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How did John Pigsley get hired by Keolis? He was linked to NH bad-check case

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

Former Keolis commuter rail engineer John Pigsley, indicted this week in an $8 million federal fraud case, was no stranger to the courts, records reveal.Pigsley’s past fuel-oil company was convicted of a felony in New Hampshire, with a guilty plea submitted to passing bad checks in Grafton County in 2010. He was placed on probation and given a fine, which the Granite State’s attorney general’s office said was suspended.The AG’s office added full restitution was paid to customers involved in that case.It does, however, raise the question of why was Pigsley was hired by Keolis, the MBTA’s commuter rail vendor.Keolis Commuter Services told the Herald Pigsley, a Beverly resident, was one of “2,000 people hired on” when they took over the contract from Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad in July of 2014.Keolis said in a statement they are “aware of the indictment” and take the allegations “seriously.”The rail company added...

Decades ago, a local stylist created wigs for hip-hop royalty, from Lil’ Kim to Lauryn Hill. Now her work is in a traveling museum exhibit.

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

Mary Carole McCauley | Baltimore SunThe Maryland-born stylist Dionne Alexander’s favorite hairpiece is the wig she created for the rapper Lil’ Kim to wear to the 2001 MTV Music Video Awards. Long, straight and the color of egg yolk, it is bisected horizontally by a giant and completely unmissable black fabric and rhinestone zipper.When the singer wanted shoulder length hair, she unzipped the wig with a flip of her wrist. When she preferred longer locks, she re-attached the bottom tresses.The broadcast’s nearly 12 million viewers couldn’t stop talking about that wig — and even 20 years later it’s easy to understand why.Now, Baltimore fashion fans can check out Alexander’s unabashedly over-the-top creation for themselves. The zipper wig is one of four iconic hairpieces she designed for Kim and then recreated for “The Culture: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century,” a ticketed exhibit opening this week at the Baltimore Museum of Art — though the zippered hairpiece on view in...

Future of Boston University hockey bright under coach Jay Pandolfo

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

TAMPA, Fla. — Jay Pandolfo still looks he could lace ‘em up and skate a few shifts.A former four-year standout at Boston University and a veteran of 899 NHL games who scored 100 goals in a career that spanned 15 professional seasons, Pandolfo became the BU men’s hockey program’s 13th head coach last May.The impact?Seventeen upperclassmen, 10 of them seniors, came back to the team.The journey ended on Thursday with a 6-2 loss in the national semifinals to top-seeded Minnesota.The game was tied 2-2 early in the third period before the Golden Gophers pulled away, adding two empty-net goals in the final moments.“These guys to the left of me and the rest of the seniors are a huge reason why we got back to this point,” said Pandolfo, 48, while sitting next to seniors Jay O’Brien and Domenick Fensore during a press conference after the game. “I’m so proud of them. It’s been a pleasure working with them every day, the way they got this program back to doing things the right way, showi...

Heat get reinvigorated Lowry before playoffs; Love taking charge(s); Butler, Adebayo, Herro out vs. Wizards

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

The goal after a month off due to knee pain and then a return 10 games ago was to be here, with a better Kyle Lowry, a productive Lowry, something close to the player the veteran point guard was at both the start of this season and the start of his Heat tenure at the beginning of 2021-22.For the Miami Heat, it is an ongoing process, but one moving toward mission accomplished at the most important stage of the season.“I could not feel better about it than when we started the process, and we knew we were going to have to shut him down,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of the 37-year-old former All-Star being out from Feb. 4 through March 10 due to knee pain and then returning March 11.“There’s an unknown with that, and you know the clock is ticking against you. But he handled those five weeks really well, behind the scenes, and I think our communication between myself, Kyle, the training staff and our medical staff was as good as it’s ever been, which really he...

‘Great Discoveries in Medicine’ shows how modern advances are rooted in ancient methods

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

By Jacqueline Cutler, New York Daily NewsMedicine isn’t magic.It used to be thought of that way. Even today, it’s still often wrapped in mystery. But its pragmatic practitioners aren’t very different from mechanics, and their jobs are pretty much the same.First, figure out what’s wrong. Then, find what you need to fix it.That’s how breakthroughs happen, as explained in essays collected in “Great Discoveries in Medicine: From Ayurveda to X-rays, Cancer to Covid” and edited by William and Helen Bynum.Divided into broad sections — “Discovering the Body” and “Tools of the Trade” — the book explains how, over thousands of years, people have studied how our bodies work and invented an array of chemicals and machines to make them work better.But before doctors could understand how the body’s parts fit together, they had to take them apart. And they did it with style.“Early modern dissections were as much about showmanship as scholarship,” writes contributor Simon Chaplin. “Conducted in chu...

