe the party is responsible for, and about a quarter is still under review.”The party’s debt now stands at roughly $628,000, up from the $602,000 figure that was estimated in the weeks that followed Carnevale’s narrow win over former chair Jim Lyons this past January, Carnevale told th...

Skywatch: The great late June star show

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

The Summer Solstice, the first day of astronomical summer, is on June 21 this year. It’s the longest day of the year but unfortunately for us stargazers, it’s also the shortest night of the year, which means staying up late to begin your celestial adventures. The good news is that the nights get longer after the solstice, and stargazing can start earlier and earlier. Get an afternoon nap so you can enjoy the show!The very bright planet Venus continues its stint as the “evening star” this month, and it’s by far the brightest star-like object in the night sky. You can’t miss it beaming away in the west, popping out long before the end of evening twilight.(Mike Lynch)Since Venus is entirely shrouded by a very dense atmosphere, there isn’t much to see with a telescope. However, since it’s an inferior planet with its orbit around the sun within the Earth’s orbit, it goes through phases like our moon. At the start of the month, Venus i...

Ray LaHood: High-speed rail can curb America’s summer travel woes

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

The summer travel season that gets underway this weekend promises to be one of the most challenging ever. As transportation patterns return to pre-pandemic levels, millions of Americans will face the familiar miles-long traffic jams and labyrinthine airport security lines.Following last summer’s chaos in the skies, with nearly 45,000 flights canceled and over 400,000 delayed, transportation experts are urging calm as travelers prepare for a summer of frustration and frayed nerves.While patience is certainly a virtue, resignation to a dysfunctional transportation system is not. As the world’s wealthiest nation, we can do so much better. If we had a nationwide high-speed rail network, holiday travel would be enjoyable. Instead of driving or flying, you could hop on a high-speed train, zoom across your region with great ease, comfort and peace of mind, and arrive right on time. Not to mention that it would cost less than flying.America’s holiday travel quagmire is a r...

F.D. Flam: The spike in child mortality won’t go away on its own

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:50 GMT

For Americans under 20, an epidemic much deadlier than Covid-19 has raged over the last three years. Deaths among those aged 1 to 19 surged 20% — driven by an increase in car crashes, suicide, homicide and drug overdoses.The combined toll of behavior-related deaths on children and teens hit home after a March report by the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. Earlier this month, a Wall Street Journal story fleshed out that data with stories — a mother finding her teenage son dead from fentanyl poisoning, an honor student taking a bike ride with friends and being fatally gunned down.How much of this is a result of the pandemic — or the government’s disruptive reaction to it? Teen suicides and drug overdoses had been on the rise over the last decade, but that rise accelerated during the pandemic. Deaths on the road had been decreasing, and since 2020 they rose more sharply than any other time on record. And gun deaths overall —...