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Motorists should prepare for traffic delays as holiday weekend travel gets underway

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

If you’re traveling for the holiday weekend, it would be wise to leave early and prepare for delays.Americans are expected to set a record for holiday travel this weekend, and some 1.2 million Massachusetts residents will hit the roads.Friday is expected to be the worst travel day, with a peak expected for travelers to the Cape around 11 a.m.AAA suggests travelers hit the road before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m.Stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest travel updates.

Nice Start to the Holiday Weekend

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

The holiday weekend is off to a fantastic start! We’ll have a beautiful summer day today with partly cloudy skies and warm temperatures. The blue sky between the clouds might be more of a filtered blue with some very high level wildfire smoke but other than muting our blue skies it really won’t have an impact for us today. There’s also the chance (incredibly small chance) of an isolated shower. It’s much like yesterday when most of us had no idea that one or two showers popped up. If you got underneath one, it was just a very quick light shower and you were able to carry on with your day. That’s the chance that’s back today.The forecast will get a little more unsettled as the holiday weekend rolls on. Even though the rain chances will go up, the temperatures won’t fluctuate much. So the good news is we will have warm air all the way through the 4th. There’s a small spot shower chance both Friday and Saturday, a 10% chance each day. Sun...

Driver slams through front door of closed KMart in Brockton

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

Workers were seen boarding up a shattered glass door late Thursday night after a driver crashed through the front door of a former KMart location in Brockton.It’s unclear if there were any injuries.No additional information was immediately available.This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

Smoke returns to GTA today with unsettled weather expected for Canada Day

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

Toronto is starting Friday with the worst air quality in the world ahead of long weekend that is expected to see plenty of unsettled weather.Environment Canada has issued another special air quality statement for most of Southern Ontario. The weather agency warns of high levels of air pollution due to smoke from northern wildfires.“Smoke plumes from forest fires over northeastern Ontario and Quebec has returned to the area resulting in deteriorated air quality once again,” reads the statement.There are showers and thunderstorms in the forecast for Friday, but CityNews 680 meteorologist Jill Taylor says the wet weather won’t do much in the way of clearing the haze. The smoke is expected to linger for most of the day, and possibly into Saturday.“This wildfire smoke could become even more widespread as we work through the morning,” says Taylor. “We’ve got some showers moving through this morning, then widespread smoke, and then the possible for...

Trump and DeSantis are among the 2024 GOP hopefuls set to appear at the Moms for Liberty gathering

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, are scheduled to speak Friday at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a two-year-old group that has fiercely opposed instruction related to race and gender identity in the nation’s classroom.The group, which has quickly become a force in conservative politics, advocates “parental rights” in education, but an anti-hate watchdog has labeled it “extremist” for allegedly harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, also are slated to address the group Friday at the downtown Philadelphia hotel hosting the conference. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are set to give remarks on Saturday.Their attendance underscores the influence o...

Haitians need aid and face ‘staggering levels’ of gender violence, UN children’s chief says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Close to half of Haiti’s people, 2.2 million adults and 3 million children, need humanitarian aid and thousands of youngsters face “staggering levels” of gender-based violence, the head of the U.N. children’s agency said Thursday.“Haitians and our team, they’re telling me it’s never been worse than it is now — unprecedented hunger and malnutrition, grinding poverty, a crippled economy, resurgence of cholera, and a massive insecurity that creates a deadly downward spiral of violence,” said Catherine Russell, the executive director of UNICEF.Russell said what was clear during her just-completed visit was that the police don’t have the capacity to secure the country and protect the population from violent gangs and “something needs to change.”“We have to, as an international community, say we can’t watch this country completely fall apart,” she said. “And so my job is to try to bring some attention to that problem and to make sure people understand how terri...

Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier and his son detained in racism probe

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier and his son have been detained as part of an investigation into racism allegations at one of his former clubs, Nice prosecutor Xavier Bonhomme told The Associated Press.Galtier and his son, John Valovic-Galtier, were placed in custody for questioning on Friday morning, Bonhomme said without elaborating.Galtier, who is on his way out at PSG but still under contract, denied accusations that he made racist and anti-Muslim comments when he was in charge of French club Nice when the scandal broke earlier this year.RMC Sport and other French media published reports quoting a leaked email from former Nice director of football Julien Fournier to the club’s owners, in which he accused Galtier of saying there were too many Black and Muslim players in the squad.Galtier said he felt hurt “at the deepest level” of his humanity by the accusations and has taken legal action.Bonhomme said at the time a preliminary investigation had been opened into “disc...

Flooding in South Africa kills 7, and rescue crews are searching for another 7 missing people

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Seven people have died and another seven are missing after days of heavy rainfall triggered floods in and around the South African city of Durban, local government authorities said Friday.Six people died in Durban and one in Port Sheptsone a beachside town about 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the south. Rescue teams are still searching for seven more people, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government said.Authorities said they recovered the bodies of a woman in her 20s and a teenage girl in a canal in Durban to take the death toll to seven.Around 70 houses have been destroyed and more than 100 damaged in the wild weather. More than 150 people have been left homeless, the provincial government said. People were taking refuge in schools and other buildings, local officials said.Heavy rains and strong winds have battered South Africa’s east coast this week. The unusual weather also resulted in a type of tornado called a “landspout” ripping through one ar...

Polish child who fell overboard from ferry and mother who jumped in afterward are dead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A 7-year-old child who fell overboard from a passenger ferry in the Baltic Sea and the child’s mother, who jumped into the water after her child, are both dead, a Polish police official said Friday.Police spokesperson Mariusz Ciarka told the TVN24 broadcaster that it was impossible to save the lives of the two, both of whom were Polish citizens.The tragedy occurred Thursday when the child fell into the water and the mother decided to jump in after her child, Swedish Maritime Administration spokesperson Jonas Franzen told The Associated Press. He said the child fell from a height of about 20 meters (65 feet).The mother and child were transported separately by helicopter to a hospital in Karlskrona.Anders Olsson, who was on the rescue helicopter that pulled the woman from the sea, told Swedish radio on Friday that she was “not responsive” and first aid was administered to her.Ships and helicopters from Sweden and from NATO units that were in the area assisted in ...

Prosecutor says Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey is a ‘sexual bully’ who preys on other men

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:20 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey gets a thrill by preying on other men, a prosecutor told jurors during his sexual assault trial Friday in a London courtroom.Spacey is “a man who does not respect personal boundaries or space, a man who it would seem delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable — a sexual bully, ” Prosecutor Christine Agnew said in her opening statement. “His preferred method of assault is, it appears, to grab aggressively other men in the crotch.”The four men who have accused Spacey of sexual assault did not know each other, but all “had the misfortune to attract” his attention, she said. Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges including sexual assault, indecent assault and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.The charges involve men now in their 30s or 40s and date from 2001 to 2013. That covers most of the decade when Spacey lived in Britain and served as artistic director of the ...