2nd man convicted in ’91 Hawaii killing seeks exoneration

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — The brother of a Hawaii man recently released after more than 20 years in prison for the killing and rape of a tourist has filed a similar request seeking exoneration.An attorney for the California Innocence Project, which is representing Shawn Schweitzer, filed a petition Thursday in one of Hawaii’s biggest murder cases. Schweitzer, his brother and a third man were indicted for the death of Dana Ireland, who was found barely alive in the bushes along a fishing trail in Puna, a remote section of the Big Island in 1991. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten, and later died at a hospital. The mangled bicycle she had been riding was found several miles away and appeared to have been run into by a vehicle. The slaying of the visitor from Virginia gained national attention and remained unsolved for years, putting intense pressure on police to find the killer. After seeing a jury find his brother guilty, Schweitzer and his family decided he needed to take a plea...

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) union workers vote to strike

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) union workers have voted in “overwhelmingly in favour of” strike action.The Public Service Alliance of Canada says the vote on behalf of 35,000 workers represented by both the PSAC and Union of Taxation Employees comes just more than a week before a final round of negotiations with the employer.The union says workers have been without a contract for more than a year, even as the cost of living continues to rise. It claims the federal government continues to have “major concessions on the table,” adding the CRA has yet to “respond to the union’s wage proposals.”The strike action vote comes just weeks before the income tax filing deadline.“Tax season is here,” said Marc Brière, national president of the Union of Taxation Employees. “Going on strike is never our first choice. But securing a strong strike mandate now gives us the leverage we need to reach a fair and decent contract. And if we need to take job action t...

Man dies of carbon monoxide poisoning during power outage, Quebec police say

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

MONTREAL — Police say the third person to die in a vicious ice storm was a man in Saint-Joseph-Du-Lac, Que., who was running a generator in his garage.Insp. Jean Philippe Labbé says the man’s wife found him unconscious in the garage, and the 75-year-old died after being taken to hospital in Ste-Eustache.He says firefighters determined carbon monoxide levels in the garage were 20 times the norm.Earlier, Premier Francois Legault told reporters that a man in Ste-Eustache had died after bringing his barbecue indoors, but Labbé says that was a misunderstanding.Montreal’s health authority said dozens of people suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning after using outdoor appliances inside during the blackout caused by Wednesday’s ice storm.Officials say they received more than 60 reports of CO poisoning over the course of several hours today, while emergency rooms were at 200 per cent capacity.   Legault announced the latest death while touring Les Coteaux, Que., where ano...

Award-winning retired AP journalist Harold Olmos dead at 78

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

Award-winning Bolivian journalist Harold Olmos, whose gentlemanly manner belied a remarkable reportorial tenacity and who led Associated Press operations in Venezuela and Brazil after fleeing his coup-convulsed homeland more than four decades ago, has died at age 78.Olmos died Wednesday in the eastern lowlands city of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, of a heart attack after a long illness, said his son, José Olmos. He said his father had struggled with diabetes.The journalist, a role model for younger colleagues with deep experience covering military challenges to democracy, had returned to his native country in 2006 after retiring from the AP. He launched a second career as a columnist, educator and author when Evo Morales, a leftist coca-growers’ union leader embraced by the country’s indigenous majority, began to dominate Bolivian politics.“He had very strong and public opinions,” his son said, particularly about what he considered to be an assault on press freedom by MoralesR...

Protected Iran critic speaks at sentence in plot against her

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — An Iranian opposition activist who U.S. authorities said was the target of two thwarted kidnapping or murder plots urged a federal judge in New York on Friday to hand a tough prison to a woman who unwittingly funded one of the planned attacks.Masih Alinejad, a onetime Iranian journalist, said her sense of safety has been shattered since authorities notified her in 2020 that she was being watched and that photographs were taken of her Brooklyn residence of 10 years. Since then, she has received U.S. government protection and has moved frequently between safe houses.“This crime left its mark. Every day when I go out in the street, I have to look over my shoulders. … I miss my tree-lined street and my neighbors who treated me as one of their own,” Alinejad told Judge Ronnie Abrams as she asked her to set an example by sending 48-year-old Niloufar Bahadorifar, of Irvine, California, to prison for as long as possible.Abrams did just that, announcing a four-year pris...