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Satirical thriller ‘Sucker’ skewers the tech industry

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

Chuck Gross, the hapless narrator of Daniel Hornsby’s “Sucker,” has big-time dad issues. When a friend gives his shoulder an encouraging squeeze, Chuck calls it “the kind of thing an affectionate father would do, or so I’ve heard.”His frosty father isn’t entirely useless, though. The corporate influence of the old man — Chuck calls him a “sinister libertarian billionaire” — lands his 30-year-old son a cushy job in Silicon Valley, thus triggering the strange events that fuel this winning comic thriller.Chuck has always downplayed his lineage. He’s even shortened his last name. But he seldom says no to Charles Grossheart Sr.’s money or connections.Grossheart funds Chuck’s expensive small business, a punk rock record label. But Grossheart is threatening to slash his contribution unless Chuck gets a conventional job. Luckily, Chuck is friends with Olivia Watts, whose tech company, Kenosis, is peddling a vague sort o...

Editorial: Note to errant councilors – apologies don’t cut it

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

“Accountability” means having to do more than say “I’m sorry.”Or, in the case of Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, paying a fine.The point seems to have been missed by Arroyo, fellow embattled Councilor Kendra Lara, and even Mayor Michelle Wu. Although Wu hasn’t engaged in the behaviors that put Lara and Arroyo on the hot seat, she dropped the ball in failing to call for their resignations.Last month, Arroyo admitted that he violated the state’s conflict of interest law by continuing to represent his brother Felix in a 2018 civil suit after he was first elected to the council.  Arroyo agreed to pay a $3,000 penalty, and refuses to budge amid calls for his resignation.The baton of bad behavior was passed to Lara.According to the Herald, a newly obtained police report alleges that City Councilor Kendra Lara was traveling at a high rate of speed during “heavy” pedestrian and vehicular traffic when she slammed into a Jamaica Plain house late last ...

Dear Abby: Nightmare SIL wants to control everything

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

Dear Abby: I have a sister-in-law, “Helen,” who has appointed herself as the final word on all family events. No other relative has any input into when, where, what, etc., regarding any family celebration. If it’s not her way, it’s the highway.The biggest problem with Helen is she schedules everything on the date that fits her calendar without regard for anyone else’s.An example: We once celebrated Christmas in February because that worked best for her. Another time, my wife and I scheduled a complicated vacation around my brother’s birthday so we could be there to celebrate with him. Helen moved his birthday party right into the middle of our prepaid vacation.More examples: Thanksgiving is celebrated in early December,  and other significant dates fall whenever she decides and are subject to change at the last moment at her whim. Complying with Helen’s one-sided demands makes planning for everyone else a nightmare.The control doesn’t ...

Guatemala’s struggle with corruption thrust into international spotlight by election meddling

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The Guatemalan government’s clumsy interference with its presidential election has turned a global spotlight on a country whose struggles with rampant corruption had received limited international attention.President Alejandro Giammattei was deeply unpopular at home, but other than occasional statements of reprobation from the United States and Europe, had managed to consolidate his control of the justice system with little consequence.It was a dramatic transformation for a country that until four years ago hosted an aggressive and productive anti-corruption effort supported by the United Nations. But since that mission was forced out by Giammattei’s predecessor, the president had systematically put in loyalists to replace prosecutors and judges who led that fight against graft. Even those who had grown critical of the zealous anti-corruption effort now concede the country is much worse off now.Then came the June 25 presidential election, which produced a shock...

US sets a grim milestone with new record for the deadliest six months of mass killings

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Slain at the hands of strangers or gunned down by loved ones. Massacred in small towns, in big cities, inside their own homes or outside in broad daylight. This year’s unrelenting bloodshed across the U.S. has led to the grimmest of milestones: The deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006.From Jan. 1 to June 30, the nation endured 28 mass killings, all but one of which involved guns. The death toll rose just about every week, a constant cycle of violence and grief.Six months. 181 days. 28 mass killings. 140 victims. One country. “What a ghastly milestone,” said Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27 when a former student killed three children and three adults. “You never think your family would be a part of a statistic like that.”Leatherwood, a prominent Republican in a state that hasn’t strengthened gun laws, believes something must be done to get guns o...

Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults give high ratings to the way democracy is working in the United States or how well it represents the interests of most Americans, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.Majorities of adults say U.S. laws and policies do a poor job of representing what most Americans want on issues ranging from the economy and government spending to gun policy, immigration and abortion. The poll shows 53% say Congress is doing a bad job of upholding democratic values, compared with just 16% who say it’s doing a good job. The findings illustrate widespread political alienation as a polarized country limps out of the pandemic and into a recovery haunted by inflation and fears of a recession. In interviews, respondents worried less about the machinery of democracy — voting laws and the tabulation of ballots — and more about the outputs.Overall, about half the country — 49% — say democracy is not working w...

Stock market today: Asian shares buoyed by Wall Street’s winning week as inflation eases

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares surged Friday after Wall Street’s winning streak barreled into a fourth day, buoyed by the latest signal that inflation may be easing. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 0.2% in morning trading to 32,493.82. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.9% to 7,309.50. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.1% to 2,620.10. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up 0.5% to 19,443.13, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.3% to 3,245.15. “Positive sentiment within Asian equity markets gathered pace as investors welcomed the easing inflation momentum,” Anderson Alves at ActivTrades said in a commentary. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.8% to 4,510.04, its highest close since April 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% to 34,395.14, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.6% to 14,138.57 as Big Tech stocks led the way.The S&P 500 is on track for its seventh winning week in the last nine after more data raised hopes that inflation is cooling enough...

Online, ‘unalive’ means death or suicide. Experts say it might help kids discuss those things

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

When Emily Litman was in middle school, kids whose parents grounded them would blithely lament: “I just want to die.” Now she’s a middle school teacher in New Jersey, and when her students’ phones and TikTok access are taken away, their out-loud whining has a 21st-century digital twist: “I feel so unalive.”Litman, 46, teaches English as a second language to students in Jersey City. Her students don’t use — and perhaps have never even heard — English words like “suicide.” But they know “unalive.”“These are kids who’ve had to learn English and are now learning TikToklish,” Litman says.“Unalive” refers to death by suicide or homicide. It can function as adjective or verb and joins similar phrasing — like “mascara,” to mean sexual assault — coined by social media users as a workaround to fool algorithms on sites and apps that censor posts containing discussion of explicit or violent content.Language has always evolved. New words have always popped up. Teenagers have of...

North Korea’s ambassador blames US for regional tensions in a rare appearance at UN Security Council

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea’s U.N. ambassador defended his country’s recent long-range missile launch in a rare appearance at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday where he also accused the United States of driving the situation in northeast Asia “to the brink of nuclear war.” Kim Song told the council that Wednesday’s test-flight of the developmental Hwasong-18 missile was a legitimate exercise of the North’s right to self-defense. He said the United States was raising regional tensions with nuclear threats and deploying a nuclear-powered submarine to South Korea for the first time in 14 years.Kim said the missile launch had “no negative effect on the security of a neighboring country,” pointing to Japan’s announcement that the ICBM — which flew at a steep angle — landed in the North’s waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.South Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Hwang Joon-kook countered, asking: “How can an ICBM launch ever make neighboring count...

GOP White House hopefuls face mounting pressure to stop Trump in Iowa

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:20 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — As the six-month sprint to the Iowa caucuses begins, the sprawling field of Republican presidential candidates is facing growing pressure to prove they can become serious challengers to former President Donald Trump.The urgency is particularly acute for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who entered the race in May with expectations that he would quickly become Trump’s top rival. For now, however, he has struggled to generate the level of enthusiasm that Trump commands from the GOP base, contributing to uncertainty that DeSantis will become the threat to the former president that he was once billed to be. “That’s what DeSantis wanted to be. It’s possible he may be that still,” said Gentry Collins, a seasoned Iowa and national Republican strategist who ran Mitt Romney’s 2008 caucus campaign. “But it sure doesn’t look like that to me — it’s become clear that there isn’t room for another alternative to Trump.”DeSantis is among six White House hopefuls who will be ...